Lizardskin

by Carsten Stroud

  “Sorry to intrude, Beau …?”

  “Dwight, what a treat. Where’s Maureen?”

  “She’s—I suggested she wait in the hall. I wanted to—ahh … Look, I realize this is a difficult time. But we wanted Bobby Lee to see that you were all right. We have some business here, so I suggested—I mean, Bobby Lee was very anxious, as you can understand. May I come in?”

  Beau took a second to sort through several versions of a snarl and settled on civility.

  “Of course, Dwight. Ah, thanks for bringing Bobby Lee.”

  Hogeland strolled across the floor and lightly set the flowers down on a side table. Then he sat down in the armchair and crossed his legs. He winced a bit at the smell coming from the next bed and glanced at the machine against the far wall.

  “What I wanted to say, before she comes in—I wanted you to know. About Maureen. I would never counsel her to … I feel she was a little harsh over last night’s party. True, the agreement states the terms. But under the circumstances—I mean, you had no control over the events out at Bell’s.”

  A nice thrust there. No control. Time to change the subject.

  “How’s Doc Darryl? Up in the shiny new Learjet?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. He takes it to California all the time. He has some business out there, and he hates the public airlines. I worry. Dad’s getting on, but he loves to fly that thing. Good at it, too. How’s Lieutenant Meagher? Well? Dad asks about him frequently.”

  “Meagher’s fine … really fine.”

  Bobby Lee was watching the two of them carefully. She was quite silent, but Beau could feel the restlessness in her.

  “Bobby Lee, do you want to go back and see Mommy? I have to talk to—” He managed it: “To Uncle Dwight for a minute.”

  “Can I have a dollar? There’s a candy machine down the hall.”

  Beau looked around for his clothes. Dwight reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a bill. Bobby Lee slid off the bed, stopped, and turned back to climb up and put her arms around Beau’s neck. She gave him a fast and brutal squeeze and kissed his cheek.

  “Phoo! Beard hairs! Bye-bye, Daddy!”

  Another lithe vault, and she was out the door. They could hear her shoes flip-flopping down the hall.

  There was silence.

  “How do you come to be playing at Daddy with Bobby Lee, Dwight?”

  Dwight’s fine-boned face was as still and composed as a man who has achieved the perfect blend of conceit and ignorance.

  “Hardly … hardly relevant, Beau.”

  “She’s my child.”

  “An insight that seems to have only intermittent real-time applications, in light of your behavior.”

  “We going to get into this?”

  Dwight raised a hand, palm out, and ducked his head.

  “Beau, we seem to grate on one another. I regret that. I’ve never had anything but the greatest … you are … aggressive, surely—unorthodox. But everyone agrees that you are one of the … highest-profile law enforcement officials we have in Yellowstone County. Dad has—he holds you in tremendous esteem. As I know, you reciprocate. He feels quite close to your family.”

  “Not as close as you’re getting, Dwight.”

  “And I regret that—that it seems that Maureen and I have become friends. This has had certain repercussions. The fact is, I have transferred her file over to Ted Mallon. I feel that—under the circumstances—it would not be ethical for me to represent her interests in this divorce action.”

  “Damned fine reasoning, Dwight. Amazing what insights come to a man a few seconds after a good orgasm, eh?”

  Dwight’s face hardened enough to reveal a certain toughness beneath the easy manner. It made it easier to see how Mallon, Brewer, Hogeland and Bright had become such a force in eastern Montana over the last ten years. There had to be a capacity for ruthlessness in there somewhere, even if it was the hybrid courage of lawyers. They called themselves “gun-slingers” and joked about hard combat in the courtroom. It was all so goddamned pretentious. Comparing the bicker and cross-chatter of a courtroom to genuine combat was demeaning to anyone who had ever actually faced incoming fire and seen real dying.

  “The fact is, we are not intimate, and that is not to imply that you have any standing in the matter, regardless. And should our relationship ripen into anything more complex, I would never consider … I care for Roberta Lee as deeply in my own way as you contend that you care for her.”

  “I don’t contend anything, Dwight. I just see I got you all over my life like a nasty rash. You do your level best, which is damned good, to staple my balls to the courthouse roof every time we get in front of a judge. Now you’re Uncle Dwight to my kid and getting ready to park your Yuppie-floppy in my used-to-be wife. That’s an explosive situation. I’m just telling you that there’s a hell of a difference between what’s legal and what’s likely to happen.”

  “What’s that? A threat? Threatening is indictable, Beau.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean! You got your head shoved so far up the skirts of blind justice, you can’t see a damned thing except legal briefs and diverting draperies.”

  “Clever, Beau. I like that bit about legal briefs. That’s real clever stuff. I’m not going to let you provoke a personal exchange. If you want to discuss problems with your access agreement, you should take them up with Ted Mallon. He’s been fully briefed on the history.”

  “It’s not history yet, Dwight.”

  “That’s—that’s all I can say on that matter. No—that’s it. I do have some questions about … well, you may not be at liberty to say, but the radio reports this morning suggest that your department was able to … effect … the arrests of those fugitives from the Oasis robbery.”

  “Effect the arrests? Yeah, I guess we e-ffected something.”

  “Hogeland shrugged, spread his long fingers. A watch Beau could not identify glinted in the downlight.

  “I take it no depositions or informations have as yet been filed?”

  “You take it right. At least, I didn’t take any. I was a little tied up last night.”

  “Wel—the … violence, I’m assuming there was violent resistance? Your injuries would indicate—”

  “I haven’t heard from Eustace yet. I have personal knowledge of at least two deaths and two severe injuries.”

  “Who would these be?”

  “You have to know, ask Vanessa Ballard. She was catching yesterday. She’s on duty all weekend. But why do you want to know?”

  “I have an interest in the issue. As a citizen, of course, I have—”

  “Dwight, I just woke up an hour ago. I feel like shit. I have a rather depressing hole in my leg, and I’ve just met my nurse, who looks like J. Edgar Hoover. I don’t know much about anything right now. I’d say you could safely assume that there’s a good chance that some of the individuals apprehended last night were in some way connected with the Oasis incident. You’ll have to wait for the official report. I’m sure Eustace will call a press conference this afternoon. Other than that, I can’t say anything.”

  “You won’t say anything, you mean. I don’t like being dismissed, Beau. I’m an officer of the court, just as much as you.”

  That one redlined on Beau’s Dork-O-Meter.

  “Christ, Dwight—you’re a goddamned corporate lawyer! Your idea of a battle is springing an unsprung precedent or cooking a half-baked tort. You think handball is combat. It’s a big day for you when your backhand is just so. You’re all a-tingle when your daddy spells your name right on a check. I’d say you have as much right to information about a police action as the goddamned Hezbollah!”

  “You can say that your handling of the Oasis incident seems to have contributed to the deaths of several people. That seems to be a reasonable inference.”

  Beau sighed and looked at Dwight for a while. Dwight examined the room unnecessarily and recrossed his legs. He templed his fingers and stared back at Beau, inhaling through his nose.
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  “Jesus, Dwight—when the hell did your type get to Montana? It must have been real late in the year.”

  Dwight Hogeland seemed to expand slightly. His forehead and cheeks paled under his tan.

  “My family had steers grazing on the Bitterroot when your people were still butt-fucking their nigras and picking lice off their ballgowns down in some Tularosa hellhole.”

  “Yeah, I heard. Bad beef and rusty rifles to the army. A lot of troopers got hung upside-down over a Pawnee cooking fire because they were holding a Hogeland Henry. The cavalry used to call your great-grandfather’s rifles the Piecemakers ’cause as soon as you fired one, all you had was pieces.”

  Dwight came to his feet. “That’s a damnable lie, McAllister! A slander! You repeat that when you’re healthy, I’ll—”

  “Pout? Stamp your foot? Cut me dead at the club?”

  “Fuck you!”

  Beau smiled at him.

  “Funny how the shine comes off cheap leather when you rub at it a bit. And that isn’t a damnable lie, as you well know, kid. You go ask Pike Twilly—he’s got one of your family’s rebuilt rifles up behind the bar there. Lost a piece of cheekbone when he tried to fire it, too. And my family never had to personally butt-fuck a nigra. We had our lawyers do that.”

  There was a movement at the door. They both turned, startled.

  Maureen Sprague was standing in the doorway, holding Bobby Lee’s hand, her green eyes bright and her thin face shiny with anger. A red flush showed under her dark tan. She was dressed for riding—jeans and a jacket and boots. A heavy gold chain glimmered at her sinewy neck, and a pair of gold earrings sparkled against her short streaked hair. Beau stared at her, wondering how Maureen could be so pretty and yet so ugly all at the same time. And how the hell was she able to afford all that gold? Maybe Dwight had the answer, but Beau wasn’t going to ask him.

  “They can hear you in the hall, Beau. Nice talk.”

  “Maureen—always a delight.”

  Bobby Lee was staring up at them, her face solemn and pale.

  “Maureen, maybe we should talk later?”

  “I wasn’t going to talk to you at all, until I heard you bellowing at Dwight. You’re scaring Bobby Lee. Can’t you see that?”

  Beau pulled in a long breath, trying to get himself under control. Maureen was trying to get him to explode. Then she could say, see, Bobby Lee, see how your daddy is?

  He smiled at Bobby Lee. “Honey, you let Mommy and me have a minute?”

  Bobby Lee looked relieved. She let go of Maureen’s hand—after a brief struggle—blew a kiss at him, and ran away down the hall. Maureen called after her.

  “Go to the playroom, Bobby Lee! I’ll be right there!”

  Through all of this, Dwight was cooling rapidly. Now that Maureen was in the room, the lawyer in him came slowly back to the surface.

  “Maureen, there’s no reason for you to put up with this. Beau has a talent for the hurtful phrase.”

  He smiled at her, a possessive and condescending benediction, then he looked back at Beau.

  “There’s quite a bit of the sadist in you—in all your kind, isn’t there? Someday a good psychoanalyst might take a look at the nasty little habits that people like you spend so much time compensating for.”

  That got a little razor-blade smile from Maureen. Dwight saw it and warmed to the job, seeing it all on the movie screen at the back of his skull: Dwight Finally Tells Him Off! Special Added Attraction: In Front Of His Ex-Wife!

  “Why the hell do you think I take such pleasure in seeing you restrained by every legal means I can? Because I think you’re dangerous—dangerous to yourself, dangerous to the civilians and the so-called criminals you harass, and dangerous to Maureen and Roberta Lee, people who depended on you. You are not the law. You are about to get a large lesson in what the law really is, Beau. And when it’s over, if you have anything left, you’ll be able to fit most of it in your back pocket.”

  Beau leaned back into his pillows and shook his head slowly.

  “Well, I guess I’ve been told. You’re a piece of work, kid. Now, why don’t you piss off down the hall there? And Maureen, I want you to feel free to piss off with him. And by the way, thanks for the concern for my health, I’m fine, really enjoyed seeing you all, and love to Bobby Lee, and let’s all pick this fight up next week when I’m outta here, okay?”

  “You’ll be too busy to pick fights next week, Beau,” Maureen snapped at him.

  Beau looked at her, and back at Dwight.

  Dwight folded his arms and tried to stare him down.

  “What’s that supposed to mean, Dwight?”

  “Enjoy the flowers.”

  Sweeping the room in one last dismissive glance, the lawyer sketched a sardonic salute, offered his arm to Maureen, and they walked out. Beau could hear Maureen’s stainless-steel tone as she called for Bobby Lee, then the click of her boot-heels as they faded down the hallway.

  The strange machine huffed at him for a while. Finally, Beau pulled back the covers and dragged his legs across the linen. They had stuck him in one of those peek-a-boo gowns designed by the North Koreans to rob prisoners of their dignity. He looked down at his leg. It itched. He scratched it. That was not the right thing to do. After a while, he opened his eyes and let out a long uneven breath.

  “Okay, Beau. Keep that in mind. Now, let’s see if you can stand up.”

  He stood up on his left leg. His belly was bandaged, but the muscles beneath seemed to be okay. He could feel fresh stitches pulling under the pads. He smelled of formaldehyde and Lysol.

  Leaning on the intravenous drip stand, he managed to get his right leg down to the floor. He put gradual pressure on it.

  It hurt.

  He felt a rip in the big muscles in his thigh. The thing had gone right through him. It gave him an atavistic tremor. Well, the guy had paid for the privilege.

  He walked like a very old man across to the bucket of wildflowers. It’d be in there somewhere.

  He rooted around in the tangle of buttercups and heather and clover. The scent reminded him of riding in the Bridger range, above Paradise Valley, and he thought again about his land down on the Yellowstone, about retiring while he was still in relatively good shape.

  The envelope was wrapped in a plastic bag and set upright in a spray of baby’s breath. It had the old familiar logo in the upper right-hand corner: Mallon, Brewer, Hogeland and Bright.

  He opened the bag and ripped the edge off the thick cream bond envelope. The richer the paper, the nastier the news.

  WITHOUT PREJUDICE

  NOTIFICATION OF INTENTION TO PROCEED AT LAW

  IN THE MATTER OF … BE ADVISED THAT … DID WITH MALICE …

  Beau skimmed through the familiar prose. Joe Bell had kept his promise—and he’d gotten Dwight Hogeland to do it. Nice incestuous little circle jerk. Beau was named, along with the Montana Highway Patrol and the Yellowstone County Controller. Dwight must have stayed up all night working on this one. Hell, he’d just shot Bell yesterday!

  He skipped a few pages until he found the bottom line.

  Christ.

  Sweet Jesus Christ.

  Joe Bell must be a proud man. He apparently had the most valuable ass west of the Mississippi. Beau put one hole in it, and the man wanted five million dollars.

  That was a lot of money for one man’s butt—even one the size of Joe Bell’s.

  Now, there was a funny thing. Beau looked all through the list of people being sued, and sure as hell, there wasn’t one Indian name on it. So it followed that you shoot at a man with a bow and arrow, it’s free. But you shoot at him with a Browning, it’ll cost you five million dollars.

  Something to keep in mind.

  “Well, this is a sorry sight.”

  Beau looked up from the lawsuit notice and saw Tom Blasingame in the doorway, grinning back at him.

  Tom Blasingame was something of a celebrity in the surrounding counties. Easily in his late seventies, he looked exactly
like what he was, a very old and very tough cowhand, constructed mostly of barbed wire and dried beef. His face was withered and sunken and tanned as dark as a rifle stock. He wore an old dome-peak Stetson, antique jeans, and knee-high boots that were worn down at the stirrup bar.

  Tom had enough Taxco silver on his belt and at his throat to mark him as a man with some cash. He had, as he called it, “chased the wild bovine” for over sixty-five years. He could remember when Montana was still called the Territory. When he talked of where he had been—which was rarely but well—he talked about the rivers: down on the Del Norte as far as Chihuahua, along the Gila out by Santa Rita, maybe along the Cimarron Cut-Off over the Canadian River, up the Raton Pass and down to the Purgatoire and the Arkansas and north to the South Platte and the Missouri. When Ingomar sold the Buenavista spread to the Japanese, Tom had retired to Lizardskin, where he kept a string of Tennessee Walkers and sometimes acted as a guide for government surveyors or tourists from the East.

  Tom spoke little, kept his teeth in a glass of rye whisky by his cot, carried an old Remington revolver wherever he damned well pleased, never shaved but somehow never grew a beard, and never spoke above a soft and diffident drawl. If Lizardskin had a mayor, it was old Tom Blasingame.

  Most of the Lizardskin residents were scratch-farmers or day laborers who couldn’t afford the rentals in Hardin or Billings. Then there were some retirees from Billings trying to stretch their pensions; a family of Crow Indians raising desert wheat and corn for a roadside stand down on I-90; and the random assortment of drifters who seem to gather like clusters of weeds and wildflowers in the lee sides of every long valley and dry wash in the Far West.