Lizardskin

by Carsten Stroud

  Nothing. Not a breath. The dark masses in the living room looked the same. The trailer smelled of soap and pipe tobacco.

  He straightened up and switched on the room light.

  Two old saddle-leather couches, part of his settlement with Maureen, a big rented television, a couple of bookcases filled with paperback books, a cowskin rug covered with Stonewall’s fur, and on the far wall above the picture window, his single-shot McMillan long-range rifle, still padlocked into its steel rack.

  He stepped softly down the narrow hall to the galley, past the galley to the built-in bedrooms, and through them to the big double-bathroom with the black Jacuzzi.

  He went through the place with the gun out and his ears ringing with the effort of listening.

  He found nothing. The bed was untouched. The random selection of family shots on the dresser, a big framed picture of Bobby Lee at her first communion, tie tacks and cufflinks, and a coffee mug with a flamingo-shaped handle, full of old pipes and kitchen matches. The drawers were as messy as usual. The rest of the place was neat, just as he left it. There was some tinned cat food out on the counter, and a bag of Pounce. There was no sign of a search, no sign of any stranger in the place.

  It just felt … wrong.

  So he looked it over again.

  Fifteen minutes later, he found Feets at the bottom of his bedroom closet. She had stuffed herself into one of his cowboy boots, backward. It was lying on its side at the back of the closet, with Feets crammed into it as far as she could go. She let out a little bleat when Beau found her. He picked the boot up and carried it over to the bed. Feets stared up at him out of the bootleg, crying softly and watching him with her massive golden eyes. Her mouth opened again, showing needlepoint teeth, and she bleated up at him.

  “What the hell are you doing in there?”

  Feets struggled a bit and put a forepaw out in front of her. Beau turned the boot upside down and dumped her out onto the bed. She flopped out like an old sock and immediately crawled up on his lap and settled into it. She was trembling. Something had frightened her. Beau had no idea what that could have been. Maybe an animal around the place. A coyote crying and sniffing around a little too close to the trailer. He was at the far end of the town. There was nothing past the ridge above the trailer but more hills and valleys, all the way west to Arrow Creek. There were a lot of animals out there, and Feets was right to think of herself as lunch.

  He stroked her behind the ears. It took her a long time to settle down.

  Later, he carried her asleep into the living room and laid her down on top of her blue blanket, in a corner of one of the leather couches. He went into the galley and dug out a pack of frozen fish sticks. He dumped all fourteen out onto a tray and slid the tray into the oven. While they were baking, he found the coldest Heineken in the fridge and poured it into a tall glass with the FBI Academy symbol on it, the sole survivor of a set that Eustace had bought him when he left Maureen.

  He walked into the living room. Feets was snoring softly on her blanket. He sat down, giving her a stroke or two, and managed to dig the remote out from under her without waking her.

  He spent the next half-hour watching 60 Minutes and wondering why Mike Wallace colored his hair. And it wasn’t the same without Harry Reasoner. Also, why did anybody ever talk to these guys? Man, first thing he’d do, his secretary is on the intercom saying, Beau, it’s 60 Minutes and they have a camera crew in the waiting room and they want to do an interview, Beau would say, keep them there while I comb my moustache.

  Take the next plane for Chichicastenango or Ouagadougou.

  Once the smell of the fishsticks got strong enough, he went back out to the galley and scraped them off onto a plate. He doused them with malt vinegar and ketchup, lots of both, salted and peppered them, got another Heineken out of the fridge, and walked back into the living room to eat it on the coffee table in front of the television. He was into the sixth fish stick when he heard McAvity scratching at the screen door.

  The fish sticks always got to McAvity. He could smell them all the way over at Tom’s house.

  Beau let McAvity in. He was soaking wet. He scrambled in past Beau and jumped up on the coffee table. He snagged two sticks and ran into the galley with them, his ears flat, leaving wet pawprints in the hall.

  McAvity liked them with regular vinegar better, but if there was enough ketchup, he’d eat them with malt vinegar, because that’s the kind of cat he was—flexible. Not a picky cat. Feets was the picky cat. Feets wouldn’t eat frozen fish sticks under any circumstances. Not in public, anyway. Feets liked canned cat food, the good stuff, and on Sundays baby shrimp in seafood sauce with a little lemon juice sprinkled on top.

  Stonewall liked anything with fur on it and fight in it. And sometimes birds, if he could catch them. Stonewall’s trouble was his size. And the stripes. His Maine coon cat colors were all wrong for daylight hunting in Montana, where everyone else was wearing pale tan or dusty brown and even the grass was the wrong color. It was okay at night, except the birds never flew at night, when Stonewall had a chance to catch them. Bats, he could catch. But who wanted them? Stonewall would kill bats if he could catch them, but he never ate them. He’d just dump them on the front steps so everyone would know he was on the job.

  Stonewall had made his reputation in Lizardskin, not on Dead Dog Monday, when he’d disemboweled a dachshund at the end of a very long and tiresome vendetta that was the damn dog’s own fault anyway, but a year before that, when he’d dragged a newly dead rattlesnake into Tom Blasingame’s house and dropped it into a pot of chili.

  Thinking about it wouldn’t decide it. He leaned over, picked up the telephone.

  “Hello?”

  “Trudy?”

  “No. I’m Chloe.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Is Trudy around?”

  “Is this Beau?”

  Beau was stopped for a second.

  “Yes. Yes it is.”

  “Trudy said you might call. They stuck her with the late shift. She won’t be off until four in the morning. She told me to tell you—just a minute—by the way, you should be sure and watch the eleven o’clock news. They’ve been saying all night, they’re gonna do a big piece on … well, you know?”

  “I can guess, Chloe. What was her message?”

  “Charlie Tallbull is awake and talking. They have him listed as serious but stable. She said to tell you he’s pretty banged up but that you could probably get in to see him for a few minutes tomorrow. Is that okay?”

  “Yeah, that’s fine. I guess we don’t know each other, Chloe. I’m sorry I don’t know your last name.”

  “Corson. I’m Trudy’s sister.”

  “Hello, Miss Corson. I’m Beau McAllister.”

  “Everybody knows you, Sergeant McAllister. I used to work at the Sears at the Hilltop Mall.”

  Beau groaned softly. Chloe heard it. “Hey, no. I don’t mean to—everybody thought you did the right thing. I—I hope I didn’t say … Trudy was so excited about … oh, shit! I’m screwing it all up!”

  “No, no, Chloe. Listen, you tell Trudy I’ll be in to see Charlie Tallbull tomorrow and I’ll call her after I’ve talked to him. What time does she usually get up after a late shift?”

  “Are you really going to call her, Beau? If you don’t, she’ll strangle me!”

  Beau had to laugh. “I’ll call her. Chloe, you be sure to tell her I called, okay?”

  “I’ll pin it to her pillow, Beau. Hope I can meet you soon! Bye for now. Oh, be sure to watch the news, okay? Channel seven.”

  “I will Chloe. Good night.”

  “ ’Night, Beau.”

  Beau hung up with an odd feeling of connectedness, thinking how simple were some of life’s satisfactions. Getting a soft good night from a young girl was one of them.

  Warmed by that thought, he sat down to watch some television. After a while, he drifted into a light sleep.

  It was close to eleven when he snapped awake. A talking haircut was telling all of
eastern Montana and northern Wyoming about the Montana Highway Patrol’s vendetta against innocent Native Americans and featuring the exploits of Sergeant Beauregard McAllister of District Four of the Highway Patrol.

  It got worse.

  At the end of the seven-minute feature, another hairdo with a deep voice and perfect diction interviewed “a local lawyer named Dwight Peerless Hogeland,” who had accepted a brief from the American Civil Liberties Union to assist in a “rigorous inquiry” into the entire incident, with a view to establishing malicious intent and racial bias on the part of the MHP.

  Beau held his head in one hand and rubbed his forehead.

  Of course, Dwight looked very good on television. His blue eyes—blue eyes? Dwight had gray eyes!

  Oh, great! Dwight had got himself some tinted contacts. Well, the blue translated nicely, and he had obviously practiced looking straight into the camera when he answered questions. He kept his hands folded on the desktop and seemed very serious and competent. Very … electable.

  Oh, god. Dwight Hogeland was making his big move. There was a congressional spot coming up. The Democrats were hurting for talent to put up against the unstoppable Republican machine. And here was talent. Homegrown, an old family, and enough money to twist arms and line pockets all the way to Helena.

  Beau poured another Heineken, drank that, and went for another. When he got back there was a tense moment when the haircut, in what could have been a fluke, asked a difficult question.

  Wasn’t it true that Mr. Hogeland was also representing Joseph Bell in a wrongful injury suit against Sergeant McAllister?

  Yes, said Dwight, looking directly into the camera—which was perhaps a mistake this time, because the interviewer was sitting right next to him, and it might have looked less mannered if Dwight had thought to look at the person talking to him.

  Yes, it is true that our firm, Mallon, Brewer, Hogeland and Bright, is representing Mr. Bell in an action against the Montana Highway Patrol.

  Did Mr. Hogeland not see in this a possible conflict, since Joseph Bell was involved in the death of one of the Native Americans killed in the two police actions last Friday?

  Well, said Dwight, putting on moral weight with every sententious syllable, the true facts of that incident have yet to emerge, How-ever, as one of Montana’s leading law firms, we feel that it is our public duty, our pro bono obligation as corporate citizens of Montana, and as sworn officers of our justice system, to involve ourselves rigorously in—in the vital issues of our state. And in this case—ah … it is clear to all of us at the firm, as it is to the distinguished members of the ACLU for Montana, that there exists a grave possibility that some injustice, some serious violation of the Fourth Amendment, some grave constitutional affronts, have occurred and may be occurring in the Highway Patrol. May in fact be an endemic and pervasive—ah, dysfunction within that agency, and as our firm has a long history of … dealings with the state police and … while we are cognizant of our connection with Mr. Bell, who may in fact not be the person responsible—originally responsible, that is—well, we did feel that, when approached by representatives of the ACLU, we could do no other than accept the burden of liberty. Deaths, tragic deaths, possibly needless deaths, have resulted from recent police actions. It is my—our—it is no less than our duty, as officers of the court, to assist in an open and …

  Rigorous, thought Beau.

  … rigorous investigation into these actions. We are certain that the officials of the state police will cooperate in this process—

  “Count on it, Dwight,” said Beau, and he shut the damned thing off.

  If you judged a man by the quality of his enemies, Beau was in a lot of trouble. Having Dwight Hogeland on your case was like being bitten to death by ducks.

  He poured himself a very hot bath in the giant black Jacuzzi, added a whole packet of soap bubbles, except for the last little bit of soapy fluid, which he painstakingly and delicately applied to the rim of the tub all the way around its circumference.

  Then he peeled off his bandages. He had some surgical wraps in the kitchen, borrowed from the County. He grimaced at the cuts, tightly stitched with nylon thread. He’d rewrap them with new bandages later. Right now, a bath, come hell or high water.

  He lowered himself slowly into it, easing his way past his belly wounds and his leg wounds, until he was completely immersed in the steaming water. He lay on his back under the water, listening to his heart pound, letting it slow down, until he could hold his breath no longer. He surfaced, blowing and huffing, and picked up the Heineken from the side of the tub.

  Stonewall and McAvity were sitting on the floor beside the tub. They always came in to watch Beau in the tub.

  “Hey, boy!” said Beau, flicking some soap bubbles at Stonewall. Stonewall’s eyes grew large, and he batted at a soap bubble, shattering it. Beau flicked more at the big cat. Stonewall flattened into his hunting position as the bubbles drifted down through the steamy air. A bubble settled onto the mat in front of Stonewall. He went straight up and came down on it—killed that bubble dead!

  Stonewall looked back up at Beau, a crazy hunting fire in his green eyes.

  McAvity stayed out of it.

  Beau picked up some more bubbles and set them on the rim of the Jacuzzi.

  Stonewall stared at them for a long time, eyes wild, head held low and flattened in line with his muscular body, his hind legs gathered and taut, thinking about it, gauging the distances, watching the bubbles as the light broke up on their surfaces and they popped and glistened in the silence.

  Beau kept his eyes on Stonewall.

  Suddenly, in a great explosion of fur and muscle, Stonewall leaped up, arced, pounced perfectly onto the soap bubbles.

  He hit the soapy fluid Beau had laid down around the rim. His paws scrabbled and his tail flew up in an effort to counter the balance. Beau pulled way back and Stonewall fell into the tub, yowling and spitting.

  In less than an instant, he surfaced like a submarine-launched missile, a soggy furred missile, bursting through the soap suds, straight back out of the tub. The last Beau saw of Stonewall for a while were the pink pads on the bottom of his rear paws as he raced out of the bathroom, snarling.

  Constant Vigilance, said Beau, smiling down at McAvity, lifting the Heineken in a salute.

  McAvity raised a paw and began to clean it. Beau would not have said that he saw a grin on McAvity’s face, but the world is a complex and subtle place, and not all of its mysteries are cracked open and devoured.

  A while later, when he was safely in bed, all three cats dry and warm—Stonewall never bore a grudge—all in their various nests around the king-size bed, he yawned mightily and stretched and in stretching felt something stiff and shiny under his pillow.

  He brought it out and held it under the reading lamp.

  It was a Polaroid photograph.

  It seemed to have been taken late at night, with a very sensitive film. The colors were all wrong, the details blurred.

  But it was clear enough for Beau.

  It was a picture of a big man in a hospital bed, taken from the foot of the bed, apparently late at night. The hard-planed face was soft in sleep, middle-aged and vulnerable, one arm thrown across his chest, trailing an intravenous line.

  It was a picture of Beau.

  15

  1130 Hours–June 17–Big Horn County, Montana

  90114 South Wyatt Drive turned out to be a long hogback road that ran northeast, for some white reason, even though it was called South Wyatt, along the valley of the Bighorn River toward the town of Custer. It sliced through the Crow Reservation, leaving it at a ridgeback slope called Arapooish. Then it snaked in and out and over the fragrant drying-grass hills and coulees, treeless and barren as Mars, with only a few small cottonwood stands in the bendings of the river to mark the changes. The road was gravel and changed to dirt after a few miles, and a mile after that, it declined to a couple of ruts in the tall grasses. Here and there Gabriel had seen ante
lope darting like pale brown flames across the hills, and now and then a hawk would soar and drop off to the right. As South Wyatt climbed, it narrowed, until it mutated into a pair of wheel-ruts that curved and arced over the hills. It stopped at a Lundy fence that said, simply:

  PRIVATE

  NO HUNTING OR FISHING

  J. BELL

  He drove the Ford into a small arroyo and covered it with plucked prairie grass. He had picked out a light green car from the Budget lot, one of the new Sables without sharp edges. It hid nicely in the brush, where even its shape seemed to blend with the rounded contours of the land. As he walked away from it carrying his gear, he looked back now and then and marveled at how well it concealed itself.

  It had taken him another hour to reach the bluffs overlooking the ranch-style house and the outbuildings where Joe Bell lived. Most of the way was marked by standing poles carrying power and phone lines. And on the nearest bluff, Bell had installed a huge white satellite receiver dish; it shouted his presence like a white flag or a pillar of smoke.

  Gabriel wore tall boots with his jeans tucked inside, and he carried a stick to strike at the tall grass in front of him. He wanted to give the rattlesnakes plenty of time to hear him coming and slide away. Crickets leaped and fluttered out of his path, and now and then he stepped carefully over a field-mouse nest. Still the crows chattered about him, and any man who was really of this land would have known he was coming.

  But Bell was not that kind of man. He could not live with the wind and the silences out here; the dish said as much.

  Gabriel found a good place in the bluffs and settled in to watch Bell for a while, and think about what should be done with him. Gabriel watched the man hobbling back and forth from the ranch house to the barn. The light kept changing as clouds flew in front of the sun, the shadows chilled him, and up here in the bluffs the wind was cold and cutting. He shifted on the boulder and readjusted the binoculars, moving them to full power. The ground seemed to jump, and suddenly he was floating in the air in front of the big man.