by Scott Blade
Widow nodded.
She said, “But I’m afraid that we aren’t hiring.”
Widow stayed quiet.
“We are actually going to be doing the opposite in fact.”
Hogan asked, “What do you mean?”
“We’re actually doing the opposite in fact…. Things are bad now, as you can see. So we are actually laying off the workers.”
Hogan said, “All of them?”
“All but Mr. King.”
Hogan said nothing.
Sossaman said, “I guess that he will bring on different guys.”
“Different guys?”
“You know. My father-in-law’s guys. Not these locals.”
“That doesn’t make much sense.”
Sossaman said, “It is his ranch, after all.”
“Not yet, right?”
“It will be after…” Sossaman paused a beat. Glanced at Widow. Glanced at her boys. Then she said, “After, you know.”
Hogan nodded.
Widow was confused. Know what? It was sensitive information that he assumed her boys shouldn’t hear and wasn’t any of his business.
They didn’t speak of it again.
Sossaman said, “Sorry, Mr. Widow. I don’t think we can help you at the moment.”
Just then, Casey looked forward. He looked around and then directly at Widow, recognized him.
He said, “Mom.”
“Not now, Case. Wait until the police leave.”
“But, Mom?”
“What is it?”
“That’s the guy.”
“What guy?”
“That’s the guy. The guy who talked to me. From the train station.”
Sossaman looked at Widow. She let go of Casey’s hand and walked over to Widow. As she stepped down off the porch, Casey stayed behind. She walked over to Widow.
He felt his heart beat speed up, like his first kiss, from a girl named Donna Burr back outside her dad’s house, decades ago.
Sossaman reached out her hand to shake Widow’s.
He looked at it and took it and delicately, shook it, like it was breakable. But it wasn’t. It was soft and caring, but firm like a mother’s hand should be.
“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Widow. I would like to help you, but we’ve already laid off employees this week. We’ve got a few left, but we’re going to have to let them go today as well.”
Hogan interrupted. He asked, “You talking about Billy and Lucas?”
She nodded, said nothing.
Hogan stepped closer, he said, “Do they know about that?”
“Mr. King does. I’m allowing him to handle it.”
Hogan said, “Those boys aren’t gonna take that news very well.”
“Look around, Sean. They cost too much and there’s not enough income coming in to support them here. We’ll only be able to get by if we downgrade for now.”
Hogan had nothing left to say about it.
Sossaman said, “Well, Mr. Widow, thanks for helping me out with my son, but I don’t think we’ll be able to help you.”
Widow said, “No problem, ma’am. Thanks for considering it.”
And Widow took her hand again and shook it a second time, unnecessarily and unapologetically and unintentionally.
“Please, it’s Crispin. Not ma’am. I’m not that old yet.”
“Sorry, Crispin. Old habits die hard, I suppose.”
Hogan said, “Crispin.”
She turned to face him.
“Widow here actually doesn’t need to help out for money. He’ll work for food and board.”
She looked at Widow, let go of his hand and said, “Is that true?”
There was a glint of hope in her eyes, like either she was desperate to have free labor around or because she didn’t want Widow to walk out of her life. He wasn’t sure which.
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry. Crispin. I could use the room and board is all. I don’t need much.”
Hogan interjected and said, “It’s only for a couple of days anyway.”
“A couple of days?”
Widow nodded, said, “Maybe a week on the outside.”
“Money troubles? You get stuck here?”
“My bank’s fault.”
“How is it their fault?”
“Last night they said that my entire account was transferred.”
“Transferred?”
Her accent? Was it Lithuanian? Widow wasn’t sure.
Widow said, “Wire transfer.”
“And they transferred your money out of your account? By mistake?”
“Looks that way.”
Crispin looked back at Casey, who nodded at her. Then she looked back at Widow. She said, “You can stay here, until you straight out your bank trouble.”
Widow said, “I appreciate that. I’ll do my best to pick up the slack from losing your crew.”
“Crew?”
“Workers.”
She nodded and said, “You don’t have to do that. You’ve done enough for me already.”
“I insist. I don’t mind doing a hard day’s work.”
She nodded and said, “That’s okay. But if you want to help, Mr. King can show you when he returns.”
Widow nodded.
Crispin started to walk back to Casey and stopped and said, “Casey, help Mr. Widow with his luggage. You can stay in the house with us.”
Widow said, “No need to help with bags. I don’t have any.”
Crispin looked back at him, said nothing to that.
Hogan said, “Widow, take care now. Crispin, I’m glad that Casey is back. You guys work it out.” Then he looked over at Casey and said, “Running away from your problems isn’t the answer, Casey. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” Casey said.
Hogan waved at Carson, who smiled, politely, but didn’t return the wave.
Hogan nodded a goodbye to Widow and returned to his cruiser, got in it, and drove away, almost as slowly as he had pulled up the first time that morning with Widow in the back. The car drove away; dust rose softly behind it. Widow watched until Hogan’s cruiser wound through a canopy of trees and was lost to sight.
Widow said, “Where would you like me to go”
“Go?”
“Where do you want me to hang out?”
“Casey, why don’t you take Widow into the house and show him to the guest room?”
Casey shot a look at her and said, “Which one?”
“Take him to the upstairs one.”
“Okay.”
Casey walked over to Widow and motioned his head in the direction of the house. Widow walked up the steps and through the huge doorway. They walked into the house and Widow was surprised. The house was nicer on the inside then he had thought.
There was crown molding, with huge vaulted ceilings that must have been twenty-five feet. A huge grand staircase flowed down from a floor above. Everything else had a modern look to it. The fireplace was a steel thing with the same big rock tile tracing it from the floor all the way to the ceiling above. No mantle.
The furniture was also modern. It reminded him of a Russian oligarch’s house that he had sat in once in Moscow. Not a pleasurable circumstance. He had been there on official business, or rather unofficial was a more accurate term as he had been undercover trying to help find a missing CIA operative with a SEAL team, only the team was on standby in a US Boeing CH-47 Chinook military helicopter circling too far to help out, but they were there nonetheless.
The only thing out of place to Widow was the one thing that he had expected. There was an enormous stag’s head, antlers and all. The antlers had a huge reach up to the ceiling. They looked more like trees growing out of its head. Which reminded Widow of the cartoon he saw once as a kid. It was the one with the Grinch trying to glue antlers on his dog so that he could pass as a Santa Claus and the dog as his reindeer.
The walls behind the fireplace weren’t the stone tile that covered the fireplace, but a thick white block tile. Everything was
clean. Everything looked new and shiny. Widow couldn’t see a speck of dust or dirt anywhere.
He said, “This is a nice house.”
“Thanks, man,” Casey said. Then he stopped in the wide open spaces in the living room and looked up at Widow. He said, “Hey, man. I’m sorry for lying to you.”
Widow looked at him, said nothing.
“You know. Back at the train station. About my name. I told you my name was John.”
Widow said, “I know what you meant. Don’t worry about it.”
Casey smiled a wide grin and said, “Thanks, dude.”
Widow started to say something and then didn’t.
Casey saw this and said, “What is it, man?”
“Nothing.”
“Hey, man. You helped me out. I woulda ran off for sure if you hadn’t come along. You probably saved my life. So please spill it.”
“It’s the way you talk.”
“What’s up with the way I speak?”
“Do you have to call me ‘dude’ and ‘man’?”
Casey said, “What do you want me to call you? Sir? Won’t that make you feel old?”
“Just call me Widow.”
“Like Mister Widow?”
“No. You can just call me Widow? Can I call you Casey?”
“Of course, man. Ah. I meant Widow. Call me Casey.”
Widow put his hand out to Casey, offering a shake, their second.
Casey took it and shook it and grinned. He asked, “We friends now?”
“Of course.”
“Widow, this is the family room. Down the hall, to the left there is a study, and my dad’s room. Then past that is my mom’s room.”
Casey shifted and twisted and pointed to the right. He said, “Come this way.”
Widow had heard him say his dad’s room, but he didn’t clarify and Widow thought better not to ask.
Widow followed Casey to the back corner of the family room where they stepped down a couple of steps into another hallway. The walls were bright, more of that big white block tile. The floor was also tile, also white, but darker, even close to a gray. The living room floor was hardwood. This part of the house had a feel like it had either been added on at a later date or renovated at a later date or both.
They walked past a bathroom door that was wide open. The inside was flawlessly clean, like a hotel on Fifth Avenue. It was a full bath, as well. There was a standup shower in the back corner and a rug and hand towels to match. There was a strong lilac smell in the bathroom.
The hallway turned a sharp corner and Widow walked into a huge kitchen. Bigger than many of the barracks that he’d stayed in. Bigger than some of the officers’ clubs that he’d dined in.
The kitchen had everything that a home chef could ask for. There was an enormous island that doubled with extra seating on the side opposite the counter space and ovens. It sat eight. The ceilings in the kitchen weren’t vaulted, but they were high. Widow had no problem standing under them. He was six foot four and he could reach up, jump vertical, and still not touch the ceiling. There were cabinets that must’ve gone unused because they were too high. The custom cabinets were all white, like almost everything else.
The backsplash was different. It was a stony looking thing; he didn’t know the type. It was also a gray, like the tile on the floor.
There were kitchen utensils and knife holders and fabric potholders hanging from the oven handles. He saw a toaster, a microwave, two large ovens, and eight burners on a stovetop. There was a huge farmer’s sink, gray not white. There was one large faucet that pulled out to double as a hose.
Widow heard the low whir of an automatic dishwasher, cycling through to the next step.
In the center of the kitchen, standing in front of the stovetop, was a cook or a housekeeper or both, Widow wasn’t sure.
She was a roundish woman. She was Hispanic, but Widow thought more South American than Mexican, which most people probably confused her for. He thought this because of her accent. It was more Guatemalan or maybe Peruvian, not Mexican.
She was short, about four foot ten, maybe. The top of her scalp and black and gray hair topped out somewhere near the center of Widow’s chest. She was on the other side of the island from him. If she had stepped closer to it, he had no doubt that it would’ve been easier for her to completely hide behind it.
She said in a warm voice, “Hola. Mr. Casey, who is your friend?”
“Mrs. Miranda, this is Jack Widow.”
The cook nodded and said, “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Widow.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you as well, Mrs. Miranda.”
“Please, just call me Miranda. No need for the Mrs. Only Mr. Casey calls me that. His mother wants him to show respect.”
Widow nodded, said, “That’s a wise woman.”
And beautiful, Widow thought. Hard not to think that. He was sure that every man that she’d ever met, ever had thought that.
Miranda said nothing, just smiled.
Casey said, “Come on. Take a look at the best part of this place.”
Widow gave a polite nod to the cook and followed Casey out a pair of French doors that led out onto a deck that wrapped from one far corner of the house all the way to the other.
Widow walked out halfway from the railing, overlooking a river directly behind the house and thick forest on the opposite bank.
The water flowed about fifteen feet below the back of the deck. It wasn’t a rushing speed like rapids, but it wasn’t snail slow either. It was a good stream, easy enough to swim, but not a lazy river.
Widow took in the vista. It was quite something. Better than the land in the front.
He said, “Wow.”
Casey said, “I know, right? It’s really something, dude.”
Then he paused a short breath and added, “Oh, sorry. I meant Widow.”
Widow ignored it and stared over the terrain. He had never owned property, not if you don’t count the house that his mother left when she died, which went right to market anyway. Other than that, he never had been a homeowner. Never even had an apartment in his name. Not his real name, anyway. Not once.
Every place that he had every lived as an adult had been provided by the Navy or paid for by NCIS or, more accurately, the American taxpayer. He’d never knew the feeling of owning his own land, working it, making something out of it. But the thought of someday owning a nice piece of land somewhere had crossed his mind.
Widow walked all the way to the railing, leaned against it, looked out over everything. He breathed in, held it, and breathed out. Something nice about the air in a place like this. The only words to describe it were fresh air, but that was such a cliché. However, that’s all he could think of: fresh air.
He closed his eyes. Tried to imagine his own place like this. Imagined for a moment, the quiet life. The family life. He imagined a couple of kids of his very own. He imagined a wife of his very own. He imagined Crispin as his wife.
He opened his eyes, shook if off.
Casey asked, “It’s pretty great, huh?”
“Yeah. Sure, is.”
“Wanna see the coolest part of the house?”
Widow stared out over the terrain one more time and then he said, “Sure.”
Casey said, “This way.”
Widow said, “Lead the way.” And he started to turn, started to follow Casey, but just then he thought he saw something. Something that was less than a klick away. It was fast, too fast to be sure.
He stopped and just looked out over the terrain again. He casually looked toward the forest. He scanned the trees, low near the trunks.
He saw it again.
It was fast enough to possibly qualify as nothing, but slow enough to be suspicious.
It was a reflection of light, only a quick glint, but it was there. It kicked up his natural instincts first and then his SEAL training. The flash of light was like the kind that he had seen many times before by enemy snipers. The rule of thumb was to notice,
pause, notice again, and confirm. Which basically meant that he needed three squints of light to label it as an enemy threat. But there had only been two, not three, and this was the northern part of Montana, not the Middle East. It wasn’t the mountains of Afghanistan. It wasn’t the black forest in Romania. It wasn’t the jungles of Southern Colombia. There was no reason for an enemy sniper team to be out in the forest, watching a house on a dying cattle ranch.
Widow shrugged and followed Casey back into the house.
CHAPTER 24
THE OLDEST WATCHER had obviously known his younger brother the longest. In fact, now that their father was dead, he knew his younger brother longer than anyone else had known him. Longer than the second oldest brother’s military buddies. Longer than any of their cousins. Maybe their mom would’ve known him longer, but she ran off decades ago, after the third brother was born, after his pa had gotten sick. Therefore, he could say that he knew his brother longer than anyone, and vice versa.
However, knowing someone longer than anyone else doesn’t necessarily mean that you know him better than anyone else. Even if it does, it doesn’t mean that you know everything about that person.
Take the older brother’s prison sentence. The whole family knew why he had been incarcerated. He had been caught with child pornography on his computer.
The cops had arrested him about those missing boys all those years ago, but there was no connection, no evidence that he had been involved in that affair.
The cops found nothing to link him to a series of missing boys from the Spokane area. But what they did find was enough to put him away for years. They found a couple of videos on his computer. They had only found two video files, but it was clear that the boys in the video weren’t of age. They had been young—very young.
The cops handed him off to the Feds. And the Feds handed the case off to ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, which really pissed him off because he was no illegal alien. He didn’t understand why they handed him off to ICE. But they interrogated him, after the Feds had interrogated him about the young boys from Spokane. He’d been bouncing around like a transient worker for a good while, working farms and ranches, like his great granddaddy.
The oldest watcher had more in common with his great granddaddy than he had thought. His great granddaddy had had a closely guarded secret. Well really it was more of an addiction. It was a vice.
