THAT AFTERNOON THE PHONE RANG. FIELDING ROSE UP FROM the sofa and went to the kitchen. Said, Hello.
Amos?
Who’s this?
Dee.
Twice in one day?
Figured you might like a beer after walking that Appaloosa of yours.
Wore me out.
How’s an hour sound?
It was a little tavern Batey had suggested on the phone. The Logger Inn. A place with neon signs and small windows and trucks parked out front. A rustic kind of place. Taciturn men and peanut shells on the floor.
Fielding showed up ten minutes early. He saw Batey’s Bronco already there. When he walked through the front door the wood floor was dark with water and there was country music playing on the jukebox. All the men at the bar turned as one like some theater prop, but seeing Fielding and making their judgments turned back again. There was a couple of deer heads mounted on the wall. A mountain lion sprung in some perpetual attack. Fielding heard a whistle and found Batey sitting alone in a booth at the rear of the bar.
Get you one, Batey said. Got a tab going.
Fielding went to the bar and leaned on the old wood and a middle-aged woman with platinum-blond hair and a lot of cleavage asked what he was having.
What’s he havin? Fielding asked, nodding at Batey.
Ginger ale.
Ginger ale?
What’re you having?
Beer, I suppose.
Rainier?
What’re my choices?
Rainier.
Okay, Fielding said. Twist my arm.
She held the glass under the tap and drew off a pint and slid it to him.
Fielding thought that was a good trick and said:
Yeh ever spill one?
No, the woman said plainly.
Fielding nodded but she had already turned. Fielding took his beer and went back to the booth.
Mr Fielding, Batey said. Batey held out a hand to the bench across the table.
Fielding sat down and took a drink off the beer.
Thanks for the call, Batey said.
Yeh called me, Fielding said.
Well, Batey said, Cora was getting tired of me anyway. One of her shows was on. Probably for the best.
Which one’s got her locked up?
Dynasty, I think, Batey said. Or maybe Dallas. Yeah. Dallas.
I don’t mind Dallas.
No?
Nah. Me and Sara used to watch that together every week. That J.R. is a mean sumbitch, ain’t he?
I wouldn’t know. I hear that song and see those opening scenes of the flyover of all that boring Texas country. Batey shook his head. I hightail it out of there.
It was musicals for me, Fielding said.
Musicals.
Sara loved em.
You don’t like music?
I like music. Musicals is different. How they break randomly into song. Ruins the story for me.
I’ll have to watch one sometime.
Fielding looked around at the place.
Got a good feel in here, Fielding said.
You get the occasional college kid every now and then, Batey said. When they want to feel authentic and tell their friends they went to a dive bar. But they’re few and far between.
Yeh ever miss being young?
Occasionally, Batey said. You?
No, Fielding said. I like knowin what I like.
Batey held his glass to toast that sentiment.
So, Fielding said, what does a Fish and Wildlife officer do out here on the edge of the earth when he’s not watchin Dallas and rubbin his wife’s feet?
Ha, Batey said. Don’t let her hear you say that. Put ideas into her head. Batey sipped the ginger ale. What do I do, he said. What do I do. I guess I tinker around in the barn. Change a light bulb. Fix a leaky faucet.
Jack of all trades, Fielding said.
Cora wishes, Batey said. He snapped his fingers. You know what I do? Just got really into it.
What’s that?
I tie flies.
Flies?
Fly-fishing. You know. Batey made a casting motion. Dry flies and nymphs. Blue-winged olives. Elk-hair caddis. Bead head prince.
Woolly bugger, Fielding said.
You fish?
Sure.
We ought to go. There’s some great holes on the Nooksack. The big salmon runs. You ever spey cast?
No sir.
I’ll teach you. Easy. Throwing big streamers. Big streamers for big fish.
I’ve seen pictures, Fielding said.
Pictures ain’t nothing. When you see it for yourself. Live in the flesh. All that big water and all the eagles, a bear or two. Mountains all around.
Sounds like a heart-stopper.
You bring the coffee, I’ll bring the gear.
That sounds like a deal.
Deal it is.
Both men drank at the same time. They were both quiet. Fielding wondered about the ginger ale but knew better than to ask. Finally Batey said: You going to eat?
Nah. Had a bite before I came. Try not to drink on an empty stomach. Learned my lesson.
I hear that, Batey said. He shook his ginger ale and gave Fielding a look.
But, he said, you do get hungry, they make the best cheeseburger. Scout’s honor.
Yeh been to Missoula? Fielding asked.
Montana, sure.
Place there. The Missoula Club. Nothin but fluorescent lights. A big flag reading: Montana Till I Die. About a quarter inch a grease on all the liquor bottles. But I tell yeh what, yeh won’t find a better hamburger. Cheap too.
Cheap, Batey said. That’s key. I was down in Seattle last year. Ordered a hamburger in this sparkly little place. Looked at the menu to see how much I was in for. Damn near seven dollars. Can you believe that? I said no way. Waiter brought it to the table and I told him to take it right back. Of course it embarrassed the hell out of Cora. But seven dollars is seven dollars. And no hamburger in the world is worth seven dollars.
Fielding nodded. Goddamn inflation.
Goddamn inflation is right.
There was a small silence between them again. Waylon Jennings on the jukebox. A couple of men in Carhartt jackets walked past the booth and said Batey’s name. Batey nodded. Then Batey asked a question Fielding felt he’d been wondering about.
So tell me, he said. How does a guy like you, forty-odd years as sheriff, just up and quit and move three thousand miles away? And don’t tell me it’s just because you miss your wife.
Fielding squinted at him. Then he took a drink off his beer.
Horses, Fielding said. Always wanted to be a cowboy. Like John Wayne.
John Wayne hated horses.
Fielding smiled.
Hell, he said, I don’t know myself sometimes. Probably the same reason yeh ain’t DEA no more.
But I’m still a little bit the law, Batey said. When you’re the law, and I mean L-A-W, that’s in your blood. You just up and quit. Cold turkey. So what was it? Certain incident?
Incident?
What got you spooked?
Fielding took a long sip of beer. He looked up at the mountain lion snarling down at them.
See that cougar? Fielding said. They made him out to look like the bad guy, didn’t they? But he ain’t bad. Someone shot him and then someone else stuffed him and arranged his teeth and claws and eyes like that, and when we look at him we’re supposed to see an enemy. Somethin we can’t trust. But that cougar wasn’t doin nothin wrong. Poor guy probably out mindin his own business and then got treed by some hounds and a man with a gun shot up at the tree and that cougar just fell out of it. And now here it is, collecting dust. I look at that cougar and it’s not fear I feel. I only have pity for it. Compassion. Because that’s what cougars do. They eat other animals so they don’t starve. And all the things we find frightenin about them are simply their tools so they can eat. So to answer your question: How does someone like me just up and quit? They do it because they have seen too many awful things done to other people. Not out of survival or sustenance, but for sport. Malice and anger. I had to quit because I couldn’t face the survivors. The wives and husbands. The kids. The next of kin and offer my condolences anymore. Words didn’t mean anythin to them at that point. Words couldn’t bring em back.
Fielding looked at his beer. Swirled it a little. Took a sip.
I came out here, he said, so I would never have to tell anyone I was sorry for their loss ever again. Because all the things yeh want to forget are usually the worst things. And those things seem to last forever.
When Fielding got home that night he found Tito asleep on the floor near the woodstove. There was a low pulse of ember yet and Fielding opened the stove and fed in a chunk of cedar and closed the door and sat down on the sofa and watched the fire take. Tito lifted his head. He climbed up beside Fielding and lay his head in his lap. They sat like that for a long time. Fielding looked at the box of police records in the corner of the room. A box full of ruined lives no one had any answers to.