First there was a distant bell, then the hammering on the door. Esbeth sat up in bed, realized the racket was coming from the front of her own little cottage.
She stepped into fuzzy slippers and pulled on her thick, red chamois robe, then stumbled through the house, barely missing an end table and getting to the door just as the hammering picked up its pace.
Through the peephole she could see the glimmer of a uniform splashed alternately by blue and red sweeps of light. That couldn’t be good.
“Good gobs of pollywog poop,” she snapped, unlocking the door. “Now what?”
She swung the door open and Rudy, one of the deputies, nearly fell inside. Behind him, Eldon Watkins stood in civilian clothes. His eyes still had some sleep in them, so he’d been awakened too. The sky was still dark, with a haze of lighter sky off to the east.
“What in tarnation?” Esbeth barely got it out of her mouth before Eldon waved her quiet.
“Your car. It’s your car.”
“What?” She stepped out onto the small porch, and could see the yellow lights of a wrecker now, as well as the flashing lights of the patrol car. “Where is it?” She looked to the curb where it had been parked.
“Most of it’s half a block up,” Rudy said. “Some parts are a ways farther.”
“Rudy, let me handle this.” Eldon stepped around his deputy until he was blocking part of the view.
A dog was barking, and Esbeth could see one or two neighbors coming out to see what the racket was about. “What happened?”
“Near as we can tell, a trash compactor sideswiped it and dragged it down the street a ways.” Eldon was watching the wrecker haul the mangled lump up onto the flatbed back of the truck.
“The trash man did that?”
“Well, we don’t think so. Someone made off with the truck, kids maybe on a joyride.”
“Kids?”
“Well, maybe.”
“Joyriding in a trash compacter?”
“Does kind of sound . . .”
“Oh, spare me,” Esbeth snapped.
“Yeah. I kinda thought so too. Compacter’s just a couple of blocks up the street. Took a quick dust for prints on the wheel and dash, but it’s been wiped clean.” Eldon’s eyes didn’t meet hers; he turned instead to watch the tow truck driver tossing aside loose parts of Esbeth’s car.
Esbeth had been thinking about the deductible on her auto insurance, and of walking to the grocery as well as to work for a few days. Now she thought back to toes she’d stepped on in the past few days, or those of people who she might have been going to annoy in the near future. “You think someone’s trying to slow me down?”
“Oh, I doubt that. Maybe . . .”
“Yeah. Yeah. Just kids. Right. Just serendipity that it was my car.”
“Sure. That’s possible.” Eldon glanced to Rudy, who didn’t look any more convinced than Esbeth.
Esbeth caught something else on Eldon’s face. “You think something about this is funny?”
“Well, it’s sure enough a no-argument way to get you a bit more exercise. No getting around that.”
“Whew.” Esbeth let out a hard snap of breath and turned and went back inside, slamming the door after herself.
* * * * *
“Karyn. Karyn.”
Donnie walked around the outside of the Rainey house shouting. The sun was up enough to add a patina of sweat to his forehead, supplementing that already there from worry.
Logan’s Game Warden truck was gone, and the house was locked. He’d tried calling, but there’d been no answer. Then he’d called the operator, and she’d said the phone was “off hook,” which could mean anything. But it probably meant Mr. Rainey had yanked the cord.
“Karyn,” he shouted again.
An upstairs window opened and her head and shoulders stuck out, the long red hair lifting out a bit in the breeze. “Aren’t you supposed to be yelling, ‘Stella’?”
“This isn’t funny. Did he lock you in your room?”
“Looks like that. Should I let my hair down like Rapunzel?”
“No.” He didn’t mean to snap, but she was rolling with this far better than he was. “I can’t believe he’d do that.”
“Oh, yes you can.”
“How about tying the sheets together?”
“I’m way ahead of you there. I was just waiting on my knight in shining Dodge.” Her head disappeared, then reemerged as the end of the tied sheets fluttered out and angled a bit in the breeze as one end of the makeshift rope fell all the way to the lawn.
As he was holding the car door open for her, Karyn slid in and said, “You didn’t even say, ‘What light through yonder window breaks?’ or any of that drippy stuff.”
“Don’t say that. The man’s dead, and he died at my house.”
She might not have been referring to Thirsty Mills, but just the thought stifled some of her kidding.
He went around and got in, started the car, and pulled out. Karyn was quiet, and they went a couple of miles before he said again, “I can’t believe he locked you up like some kind of . . . some kind of . . .”
“Donnie, he did it because he loves me,” she said.
“He has a strange way of showing it.”
“Well, I won’t argue with you on that.”
* * * * *
Rocky rushed the back door, gun drawn and looking mean enough to bite a rattlesnake. Jim Eddy stood along the side of the house by the door holding a crowbar. Stone maintained a shooter’s stance a dozen steps back from the door, one hand clenching his pistol, the other steadying it for a shot. One booted foot was planted in a bed of nasturtiums, but he was far nastier than they were. The look of raw eagerness on Jim Eddy’s face was awesome to see.
When Rocky slipped inside, Jim Eddy was right behind him, rushing in with the crowbar raised. The screen door had barely closed when glass and metal crashed inside, and there were screams before Stone was halfway to the door. Some of the screams sounded like a woman, and the only one he knew of inside was his sister Sandy.
The screen door flew back open and Jim Eddy came running and stumbling out into the back yard with his hands covering his face, blood running down between his fingers. Standing in the doorway behind him, only half-dressed, was Sandy. She was screaming something incoherent at Stone and waving at him to either rush forward or go back; he couldn’t tell which.
Morgan Lane pushed her to one side and stepped outside. Blood splattered his white shirt, but none of it looked like his. He was holding the crowbar now. Stone was raising the gun when Jim Eddy lowered his hands and Stone saw that there were only two red holes where his eyes had been. He shouldn’t have looked away from Morgan himself.
He squeezed the trigger but the crowbar slammed at his wrist as he did. Stone felt both bones in his wrist break while the shot went low and into a stand of sage. The gun dropped from his limp fingers. He stood looking at his smashed hand long enough for Morgan to step over and smash the crowbar down with all his strength twice on the back of each of Jim Eddy’s knees.
Jim Eddy pushed himself off the ground with both hands and screamed until the crowbar slammed in across his open mouth. He dropped to the ground. Any other sounds he made were muffled.
Stone had bent at the waist to grab at the dropped gun, and was lifting it when Morgan smashed his other wrist. He turned to run, the sound of Sandy’s screaming behind him, but it was too late even for that.
* * * * *
Lieutenant Tim Comber sat in his Austin office, looking up at a framed print of John Coffee “Jack” Hays, who made Captain after being a Ranger only three years. One of his Indian scouts in 1837 had called him: “Bravo too much.”
The ringing stopped on the other end, when Tillis Macrory finally picked up his cell phone. Tim didn’t even give him a chance to speak. “I’m aware that the Rangers have for years prided themselves about the brevity of their reports—cogent, even terse. But I haven’t heard a damned thing from you, Tillis. What the hell’s going on over there?”
“Oh, just the usual bit of poking around.”
“That’s what I’m worried about. I’m over here fending off the press in what is turning into the hottest story in all Texas, and I can’t get so much as a scoop of kitty litter from my man on the scene.”
“You should have told me that’s the sort of thing you’re after. I can get plenty of that. Facts are another thing altogether.”
“I read through all the same forensics reports as you, and still nothing solid.”
“Looks like we’re on the same page.”
“Nothing doing with that pawn shop lead?” Tim could hear the sound of gravel crunching as a vehicle went past outside Tillis’ open truck window.
“You know where that led, straight to Bill Hoel. And that’s been a dead-end so far.”
“That’s why I’ve been trying to get through to you.”
“About the pawn shop?”
“No, about Bill Hoel.”
“What about him?”
“I want you to go out of your way to soft-pedal it in his direction.”
“You telling me to lay off?”
“You heard me. This time, there’re some political interests involved.”
“You don’t think the fact that a couple of Bill’s men were hell-bent on knocking the snot out of me is worth pursuing?”
Tim paused. This wasn’t much easier for him. “That’s what I’m saying.”
“Wasn’t it you said that a Ranger’s an officer who’s able to handle any given situation without definite instructions from his commanding officer?”
“Actually, it was the Captain who said that. But I was nodding my head. This is different, Till. You also need to know when to stand down.”
“Tell you what. The next time you see the governor, you ask him if that still goes if a steel-capped boot toe is swinging toward his head.”
“You know I won’t say that.”
“You’re right about that.” Tillis hung up.
When Tim tried to dial again, the mechanical voice of the cell phone operator said the number he wanted was not currently available.
* * * * *
Tillis lowered the 7 x 50 Nikon binoculars he held and looked down at the cell phone he’d turned off. Back in Korea, it was Logan who’d said that half the trouble in all the world was caused by lieutenants. Tillis hadn’t expected that to bite him in the butt the way it had after all these years. He toyed with turning the phone back on, but he caught a bit of movement along the fence line and looked back up.
He had to bend out the side window to see past the stand of sumac and mesquite that hid his truck from the estate. Through the binoculars, he saw two of the Latino guards come up to the fence at a spot forty feet down the road from the gate. They lay their automatic weapons along the chain links. One of them carried a bucket. They both took out sponges and began rubbing at a large, brownish smear along the fence. It could be blood, but maybe from a deer. There was no telling from this far away. It could have even been put there as a graphic message to him, though he doubted that.
It was getting hot in his truck cab, even though he’d lowered the windows on both sides. Sweat ran down his temple, and the glasses were fogging over. He lowered them and reached and turned on the police band radio. The first thing he heard was Esbeth’s excited voice about all kinds of activity. She was using the numbers, but it was hard to miss the chaos. He tossed the binoculars onto the seat beside him and turned to fire up the truck.
* * * * *
Gala climbed out of her cruiser and checked the strap across the butt of the 9mm Smith & Wesson semiautomatic in the holster on her right hip as she went over to Rudy’s cruiser. He stood outside, waiting, and occasionally glancing up at the house.
“How long ago did they get here, Rudy?”
Rudy had a round face with short, graying mustache, a small barrel of a chest that pushed softly at the buttons of his uniform shirt, and he wore aviator sunglasses—in short, about a bullet or two short of a full gun belt, a negative stereotype of a small county deputy, except he could be a shade less bright. Eldon usually had one or two like him on the force, she figured. She wondered what citizens thought of the bright yellow stress ball he kept wedged up in his windshield by the video unit. Rudy could look hard enough, especially to someone nervous about being stopped for a speeding violation. Right now he looked uncertain, though perhaps only cautious, which Gala preferred over the ones too ready to leap into action. The too-quick ones often caused most of the problems in situations like this.
“When I called for backup,” he said, glancing at the house, where something crashed around on the back side.
“That was six minutes ago. Call for more backup.” Gala broke into a run.
She had her gun out by the time she sprinted around the corner of the house. Rudy had slowed behind her and was talking into the transmitter on his shoulder.
The first thing she saw was Morgan bent over one of them, dragging him over the door sill into the back of the house.
He dropped the body and stood up, looked at Gala as she slowed. He ignored the gun hanging in one hand, and said to her, “Don’t just stand there. Give me a hand here.”
Her head gave a jerk toward the corner of the house, around which Rudy came lumbering, his gun out too now.
The body halfway into the doorway was that of Stone Granite. Gala saw no blood, but one arm was completely twisted around in a way that was as far from natural as it could get, both wrists hung loose and broken, and Stone’s eyes were shut and his mouth hung open.
“Freeze,” Rudy shouted, and went into stance with his gun in both hands pointed at Morgan.
Morgan straightened and slowly raised his hands, locked the fingers, and put them on top of his head. He looked at Gala, but with no expression on his face.
She heard Jim Eddy Fisher before she saw him. He lay half under a hedge near the far corner of the house and was mumbling a scream as he tried to turn over. He was lying on his stomach. Both knees were bent back the wrong way, as was one elbow.
Rudy kept his gun pointed on Morgan while he slid sideways over to Jim Eddy and bent lower to lift him by one shoulder. As soon as he could see Jim Eddy’s face, he let go and Jim Eddy flopped back to the lawn with an anguished, mumbled groan.
“Better send an EMS too, Esbeth,” he said into his transmitter, though he had trouble with the words. His stance stiffened.
Gala was bent down to check Stone. “This one’s alive,” she said.
“The other one inside is too,” Morgan said.
Rudy called in the new information, then asked Morgan, “What the hell happened to Jim Eddy?”
“Looks like he fell on a rake,” Morgan said.
Gala had seen the face. Both eye sockets were red holes with blood pouring down across the face, and the mouth was an open, smashed wound where something hard and heavy had slammed into his face. She saw the blood-stained crowbar lying in the grass.
Rudy looked over at Jim Eddy and at Stone. “You did all this with a crowbar?”
“A twenty-four-inch wrecking bar,” Gala said. Somehow that name for the tool fit better. “I’m going in to take a look at what’s left of Rocky.”
“Hadn’t we better cuff him?”
“He’s not going anywhere. Are you, Lane?”
Morgan didn’t even look at her this time.
Inside she found Rocky, curled up in a fetal position, his face turning a little purple from some internal injury, but he was still alive. She checked to see that no blood bubbles were around his mouth or nose, then went back out into the sun. Somewhere in the fear of whatever had gone on, he had voided himself, and the inside of the house was getting ripe. She took a couple gulps of the clear, hot summer air, once she was back out on the lawn.
“They were all inside when it started,” Morgan was saying to Rudy.
Gala stepped behind him and brought down his hands one by one and handcuffed him. “Just a precaution,” she said.
“Until we straighten this out,” Rudy finished for her. He put his gun back in its holster. “You can put whatever you want in your statement.”
Gala glanced at the other deputy. He was looking away with tired resignation showing on his face. Maybe he wasn’t as slow as all that after all.
From the distance, she could hear the EMS sirens approaching.
* * * * *
“It’s nice to have all this wrapped up in a nice neat little package.” Eldon leaned back in his chair with one foot up on the corner of his desk and the other crossing it.
“What neat package are you talking about?” Tillis stood, more at parade rest than at ease, in front of him. His shirt was still sweated through in a place or two, even though he’d had the air-conditioning on while he’d hurried back to town.
“Oh, don’t give me that whomper-jawed look. You know what I mean. We’ve got the Granite boys cold for doing Thirsty.”
“You have an eyeball witness? You have this journal Thirsty was supposed to have? You even have whatever it was that crushed Thirsty’s head like a cheap piñata?”
“What the hell’s giving you the diaper scoots? We make our first bit of progress, and you’re all sour grapes.”
“You know, and I know, that Lane’s going to walk on this. Three armed men come to his house and one and a half are inside, though he probably drug them there. No matter what they say, when they’re able to talk, it’s still going to come down as self-defense.”
“Isn’t that man a piece of work? Three of them, all armed, and he takes them out with the first thing he grabs.”
“You skip lightly over the bigger question of why.”
“You got Lane figured for Denny’s death somehow? Okay. Tell me how? And why for that?”
“I don’t have anything figured. I just don’t think it’s quite as neat a wrap as you do. All you want is something to throw to the media right now.”
“Somehow, that’s enough for now.”
“I suppose it is for you, Eldon. I suppose it is.”
“Don’t make me sorry I called the Rangers in on this.”
“Hell, you did that because you had to. A mayor in your county gets killed, first question the media’s going to ask you is why you think you can handle it on your own.”
Esbeth, who had been too busy all day to dwell on her smashed car, buzzed in Luke, the evening dispatcher, and stood up to stretch when the men stopped talking. Luke sauntered in, carrying a lunch pail and an armful of newspapers and magazines. “Man, this little town sure made the news today,” he said.
Esbeth turned to Eldon and Tillis. “You two make me glad I’ve got a day off. Maybe you’ll both settle down and accomplish something before I get back, instead of bickering.”
“He started it,” Eldon said.
Tillis turned away, shaking his head. He went over to the desk at which Gala had last sat. The pen she had last used lay across a pad, and he picked it up, and Esbeth thought the way he ran a restless finger across its length was interesting, but she looked away.
“Esbeth?”
“What?” She looked back at Tillis.
“Do you have any idea about the demographics of this county?”
“In what way?”
“The Hispanic population.”
“It’s kind of light. Always has been. I was surprised at first, but that’s just the way it is, I guess. Why?”
Tillis shook his head. “Eldon, okay if I use one of your phones?”
The sheriff didn’t look up from the papers he was shuffling around on his desk, just held up a hand and waved for Tillis to go ahead. He eased into Gala’s chair, had to look up the number first, and then picked up the phone.
The maid answered this time, and Tillis had to use some of his Spanish before finally getting to talk to the old man himself.
“What the hell do you want now?” Old Bill Hoel shouted into his end of the phone.
“I’d like to come out and talk to you.”
“Well, I don’t want you to.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“The hell I don’t.”
“I’m on my way.”
“You come out here and I’ll have my beanos explain things to you in a way you’ll remember.”
“I’m working a murder case here.”
“And you’ve already slapped an arrest on them Granite boys. So don’t come out here. The sheriff’s already done pissed away enough of my time.”
“That arrest just happened. Your sources must be very good.”
“You just don’t get it, do you boy?”
“I guess I don’t.”
“Well, you will.” Bill Hoel slammed down the phone on his end.
* * * * *
As soon as they were inside the cool of the library late in the afternoon, Karyn nudged Donnie. There, at the same table where they’d last seen her in here, sat Esbeth Walters. She had a small pile of books and magazines in front of her.
Karyn saw her look up and spot them, and then the hurt show for a flicker on her face as she and Donnie scurried past, heading back to the archive room, where she’d showed them how to dig through the old newspapers.
“That wasn’t much fun,” she said to Donnie when they were alone in the back room. “What she said back at the sheriff’s department did help you.”
“I had an idea of where the box got buried. Now, I’m just more sure. Come on, hurry. You’ll be in big trouble if your dad catches you here, with me.”
“I’m already in big trouble.”
“But locking you in like that. You’re an adult. That’s abuse, Karyn.”
“I told you before, he did it because he loves me and cares about me.”
“Well, it doesn’t mean he respects you much.”
She didn’t have an answer for that. Donnie had the old newspaper out. When he flipped it open, they saw the place where the pages had been cut out.
“They’re gone,” Karyn said.
“You think she did it?”
“Who, Esbeth? Of course not. You saw how she was around books and all this. It’s like it’s sacred to her, or something.”
“Well, someone cut out these pages.”
“It’s the town trying to bury its own history again. Now what?”
“I was just trying to confirm something, and this does it as well as if the pages were here.”
“What?”
He turned and put a hand on each of her shoulders, and looked hard at her face. “Karyn, I’m going to have to go in, and I’d better do it alone. You’re in enough of a jam.”
“Look, if you think I’ll dive at night in a lake in a thunderstorm and then back off from something like this, you’re wrong. You don’t know how wrong you are. Now, listen to me, Donnie. If I mean anything to you, anything at all, then I’m going along.”
Donnie was frowning, but couldn’t keep it up. He broke into a smile. “That’s good. I know I shouldn’t say it. But I’m glad.”
When they went back out through the front of the library, Esbeth was gone. For Karyn, there was substantial relief in that.
* * * * *
Selma opened the door to find Sandy standing on the porch with two small suitcases beside her. “Why’d you ring the bell?”
“‘Cause I wasn’t sure I was welcome.”
“Oh, come’re.” Selma opened her thick arms and Sandy rushed forward to be embraced like the seventeen-year-old she was.
Selma felt the rippling shudders going through the girl. “What is it?” She held Sandy out at arm’s length to look at her face.
But Sandy kept her head bowed. “Momma, it was awful.”
“What?”
“What he done to Rocky and Stone.”
Selma clutched Sandy close again and stared out across the spread. “Oh, my poor boys. Did he kill them?”
“No. I don’t think so. Least they was alive when they was taken away. They took Morgan away in handcuffs too.”
“That won’t last. Man like him’ll get out. Self-defense, or some such. We’re in some serious do-do here, Sandy. You’d best stay packed,” Selma said.
“Momma.”
“What?” Selma nestled the small head to her. Sandy smelled good, better than she ever had. Only the smell reminded Selma of Morgan and made Selma catch some of the girl’s trembling.
“You shoulda . . . when he hit Rocky with that steel . . . I always thought Rocky was like iron, but I heard bones crunching in echoes all through the inside of the house. Momma, it was . . . it was terrible.”
“I know, honey. I hate to admit a thing like this, but without the boys around, that man makes my bones feel like dry ice.”
“He made tapes, Momma, of everything. His bed, the poker room. Me. There’re a lot with me in them, naked and such. You think he’ll use any of that ‘gainst you?”
“None of all that matters a helluva lot just this minute, honey.”
Barely an hour later, the doorbell rang.
“Now what?” Selma shambled to the front door and opened it. “What do you want?”
“Just a word or two, if you can spare a moment. Looks like you’re busy.” Esbeth Walters wore her best casual clothes, none of which either hid or flattered her figure.
“Oh, come on in.”
Esbeth glanced around as she wove through the front room. Selma led the way through the open, partially-filled boxes. Nor did Esbeth’s sharp eyes miss the fact that a pile of fresh ashes was centered in the fireplace and a can of charcoal starting fluid was on the mantel. “Looks like you’re getting ready to move.”
“Count on you not to miss that,” Selma said. She waved an arm toward the sofa and flopped into her own chair. She thought Esbeth looked a tad tired, but no less sharp than she’d heard.
“Aren’t you going to wait until the boys get out of the hospital?”
“That could take a while, from what I hear.”
“Haven’t you been to see them?”
“Nothing to see yet. Both of them are still out as crossed-eyed-mackerels. That Jim Eddy is twice worse off, though. He’ll never whistle at another fat girl, or wink neither. I hear they’re gonna let that Morgan Lane loose on his own recognizance.”
“Have to. All they have is a clear case of self-defense. Your boys were the ones with the weapons coming into his house.”
Selma gave a low snort, and just shook her head. She looked out the window.
“What about the mayoral race? You throwing that over too? That isn’t like you, Selma.”
“How do you know what’s like me? You haven’t lived around here all your life like me.”
“But you’re just going to walk away from that?”
“I am, and as fast as my stubby old legs can carry me. The Granites aren’t quitters, but I’ve had it around here.”
“There’ll be a trial, you know, over Thirsty’s being killed. Your boys have been charged with that.”
“I know. You think my boys facing a murder rap is going to help my political chances? I don’t. That, and I’ve stayed here because Granites have always stayed. But I’ll tell you, I’m beginning to believe this family’s more cursed than the Kennedys.”
“You’re not going to stay for the trial?”
Selma heard her voice go up an octave when she answered, but there was no help for that. “I said I’ve had it. I don’t care what happens anymore. I’m beaten down by years and years of this. You can’t imagine what it’s like.”
Esbeth nodded toward the fireplace. “Burning that only makes matters worse. You think they can’t sort through what’s left of those ashes and tell that was a journal, like the one that came up missing after Denny’s death, that Thirsty had until his death?”
Selma felt her shoulders sag. Her own voice was husky, hard to recognize. “What is it you want?”
“Was there anything in there that you remember, anything at all?”
“I know it didn’t come out and say anything about where the diamonds are. I thought it was just a lot of ranting and raving by the Spurlocks—their family obsession through the past several generations. You know the only thing that sticks out in my mind?”
Esbeth bent forward, her eagerness showing in spite of herself. “What?”
“It was this bit at the front about how each and every one of them had to swear to never give up on getting back what was theirs, and that they could tell no one, to keep it only among family, the Spurlocks. It practically put a curse on anyone who violated what Old Hank called the Spurlock code. Now isn’t that a load of crock?”
“It explains a few things, about Donnie, for instance. But it does sound more like the ravings of a madman than anything someone with any common sense might say. You think there’s a vein of obsessiveness in the Spurlocks?”
“I think there is in any of them who’ve lived here this long, Granites included. I’m clever enough that I shoulda seen it earlier. Now I got sorrows I don’t even want to think about or face. You know about Pebble?”
“A little.”
“She had spinal meningitis when she was only three years old. Her fever was too high for too many days. She came out of it, but she’s never been right since. ‘Special’ they call it. What a load of crap. That poor girl’s head is as empty as last year’s bird nest. And you know what?”
“No, what?”
“Here’s the really sad thing. Of all of us, I’m beginning, just beginning now, to understand that Pebble might well be the fortunate one. Leastways, she’s the only truly happy one of us.”
* * * * *
Tillis answered the door with just a towel wrapped around his waist. Every time he saw her now, he was surprised and relieved. The very air of his life had taken on a surrealistic hue, and she had become something of a touchstone, all he had left to believe mattered.
“How did you know it would be me?” Gala asked.
He bent to kiss her at the door, then turned to lead the way inside. “I don’t get all that much company. What d’you have in the bag?”
“Burritos.”
“Mmm. Classy.”
“You have any hot sauce?”
“Of course. What kind are they?”
“Lengua.”
“Well, I hope that’s not the only tongue I’ll be getting.”
“Oh, lordy. I’ve corrupted one of those incorruptible Texas Rangers.”
She fussed over getting the burritos out and onto a couple of plates while he went into the other room to dress. He came back, still barefoot, but wearing cutoff jean shorts and a t-shirt that said: “Life’s Where You Find It.”
“Nice shirt.”
“My wife got it for me. Ex-wife. Thought it’d loosen me up a bit.”
“Are you uptight?”
“Not at the moment.”
She sat on one of the dinette chairs and was pouring on Tabasco and adding slices of jalapeños. “Any for you?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “It’s the only way to go.”
“That’s the way I feel.” She took a bite out of her burrito.
When Tillis had finished his own last bite, and wiped away some hot sauce from the corner of his mouth, he said, “I want to know what you think’s going on.”
“You mean with Thirsty’s death? Or Denny’s? Or what’s up with the Granite boys? What’re you talking about?”
“I mean at Old Bill Hoel’s place.”
“You think something’s going on up there?”
“I sure as hell do, and it’s tied to the Latinos he has living up there on his big old spread. Do you know anything about that?”
Gala stood and came around to him, cupped his face in her hands, and bent to give him a good, probing kiss, full of hot sauce and a hotter tongue.
The only time he’d ever had a similar experience was with a divorced mother about a year after Claire had gone. The mother and young son had come out to visit a few times, and when Tillis and the four-year-old had played well together, the mother had suddenly opened the emotional gates with a surprising amount of warmth. Tillis hadn’t followed up, and the opportunity cooled after a few days. Only much later did he realize he’d passed some sort of test as potential surrogate father material, that she’d been communicating some signal to him, that he’d been given a green flag he’d been too slow on the uptake to realize.
When Gala moved her head back and let him look into those extremely brown and large eyes, he said, “What was that about?”
“I was so afraid you’d missed that. But you haven’t missed a thing. You may be smarter than you’ve been acting.”
“Well, thanks. I think. What is going on over there?”
“Later,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about what you said about living in a small town. Let’s talk about us.”
“What about us?”
“Is there an us?”
“I think there is. I hope there is.” Something had been gnawing at Tillis for a long time, and it had gone away in Gala’s presence.
“You might be expecting too much,” she said.
“I always have.”
“What’re you shopping for, some sort of Joan of Arc?”
“I’m not shopping anymore.”
She didn’t say anything, but reached for his hand and stood him from the table and led him down the hall.
Later, in the dark bedroom together, he lay facing the ceiling. Bits of shadows and suggestions of light played across it in distorted reflection from the lake outside.
“You asleep?”
“No,” he told her.
“Why do you go about things the way you do?”
“You think I make it harder on myself?”
“You could play the game better, let others at least think you know procedure.”
“I know so-called procedure.”
“That’s right. You did do time as a trooper once.”
“Maybe I’m kind of rebelling from that phase. Do you think?”
“Well, you’ve still got the erect posture.”
“That’s not my posture you’ve got hold of there.”
“You wanna make something of it?”
He pushed back the covers and rolled toward her.
* * * * *
Gala was barely out the door the next morning while it was still getting light outside, when Tillis’ doorbell rang. He answered it, and there stood his boss, Lieutenant Tim Comber. He was frowning.
“I hope I didn’t see what I just thought I saw.”
Tillis frowned back at him. He wore a dark blue flannel robe and slippers. He glanced at his watch, saw it was six-thirty a.m. “You stake out my house, you’re liable to see lots of things.”
“I just pulled up. It was lucky timing, or unlucky.”
Tillis waved him inside. On the dinette table was a pot of coffee and an almost-finished rack of toast. “I can make more toast, if you like.”
“I didn’t come to dine, though I’ll have coffee if there’s any left.”
Tillis got down a mug from the cabinet and handed it to Tim. “I thought you were over in Waco.”
“I was supposed to be. That’s where we’re meeting the press on this little mess out here.”
“I didn’t know you’d shifted to out here.”
“You would if you’d turn on your cell or plug your home phone back in. You know I’ve had to try to reach you through Eldon Watkins' office. You aren’t trying to dodge me, are you?” Ripples of suppressed anger flickered across his face like heat lightning.
“What would make you think that?”
Comber took a sip of coffee and put the mug down on the table. “Tillis, you have one of the absolutely best records for solving cases among all the Rangers.”
“Uh, oh. That’s the positive spin. Now, what’d you really come to say?”
“Tillis, no one admires those old-time Rangers more than me—Sam Walker, Big Foot Wallace, and Rip Ford.”
“You forgot John B. Anderson, who brought in John Wesley Hardin.”
“You know where I’m going with this. Just listen. I’m trying to get through to you that the times have changed. I normally leave you alone, knowing you’ll come out all right in the end. You’ve got a lot more experience than most of the other Rangers . . . well, hell, you should’ve been Lute now yourself. But you know what’s holding you back.”
Tillis wasn’t going to have another cup of coffee, but decided to after all. He took his mug out of the sink and poured it full again. “Have there been complaints?”
“You know there have, or I wouldn’t be here.”
“Whose toes did I step on? Eldon’s?”
“That’s just one of three directions I’m getting hit from.”
Tillis had the mug almost to his lips. He lowered it slowly. “What was Eldon’s beef?”
“We were called in on Denny Spurlock’s death. But you kind of dragged yourself in sideways on what turned out to be the finding of what was left of Hugh Spurlock’s body.”
“It’s related.”
“How do you know that?”
“They were brothers, for one.”
“That’s not enough, and you know it.”
“Okay, who else didn’t like the way I buttered my bread?”
“I got another call from the governor’s office.”
“That’d be Old Bill Hoel’s connections.”
“Hoel claims you’re harassing him unnecessarily.”
“You ever get calls like that before, from big shots who turn out to be more involved than they say?”
“Lots of times. But you’re being uncharacteristically indelicate with your handling of Hoel. He still draws a lot of water in this state.”
“Must be how he keeps a spread that size watered.”
“Dammit. Don’t be cute right now, Till. I’m getting more heat about this than you realize.”
Tillis sighed. “Are there any other complaints? You said there were three.”
“There was one more.”
“Who?”
“I can’t say. But it surprised me. There was talk about you being seen gambling. But even more important, do you mind explaining whatever’s going on between you and Eldon’s deputy? You’re supposed to lend your support and help his department solve its problems, not add to them by planking one of the deputies cross-eyed.”
“Could’ve been worse. It could be Esbeth.”
“Tillis Macrory, I’m being as serious as I can be with you. What’s the matter with you? Are you going through some mid-life crisis, or something?”
“I might be.”
“Well, do it on your own time. You know what being a Ranger stands for.”
“I seem to remember hearing of a time under Governor Ferguson back in the nineteen twenties when over two thousand three hundred Special Rangers were appointed, some even ex-cons.”
“That’s contemptible of you to even mention that, Till. That was all taken care of when the DPS took over. You’re kicking sand here, when I’m trying to be serious.”
“Well, I don’t care much for this business about you taking an anonymous complaint seriously.”
“You don’t have to like it. Besides, it wasn’t anonymous to me, I’m just keeping it that way for you.”
“What’re you saying? You want my badge and gun?” He glanced at the badge Tim wore over his left pocket, still made out of a Mexican coin as they always had been. Tim wore the cowboy boots and hat, too, that Tillis had not had time to get into.
“Oh, come on now. Are you trying to throw away a nearly twenty-year career?”
“How do you know what I want?”
“Damn you, Tillis, for putting me in this position.”
Tillis shrugged, tried to seem calm, though he could feel the blood pounding inside him in throbbing pulses.
“Till, you were selected out of a large pool of people who wanted to be Rangers, in part because you had the dignity and comportment that go with being a Ranger. If your results weren’t just about the best anyone could ask for, your attitude would indeed have you on the streets. Why do you think you haven’t made lieutenant?”
“I haven’t wanted it all that much. What’re you really saying here? Have you come to help me out?”
“No, I’ve come to take over from you.” It seemed all he could do to speak as calmly as he did.
“You going to bear in mind that little business about Old Bill Hoel’s two men being the ones who jumped me at the stakeout outside the pawn shop?”
“That didn’t lead anywhere.”
“It wasn’t supposed to; it was just supposed to make me think it did, if I survived it, which I may not have been supposed to at that.”
“I’ll bear it in mind.” He bit off each word.
“But you’ll go light on Bill Hoel.”
“Tillis, you embody the original spirit of ‘one riot, one Ranger’ as well as anyone I know. But, this is a new era of Rangering, with procedures, backup, and timely information-sharing—all that stuff. We’re in times of change, of new sensibilities.”
“If it’s the butt-kissing of rich landowners you’re talking about, that’s an older sensibility.”
“You’re just not going to get it, are you?” Tim’s voice got louder in spite of his efforts.
“Am I on probation?”
“No. At least not officially. You’re on vacation.”
“I don’t want or need a vacation.”
“Just take some time and cool down; go fishing, hell, fly a kite for all I care.”
“I said I don’t want time off.”
“I’m not asking. You’re already on vacation, as of this morning.”
“You know, Tim, I hadn’t thought about this much, but the essential difference between us is that you have ambition, and I don’t.”
“That’s good, Till. That’ll give you something to focus on and mull over while you’re on holiday.”
* * * * *
Tillis sat around the house frittering for a while. He made a fresh pot of coffee and worked on that while staring out the window at the water of Lake Kiowa. A wind out of the west had picked up and put a chop across the water that ran to whitecaps in places. He wandered back into the bedroom and put away the cowboy boots and hat he’d gotten out to wear through a working day. He wrapped the belt around the holster and put away his service piece as well.
He got out an older, worn denim shirt that had never had the star pinned above the left pocket. At the bottom of another drawer, he found some old jeans that still fit. He put those on, along with a pair of Timberline shoes, all of which made him feel as much like a civilian as he had in years. It wasn’t an altogether bad feeling.
While he was in whatever atavistic mood drove him, he dug out a long-neglected pack of Camel filterless cigarettes from a plastic bag in one of the desk drawers. He tried to remember how long it had been since he smoked—ten, twelve years?
As long as he was digging, he dipped into the false bottom of the bottom right drawer of the desk and took out a soft, leatherette case. He unzipped it and took out his backup piece, a Sig-Sauer P220 9mm Parabellum that held nine rounds in its magazine. The serial number hadn’t been scratched off, but the gun had no history. It had come to him from a fellow trooper who was dead quite a few years by now. Ben had never said where he got it, through some drug bust or whatnot. None of that mattered by now. Every cop Tillis knew had a backup piece stashed somewhere. It was the card up the sleeve, and in many cases, it was the gun that officers decided to eat when the whole business got too sordid. Tillis checked the action and slid in the magazine, then stuffed the gun in the small of his back. He felt ready—for what, he wasn’t as sure. But he was ready.
He went out on the porch. The breeze and the early hour made it fit for sitting and staring. The sun set on this side, and the summer afternoons got far too toasty for comfort out on the porch. For now, he was fine. He sat in an old glider rocker he kept out there that could take the weather. He smoked and stared at the waves and the occasional boat.
I wonder if I’ve gone too far this time, he thought, if I’ve gotten to that point where I’m beyond redemption.
He tried very hard to care, but couldn’t get there. When he reached for another cigarette and found the pack empty, he crumpled it, stood, and went inside. It was time to do what he’d been putting off for far too long now.
* * * * *
Gala wore jeans, boots, and a chocolate brown silk shirt that made her skin seem a pale tan. A fresh tear near the edge of one short sleeve had come from getting through the fence. It didn’t seem to bother the two young men who stood facing her.
“Where’s Don Cinco?”
“Muerte,” the one with red-rimmed eyes muttered.
“Is that true?” Gala could see the machete the other fellow held had been freshly honed to a shining edge.
“Es verdad.” His eyes glittered in unblinking fury. He looked away when his eyes could no longer meet hers.
“I want you to hold on. Stick to the plan. Tell the others. Don’t do anything crazy, okay?”
He shrugged elaborately and glanced at the other one. They both shrugged, then turned and headed back along the path they’d come.
Gala waited until they were out of sight. She spun and headed back toward the hole in the fence, pausing only to look up at a single bird that turned high in the sky above her. “Well, shit.”