CHAPTER EIGHT

I lit a cigarette to chase away the rumbling in my stomach, and craned my neck to look out through the windshield into a sky so clear and blue it reminded me of the old hand-tinted postcards that my parents used to send to me at boot camp. I took a hard right when I came to the Y that split the road and was almost immediately swallowed up inside a tangle of unmanaged wild berry bushes and sagebrush that grew up around the knotted trunks of whitebark pine and juniper. The low-hanging vines and limbs and tendrils clawed my truck and forced me to roll up the window, leaving only a small crack at the top to draw the smoke out.

It was a full three quarters of a mile before the overgrowth opened up and I could see that deep blue sky again. Not far ahead of me the dirt road fanned into a cul de sac that abruptly terminated where a twelve-foot chain-link fence with razor wire scrolled along the top had been erected to block the ingress. A hinged gate had been cut into it, but it was threaded through with a heavy chain and padlock and had a sign affixed to it that warned against hunting and trespassing.

I pulled to a stop, crushed out my cigarette, opened my door, and climbed down from the cab. The clatter of scrub jays drifted down from the high branches of the trees. I had made it only halfway to the fence when two scruffy young men stepped out of the foliage on the other side. A third one watched us from a short distance away, leaning his shoulder against the upright of a dilapidated pole shed someone had constructed in the shade of an ancient white oak. All three looked to be in their early twenties, outfitted similarly in faded dungarees and T-shirts. The one nearest to me wore a headband made from a strap of old leather, and open-toed sandals whose soles had been fabricated from a blown-out automobile tire. His associate had both of his arms thrown over the ends of an aluminum ball bat that he carried across his shoulders like the crossbar of a cruciform.

“You lost, old man?” Headband called at me through the wire.

“My name’s Ty Dawson,” I said, and peeled back my jacket so he could see the badge clipped to my gun belt. “Sheriff of Meriwether County. You mind swinging that gate open for me?”

“You mind showing me a warrant?”

“What kind of warrant would you like for me to show you?”

He shrugged and gave me an insouciant grin.

“How should I know?” he said. “You’re the one who came here out of nowhere.”

“I’d like to have a few words with whoever’s in charge. I’ve received a complaint regarding stolen livestock. Your neighbor claims he was beaten and abused by men that he believes live here.”

“Our neighbor is mistaken.”

The third man stepped out from the shade beneath the lean-to and whispered words I couldn’t hear into a walkie-talkie that was clipped onto a beaded belt around his narrow waist, and I tried to read his lips.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” Ball Bat asked me. He leaned the bat against his thigh, interlaced his fingers, and cracked his knuckles.

“I am looking the fuck at you,” I said. “Is that a problem?”

“You’re laying down a lot of aggression all of a sudden, man.”

I moved my eyes along the barrier, then turned my attention back to him.

“I visited here less than a year ago,” I said. “I was under the impression at the time that this was a communal residence of some sort. Imagine my present state of surprise at finding a steel wire fence with a guarded gate.”

“The world is an unpredictable place, my man,” Head-band said. “We got tired of being hassled by rednecks and squares wandering out here from town.”

“I’m only asking for a few minutes of your time, and I’m sure we can clear up this whole thing.”

Headband threw a backward glance over his shoulder for guidance, and Walkie-Talkie stepped into the sunlight, shaded his eyes from the glare, and shook his head.

“Bummer for you,” he said. “Looks like it’s time for you to split, Piggy.”

“That’s not one of my favorite expressions.”

I raised a fist and popped up two fingers out of it.

“Peace,” I smiled. “That’s what you all like to say, isn’t it?”

“Hit the road, Jack,” Headband said.

It was nearly dusk by the time I arrived back home. The Diamond D was unusually void of activity and I wondered where everyone had gone. I walked down toward the office and found Caleb working a young colt inside of the corral a short distance away. One of our new horses was fighting at the rope my foreman had wrapped around the snubbing post, resisting being broken to the saddle. I rested my arms on the top rail and watched Caleb work his magic. He was the best horse breaker I had ever known.

“Where is everybody?”

“Moving the stock off the North Camp,” he said, and wandered over to me, leaving the horse to faunch and blow himself out inside the cloud of powdery soil he’d kicked up. “The brush is so thick out there, the snakes have to climb up to see out.”

A circle of sweat soaked through the felt beneath his hatband. He pulled a bandana from his back pocket, shook it out, and wiped it along his brow.

“Snoose’s nephew’ll be here tomorrow morning at seven,” I reminded him.

Caleb narrowed his eyes at me.

“You know I ain’t overly tickled to be training up no shorthorn. Especially one Snoose Corcoran don’t even want on his place.”

“We’ve done favors for the Corcorans as long as either one of us can remember.”

“A hard-luck outfit to be sure. Still, sometimes it’s best to control your generosity when you’re dealing with a chronic borrower.”

The sun reflected off the ripples where a pair of green dragonflies dipped at the surface of a metal water trough. I dug at the dirt with the toe of my boot, suddenly fatigued to the core, and it must have shown on my face.

“How did it go with old man Emory?” Caleb asked.

“Like trying to rope a maverick from a unicycle.”

He tilted his hat to the back of his head with a knuckle and looked me straight in the eye. It was plain that he was preparing to air out something he’d been gnawing on all day.

“About our conversation on my roof this morning—”

“Just two old cowboys jawboning,” I interrupted.

He gave a quick nod, turned his head, and spat on the ground.

“I better get back to that colt.”

The house was silent and empty when I stepped inside to hang up my hat, holster, and coat. Even Wyatt wasn’t anywhere to be found. I picked up the phone and dialed Harper Emory, absently watching the hummingbirds at the feeder outside the kitchen window as we spoke.

“You need to be able to specifically identify the persons who assaulted you, Mr. Emory,” I said. “Can you do that?”

“Hell no, I can’t do that. Those hippies all look the damn same.”

“I can’t make charges stand if you can’t identify your assailants.”

“You’re useless as tits on a boar hog, Dawson, you know that?”

“The law exists for everyone,” I said.

“So what you’re telling me is that you ain’t going to lift a finger to help an upright citizen of this county while those unwashed animals just keep on living high on the hog.”

“Must be a mighty small hog.”

“You being smart with me?”

“Making an observation.”

I thought I heard another voice on his end of the line, prompting.

“Has anybody commented about airplanes to you?”

“You’re doing it again, Mr. Emory. This is the first I’ve heard about any planes. Why would you have neglected to mention them when I spoke with you this morning?”

“Goddamn it all,” he said, and the line went dead.

That night after dinner, I sat in darkness on the gallery listening to the wind in the new growth on the cottonwoods. The sweet alluvial smell of wet stones and lichen drifted from the creek bed, together with the murmur of the high summer snowmelt flowing over pebbles that had been worn smooth by centuries of friction.

I turned to look behind me when I heard the screen door open, and saw Jesse in the doorway, outlined by the soft light of the living room. She carried a plate that held the last slice of pineapple cake and placed it on the table next to my chair.

“I scooped some vanilla ice cream on it for you,” she said. “It’s better if you eat it before it melts.”

She crossed the floor and took a seat on the glider and rocked herself slowly back and forth. I felt the weight of her eyes on me, but couldn’t bring myself to look at her.

“You want to talk about it?” she asked.

“Not at the moment.”

I heard the sullenness in the tone of my own voice and was again confronted with regret for that component of my nature, though in truth I was unlikely to correct it. I have never taken comfort in airing out unfinished business, having found it to be as helpful to myself and those I cared for most as the sharing of a communicable disease. I had been raised with the philosophy that every quarrel is a private one, especially the ones that raged inside the confines of my own head.

I didn’t believe the story Harper Emory was selling, but I knew something about the depth of his personal loss, and the grief he was directing outwardly to others. He, too, was a victim of his nature, turning his helplessness into anger and his desire to put a face on the unreachable target of his resentment.

Later on I lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling. I was consumed and humbled by the complete and utter sense of normalcy and peace that lived inside that room, and simultaneously suffused with guilt at the solitary ugliness I brought there and into my sleep most nights. My breathing began to race, and my gut felt as though I had swallowed a hot stone. I rolled over on my side, my back toward my wife, and my eyes began to water. I felt Jesse’s body shift beneath the covers and the brush of her soft fingers on my neck.

“You’re burning up,” she whispered.

I don’t believe she had any idea how much truth was contained within the simplicity of her statement.