Chapter Nine

THE BIRDS WAKE Sam up, singing in the early morning. It takes him a minute to remember where he is and how he got here, lifting his head up off the shag rug and looking around a little through half-open eyes. The room is dim with only the weak, gray light falling through the front window. The fire has long since died out, leaving only blackened wood and ash in the fireplace. He thinks he can feel cold air from outside seeping in through the open flue, but he’s warm in yesterday’s clothes, pressed up against Montgomery’s broad back. They’re lying on their sides facing the back of the room. Sam has his arm wrapped around the other man’s chest and his knee in between Montgomery’s. He looks at the back of Montgomery’s head in silence, waiting to see if he stirs. He can’t believe they spent the night sleeping together, cuddling. He eyes the bottle of bourbon under the coffee table behind them.

Sam lies down again and carefully hooks his arm around Montgomery’s waist, resting his face against the soft flannel covering Montgomery’s back. It’s been a long time since he and another man held each other, but there have been plenty of women since then. Holding Montgomery isn’t anything like holding a woman. Sam thinks about Lauren Baker and the last time they had sex. She isn’t the cuddly type, but what few times he’s spooned up behind her after they screwed, she felt about the same as every other lover he’s had. Smooth skin, smaller frame, body soft and round, long hair he could lace his fingers into, her scent subtle and feminine. Despite Sam having a stockier build, Montgomery’s bigger than Sam, taller, his shoulders wider, his arms stronger. Sam can feel the muscles through Montgomery’s shirt, built through years of physical labor. The lines of his body are straighter, more angular than a woman’s, and he’s more solid, heavier and harder. It isn’t arousing to Sam, the way holding Lauren or some other beautiful woman would be. This doesn’t feel sexual, cuddling with Montgomery. It feels intimate, comforting.

Sam closes his eyes. He can smell the muskiness of Montgomery’s skin mixed with clean, plain soap and cigarette smoke in his clothes. He feels the breath moving through Montgomery’s body, slow and shallow. He doesn’t hear anything except the birds outside.

When he wakes again, he’s alone on the rug, covered in the blanket he keeps folded on one of the sofas. He sits up, checks his watch, and looks around. He starts to feel disappointed, thinking Montgomery might’ve left, but before he can get on his feet, Sam hears the bootheels on the kitchen floor.

Montgomery comes back to him with a mug in each hand. He offers one to Sam. Coffee.

“Thanks,” Sam says, smiling. He doesn’t look at Montgomery directly, now a little shy and unsure if he’s supposed to pretend they didn’t sleep through the night cuddled up. He takes a preliminary sip to test the coffee’s temperature.

Montgomery stands back and drinks from his own mug, looking down at Sam with the same cool demeanor he always has when he’s sober. He’s got his free hand on his hip, and except for his untucked shirt, he doesn’t look like he spent the night on the floor.

Sam’s quiet for a while, drinking his coffee as an excuse not to speak. He hopes Montgomery will say something first, but when he doesn’t, Sam decides to pick neutral ground. “You feel like breakfast?”

Montgomery, still watching him, pauses and says, “I could eat.”

“We’re probably better off going someplace.” Sam tries to think about what he has in his kitchen.

Montgomery sips on his coffee. “I think I can come up with something here, if you don’t mind.”

Sam blinks at him, his mug warm against the backs of his fingers. “You want to cook?”

Montgomery doesn’t quite smile. “If the food’s not up to your standards, you don’t have to eat it. Promise.”

Sam sits at the kitchen table while Montgomery cooks, quiet as he ponders what to say. He finishes his coffee, eyes resting on Montgomery’s back as it stays turned to him for most of the forty-five minutes the cowboy takes to make breakfast. Montgomery doesn’t say a word either. Sam finds the silence between them comforting, not awkward. Something about the atmosphere of the house on this Sunday morning. He starts thinking about what it’d be like if this happened more often, if Montgomery lived with him, if they shared a bed every night and started every day together like this in the kitchen, if Sam knew he’d have a friend to come home to after work every evening.

He tenses as he catches himself, goes to drink more coffee to calm his nerves but finds his mug empty.

Montgomery sets the two plates of food on the table and brings the coffeepot over from the counter. He sits across from Sam and sips at his own mug. Sam pours himself a refill, not looking at Montgomery now.

Breakfast is scrambled eggs with cheese, diced potatoes roasted brown, and biscuits from a can with butter. Nothing fancy, but it tastes good. The two men eat in silence until they’re both about halfway done.

“Listen,” Montgomery says, looking up at Sam with his clear, dark eyes. “I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. I don’t know how much you understood ’bout what I was trying to say…”

Sam watches him, taken off guard by the sting of disappointment he feels, thinking he’s about to get rejected. He’s still not sure what he wants beyond some kind of closeness, but it sounds like Montgomery’s about to turn him down anyhow.

“I know you said you don’t want to have sex with men,” Montgomery continues, moving his food around his plate with his fork. “At least, you think you don’t. Regardless, if you’re looking for a boyfriend…that’s not something I can be. Not now, anyway.”

Sam pauses, his mouth dry and his hands clammy. “I’m not looking for a boyfriend. I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

He peers down into his mug, both hands around the base.

“I like being friends with you, Sam,” Montgomery offers.

“I like being friends with you too.” Sam looks back up at the cowboy. He tries to smile. “It was nice spending the night with you.”

Montgomery doesn’t answer right away, studying Sam from across the table. “Yeah?” he says.

Sam nods. “This is too. Breakfast.”

Montgomery stays quiet for a few moments, then returns to eating, attention on his plate. “I’m not refusing to be your boyfriend because there’s something wrong with you. We ain’t known each other long. And to be honest, I’m skittish about getting involved with somebody who’s used to sex. Letting go of my ex-wife was bad enough. I’m not looking to go through that again. But if you ever want to spend a weekend together again, all you gotta do is ask.”

Sam can’t help but freeze and stare at him, unsure if he heard right.

Montgomery sips on his coffee, glances at Sam, then back at his food.

Sam nods. “Yeah. I’d like to do this again.”

When their plates are clear, Sam rinses them in the sink and puts them in the dishwasher, while Montgomery steps out to smoke. Sam picks one of his jackets from the coatrack by the front door and puts it on before going out to join him.

The birds are quiet now, the sky a little brighter. Montgomery leans against one of the porch columns at the top of the steps, cigarette in his lips and coffee mug in one hand. Sam comes up alongside him, and they look out at the neighborhood together. It’s chilly, but Montgomery doesn’t seem uncomfortable without the jacket he left inside.

“So,” Sam says, calmer now than he was in the kitchen. “You coming to Thanksgiving?”

Montgomery takes the cigarette from his lips and drinks from his mug. “Maybe.”

They stand there together until the cigarette’s smoked down to the filter and the coffee’s lukewarm at the bottom of Montgomery’s mug.

*

MONDAY MORNING, SAM and Montgomery drive out to Dewey-Humboldt in Sam’s marked car. Deputy Michael Sims follows right behind them in his own department vehicle. They take the same route Sam and Montgomery took to Troutman’s campsite before, through the town proper and east into the rural outskirts of scattered homes and loner RVs. This time, they go straight down the long dirt driveway and park in front of Joel Troutman’s Airstream. Troutman’s blue pickup sits next to the steely pod.

Sam and Deputy Sims go up to the camper door and knock while Montgomery hangs back and watches per Sam’s instruction.

“Joel Troutman?” Sims calls out. “Sheriff’s department. Open up.”

Silence.

Sims raps on the door again. “Mister Troutman, we know you’re in there. Come on out, and this’ll go a lot easier for all of us.”

Nothing.

Sam peers over his shoulder at Montgomery, where he’s sitting on the hood of Sam’s car with his arms folded against his chest. His pistol, holstered on his waist, is hidden behind his jacket.

“This is your last chance, Troutman,” Sims says. “You don’t come out, we’re going to pry open the door. We’re not leaving here without you.”

Nothing happens for half a minute as the three men wait for Troutman to answer or emerge.

The window on the far left of the Airstream slides open, the muzzle of a gun appears—Montgomery sees it first but doesn’t have a chance to warn the deputies—and Troutman starts firing.

Montgomery takes cover behind the passenger side of Sam’s car, drawing his own gun on instinct.

The deputies flee from the camper door as Troutman shoots round after round.

Sims almost makes it to Troutman’s pickup but takes a bullet to his leg and goes down.

Sam reaches Montgomery beside the car, eyes wide and face white. “Fuck! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. What the hell do we do?”

“I can’t leave Sims here. I gotta call for backup. You should take the car and get out of here.”

“Ain’t no way that’s happening.”

The gunfire stops. Sam and Montgomery go quiet, listening for more.

Then Troutman’s voice breaks the silence: “I’m not going anywhere with you. Get out of here, or I’ll keep shooting until I run out of ammo.”

Sam carefully opens the passenger door of his car, reaches in for the receiver on his radio, and stays low to the ground as he calls dispatch: “This is Deputy Sam Roswell, requesting emergency backup east of Dewey-Humboldt. Officer-involved shooting, one officer down. Suspect is Joel Troutman. He is armed and refuses to surrender. Do you copy?”

A woman’s voice instantly responds: “Copy that, Sam. Tell me how to get to where you are.”

Sam gives her directions to the campsite while Montgomery crouches next to him with gun in his right hand and left hand on Sam’s shoulder. Troutman fires a few more scattered rounds, one of them zipping past Sam and Montgomery.

“Get out of here!” he yells.

Deputy Sims now sits on the ground behind Troutman’s truck. Montgomery can’t see his face, only his right boot. He wonders how many rounds Sims has left in his gun and how badly wounded he is. The blood he trailed on the ground isn’t far from them.

“We gonna stay put until your backup comes?” Montgomery says to Sam.

“No. We shouldn’t. I’m just trying to figure out what the hell to do instead.”

“Why don’t we try to take him out?”

“We don’t have a good enough shot. Can barely see him through that window, and we’re only sure he’s in front of it when he’s shooting at us.”

Montgomery doesn’t speak again for a long moment, no longer touching Sam but crouching with his back against the car and his gun in both hands. “Either we get in the car and move out of range, or we make for the camper and try to get in.”

“Trying to get inside is crazy. The door could be locked. It probably is. He’d hit us easy if we’re standing right there for even half a minute.”

“Then, you vote for leaving.”

Sam looks toward Deputy Sims and doesn’t reply at first. “Troutman could shoot us through the windshield.”

“Sam, no matter what we do, he could nail us. Your backup’s what? Twenty minutes away? More? You really want to sit here that long?”

Deputy Sims suddenly pops up on his feet and shoots at the camper window where Troutman’s stationed. He immediately drops back out of sight after firing three times.

Troutman returns fire—one, two, three, four, five. Blowing holes through his own truck, each one sending a loud, metallic noise through the air.

“I could go out there and bait him, create a distraction, and you could try the door,” says Montgomery.

“You’re out of your damn mind. You’re a civilian. You shouldn’t even be here.”

“I’m all you got.”

“If either one of us should risk getting shot, it’s me.”

“You really want me to be the one to take him down?” says Montgomery. “Because if I go in there instead of you, I only got the one option. I’m not a cop; I can’t arrest him.”

Sam checks his watch.

“I’m telling you right now,” Troutman calls out of the window. “You’re not taking me alive.”

“Sam,” Montgomery prompts.

“Okay. Okay. You distract him, and I’ll try to get in. If I can’t, I’ll either try to come back here or move around to the back of the camper. You get out of his line of fire the second you possibly can.”

Montgomery nods.

“You’re sure you want to do this?” asks Sam. “You can change your mind.”

“I’m not sitting still until your backup gets here from East Los Angeles. Tell me what you want.”

Sam nods. “On three, you go out there but don’t get too close to him. Don’t make it easy. Try to keep your eyes on me if you can. As soon as I’m in or retreat—I mean the second I do—you disappear.”

Montgomery nods.

“Do not stop moving. Even if you gotta run around in circles. Try to keep your arms up around your head, at least your free one. All right?”

“Copy that, Deputy.”

Sam takes a breath, turns away from Montgomery and toward the camper, then counts: “One. Two. Three.”

Montgomery stands up first and jogs past Sam, rounding the front end of the car, waving his arms up in the air as he passes the back end of the camper. He hollers at Joel, shouts, “Let’s see how good a shot you are, dumbass. Hey! Over here!”

There’s a brief pause before Joel starts firing at him, bullets whizzing past Montgomery—while Sam bolts for the camper door, still in a crouch, his gun at the ready in his right hand.

“I hope you don’t go hunting, Troutman,” Montgomery yells as he continues to zigzag and circle back into the back window’s path. “Are you going to hit me or what?”

Sam collides with the door, tries the handle.

Locked.

“Shit,” he says, looking toward Troutman’s window.

“Don’t worry about your wife, Joel.” Montgomery jogs back toward the Airstream. He stops about six feet from the window and gives Troutman a clear shot. “I’ll take care of her while you’re gone.”

BANG.

Sam falls to the ground just shy of his car.

Montgomery flinches, registers he isn’t hit, looks in Sam’s direction and sees him down. He flies to him, yanks him back behind the cover of the vehicle without stopping to check him.

A trail of blood glistens on the packed earth in Sam’s wake.

“Fuck,” Montgomery says, cradling Sam in his arms.

Sam’s left shoulder is soaked with blood. All the color has drained out of his face, and he stares at Montgomery in a daze.

“You’re all right,” Montgomery tells him. “You ain’t dying. You hear me, Sam? You ain’t dying.”

Sam doesn’t answer, eyes glassy in the sunlight. He doesn’t move, either, in Montgomery’s grasp.

Montgomery props Sam up against the car, takes off his shirt, wads it up, presses it to the exit wound in the front of Sam’s shoulder, and guides Sam’s right hand to hold it there. He fishes two cigarettes out of his hip pocket, sticks one in Sam’s mouth, and lights them both. His hands tremble.

“I want you to focus on smoking, you hear? Just exhale out the other side of your mouth. Don’t take pressure off the wound.”

The camper door flies open, and Troutman darts outside, running past the back of the Airstream into the trees surrounding the campsite.

Montgomery touches Sam’s cheek to reassure him, then sprints after Troutman, gun in hand. Troutman’s fast, but Montgomery is faster, closing the distance enough within a few minutes that he has a clear shot at the man’s back.

They run—through the bare cottonwoods on uneven ground. The only sound is their feet scraping fast against the hard earth. Montgomery isn’t thinking, fully present in his body. All he sees is his target. Joel must’ve run out of ammo because he isn’t holding a gun. He has a knife instead, the blade flashing at Montgomery for a second when it catches the light as Joel turns off the line they’ve been following and starts heading right.

Montgomery aims for Joel’s right hand and fires.

Joel yelps as his knife flies out of his grip, the round piercing his hand and leaving a hole he could probably peep through.

Montgomery swoops toward him like a cougar hunting another animal, single-minded and fast.

Troutman doesn’t let pain and shock freeze him for long. He starts running again. Montgomery can hear it before he can see him.

One of the few Bible verses Montgomery memorized in childhood surfaces in his mind:

“The Lord is a God who avenges. O, God who avenges, shine forth.”

Blood at their feet, the rustling of dead leaves on the ground. The sun has brightened, the sky clear above them. Cold air in Montgomery’s lungs and on his face, sweat dripping down his back and into his sleeves. Heart drumming in his chest. The heat of his weapon.

He can see him. He’s getting closer. Closer. Moving faster than his target.

Troutman stumbles, falls to the ground, curses when he puts his weight on his wounded hand. He whips around to face Montgomery before standing, and Montgomery skids to a stop before crashing into him.

Montgomery’s got his gun at his hip, pointed at Troutman’s belly. The cigarette’s still hanging from his lips, and he talks around it. “Howdy,” he says.

“Who the fuck are you?” Troutman’s out of breath, the look of small prey in his eyes.

“The one you should’ve hit.”

Troutman starts to back away.

Montgomery takes slow, deliberate steps toward him.

“You ain’t a cop,” says Troutman.

“That’s right. I’m not. You know what that means, don’t you?”

Troutman doesn’t answer, but it’s plain on his face that he understands.

“Means I don’t have to act like a cop,” says Montgomery.

“Who are you?” Troutman asks again, still moving backward, trailing blood on the ground.

Montgomery continues to follow him. “You don’t remember?”

Troutman stares at him until his fear melts away and surprise replaces it. “Holy shit. You’re the guy from the diner. The one who killed Ed!”

He stops in his tracks, and Montgomery stops with him, blinking at him.

“I killed him to protect the deputy you just shot. And Ed didn’t even fire. So what do you think I’m going to do to you?”

“You murdering son of a bitch,” Troutman says.

Montgomery takes a moment to size Troutman up proper and determines he isn’t looking at much. He has a choice now—and it’s not so much a choice about what to do with Troutman as it is about who he’s going to be. Troutman’s no longer armed, his shooting hand a bloody and useless mess. Unless he’s got another weapon on him or tries to take Montgomery’s, he’s not a threat to anyone now.

But he tried to kill Sam.

“Let’s get something clear,” Montgomery says. “Your buddy Ed got his own dumbass shot because he was a hothead about to kill a sheriff’s deputy. He got what he asked for.”

Troutman watches Montgomery with a sheen of sweat on his face, the whites of his eyes gleaming. He doesn’t reply.

“I seen your wife,” Montgomery tells him. “Your kids. I met Donna too.” He speaks to Troutman softer now, the way he might talk to a cow right before he kills it. The weight of the gun in his hand feels good. Heavy and warm.

Troutman swallows as he starts to move away again, inching backward. “What are you going to tell them if you pull the trigger?”

Montgomery looks at Troutman the way he looks at anything he wants to truly see and remember, knowing the other man’s face will remain clear to him until the day he dies.

BANG

Troutman drops to the ground.

Montgomery stands there, gun hot against his palm, and waits. Troutman doesn’t move or make a sound.

“Nothing,” Montgomery says.