CHAPTER 9  

War

It was a Thursday, two hours before noon. The spa employees’ schedule of rotating duties had Gretl Webber working reception that morning. The young woman squealed when her only brother, Floyd, walked into the lobby. There were hugs and tearful hellos, for the siblings hadn’t seen each other since before the millennium turned.

“How’s Chicago? What happened to your face? How long can you stay?” Gretl’s arms were a loose lasso around his shoulders.

“I’m not sure. Hey!” Floyd pointed at the fish tank. “That’s kick-ass.”

Gretl caught her breath. Walking through the front door was a brute in a porkpie hat, a man she’d banked on never seeing again.

“Roger,” she said softly.

The nephew of Honey Pobrinkis sneered. He’d been parking the car, but now he strode across the lobby, looking the woman up and down. “The robe suits you.”

Floyd looked at his sister brightly. “How’d you know his name, Gretl?”

Gretl kept her eyes on the floor. She still had her arms around Floyd’s neck, but her face had lost its joy.

Roger continued to take in her body, which was fuller than he remembered. “Yes, Gretl, how’d you know my name?”

A silence happened. The oblivious Floyd looked back and forth between them.

“Anyway, sis . . . we were hoping to score some back rubs.”

Roger chuckled. “Or whatever else you’re offering.”

Gretl avoided Roger’s gaze. She cleared her throat, searched for words. Lately she was dating a small, bookish man from Cody. His name was Eliot and he was, at that moment, visiting his dentist.

“I . . . um. You know what’s weird, Floyd, is I got your vibe yesterday.”

“What pretty blond hair you have, Gretl,” said Roger. “It’s so pure-looking.”

“I can’t believe you’ve got a shark,” said Floyd. “What does it eat?”

To collect herself, Gretl laid her cheek on her brother’s shoulder. She’d done this sometimes when they were little and they watched scary films late at night. “Wait . . . I know what gave me your vibe. It was a guest here.”

“What was a guest?” asked Floyd.

“Don’t you know a guy with two raised-up, freaky knuckles? You told me once that you worked with—”

“What about this guy?” Roger was inches from Gretl’s face.

“Hey. What’s the— Back off.”

Roger took her arms off Floyd. He held her shoulders, made her face him. “What about this guy?”

Gretl glanced at Floyd, nervous.

“Don’t look at your brother, look at me. What about this guy? Have you seen him?”

“He . . . Ow . . . He checked out half an hour ago.”

“Holy hell,” whispered Floyd.

Roger still held the woman. “This man’s name was Henry, yes? He was with a girl?”

“And one other guy. Please let me go.”

“One other guy,” repeated Roger.

“Shitbox, Roger. If we hadn’t stopped for waffles—”

“Shut up, Floyd.”

Gretl was wriggling. “Floyd, make him let go.”

Floyd swallowed. Outside of argument, he was not in the business of confronting Roger Pobrinkis. “Yeah . . . um . . . Roger. You don’t have to—”

“This Henry.” Roger bored his eyes into Gretl’s. “Did he say where he was heading?”

“If you don’t let me loose, I won’t tell you. “

Roger pulled Gretl closer, then lifted her off the ground till his chin was practically down her robe. He stared at her cleavage, held the stare. “I remember these two little beauties,” he whispered.

Gretl blanched.

“Roger?” Floyd tapped his partner’s arm. “What’d you say?”

Roger smirked, let go. The young woman stumbled, cinched her robe tighter, rubbed her shoulders.

“Gretl.” Floyd’s voice was quiet, sorry. “Please. Just tell him where—”

“Fine. This guy and the other two, they’re heading to Painted Pots. It’s in Yellowstone, just west of here.”

Roger steered her to the reception desk. He grabbed a pad of paper and a pen and put them in front of her. “Directions,” he said.

Gretl looked anxiously over her shoulder at Floyd. Then she picked up the pen.

*  *  *

“They’re beautiful,” said Phil.

“They are,” said Grace.

The two of them and Henry stood on a wooden observation deck in Yellowstone National Park. Bubbling below the deck and spread out before them in a field of white rocks were the famous Painted Pots. Other tourists were on the deck, too, including a whiny boy with a zinc-covered, red-skinned nose. It was a sweltering day, and the boiling pools of colored mud and springwater seemed to draw power not just from the earth but from the sun, which reigned in the sky unrivaled by clouds.

“I left my camera in the truck.” Grace wore her Timberland boots, cutoff jean shorts, and a luminous green T-shirt she’d purchased in the spa gift shop. It read ’quillity in black letters across the chest.

“They’re like my poncho.” Phil pointed at the Pots. “Same colors.”

Henry and Grace glanced at the swirls on Phil’s stomach, and they both nodded. From a wristwatch worn by the zinc-covered boy’s father, twelve digital bells rang out the noon hour. Henry clutched his silver suitcase. Grace gazed into a purple-red puddle below her, thinking of Perry Danning and the days of their gesso dresses. Then she recalled a second dress of hers, the white item she’d worn once at Lake Loomis, then hung like a prize ribbon in the treetop lair of Stewart McFigg.

“I’m going to grab my camera,” said Grace. “Be right back.” She tramped off to the parking lot.

Henry and Phil leaned against the wooden fence that kept visitors from tripping into the steamy natural cauldrons. For a time, the two men said nothing. They basked in the glory of the day and kept their own counsels, while below them, the hues of creation stirred and mixed and popped. The air smelled of sulfur.

“Hey.” Phil nudged his friend. “Can I hold one of those Planets a minute?”

Henry opened his case, plucked out a diamond, and handed it to Phil. “Just be careful with it.”

“This place sucks,” said the zinc-covered boy. He was bickering with his father.

“Which one is this, Henry?”

“That’s Mars.”

Phil gripped the Planet in his left fist. He looked at the diamond and the hot, swirling Pots.

“Just think,” he said. “This diamond is made of the same stuff as that gunk down there.”

“Not exactly the same stuff.”

“Well, like, the same elements, but in different combinations. Different recipes.”

Henry smiled. He liked Phil Weal.

“Zachary.” The wristwatch man sounded stern. “You are getting on my last nerve, boy.”

“Not only that.” Phil held the diamond up in the sunlight. “The real planet Mars, even though it’s way the hell away, it’s also made of the same shit as this gem. Right?”

“Maybe.”

“Think about it, Henry. No matter where you go in the universe, everything, all of us—I bet we’re all made of the same shit.”

Henry laughed. Both men were still leaning against the fence.

*  *  *

“What’d you whisper to my sister?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Just tell me what—”

“Shut the fuck up, Floyd. We have a job to do. Focus.”

Floyd sat in the shotgun seat, fiddling with his switchblade. Roger had been driving through Yellowstone for over an hour. They’d passed grazing buffalo, and the Grand Tetons were sharp on the horizon, but Floyd noticed none of it. He opened and closed the butterfly handles of his knife, thinking sadly of Gretl, with whom he’d shared just five minutes.

“Stop dicking around with that knife. . . .Wait. That sign says Painted Pots. Yeah, here it is.”

Roger had a Chesterfield lit. He sucked from it deeply, turned the Nova into a parking lot, and wheeled into a space away from other cars. He and Floyd got out.

“Oh, man,” breathed Floyd.

“Calm down.” Roger tossed his smoke, unbuttoning the holster under his coat. “You see the truck?”

Floyd looked around, but a Bluebird bus was loading tourists, blocking half the lot from view. Floyd was still fidgeting his knife, open and shut, open and shut.

“Never mind. Let’s go.”

“What’s that smell?” Floyd’s face was screwed up, alert. “It smells rotten.”

“Just come on.” Following trail signs, Roger strode down a thin dirt path through trees and shrubs. Floyd stayed two paces back. The flicking of his knife made scissor sounds.

Roger turned, grabbed the knife. “You sound like a gardener.”

“A gardener? Fuck you, that’s a vintage blade. Its handles are whalebone.”

Roger got walking again. As he moved, he set the safety catch on the switchblade, locking it open so it might be of use if trouble broke.

“Give it back,” snapped Floyd. “It’s an antique. It’s whalebo—Whoa.”

The path ended, opening abruptly onto a wooden deck. Maybe thirty feet away stood Henry Dante, holding a squat silver suitcase. Beside Henry, a man with sandy hair and a poncho that looked like a tie-dye experiment had his left fist in the air. Farther off, another man stood scolding a boy with a smeary white nose. Beyond the deck were wide, puttering hot springs, but all Roger saw was the glittering rock in the poncho wearer’s fist. He reared back his right hand, which held the open switchblade.

“Wait,” began Floyd.

But Roger didn’t wait. He was a Pobrinkis, a man with a cold soul and a knowledge of weapons, and he’d driven a thousand miles and it was time to make a point. He brought down his cocked arm like a pitcher.

“Hyike,” grunted Phil Weal. He’d been holding up Mars in the sun, when a flying knife buried itself between his heart and left shoulder.

Phil fell on his ass. His fist tightened on the diamond. His face was bewildered. “Henry?” he asked.

“Oh, fuck.” Henry whirled. Roger Pobrinkis was stalking toward him, a gun in his hand. Floyd was right behind him.

“H-Henry,” gasped Phil. “A knife. In me.”

Henry moved quickly. He knelt, pulled the knife from Phil’s chest, and dropped it. Blood pulsed down Phil’s poncho. Henry ripped the diamond from Phil’s fist and jumped up. He pressed his boot on the wound, making Phil howl. Leaning out over the fence, Henry held Mars and the suitcase over a bubbling, muddy pit.

“Lie still, Phil,” ordered Henry. “I’m keeping pressure. If you can, pull my boot down harder on the wound.”

“Hey, a gun,” said the zinc-covered boy. The boy’s father snapped his head around, saw Roger’s piece, heard Phil’s anguish. The man scooped his son up under one arm and made a Johnny Weissmuller leap into the shrubs.

“I want to see,” wailed the boy, but his father bore him toward the cars.

Roger trained the gun on his former partner’s face. “Greetings and salutations.”

Phil whimpered. His teeth were clenched, and his right hand pushed on Henry’s boot as best it could.

“I’ll drop them, Roger.” Henry waved the stone, rattled the suitcase. “You take one more step, twenty million dollars is going in that fucking quicksand down there.”

“Cold,” pleaded Phil.

“Hey, Henry, that’s my knife by your foot. Could you kick it over to me?”

Henry stared at Floyd, and a tumbler—a tumbler named Gretl—clicked in his brain. “That’s how I knew her. Shit.” Henry put his free boot on Floyd’s blade and swept it into the hot-spring mud. It splashed, hissed, and sank.

“You dick!” cried Floyd. “You asshole! That was whalebone!”

“Blood,” moaned Phil, whose poncho was soaked with red. Sweat poured down his face.

“Your move, Roger.” Henry kept his body contorted, trying to help Phil and balance the Planets. “Back off, or the stones go bye-bye. I’ve ditched four, I got no problem tossing these.”

Roger said, “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Hey.”

All four men looked down the deck at Grace McGlone. She held a handgun, the one Henry had lifted from Roger at the Chalk farm. She was pointing the gun at Roger’s head.

“I heard Phil screaming,” she told Henry.

“He’ll stop in a minute, once he’s dead.” Roger started to turn toward Grace.

She cocked her gun. “Don’t move, mister.”

Roger froze. He smiled over his shoulder.

“Throw your gun over that fence,” she said.

“Grace,” began Henry.

“Idaho,” begged Phil.

Floyd shook his head. “Fucking whalebone, man. What a waste.”

Roger’s eyes danced. “Any woman who walks around Yellowstone packing a piece and tits like yours can suck my cock dry any day.”

“Toss your gun,” said Grace.

Henry was stuck between Phil and the fence. The sun glittered on Mars. The sulfur stench from the Pots was thick.

“Hmm,” said Roger. “Your bitch is ballsy, Henry. Can she aim, though? Could she hit, for example, that humongous tree that’s only ten feet away?”

Grace looked at the tree.

“Grace, wait,” said Henry.

She frowned with concentration, aimed toward the tree, fired. The gun kicked hard, and Grace lost her footing and fell. She jumped up, expecting Roger to be upon her, but he hadn’t moved. He was laughing.

“Well, you missed, but someone in Alberta might drop dead in a second.”

“Fuck you.” Grace blushed. She recocked her gun and thrust it toward Roger. “You . . . you put your hands up.”

Phil’s poncho was no longer multicolored.

“Oh, yes, ma’am.” Roger hooted so much that Floyd joined in. “Come on, Floyd, let’s put our hands up.” Roger spread his arms, grinning at Grace. “Let’s put our hands up on the outside chance that this cunt can—”

Grace fired at the slur. In a moment of honed anger or dumb luck, her bullet tore through Roger’s outstretched right hand, ripping his pinky, ring finger, and gun from his possession, spraying them into the Painted Pots.

“Fuuuuuuuuuck!” Roger sank to his knees, his hand sprouting blood.

“You bitch,” shouted Floyd. “Fucking bitch, you shot my partner!” He moved at Grace, but Henry was fast. He flew off the fence, pocketed Mars, and tackled Floyd’s legs.

“Henry,” wailed Phil.

Henry and Floyd tussled. Grace fumbled with her gun, trying to cock it and scamper free of Floyd’s arms. Roger lay curled up, cursing, pressing his hat to his hand like a bandage.

“Fucking woman. Fucking bitch.” Floyd seethed, rolled, clawed for Grace. Henry hammered his chest, kept him down.

“Elements,” whispered Phil. “Idaho.”

Grace was sobbing. Henry drove his knee into Floyd’s collarbone, causing it to pop. Floyd howled and went down. Henry coughed. The gun quaked in Grace’s hand, and she was about to lower it, when the lithe, wiry animal sprang up, teeth flashing, biting hard into Henry’s neck. Henry cried out, but Floyd’s teeth held tight. A whine of rage curdled in Grace’s throat: she shoved her gun at Floyd’s temple and pulled the trigger. A cannon went off. Grace was jolted back and down. Her eyes closed, she smelled the wood of the deck. Her ears rang. It got quiet.

“Okay.”

Someone stood. Grace winced.

“Okay, baby.” It was Henry.

“What’d I do?”

Another man was cursing softly. Roger, guessed Grace.

“It’s okay, baby.” Henry touched her cheek. “It’s me.”

“What’d I do?” Her chest heaved panic. She opened her eyes.

Around her was a tableau. Floyd lay dead, half his head open, a blur of blood and bone. Phil had quit this world too. He was flat on his back, his right hand flat over the slice in his chest, like he’d died pledging some allegiance. The other pieces of the scene were the cheerful blue sky and Roger, curled between the corpses, muttering to his hand. The teakettle sounds of the Painted Pots hissed on.

“Come on, baby. Get up.”

Henry dragged her to her feet. Grace looked around with a hollow, terrible calm. She tossed the gun blankly into the Painted Pots, as if she’d discarded weapons this way all her life.

Henry stumbled to Roger, frisked his pockets. Roger flailed with his good fist, and Henry rabbit-punched his neck.

“Fucking kill you,” spat Roger.

“Yeah, yeah. What’re you driving?” Henry pulled a key chain from Roger’s coat. “The Nova.”

Henry threw the keys into the Pots, punched Roger again, and grabbed his suitcase. Grace was gaping at Phil.

“Honey, we have to go. Grace, make your feet move. We have to go.”

Henry tugged her to the lot, propped her against the truck. He opened the back hatch, and got in. Blood ran down his neck. He rummaged, pawing oranges and Little Julia books out into the lot, out of his way. He pulled down the shotgun and filled his shirt pocket with shells.

“Grace.” He was at her side. “Grace?”

She stared straight ahead, weeping.

Henry ran to his boss’s car, fired one barrel at a front tire, the other at a rear. “In case he hot-wires it. All right, let’s go.”

“Phil,” whimpered Grace.

“There’s nothing we can do. Get in the truck.”

“Dante, you prick.” Roger was three cars away, lurching toward the truck, cradling his blasted hand in his porkpie.

Henry grabbed shells, shoved them home. “That’s close enough, Roger.”

“Pussy-whipped prick.”

“Get in the truck, Grace.”

Roger glared at the woman. Grace clutched her stomach. Her abdomen bucked.

“Go on, sweetheart,” said Roger. “Spew.”

The Bluebird bus was gone, the lot otherwise empty.

“Grace, that man whose brains you just made a tourist attraction, his name was Floyd Webber. He was a close friend of Henry’s.”

Grace swayed on her feet. Vomit dribbled, then shot from her lips.

“Yeah,” snarled Roger. “Yeah, Henry and Floyd worked together a good five years.”

“Grace, get in the goddamn truck right now.”

She wiped her mouth, clattered through the passenger door.

“Give me a reason.” Henry trained the barrels on Roger’s chest. “Take a step.”

“Nah.” Roger grinned. It hurt to, but lots of things hurt at the moment. “I’d rather admire your moral code from afar. Hey, sorry about your buddy. The poncho guy.”

Henry had been heading for the truck door. He paused.

“Kept saying ‘Idaho.’ I hope when I go, I say something pithy like that.” Roger laughed, winced, kept laughing. “We should toast your pithy little pal.”

“Should we?” Henry fished in his pocket and brought out Mars.

Roger’s expression dimmed. “Henry—”

“No, I like your idea.” Henry faced the Pots. He gave Roger the finger and cocked his arm. “To honor the fallen.”

“Wait—”

Henry released. He sent Mars over the shrubs, into a pit of steam and mud.

“You fucking idiot!”

Henry stalked over, got Roger’s right palm in his own, and squeezed. Roger cried out.

“You really should get this hand looked at.” Henry got in the truck, peeled off.

Roger was left on the gravel. He cursed himself hoarse, tugged off his coat, wrapped it around the hand, which was bleeding again full force. For ten minutes Roger sat sweating, applying pressure, staring at a white wall of pain behind his eyes. Then his vision cleared and he gazed at a Yellowstone National Park Services van, which was, at the cell phone behest of the zinc-covered boy’s father, rolling belatedly to the scene. Making a brief note that the van read Sanitation rather than Security, Roger looked away, spent. Oranges and paperbacks were strewn around him. He peered at one novel. It had a flapped-open cover that bore the handwritten words The Hammerspread, Great Falls, Friday night.