Chapter Two

“I’m telling you, Joe, we gotta find a girl for you,” Bo Buckley told his cousin with a grin. “You need a wife.”

“So do you,” Joe said.

“I’m working on it and making some progress,” Bo said with an even wider grin. “You’ve got to do the same.”

“I guess, Bo,” Joe agreed reluctantly. “My sister tells me the same thing, but honestly, I’m okay for now.”

“Rosina is a smart girl,” Bo said. “Listen to her.”

Joe frowned. “She’s so caught up in her new religion, that Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that she thinks she’s better than me.”

“Hey, Joe, you’re reading Rosina all wrong. She cares about you. It’s not her intent to force you to date or to go to church, for that matter, but I’m telling you, my friend, you would be better off if you did both of those things. I went with her and a couple of her friends last Sunday and the Sunday before. Honestly, it made me feel good. I’m going to keep going. You can go with us if it would make it less embarrassing for you.”

“I’ll think about it,” Joe said halfheartedly.

“Well, I guess that’s all I can ask.” Bo grinned. “There are some cute girls there. They call it a single adults ward. I guess that’s enough of that, Joe. Let’s go do some ice fishing out on Strawberry Reservoir for our day off. It’s not too cold today considering it’s the middle of February, and the sun’s shining. It’ll be a bit of a drive, but I hear the fishing is good there and we can get there by early this afternoon. Are you up for that today?”

“Sure, that I can handle,” Joe agreed. “Who were the friends?”

“Do you mean the ones I went to church with?” Bo asked with a grin.

“Yeah, that’s who I mean,” Joe said.

“One of them is your sister’s roommate. You know her: Nyree Morton. She’s a nice girl. The other one? Well, let’s just say she’s someone Rosina and Nyree introduced me to.”

Joe chuckled. “So did you feel good because you went to church or because you went to church with a pretty girl?”

“Both, I guess,” Bo admitted. “But I liked what I heard in church and the feeling that I got there. And I like what Rosina and her friends have told me about their church. I’m going to look into it.”

“Does this girl you went to church with have a name?” Joe asked.

“Of course she does,” Bo responded. “Maybe I’ll tell you someday.”

“Is she cute?” Joe persisted.

Bo chuckled. “You can say that.”

“Come on, Bo, tell me her name.”

“Well, okay, but don’t go making something out of this. She’s just a friend, a new friend. Her name is Karmen Ellison. And that’s all I’m telling you. Now, let’s go fishing.”

“How old is she?” Joe asked. He was very curious about this girl Bo didn’t seem to want to talk about, and yet just moments ago, he’d said he was working on getting married. This must be a girl he was either serious with or wanted to be.

“Too old for you,” was all Bo would tell him.

Joe gave up, and they went fishing.

Emil Eifler approached Joe Whalen’s dumpy little house a ways outside of Wellington just as Joe climbed into Bo Buckley’s full-size Toyota pickup. He could see the huge head of Bo’s English bulldog in the back seat. Lots of people knew about that bulldog. Emil cursed. Joe owed him money and Emil owed his supplier, Devonte, a lot more. He really needed to put the squeeze on Joe today. He needed Joe’s money or something he could pawn or give to Devonte.

Even with what Joe owed him and the stuff he’d taken from Bryan Bayle and Lucas, he still might not have enough to pay Devonte off totally, but maybe it would buy him some time to come up with the rest. After all, if Devonte did something to him, Devonte would never get paid. That was in Emil’s favor. That thought gave him a little reassurance.

Even though Joe had told Emil a couple of nights ago that he didn’t have the money, he had to do whatever it took to get it from him right away. But not while that deputy was with him. He’d come back later, maybe after dark, he decided and drove away. Joe was an okay guy. Emil was sure he’d do what he could to pay his debt. Emil wouldn’t have to threaten him as severely as he had the others.

With all the threats he was making, Emil was getting too many people mad at him. It made him uneasy, to say the least. Maybe, he decided, he should raise his price on Joe’s weed and some of what he sold to others to help make it so he could buy more from Devonte in the future to keep most of his customers happy.

Joe wouldn’t like that, but he also wouldn’t like word to get out to his cousin, the deputy with the big bulldog, that he was smoking weed.

Bo didn’t let on to Joe that he could smell weed whenever he was around him. It was especially strong in his house. He and Rosina—Joe’s sister—had talked about it, and it worried them both. Joe was a good guy, but there were a dozen reasons why smoking marijuana would eventually get him into trouble. Bo knew he could ignore it for only so long. For one thing, he was a cop and had a duty to carry out. Recreational marijuana use was still illegal in Utah, after all. But he’d rather Joe quit before he got arrested.

Bo had seriously considered confronting Joe about it, but Rosina had talked him out of it. He had explained to her that he could turn a blind eye to what Joe was doing for only so long without eventually getting in trouble himself.

Rosina was two years younger than Joe, and she loved him dearly. He had always been a wonderful big brother to her, and as she’d told Bo, she didn’t want Joe to get in trouble. Even in high school, he hadn’t hung out with the best crowd. She’d mentioned it to Joe, and so had their parents, but it only made him angry.

She’d explained all this to Bo, and Bo could understand how Joe’s sister felt. Joe was doing pretty well now. His work at Ron Brady’s farm had been good for him. So had getting that collie dog, Herc, a few months back. The best thing Bo could do was try to spend time with Joe whenever he could and set a good example for him—like he was trying to do today.

As they drove the long miles to Strawberry Reservoir, they talked about a lot of things: sports, the weather, girls (a little but not specifically), their jobs, and so forth. “How long do you plan to work on Ron Brady’s farm?” Bo asked at one point. “I mean, you know, I was wondering if you’d thought about going to college. You can’t work a dead-end job like that forever, you know.”

“I’m not interested in college,” Joe responded. “For Rosina, it’s okay. She likes it. Me, I don’t think so.”

“What about vocational school?” Bo asked. “There’re a lot of good professions you could learn.”

“I know, but I like farming,” Joe said. “Ron isn’t doing very well, and he needs my help a lot.”

“Well, if you like it, that’s good. Farming is okay, I suppose. It doesn’t interest me at all, and I just don’t see how working on another man’s farm will get you anywhere in life.”

“Being a cop doesn’t interest me,” Joe said with a chuckle. “To each his own, I guess.”

“You’re right,” Bo said. “Tell me about your boss, Ron Brady. I don’t know much about him.”

“He’s a great guy. He treats me really well, but like I told you, he doesn’t have good health and can’t do much himself. He has a weak heart.”

“That’s too bad. Does he have a wife? Can she help on the farm?”

“She’s dead, and that really has been hard on him.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. What other family does he have?” Bo asked.

“He had a daughter, but her husband ran off on her, and nobody knows where he is. His daughter, from what Ron said, couldn’t handle things after that, and she eventually took her own life,” Joe said. “That’s been pretty rough on him.”

“That’s horrible, Joe. Is that all the family he has?” Bo asked as he slowed at the stop sign in Duchesne and waited for traffic to clear so he could turn left onto Highway 40, the highway that would take them to the reservoir.

Joe didn’t answer right away. After Bo got onto the highway and headed toward the western edge of Duchesne, he looked over at Joe. “I take it there isn’t anyone else.”

Finally, Joe said sheepishly, “He has a granddaughter.”

“Oh, I see. Where does she live?”

“On the farm with him,” Joe said.

When nothing else was forthcoming, Bo pressed him a little. “How old is she?”

“Nineteen,” he said. “She’s lived with Ron since the end of December.”

Bo couldn’t suppress a grin. “Three years younger than you. Is she cute?” he asked.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So is she why you like farming?” Bo chuckled.

“No, but it doesn’t hurt,” Joe answered honestly.

“What does she do?”

“Pretty much what I do. She lived with some distant relatives in Salt Lake after her mother died. She went to college there for a year or so, but then, because she worried about Ron, she came to live with him. Now she says that all she wants to do is help her grandfather. She has a slight frame, but she’s strong enough and is a pretty good worker.”

“Is she going to run you out of a job?” Bo asked, not entirely joking.

“Oh no, there’s plenty of work for both of us with Ron being sickly like he is. And she keeps up his house now, does all the cooking, laundry, and cleaning—that kind of stuff.”

“What’s her name?” Bo asked.

“I’ll tell you sometime,” Joe said. He’d had to dig to get Bo to tell him Karmen’s name, after all.

“I guess I had that coming,” Bo said.

“Yeah, you did. But all right, I’ll tell you. Her name is Melia.”

“That’s a cute name. Does she have a last name?”

“Most people do,” Joe answered.

“Are you going to tell me what it is?” Bo asked with a grin.

“She goes by her grandfather’s name. So it’s Melia Brady. And she likes my dog better than her grandpa’s.”

“Better not let her meet my bulldog then. He’ll be her favorite after that,” Bo said with an affectionate glance behind him at the back seat where his dog lay.

Two Face, Bo’s bulldog, spent the day with the guys, and he stayed right with them the entire time they fished. He was a nice dog, not what Joe would call beautiful like Herc was, but unique. He was white and brown, but the interesting thing about him was his face. One side was white and the other side brown. That’s where his name came from. He was a gentle animal most of the time, but he could be very intimidating and even aggressive if Bo wanted him to be. The deputy hauled him around when he worked, and Two Face was very good at getting the undivided attention of some of the crooks Bo had to deal with as a deputy sheriff. He was a most unusual police dog, but he did the job and did it well. He was very smart and well trained.

The fishing was good that afternoon, and Joe and Bo didn’t quit until nearly dark. When they did, they had both caught their limits. “Looks like we two bachelors will have some good frying and good eating for a while,” Bo said as they packed up their gear.

“Oh, I won’t cook ’em,” Joe said. “I’ll let Melia do that. I eat with the Bradys most nights since Melia started fixing meals for her grandfather. She’s a pretty good cook.”

Bo smiled. He had a feeling that this girl might be good for Joe. He wondered if he’d mentioned her to his younger sister, Rosina. Probably not. Well, Bo would do it for him, he decided. He had a feeling she would be okay with it.

Lucas Soto was angry with Emil and wanted to find a way to get back at him for the way he’d treated him and embarrassed his girlfriend. That was not okay. None of this was Nattie’s fault; she didn’t use drugs and didn’t like that Lucas did. All that Emil had done today had only served to draw more attention to his habits, and Lucas didn’t appreciate that. So he slipped out shortly after dark that night in black clothing and drove to Emil’s house to confront him. He carried a small pistol Emil hadn’t known about. If Emil didn’t see reason, the pistol would be very convincing. But Emil’s old VW was just starting up the street when Lucas rounded the corner.

Instinctively, Lucas followed him. Emil drove out of town and eventually stopped and parked his car off the side of a dirt road way out in the country. Then he walked, keeping to the shadows until he reached an old rundown house in the largely deserted area.

Out of curiosity, Lucas parked up the road and out of sight a short distance from the house Emil had gone to. There were no lights on, so it was likely the resident wasn’t at home even though an old truck was there. The house wasn’t really in a neighborhood since the nearest inhabited houses were close to a half mile away on either side of the house. And there were abandoned, empty fields and sagebrush flats on all sides of the place, including across the road.

Emil carried a small flashlight, but it appeared that he only used it when he had to. As Emil approached the front door, Lucas, from his vantage point a short distance away, could hear a dog barking in the backyard. He watched as Emil knocked and, after waiting for a minute, tried the door. Apparently, it was locked. Lucas continued to watch, shifting his position in the dark to keep an eye on Emil.

Emil had hoped Joe would be home by now, but when he realized he wasn’t, Emil decided he’d get something of value from Joe’s house anyway. Joe would never know it was him, and whatever Emil found would help him pay Devonte back in a couple of hours.

He walked around back, a flashlight in one hand and a can of Mace (which he always carried in case he was confronted by a dog) in the other. He didn’t like dogs and he’d learned how to deal with them when he had to. He unlatched a gate just as a big dog, looking like nothing more than a shadowy figure, ran to the gate, barking. Emil reached over the fence, shined his light on the dog, and squirted the Mace in his face. The dog ran away, still barking, but this time in pain. Emil grinned, put the little container of Mace back in his pocket, and entered the backyard. The gate, which hung on a strong spring, swung shut as soon as he let go of it.

He was more liberal with using the flashlight now and soon stepped onto a covered porch and approached the back door. He tried the doorknob—also locked. He studied the door for a moment. It was an old-fashioned one with small rectangles of glass that ran up the door from just above the doorknob to within about eight inches of the top.

He pulled his small revolver from a holster fastened to the inside of his belt and struck the glass rectangle closest to the doorknob. It shattered, most of the glass falling inside. He put his pistol away, then reached through the opening he had created and swore as a piece of the glass that still stuck to the edge of the small frame cut his wrist. It drew blood, leaving drops on the door and the floor both inside and outside.

Ignoring the pain, he found the latch to the door and unlocked it. Then he withdrew his arm more carefully and grabbed the doorknob. He thought about the blood his hands left on the doorknob but simply opened the door and stepped in. He would wipe the blood up before he left. His mind was made up now that he was inside. He was going to take what he wanted in order to cover Joe’s debt. No one would ever know it was him, and the next time he saw Joe, he would still press him for what he owed but not so hard that he would lose him as a customer.

Lucas had parked off the road on the opposite side of the old house from where Emil had parked. He was intrigued by what Emil was doing. He thought about calling the cops and telling them Emil was committing a burglary. That would serve Emil right, but on the other hand, it would not get Lucas his property back.

Lucas couldn’t see well because of the darkness of the night, but he could see well enough to notice a second person approaching the house. All thought of calling the cops left him then as he watched, wondering what the second man was doing. The second intruder also had a small flashlight, and every time he turned it on, even if for just a moment, Lucas was able to track his progress. He approached the back fence not long after Emil had gone in the house. What in the world was that person up to?

The latest intruder did not have to worry about the dog announcing his presence because of something Emil had done to it. He clambered over the fence and silently approached the house. Hatred for and anger against Emil burned deeply in him. When he was sure the person who lived in the house wasn’t home, he crept onto the back porch. There he stood and listened to what was going on inside, which wasn’t much. He didn’t know who the legal occupant of this house was, and he didn’t care; he had just followed Emil here. It was for Emil that hatred burned. He frankly hated a lot of people. He was that kind of man. But right now, Emil was on the top of his list of hated people.

Lucas watched the second man enter the house through the back door like Emil had done. Lucas had left his car and watched the scene from behind a tree. He watched for several minutes, eventually backing away from the tree, confused as to what Emil and the second man could be doing inside that house. At last, he decided he should leave and confront Emil another time.

He had only gone a few steps, however, when he thought he heard a shot come from within or near the house. That both unnerved him and made him curious. He crept back to the tree and watched again. He was back to his spot in time to see a figure leaving the yard—the man who had entered after Emil. He was much larger than Emil and moved quickly away and out of sight. Lucas waited for Emil to leave but didn’t see him again, even though he stayed for several more minutes.

The house was dark. Surely, he thought, Emil was no longer in the house. He had probably left ahead of the second man in those few moments Lucas had been away from his spot by the tree. Lucas knew that the person who lived there had not returned. He was curious about what the two intruders had been up to, especially considering that he’d heard a shot. So after working up some nerve, he approached the house from the rear, watched for the dog, and when he didn’t see it, he climbed the fence and crept forward, his small pistol in his hand.

Lucas didn’t plan to spend long in the house. He confirmed it was empty, but something didn’t feel right to him. He shuddered, thinking he should leave, but he had come this far, so he forced himself to stay just a little longer. He shined his light about and spotted what he thought was blood. He looked around to see if Emil was lying on the floor, shot and bleeding, but he didn’t see him after a cursory check through the house. He looked at some papers on the table in the kitchen: mail. He stirred through it and saw the name Joe Whalen on several envelopes and frowned. Though he didn’t know Joe well, he was certainly not a friend. Finally, afraid that Joe could return at any moment, he left out the back door and retreated to his watching spot by the tree. He wanted to see what happened when and if Joe returned.