Chapter 28

ON MY FAR LEFT, STUCKEY’S RIGHT, someone hollered, “Hold it right there.”

From my near right, Stuckey’s left, my peripheral vision showed another man edging up hands forward, shouting. I pointed the rifle at the ground between me and Stuckey.

I meant to give everyone a warning shot to back off, but the gun went click instead of bang. So, I guess the thing with those semi-automatic rifles is, is they have to have the slidey-thingy yanked on them the first time.

Well, we all figured out that Rainy wasn’t really the cold killer type. We being me and the sweating Sabino Arriaga, who rushed forward, yanked the rifle from my hands, racked it, and pointed it at Stuckey, who’d come to a decision and was fast closing in.

Reese Trenton galloped toward us, hollering, pistol drawn. I wondered about the route he’d used to get from his land onto Ivy’s. It had something to do with the north edge of the hill, a route I’d never examined since it was off the Beaumont land.

Decker snorted and danced a widening circle around all of us, ending up at the west edge. He snorted at the treacherously steep descent to the interstate that Sabino Arriaga had just climbed. There was no way a soft conditioned horse like Decker, especially having already been ridden hard, would go down that slope. Only one horse in a few hundred would be capable of the descent. Decker spun, but his dragging rope reins caught on brush and he quieted.

Charley panted up, eyeing all of us. Stuckey, Trenton, and Sabino all looked at each other, one with a shovel, two with guns. This had to stop. Everybody needed to just sit down. Two seconds ago, I’d been the one in the best position to make them do it.

Sabino stared at Stuckey but spoke to me. “Did he kill my uncle?”

It seemed a bad time to say that yeah, I thought so.

Trenton reined up hard. “I told you idiots to hold it right there.”

Stuckey checked the distance between himself and the three of us he could put in striking distance, me and Reese Trenton and Sabino Arriaga.

Before today, I’d never gotten why Vicente was killed. Maybe the question was not who had the most to gain, but who had something to gain. Or who had something to hide.

“Stuckey,” I asked, “are you looking for his money?”

“What money?”

“Vicente’s cash.” I was running out of patience and clearly not the only one. Trenton shifted on his horse. Sabino looked from Stuckey to me and back again.

Stuckey looked purely puzzled at our confusion. “I ain’t doing nothing bad. I’m looking for Fire.”

“Fire?”

“I think Gabe prolly buried him up here. It ain’t right. Ivy asked us to get him cremated.”

I remembered how Gabe didn’t come to the summit, even that first time I rode on the Beaumont ranch. It’s not true that people go back to the scene of the crime. People avoid it like the pox.

“Why’d you have that livestock collar, Stuckey? Why’d you have it hidden in your locker?” Both were good questions I was too late in asking,

Stuckey studied his feet. It was clear he’d been getting static from someone about this. “I don’t know. It’s just, I seen it and I thought, I don’t know, but I saved it. Put it away.”

“You saw it where? When? Tell us what happened.”

Sabino lowered the rifle. Trenton lowered his pistol. Charley lowered his head, eyeing us like we were so many misbehaving calves. Stuckey sniffed and rubbed his head, spreading dirt across his sweaty face. “It was after … after I accidentally shot Fire. And, you know, Gabe took care of that. He always took care of me before. He’s smart.”

“The collar, Stuckey.”

Trenton raised his voice, the presiding judge at our hilltop trial. “He’s the one who mutilated the dog!”

“Gabe cut him.” Stuckey pointed at Charley and turned to face Trenton. “He said it was just in case you checked. But you didn’t stay for the breeding.”

I snapped. “You held Charley down while Gabe cut his ears?”

Stuckey’s chin quivered, along with his voice. “Yes’m. I know it ain’t right. Gabe had me hold him good.”

Go ahead and shoot him, fellas.

Oh, the thoughts that dance in my mind, loom like forest fires, need to be beat back.

“The collar, Stuckey. Tell me about the livestock collar.”

“Gabe threw it away in the forge room one night. I saw him washing his hands. It was after Vin—” He cleared his throat hard, shooting Sabino and me careful looks. “It was after I killed Fire. After we bred Flame in his place. After Vicente took off—”

“Vicente never left,” I said.

Stuckey frowned and rubbed his head. “Well, we all thought he did is what I mean. It was after it seemed like he took off.”

I looked at Trenton, a man who was a good enough judge of character to believe everything Oscar told him and come to try to rescue Charley from the ranch.

My mind flashed on Gabe’s clothes being covered in dirt not long before Ol’ Blue went dead. Ol’ Blue wasn’t getting any juice. Gabe had crawled underneath and disabled my truck, I figured. Maybe popped the fuel line. He was a cool customer to be heading down for the official police interview and polygraph after all he’d done, counting on not being asked the right questions. I shook my head and reminded Stuckey of where he was supposed to be right that minute, getting a ride from Gabe to go talk to the police. “Then everything gets straightened out.”

“No, he ain’t,” Stuckey said. “He packed up all his stuff.”

“He’s not going to the police interview?”

Stuckey shook his head and snorted. “He’s going to Canada. And he wasn’t going to dig Fire up for Ivy, so I had to.”

Sabino pointed at Stuckey but kept the rifle pointed at the ground and asked me, “He is not the one?”

Trenton snapped. “Well, it was one of them!” His horse pinned its ears but stood steady.

I asked Stuckey, “Gabe’s the one who killed Vicente and—”

“Well, it wasn’t anyone else—”

“And he’s running? He’s getting away?”

Stuckey nodded. “Guess so.”

I wondered if Gabe had to fuel up, maybe buy some road food. Maybe take the smaller roads before he crossed town and hit the interstate that would curve around to the bottom of the very hill we stood on. In the worst way, I wanted this to be over. I called my Intended and never felt better than the split second the line opened and I heard his voice.

“Rainy! I’m coming for you. We’re all almost there.”

Best news ever.

“I’m in a pickle,” I said. “There’s a man we’ve got to stop. He’s trying to get away and—”

“Stay where you are. Don’t move. Where are you?”

“Where are you? He’s going to be on the interstate any minute, heading north in a hurry, driving a beater green full-size old Ford Bronco with Nevada plates. He’s the problem. His name’s—”

Unbelievably, Guy hung up on me.