Bone Dry

Rodney nodded. “That’s what I said: She shot the shit outta my truck, and when she was done, she shoved my gun into the mud. Then she said that I should be ashamed of myself. For shootin’ birds, of all things.”

Colby suppressed a giggle by trying to disguise it as a cough. “Ain’t funny,” Rodney said, glaring at Colby. “Took me a solid hour to clean that mess up. And my Chevy is all screwed up.”

“She driving an old yellow Volvo?” Marlin asked.

“Never did see what she was drivin’. By the time I came to my senses, she had hopped the fence again and was gone.”

“What’d she look like?”

Rodney looked down at the table. “Well, that’s why I’m keepin’ this kinda quiet.” He glanced furtively around the diner. “She’s finer than frog hair, boys. Tall and blonde and an absolute knockout. See, I don’t want word to get back to Mabel. She may think I’ve got something going on with this gal.”

Colby finally lost it and erupted in laughter. “You been datin’ your way through the supermodel circuit, Rodney?” he managed to ask.

Rodney tensed, and Marlin held up a hand to quiet them both. “She look anything like that?” Marlin gestured to the front windows of the diner.

Outside, two people had just arrived in a rusty yellow Volvo. The driver was a short, scruffy guy with ragged curly hair, a wispy beard, and a weathered camouflage jacket. The other was a tall blonde woman who would have looked right at home on the cover of Cosmopolitan. She was dressed casually, in a tailored jacket and cream-colored denims.

The residents of Blanco were accustomed to strangers passing through town; after all, Main Street was also U.S. Highway 281. But the majority of visitors looked like they belonged on the streets of Austin or Dallas, whereas this woman looked like a vision from the runways of Milan. When she walked through the front door of the diner, the small crowd went dead quiet.

The couple found a table and, as she prepared to sit down, the woman removed her jacket. She was wearing a tight red turtleneck that hugged a curvy torso. Marlin was embarrassed when one deaf old regular said, a little too loudly, “I’m glad I took my heart medicine this mornin’.” The crowd tittered.

The woman turned, found the old man, and gave him a sly wink, which caused a murmur. “That’s her!” Rodney hissed. “She’s the one who blasted my truck!”

“You sure about that, Rodney?” Marlin sounded skeptical. “I mean, if I go question her, I won’t be making a complete ass of myself?”

“No doubt whatsoever. Look at her, John. You think there’s two of her kind runnin’ around Blanco County?”

“Good point.”

Marlin gave Colby a look that asked, What am I about to get myself into?

Colby responded with a shrug. “Duty calls.”

Marlin rose and crossed the room to the woman’s table. The crowd was silent, enjoying a front-row seat to whatever was about to happen.

“’Mornin’, ma’am…sir.” Marlin nodded to them both.

The woman gave him a poker face. “Good morning, Officer.” The woman appeared so Scandinavian, Marlin was expecting an accent, but there was nothing but a Midwestern twang.

“Ma’am, I was wondering if I could speak to you outside for a minute.”

“Pardon?”

“Well, I just want to ask you a few questions about an incident. I’m the game warden in Blanco County.”

The woman started to reply, but her scruffy companion spoke up, with a bit of an attitude. “We can read the badge on your shirt, sir. Do you mind telling us what this is all about?”

The internal radar Marlin had developed by interviewing thousands of poachers simply said: Asshole. Marlin dealt with all types of people in the course of a season. Most were respectable, law- abiding citizens. But some were belligerent, some were drunk, and still others-like this guy-were self-righteous jerks who thought they were above the law.

Marlin responded with a little attitude of his own: “Sir, at the moment I’m speaking to this young lady. If I have any questions for you, I’ll be sure to let you know.” He kept a firm glare on Mr. Scruffy for a moment. The man gave Marlin a contemptuous sneer, but remained silent.

Marlin turned back to the blonde woman and gestured toward the front door. “Ma’am, if you don’t mind…” The woman remained seated. “I believe I’ll stay right here, but feel free to ask all the questions you want.”

“Fine,” Marlin said, taking a breath. “We’ve received a couple of reports of hunter harassment in the last few days, and you match the description of the woman involved. Now, can you tell me where you were yesterday at about two in the afternoon?”

The woman raised her hand and drummed her fingertips theatrically on her cheek. “Well, let’s see. After lunch we stopped at the grocery store and got a few things, then we filled the car with gas. And then, yes, right at about two o’clock, I was teaching good ol’ Rodney over there the error of his ways.” The woman looked across the room at Rodney and said, in her best cocktail-party voice, “Why, hello, Rodney! Good to see you again, sweetheart.”

The crowd turned and stared at Rodney, who blanched and turned toward the wall.

Marlin was taken aback. Most lawbreakers, when questioned, knew how to do three things: Deny it; deny it; and deny it some more. “Ma’am, are you saying that you were over at Mr. Bauer’s ranch yesterday, and you are responsible for the damage to his truck?”

“What I’m saying is that I was saving the lives of quail, dove, deer, and all the other innocent animals he would have murdered with his shotgun.”

The crowd had grown tense. Someone murmured, “Take her in, John.”

Which was exactly what Marlin was planning to do. “Stand up, please,” he said.

The woman crossed her arms. “I will not.”

Marlin glanced at Mr. Scruffy, who gave him a smug smile. Inside, Marlin groaned. He had had run-ins with anti-hunting activists in the past, and it was almost always a messy business.

“Ma’am…please…stand up.”

“Like hell I will. Why are you here bothering me when you should be out arresting guys like Rodney? They’re the ones carrying guns, blasting everything that moves. And yet I’m the one who’s causing trouble? That’s a joke.”

Mr. Scruffy began to add something, but Marlin hushed him with a stare.

Marlin took a deep breath. He was determined not to let this situation get out of control. “Miss, I’ll ask you once again: Please stand up. Don’t make me use the cuffs.”

“Go to hell.” She grabbed her mug and threw her coffee onto Marlin’s chest. The crowd gasped. This, Marlin thought, isn’t going well at all.

Marlin drove northward on Highway 281 in silence for a few moments, steadily covering the sixteen miles between Blanco and Johnson City. He noticed the sky was clear of clouds now, and the temperature was rapidly climbing. So much for the cold front.

He glanced over at his passenger. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a handcuffed woman in custody. In fact, in nearly twenty years of enforcing hunting and fishing laws, almost all of his dealings had been with men. Simply put, men would do things women would never dream of. Like shoot deer on the side of the highway at night. Throw dynamite into a lake to kill fish. Blast a hundred doves in one day, instead of the legal limit of fifteen. Then they would spin lie after lie to try to escape punishment. At least this woman had owned up to her behavior. Too easily, Marlin figured. There had to be something behind it.

“You didn’t have to throw the coffee on me, you know,” Marlin said.

“Pardon me?”

“I was going to arrest you anyway.” He looked over, but her face remained expressionless. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? I mean, my cruiser was sitting right in the parking lot, plain as day. You came in there for a reason.”