“Well, he’s dead.”
“Vanskike?”
“Yep.”
He shook his head. “I was afraid of that. I brought the boy down here, but Barsad stayed back to wait for the old guy.”
“Hershel.”
He nodded. “Hershel. Said he just wanted to tell him he had the boy.”
“How did you find Barsad?”
He sighed. “Caught him returning to the motel after making one of his liquor deliveries to Bill Nolan’s place. I guess Wade couldn’t get used to keeping a low profile, so he schemed up this idea for getting Bill’s truck on a regular basis. Nolan told me about those mysterious whiskey deliveries, and it sounded like Wade.”
“So, he was staying in one of the rooms at the motel before I got there?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty good at hiding people even in a town of forty. I waited for him one night and even brought him into the bar when Pat was the only one there. Pat poured us a drink and vouched for me. That’s how we all got to be partners.”
“Speaking of drinking, that was quite a show you put on at the motel.”
“Show, hell. I was drunk.”
“Who was the girl?”
“Just a girl, but she figured out who you were before I did.”
“What about the fight?”
He laughed and then groaned. “They were getting suspicious, because I was backing away from the more severe aspects of the partnership.”
“Like?”
“Killing you.” His eyes shifted to mine. “I convinced them that I could just run you off.” He raised a hand and tapped the plastic brace at his neck, and even in my stupor, I could see his movements were starting to slow. “Then I convinced him to let me come up here and keep an eye on the three of you, but he came along because he wanted to check on that horse-wanted to see it die. Patience is not a strong suit with Wade, but torture is.”
“I’m getting that.” I took a deep breath. “So, he did set the barn on fire and kill the other horses?”
“Yes.”
I nodded along with him, until I felt myself falling forward again. The old me voice was shouting about abdominal infection, that he only had hours, and that pretty soon Cliff Cly of the FBI was going to start showing more sleepiness and fatigue.
Welcome to the club.
I put the old repeater in my lap, pulled out my. 45, and wrapped the FBI agent’s hand around the grip. “You’ve got five rounds, and you’re cocked and ready to fire.” He looked at me as if I were insane. “You’re too weak to handle this Henry, so I’ll take it.”
Within twelve hours fever was going to set in, his heart rate and respiration would go up; the heart rate would be unable to make up for failing blood pressure, and as soon as the organs were not getting enough blood they would fail. At this point, the smarty-pants voice was telling me, he would get weak, dizzy, drift in and out of consciousness, and within seventy-two hours, he would die.
“I’ve got to go.”
“What?”
“I’m going to fall over if I don’t get out of here, in which case you’re going to rapidly follow me into oblivion and Barsad’s going to find the kid, none of which are acceptable.”
“Your foot’s broken-you can’t walk out of here.”
I rolled to one side and dug a knee up, placed my hands on the ground, and struggled to my feet. I kept my weight on one side, using the Henry as a crutch. “I’m not going to walk.”
“Then what are you going to do? We don’t have anything to…” His voice faded as I stood and hopped, facing the circle of dark ground. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding.”
I pulled my hat down and kept my weight off my damaged foot; I felt like James Arness but probably looked more like Ken Curtis. There was more than just my voice talking now, as I listened to the wind that scoured the top of the mesa. It sounded like phantoms brooding and mourning in a testament to nostalgia and bitterness, and I could almost hear the chattering of the dry leaves in the cottonwoods, moaning and hissing from the powdery river below. Ancient voices pulled me apart from myself and slammed me back together.
I turned my head and looked at Cly over my shoulder. “Cliff, where are you from?”
His voice still gargled. “What?”
I repeated the question and, unsurprisingly, my voice didn’t sound like my own.
“Cherry Hill, New Jersey.”
“That’s near Philadelphia?”
“Just over the bridge.”
“That’s what I thought.” I limped to the edge of the circle. “Remind me to introduce you to somebody-you’ve got vocabulary in common.”
October 31, 3:34 A.M.
I don’t know how long it’d been since anybody had stepped onto that dark piece of ground, but the response was what I figured it would be. At first, she stayed at the farthest length of the chain, then she snorted and pawed the ground, and gave one headlong charge toward me.
I just stood there. Horses had charged me before, and it can be some kind of intimidating, but I didn’t move. She pulled up about ten feet away, eyes wild, and then reared. The big black mare pawed the air, and I could see the steel shoes that were still on her hooves. She planted and, when I still didn’t move, she bounced on her forelegs and planted again; this time she was five feet away.
I held the rifle at my side, took a breath, and held out a hand, fingers in, palm down. She backed away, snorting and shaking her head at me, her tangled mane flying.
I took a step toward her, more of a hop, really, and she rushed forward, turned and sent me flying with her substantial rump. I landed hard on the ground just outside the circle.
After a respectful moment, he spoke. “That went well.”
I looked at him and remembered something Lucian, my old boss, used to say in like situations. “You know the difference between an asshole and an anus?”
He spoke from the side of his mouth. “What’s that?”
“An anus can’t say ‘that went well.’ ”
I could just lie there, but that wasn’t part of the contract, so I struggled up on one elbow and felt something fall out of my shirt. I thought it might’ve been my spleen.
Spleen-8 percent.
I fumbled at it with my stiff fingers. It was roundish and about as long as a short, fat cigar. It was grainy, and I vaguely remembered that yesterday Henry had stuffed a handful of something into my pocket along with my badge.
I glanced at Cly and held it up. “Horse treat.”
“Do all you sheriffs run around with those in your pockets?”
“You bet.”
I sat the rest of the way up and watched the mare circle the perimeter of the chain. She stamped at me again, then backed away and neighed. I stood carefully, keeping my weight to my good side, and hopped a little closer to her territory. She charged again, but it was a feint-to be honest, I’d thought the earlier one was too and that she had just misjudged her retreat.
At least, I hoped so.
I took another hop-step and raised my left hand again, but this time with the palm up and fingers flat. She was standing near the stake that had been hammered into a fissure in the rocky surface of the mesa, and she didn’t move. Neither did I.
The wind rocked against me with the silence of the high desert, and the ghosts whined their way past but were unable to resist a touch on their way. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature and wondered if they would be for me or against me.
