observed the bloody compresses he’d taped on himself.
“Sloppy,” she said. “But keep it on until after we eat. Then I’ll change it.”
Nate looked away as she stripped the old bandage and bathed the wounds with alcohol swabs and taped them.
“Does it sting?” she asked.
“It does,” he said, and chinned toward her ticking woodstove. “Make sure to burn the old bandages and everything you’re using to clean me up. Don’t leave a trace of it in your house.”
She paused, then continued cleaning. “You don’t want to leave your DNA?”
“That’s right.”
“But you’ve been here in the past. I can’t get rid of everything you might have touched.”
“You don’t need to,” he said. “Just the blood.”
“I don’t think there’s any infection,” she said, shuffling her feet so she could get a good look at the holes in front and back, “but I’ve got some antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs I’ll send with you. I’m not a doctor. You may need to go see one.”
He grunted his thanks. Finally, he asked, “Don’t you want to know what happened?”
She said, “I think I know. I heard about the boat they found in Saddlestring. Everybody’s heard about that.”
“I suppose so.”
“There is one thing I want to know,” she said.
He waited.
“Why did you come to me? Why didn’t you go to see your friend, the game warden, and his wife?”
“Too risky,” Nate said.
“But you don’t mind risking me?” she asked. It was a flat statement, and not accusatory.
“I’ve been meaning to come by for a long time,” he said. She stood aside as he got to his feet and pulled his shirt and vest back on. His shoulder ached, but the binding was tight and clean, and he gained a bit more movement in his left arm.
Nate went out the back door and returned with his duffel bag. He unzipped it and gave her a block of cash.
Alice took it from him and put it quickly on the table.
“It’s ten thousand dollars,” he said. “I wanted you to have it.”
She shook her head. “Are you buying my silence?”
“No. I want you to use it however you see fit. But maybe you’d consider using some of it in Alisha’s memory. Maybe a scholarship fund for her students, or memorial or something.”
Surprisingly, he noted moisture in her dark eyes. “I miss her,” she said.
“I miss her, too,” he said, and gave her a thin braid of Alisha’s hair. It was similar to the strand he’d attached to his gun. She took it from him and sniffed it and worked it through her fingers and held it there.
“It’s my fault, I know that,” he said. “If it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t have been in the wrong place. I know that.”
“Tell me what happened,” she asked. “I’ve heard rumors, but no one else was there.”
Nate said, “Two intruders breached my security and attacked the place I lived. Alisha was visiting for the weekend. I was outside when it happened. Alisha wasn’t. She didn’t suffer, at least.”
“But you have,” she said. It was a statement.
“If my life was more normal…”
Alice shook her head as if to discount him. She said, “Don’t take all the blame. You’re talking to someone who lives in a place that’s never been normal. It’s not so unusual to me, and it wasn’t unusual to her. She would have followed you anywhere, I’m sure.”
“I found the men who did it,” Nate said. “I put them down.”
She looked away.
“I need to go,” he said.
She stepped aside. As he neared the door, she said, “A man came by the school last week and asked about Alisha. But I knew he was really asking about you.”
Nate paused and turned. “What did you tell him?”
“The truth,” she said. “I told him Alisha no longer worked there, that she had left the school and the res.”
“But no more than that?”
“No. Then I waited. He acted kind of put-out and asked me where he could contact her. I told him I didn’t know. He asked me if I knew anyone who might know of her location. Any friends, for example.”
Nate leaned against her kitchen counter, waiting for more.
She continued, “He asked me, doesn’t she have a friend who is a falconer? Did I know where he can be reached?”
He arched his eyebrows.
“I told him I didn’t know where you were. And I didn’t, either. I told him if he wanted to try and find you he should ask the local game warden, Joe Pickett.”
Nate felt a chill. “You mentioned Joe?”
“I thought that might make him go away. He seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn’t really want to talk to a law enforcement officer.”
“Describe him,” Nate said.
She closed her eyes, as if conjuring up an image. “Tall, white, maybe six-foot-two or — three. He was older than you by ten years or so, but in good shape. He had light brown hair and blue eyes. His eyes were set close together, and he had a long thin nose. High cheekbones, but Scandinavian, not Indian. His face was angular and his mouth was small. He had a mouth like a pink rose, I thought. Like he wanted to kiss somebody. But he gave me a bad feeling.”
She opened her eyes.
Nate nodded. “Did he give you a name?”
She said, “Bob White.”
Nate snorted.
“It seemed like a fake name,” she said.
“It is. Did you see what he was driving?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t look out in the visitor’s parking lot. I didn’t think of it until later, and by then he was gone.”
Nate asked, “How much vacation time do you have?”
She cocked her head to the side, puzzled at the question. “I have a lot,” she said. “I never take any days off.”
“Alice,” he said, “I want you to take some of that money and go someplace you always wanted to go. Take a couple weeks. Just please promise me you’ll go away for a while.”
“Do you think he’ll come back? Do you think he’d hurt me?”
Nate shrugged. “I don’t know, but we don’t want to take a chance.”
She thought about it. “I always wanted to go to Austin and see the bats. You know, the bats that come out every night from under that bridge and fly? I like bats.”
“Then go to Austin,” he said. “See the bats. And when you get bored with them, go somewhere else and see some other bats. Just get out of this place for a while.”
She looked at him for a long time. Her face never moved.
“Start packing tonight,” Nate said.
“Who is this man?” she asked.
Nate said, “Someone I used to work with. And believe me, he’s not someone you want to see again.”
He recalled Large Merle’s last words, and it all made sense to him.
They’ve deployed.
