Joe looked up at the drinkers, who were trying to look at him without being obvious. They looked like out-of- work ranch hands or CBM roughnecks between crew shifts. Joe guessed the latter, since their pockets were stuffed with cash. He wondered what he would turn up if he called their plates in.
“I thought you had to be a member to drink here?”
Montegue’s upper lip arced, and Joe assumed it was a smile. Montegue reached under the bar and tossed a thick pad of perforated cards on the counter. They were blank membership cards, Joe saw.
“Membership costs fifteen bucks a year, or ten with your first drink. You wanna join?”
“Nope,” Joe said. “What, then?”
“Your brother, Tuff. I’m a member of the task force . . .”
One of the drinkers snorted down the bar, and turned away. The others stared ahead, not looking at each other or, Joe surmised, they would be forced to laugh.
Joe started again. “I’m investigating the death of your brother, Tuff. I want to ask you a few questions.”
Montegue sighed, leaned forward, and placed both of his palms on the bar. He rotated his arms to give Joe the full effect of his triceps. “The sheriff ’s been here, and some FBI dork. Are you guys just following each other around?”
“Sort of,” Joe admitted.
“I bet whoever sucked the blood out of Tuff was bombed for a week,” Montegue said. “Look for a drunk alien, is my suggestion.”
This produced a big laugh from the drinkers.
“I’m interested in what Tuff had been doing for the last couple of years,” Joe said. “I know he was working for Bud Longbrake at the time of his death, but what else was he into?”
Montegue went down the list: ranch hand, school bus driver, roofer, customer service rep, surveyor, and professional mountain man at a Wild West show, until he hurt his back.
“When was he a surveyor?”
“Well, he wasn’t actually a surveyor. He was more like a surveyor’s peon.” “He was a rodman,” one of the eavesdropping drinkers said. “You know, the guy who walks out and holds the rod so the surveyor can shoot it.”
“Who did he work for?”
Montegue leaned back and rubbed his chin. “I know he worked a little for the county on the roads, but he also worked for some big outfit based out of Texas that was doing work up here.” He turned to the drinkers. “Anybody remember the name of that company Tuff worked for a while? I remember him bragging about it, but I can’t remember the name.”
“Something Engineering,” one of the drinkers said. “Turner Engineering?”
Montegue frowned. “No, that ain’t it. Something like that, though. Why does it matter?” he asked Joe.
Joe shrugged. “I’m not sure it does. I was just curious. I’ll check around.”
“Check away,” Montegue said.
“Did Tuff have enemies? Someone who might want to kill him?” Montegue snorted, “Me, at times. He owed me 850 bucks. He still does, I guess, and I aim to sell a couple of his rifles so we’re even.” Joe nodded.
“He had his share of fights, I guess. But he’s like all of these assholes. They fight, then they buy each other a drink, then they’re butt-buddies for life. I can’t think of any serious enemies Tuff had. Anything else you want to ask me?”
“Nothing I can think of,” Joe said. “But I might come back.”
“Feel free,” Montegue said, then thought of something that brought a smile to his face. “In fact, bring your wife. I’ll waive the first year of membership if you bring her.”
“I’ll pay for your membership if you bring her,” one of the drinkers said, and the others laughed.
“Leave my wife out of it,” Joe said with enough steel in his voice that Montegue raised his hands in an “I’m just kidding” gesture.
s he climbed into the Bighorn Mountains and neared Bud Longbrake’s Ranch, Joe mulled over a theory that had been floating in the back of his mind. Something about Tuff ’s death was just a little bit wrong. It almost but not quite fit the pattern.
The wounds on the cattle and wildlife had been reported in gruesome detail in the Saddlestring Roundup, Joe thought. What hadn’t been reported was the exact kind of cut made in the hides of the cows. A person following the story would have known just enough to make Tuff ’s murder appear to be like the others, he thought. But the wrong knife or cutting instrument was used. And how could a killer possibly prevent predators from finding the body? While there was something extraordinary in the bodies of the cattle, moose, and Stuart Tanner that apparently prevented predation, Tuff ’s killer obviously hadn’t been able to duplicate whatever it was.
Maybe, Joe thought, Tuff ’s murder was a copycat and entirely unrelated to the others. Maybe Tuff was killed for reasons wholly different from the other deaths, by someone who saw his opportunity to take advantage of the bizarre happenings to solve a personal problem with Tuff Montegue?
Again, Joe felt that if he could figure out what had happened to Tuff, and who murdered the man, the answers to the other and bigger parts of the puzzle might become more apparent.
“Or maybe not,” Joe said aloud to Maxine, his voice rising with frustration. “Maybe all of this crap has been the work of two wiry, hairy, creepylike guys who hang out in an alley in Saddlestring, like Not Ike said.”
21
