Joe tried not to cringe.
“Maybe I’ll see you at the reception,” she said, extending her hand. He took it. It was icy cold.
...
Joe had just sat back down, still reeling from the look of distaste that had passed over Susan Jensen’s face, when the back door banged open and a rough man’s voice said, “Damnit.”
Joe turned to see a man closing the door with exaggerated gentleness. Then the man wheeled and entered the chapel, blinking at its darkness.
The man was big, barrelchested, thicklegged, a wedge shape from his broad shoulders in a sheepskin coat to the points of his laceup highheeled cowboy boots. He wore a stained and battered gray felt hat, which he immediately removed to reveal a steelgray shock of uncombed hair. His bronze eyes burned under wild toothbrush eyebrows, and he squinted into the room like a man who squints a lot, looking for distant movement on mountainsides and saddle slopes. He was a man of the outdoors, judging by his leathery face and hands and thick clothing.
“Didn’t mean to throw the door open like that,” he mumbled to no one in particular.
And Joe stood to say hello to Smoke Van Horn.
Smoke pumped Joe’s hand once, hard, and let go.
“You’re the new guy, huh?” Smoke said, too loudly for the occasion, Joe thought. He could sense Susan Jensen and her boys turning to see what the commotion was about.
“Yes, sir,” Joe replied softly, attempting to provide an example to Smoke to lower his voice.
“Hope we get along,” Smoke said, just as loudly as before. “Me and Will had some issues. But he learned to get along with me. For a while, at least.” Smoke barked a laugh at that.
In the notebooks he had read that morning, Smoke Van Horn’s name had come up several times. Smoke had been accused of salting by another outfitter as well as by a National Park ranger. Salting involved hiding salt blocks to draw elk to where his paying clients could kill them. Will had written that he’d asked Smoke about salting, and although Smoke hadn’t really denied it, he hadn’t admitted it either.
“Dared me to locate the salt station,” Will had written in his notebook. “Couldn’t find it. Suspect it’s somewhere on Clear Creek.”
“I’ll be seeing you around, I’m sure,” Joe said softly.
“No shit.” Smoke laughed again. “You’ll be sick of me, I’d guess. I have strong opinions.”
But let’s not hear them now, Joe thought.
Smoke looked to the front of the chapel, saw the urn and the photos.
“For Christ’s sake,” Smoke said, “they put him in a jar.”
“It’s an urn,” Joe said, glancing toward Will’s boys, who were now watching Smoke and no doubt hearing him.
“And Smoke, please keep your voice down.”
Smoke eyed Joe intently, narrowing his eyes. “Already telling me what to do?” Smoke said menacingly, but at least his voice was lower.
“Will’s family is up front.”
Smoke began to speak. Then, in an action Joe guessed was unusual, the outfitter didn’t say anything for a moment.
He leaned forward, and Joe could smell horses on his coat.
“Will was too damned tough and determined to kill himself like that,” Smoke said to Joe, his voice low. “I spent many an hour with him in the backcountry. We rarely agreed on anything, but I suspect he thought I was right more than he would let on. But he wasn’t, you know, troubled. Except for the last few months, when the son of a bitch wanted to ruin me.”
Joe leaned closer to the outfitter. He asked quietly, “You don’t think he killed himself ?”
“No fucking way,” Smoke said, his voice loud again.
“Sorry, boys,” he said toward the front of the chapel.
“I’d like to talk with you later,” Joe said. More people were starting to arrive, and Smoke was oblivious to them.
He was blocking the aisle.
“That’s why I come,” Smoke told Joe. “When a man sets out to ruin me, I take a real personal interest in him. So I had to make sure he really was dead. I didn’t expect to see him in a jar. Or an urn, or whatever the hell it is.”
“Later,” Joe said firmly, finding his seat.
Smoke Van Horn ambled down the aisle, somehow exuding a presence that was bigger than his huge physical self. Joe guessed that when Smoke picked an aisle, the rest of it would remain empty as the mourners arrived to find seats.
He guessed correctly.
Joe knew very few of the mourners, and most looked like locals. The majority sought out Susan and her boys, and either hugged her, waved sadly to her, or, in some cases, simply stood and shook their heads, commiserating.
