commented. 'I know you pretty good, Joe. You can be a stubborn son of a bitch.'
'Maybe so,' Joe said. Wacey grunted, and the two men stood in silence. Billowing dark clouds were low and moving fast through the sky, painting black brush strokes over stars.
'Why don't you and Arlene stay at Kensinger's?'
Wacey snorted.
'Arlene's idea of high class is eighty television channels. She wouldn't exactly appreciate that place the way Marybeth would. Besides, Arlene might find a sock of mine under the bed.'
Joe nodded, though he wasn't sure he could be seen in the dark.
'I'm going to work one more week before I declare my candidacy,' Wacey said after a long silence.
'I'm trying for a leave of absence with the state, but if I don't get it, I'll have to quit.'
'What if you don't win?' Joe asked.
'I'm going to win,' Wacey said, confident as always.
'But what if you don't?'
Wacey laughed and drained his bottle, then nipped it into the back of Joe's pickup where it would rattle around tomorrow. 'Hell, I don't know. I haven't given it any thought at all. Maybe I'll go back to riding bulls for a living.'
Wacey opened his truck door, and they looked at each other in the glow from the dome light.
'I'm not kidding you, Joe,' Wacey said, climbing in. 'Leave this outfitter business be. Just go back to work and have a fun vacation with your family. You've got one hell of a family, and one hell of a wife.'
Wacey slammed the door, and they were in darkness again. Wacey started his pickup and the headlights bathed the peeling paint of the garage door.
Joe listened to gravel crunch and watched Waceys taillights recede down Bighorn Road.
Marybeth was suddenly beside him, and it startled him. He hadn't heard her come outside.
'We seem to be on a lucky streak,' she said, looping her arm through his.
'First the job offer and now the Eagle Mountain Club.'
'I might have broken that streak this afternoon,' Joe said.
'What's bothering you?' Marybeth asked.
'You didn't exactly get excited when Wacey told you about it.'
'I am excited,' Joe said flatly. 'You and the kids will probably love it. And your mom, of course.'
She tugged on his arm playfully. 'So what's the problem?'
He started to say 'nothing,' but she anticipated it and tugged on his arm again. He didn't want to mention burning down the trailer and losing his gun. Still, that wasn't the problem.
'I guess I just feel bad that we live in such a dump that housesitting seems like a vacation.'
'Oh, Joe,' Marybeth said, giving him a hug. 'We both know this won't last forever.'
***
Joe opened his mail while Marybeth got ready for bed. The mail was mostly junk, but there were several envelopes from headquarters in Cheyenne. There were two departmental memos, one about avoiding overtime and the other about making sure that original receipts were sent along with expense reports because credit card receipts could no longer be accepted.
When he opened the third envelope and read the letter it contained, he froze. It was written in terse bureaucratic prose and he read it three times before it sunk in. He blew a short, hard breath out through his nose in exasperation as he resisted the urge to tear the letter into tiny pieces.
'What is it?' Marybeth asked from behind a washcloth.
'Headquarters,' Joe said dryly. 'I've got to appear in Cheyenne on Friday for a hearing.'
Marybeth stopped washing and listened.
'They're investigating the incident when Ote Keeley took my gun from me. They call it 'alleged negligence with a department issued sidearm.' It says here that I could get suspended from the field.'
Joe read the letter a fourth time to himself.
'Why now?' Marybeth asked. 'That happened months ago.'
'The state works in geological time,' Joe said. 'You know that.'
'Those bastards,' she hissed. She rarely said anything like that, and Joe looked up.
'Just when things were going so well.'
PART FOUR
