Cold Wind

“That’s fucking cold, man. Just cold.” Then he leveled his eyes at Joe. “I hated you, too, man. Dudley Do-Right cracker and your white-bread cookie-cutter family. Guys like you . . .” He paused, his lips trembling.

“Go on,” Joe said flatly. Joe had heard Bud Jr. say so many thoughtless and vile things before that he was shocked that he wasn’t shocked. Bud Longbrake’s son seemed to have no internal brake mechanism installed between his emotions and his mouth. Anything he thought came out in words. Joe had learned to tune him out, not engage, and pay no attention. Bud Jr.’s inability to put a sock in it had caused him much heartache over the years, but he’d never seemed able to connect what he said to the reaction his words elicited from others. He still couldn’t, Joe thought . . .

“You people living out there on my family’s ranch, taking advantage of him just like that old bitch Missy. Freezing me and my sister out like that, keeping me away . . .”

“I tried to help you,” Joe said through clenched teeth. “I did a favor for your dad and tried to teach you how to work for a living.”

“Duh,” Shamazz said, bugging his eyes out. “It didn’t take.”

It was hard for Joe to see through the filter of rage that had descended over him like a red hood when he looked at Shamazz. “Who does that song you were singing up there?” Joe asked.

“What—you mean Death Cab for Cutie?”

“Death Cab for Cutie?”

“Yeah.”

“I knew I didn’t like them,” Joe said, and reached out and grasped Bud Jr.’s ear.

“Tell me why you’re here,” Joe said, twisting hard. In the back of his mind, he listed the charges he could be brought up on. There were a lot of them. But he had the impression Bud Jr. would do all he could to avoid talking to the police for any reason.

“That hurts,” Bud Jr. cried, and reached up for Joe’s hand. Joe kicked Shamazz hard in the shin with the toe of his boot. Bud Jr. squealed and dropped to his knees.

“I learned this from a friend,” Joe said. “Remember Nate Romanowski? Now tell me what I want to know or I’ll twist your ear off. I’ve seen a couple of ears come off. They make a kind of popping sound, like when you break a chicken wing apart. You know that sound? I’d guess it’s even worse from the inside, you know?”

“Please . . . Joe, this isn’t like you.” There were tears of pain in his eyes.

Joe nodded. It wasn’t. Whatever. He twisted. Bud Jr. opened his mouth to scream.

“No yelling,” Joe said. “If you yell, you lose the ear. And if that happens, you’ve got another ear I can pull off. Then it will be real hard to listen to Death Cab for Cutie.”

Shamazz closed his mouth, but there were guttural sounds coming out from deep in his chest.

“Tell me why you’re here.”

“I wanted to come home,” Bud Jr. said, spitting out the words. “I just wanted to come home.”

Joe was taken aback. He said, “But you don’t have a home. Bud Sr. lost the ranch. You knew that.”

“Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow,” Bud Jr. said.

“We never took advantage of your dad,” Joe said. “Missy did. You did. But I worked for him.”

“Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow.”

“Now where can I find your dad?” Joe asked, keeping the pressure on.

“You really don’t know? You really don’t?”

“Tell me why you’re here.”

He yelped, “I’m here to reclaim what’s mine.”

Joe said, “Nothing’s yours anymore.” But when he saw the wild-eyed passion in Bud Jr.’s eyes—passion he’d never seen before—Joe wondered if Shamazz was capable of murder, or at least willing to help out his father. He’d never thought of the kid that way before.

After he said to Bud Jr., “Tell me everything,” Joe noted movement in his peripheral vision and glanced up to see a sheriff’s department SUV cruise through the opening between the drugstore and the bar. Sollis was at the wheel. Had he been seen?

Joe involuntarily eased up on the ear, and Shamazz took full advantage of the sudden release of pressure. From where he sat on the garbage-covered pathway, he was able to reach back and fire a roundhouse punch that caught Joe full force in the temple. The blow made Joe let go, and staggered him. Bud Jr. scrambled to his feet and punched again, clipping Joe across the jaw and dropping him. Joe tried to protect his face against a fury of Hacky Sack-conditioned feet, but Bud Jr. was fueled by anger and desperation, and several hard kicks hit home. Joe rolled away, felt two sharp thumps in his back along his spine and one near his kidneys, and by the time he was able to right himself and struggle to his hands and knees, Shamazz had run away.

Joe stayed like that for a long time. His head and face ached sharply, and as his shock wore off, the kicks to his arms, shoulders, neck, and back began to pound.

Moaning, he managed to lean against the brick wall and vertically crabwalk up until he could balance on his feet again. He probed at his head for blood, but didn’t find any. He hoped like hell Sollis wouldn’t drive by again and see him. He wanted no one to see him.

As he limped to his pickup, Joe looked at his right hand—the one that had twisted Bud Jr.’s ear nearly off—as if it belonged to someone else. Like Nate, maybe.

Bud Jr. had fought like a wild man. Partly out of self-defense and partly out of something inside him that was of