But then as Ted changed, he'd drifted away, and he hardly ever talked to Bud anymore.
“Holly, how are you? Damn, what brings you up here?”
The part of Bud that he no longer thought he had reacted first. It wasn't that Holly was just pretty; some other secret thing under her surface just teased him in a strange way.
Her youth, her boyish body, those freckles, that bright smile, but most of all it was something behind her eyes, something secretly merry and conspiratorial. She was a plotter, all right.
“Well, Bud, truth is, I came looking for you.”
“Well, sit yourself down and I'll buy you a cup of coffee.
You ever hear of such a thing called a telephone? Real easy to operate. You just drop a dime in and push some buttons and, like magic, you're talking to the man you want.”
“Well, Bud, thanks for the tip, but it ain't so easy. I wanted it private.”
“You got it. But this isn't some sad song I heard on the radio a hundred times and still can't say Jack Jump about?
That damn fool Ted's found a new girl, or some such. I know I look like Ann Landers but I don't have her wisdom.
My idea would be: I'll loan you the gun and you go shoot him. I don't think Ann would ever tell you that.”
She giggled at old Bud.
“Oh, Bud, you love to flirt and make all the girls laugh, don't you? I'll bet you were a pistol back in high school.”
Not so; he'd been a fullback, big and awkward and a little smarter than people thought when they considered his bulk, but no showboat with the girls. He'd married the first pretty one that was nice to him.
“Sure I was.”
“Well, anyway,” she said, 'you're not far wrong. But I don't think it's a girl. It's just a thing. He's just not there anymore. I was wondering if something's going on in the patrol or on the road I should know about.”
It was true. Ted had drifted off. He went his own way, put in his hours and disappeared. He was no longer a part of the elaborate Smokey culture—the gym, the shooting range, the optional SWAT exercises, the speed pursuit course-and when you took yourself out of that, you sort of guaranteed you'd stay at First Class for a long time.
“Oh, he's probably working some things out.”
“That's what he says, when he says anything.”
“It can be a hard life.”
“But Bud Pewtie didn't let it turn him sour.”
“Well, old Bud Pewtie, he went through his dog days, too. Holly, give him some room. Maybe he ain't made to be a policeman. That's okay. No shame in that. There's other things that he can do and make you and himself proud, I swear it. It's a hard life and more than once I've regretted the path I chose.”
“Well, you're so John Wayne I find that hard to believe, but I love the way you tried to make me feel good.”
She laughed and it suddenly occurred to Bud how easy it would be for him to like her. He wished sometimes he'd stopped it there and just frozen that moment in his heart forever: her laughter, his pleasure in it, her blinding beauty, his sense of having done the right thing.
But a couple of weeks later, having thought pretty much of nothing except her, he'd just up and called her one day and made up some pretext about Ted's problems and one damn thing led on to another; it became It.
“Bud?”
It was Ted, in the next bunk.
“Yes, Ted?”
“Bud, I can't sleep. I'm gonna go sit in the car.”
“Ted, you need your sleep.”
“But I can't.”
“Ted, you have to be sharp. Is something bothering you?”
“I'll tell you about it sometime. Bud. You'll know what I should do.”
Bud watched Ted go on out. He tried to feel something for Ted. Shouldn't he feel awful, partnered up with the man whose wife he was sleeping with? But he didn't. Ted had made his own bed with his strange ways. Bud couldn't believe a bad thing about Holly, and some of the things she'd told him made him sick. Ted watched dirty movies on the VCR alone late at night. Ted didn't seem to even think about touching her anymore. Ted just didn't care; he was letting it drift apart.
Ted, partner, you made a dumb mistake. I wish I were man enough to help you out, but I got too much involved.
They were on the swing between 1-44 at Chickasha and Anadarko, where the Pye boys hailed from, and where they just might head (though Bud thought not; whatever Lamar was, he wasn't that dumb) when Ted finally broke his silence.
“Bud, I got a thing or two on my mind.”
“Well, that's no place for a thing or two. Spit ’em out.”
The young trooper's face seemed to knit up in pain as he struggled for the words. But then finally he relaxed a bit and just said it.
“Ah, Bud… something's been eating me alive for months now. I even went to a psychiatrist, through that employees' assistance program the Department of Public Safety runs. But you're the first real person I breathed a word to.”
“Well, then you'd best get it out. Just flat say it, and we'll pick up the pieces and see what we got.”
“It's this: I don't think I got the guts for this line of work. The pure guts.”
So that was it. The moment hung in the car. On either side, the countryside, like a green river, flowed by, rolling yet mountain less the wheat fields and pastures and alfalfa fields all green in the sunlight. Soon Anadarko would come up, an ugly, desolate little town, with its customary bright strip of cheesy fast-food mills, a mile off the dead center of town.
“It's a scary job, Ted. Every one of us feels it when we strap on the gun. You run into a crazy, a hopped-up Tulsa gang banger a bad Okabilly with an attitude, you could stop a slug. I feel it, too, specially in these crazy days, where every goddamned body has a gun.”
“No, Bud, you're just talking about duty anxiety. That's what the shrink said. But it's something deeper.”
“Well, okay, Ted, if you say so. But I think everybody in our profession feels the horse collar
“About a year ago, I had a bad ten-seventy. I got good radar on a Nova about twenty miles below Oklahoma City.
Pulled him over. It was around three in the goddamned morning. Not a soul about. Couldn't even see any lights on the horizon. I did a run through Dispatch and found there was no paper on the driver. Still, I don't know why, I was scared. A trooper in Maryland got one in the head just that way a few years back.”
“I remember, Ted. I went to his funeral.”
“Anyway, I approached the car.. .. It was four blacks.
You know, in the X caps, the workout suits, and, man, that car just reeked of grass. They'd been having a high old time, I like to got buzzed just standing there. So I ask for the license and the guy hands it over. And I feel these eight eyes on me. And I look. And they're just staring at me, the reefer smoke just pouring out of that car, and I'm all alone and I'm thinking… I'm dead. I'm sure they were hauling a load. And they were just staring at me, waiting for me to make a move, daring me to make a move. And then I saw the first gun. An AR-15, like mine, only with the shorty barrel. It came up on the off-driver's side. One of ’em gets out. He's got a fucking Uzi} I see the guy in the back seat fiddling with something I couldn't even ID! Some weird thing with ventilation holes in the barrel shroud, a red-dot scope, a goddamned banana magazine. And here I am with a Smith and six cartridges. Goddamn, Bud, my dad fought in Vietnam and his dad fought in Korea and World War II and on down the line us Pepper boys have stood up and been counted. And all of a sudden it came over me so hard I thought I'd faint: I don't have it.”
“Ted—”
“So anyway, I just handed the license back. Apologized for stopping. And watched them go away. They laughed. I could hear them laugh as they pulled away. I went back to the cruiser and I just cried. I sat there and I
