slicker than a whistle. Maybe they did it with a machine or something, but it just looked like hard work to him, the old-fashioned kind. No job for a slacker, that was for sure.
He climbed up on the porch. From inside he heard the sounds of the television, a cartoon show for children. That was good, too. Kids meant family meant probably not escaped-convict armed robbers and killers. Now he was feeling pretty good. He knocked on the door.
He heard some rustling inside, but he wasn't sure what it was. At last, the door opened and a chalky-faced young woman stared at him. Her wide eyes were dark as coal, and she wore her dark hair pulled back in a long ponytail. She was in jeans and a nondescript print blouse, sleeves pushed up. She fixed a glare on him, which might have been fear and might have been hate.
“Miss. Tun?”
“Yes I am,” she said.
“If you're here to sell me something, I don't need nothing.”
“No ma'am,” he said, and took out his ID folio with its golden State of Oklahoma shield.
“My name's Russell Pewtie; I'm an investigator for the state highway patrol.”
“I ain't done nothing wrong,” she said.
“I'm not saying you have, ma'am. It's just that we're investigating a crime and we may have a lead in a tire- tread mark so we know what kind of car it is. Your car fits the profile. I just want to take a look at it so I can cross you off my list and get on to the serious business.”
“Ah—” she said. Was it a look of panic in her eyes?
Bud began to pick up a sense of disturbance.
“Ma'am, if you'd like to call the family lawyer and have him come on out or something?”
“I don't have no family lawyer.”
“Well, ma'am, I'd be happy to wait until you called someone. If you like, I can give you the number of Legal Aid and they can either supply or recommend a lawyer. But no charges are pending against you. Miss Tun. We just want to account for these cars so by process of elimination we come down to ones we can't explain. Those are probably our boys.”
“Okay. Sure, it's—sorry, I'm just not used to policemen.”
“I understand. Wouldn't be natural if you were, ma'am.”
She stepped outside. In a flash glimpse, he saw a kitchen and through a hall and two doors, the blue TV glow.
“Your son, ma'am?”
“What? Oh, the TV? No, I just like to leave it on. It keeps me company.”
“You live alone?”
“I do. Since Mother and Daddy died, I've been here by myself.”
“I see. You're having some work done?”
“Yes. Got tired of looking at the old dead paint. Hired some men to clean it up and paint it. But then they got another job, so they ran off to do it. Said they'll be back, but you know how hard it is to find quality work these days.”
It seemed to hang together, but Bud was wondering: Why is she so nervous?
Lamar watched as the trooper ID'd himself to Ruta Beth and began to gull her into something.
Would she be smart enough? Would she make some stupid mistake?
Goddamn, how could they have tracked him?
He had been so careful, he had thought it out a step at a time, sometimes staying up all night just worrying his way through it. What could he have done wrong?
He looked this way and that. O’Dell must be still camped in front of the tube: if you didn't give that boy an order, he'd be content to sit there like a bump on a log from June till November. Richard was the goddamned problem. Richard could bumble in at any moment and start to cry. The cop would recognize him, it would all fall apart.
It came down to this: Lamar hated the idea that the trooper sergeant he'd caught so flat footed a month and a half ago would be the one to bring him down. He saw the stories now, for he knew how they thought: The newspapers and the TV would turn it all personal, they'd make this lucky motherfucker into the greatest goddamned detective since Dick Motherfucking Tracy! He, Lamar, would be the goat!
Lamar's anger ruptured like a boiler exploding. He felt his muscles begin to tense and the blood begin to sing in his ears.
Be careful, he told himself. You get mad, you make a goddamned mistake.
He tried to clear his mind in order to figure out choices.
Maybe he could double around, get into the house by the back way, get to a gun, and just blow the fucker away. But that would take minutes. It might come apart before then, and he'd be stuck in the fields out back, while Bud Pewtie blew away O’Dell and Richard and called for backup.
What would Pewtie do? Would he go in the house or was he after something else?
Suddenly, Ruta Beth stepped outside, closing the door after her, and the two of them began the long walk to the barn.
Lamar slithered backward, a snake, then plunged into the darkness of the barn and began to look about for some kind of weapon. Then he saw it: the ax he'd used to split logs.
He had it up in a second, and slid into a pool of darkness inside the door, dead still, not hardly breathing. The ax had killing weight to it. If he got just the smallest break, he'd be on Pewtie like the night. One swipe and it would be over.
“This must be that shoot-out in Texas,” she said.
“It's so terrible what them men did. Why do people have to be so cruel?”
“Ma'am, I've been a police officer for nearly twenty-five years, and the truth is, I don't know. Four thousand dollars.
Couldn't buy nothing with that.”
But as he was talking, Bud was looking all about. Something still didn't sit right with him. Her nerves, the idea of leaving a television on just to hear it. Why not a radio?
“I keep it out back by my wheel,” she said.
“Beg pardon?”
“Wheel. I am by profession a potter. I turn clay on a wheel. Then I paint it and glaze it and bake it in a kiln. I can make pret' near anything by now. Then I go to craft shows on the weekend. It isn't much, but it's a living.”
“Well, that's nice. Funny, I met all kinds but I don't believe I met a potter before.”
“I'd be pleased to give you a pot, Mr. Pewtie.”
“Well, that's kind of you, ma'am. I think I'll just get it checked off and be out of your way.”
“Gits kind of lonesome out here, that's why I'm talking up such a storm.”
“I can appreciate it.”
They walked through the barn and out back to her work area. Her potter's wheel stood under a lean-to, the coal fired kiln next to it, and on her bench were several cans of paint and her pots. They blazed with color. She seemed to be doing some imitation Indian thing with them, but they were better than any pottery he'd seen in the reservation shops. The colors were jagged, almost savage, and stood off the echer like blood pouring from a wound.
“My,” he said, impressed, 'you are a hell of a potter.
Those things are beautiful.”
“Why, thank you. Officer,” she said modestly.
And then he turned to the car.
Lamar watched as she boldly led him toward the barn.
Beautiful, sweetie, beautiful, he was thinking.
He could have pounced at any second, and in his mind he thrilled at the prospect of it. That was what he was addicted to: the hot fun of the violence. He saw himself really getting his weight into it and bringing that blade whanging down into the trooper's bull neck. What a wound it would open! The meat would splay open, red and pulsing, maybe a sliver of bone would show. There'd be more goddamned blood than you could shake a stick at. Pewtie would turn, stunned, unbelieving, and his eyes would lock onto Lamar's and beg for mercy, and he'd weakly
