it is.
But this stuff could make Lamar mad. We want to move you and your family to a safehouse.”
“Oh, Lord.”
“It's best. Bud.”
“I have a boy hitting four hundred and another about to graduate with honors. I can't take them out of their high school. It's the time of their lives. They can't never get it back.”
The colonel looked at him.
“Well,” he finally said, 'maybe I'll just assign a fulltime shift on your home. That be all right?”
“Most 'preciated.”
“I guess a tough old coot like yourself can look after himself.”
“Colonel, can I ask you something?”
-'Sure, Bud, what is it?”
“The pid man. C. D. Henderson? Where's he?”
“Well, they done retired him. He spent a lot of the state's money and came up with nothing. You got more from a drawing of a lion than he did from half a million dollars worth of overtime. He had a bad drinking problem, you know? It was time. I hope I go out better, though, than he did. Bitter old coot. Sad, actually, how ugly it became.”
They kept Bud three more nights, and he got through them with his old pal the bottle of Percodan. At ten on the fourth morning, he was released to Jen's care. The two of them drove home in her station wagon. His leg still throbbed, and though he no longer wore the eyepatch, the vision in the one eye was blurry. Moreover, it felt like every square inch of his body had a bruise or a cut on it.
“Now, you're supposed to take it easy.”
“Ain't any other way for me to take it. Plenty of naps, going to Jeff's games, that sort of thing.”
“Bud, the season's almost over. He's only got tomorrow night.”
“Oh. Well, that's another thing I didn't do very well, is it? I didn't pay attention to Jeff. Is that why he's so grumpy lately?”
“Bud, what's going on?”
“What you mean?”
“Something's going on. You aren't hardly there anymore.
There in the house. Even when you're there. You're off somewheres else. You never talk to any of us. Like you're saving your best stuff for somebody else.”
A flower of rage blossomed in Bud. He was at his worst when Jen was picking at his secrets. But he just clamped up.
“It's just this Lamar thing. Hell, I've been in two gunfights, had a partner killed, been on the road, into and out of hospitals, and killed a man myself. That's were I been.”
“No, Bud, it's something else. I've been watching you for twenty-five years. I know something's going on. You have to tell me.”
Bud was acutely uncomfortable. Here was the perfect chance, he thought. Tell her. Work it out now, civilized, friendly-like. It didn't have to be a mess, with screams and accusations of betrayal and tears. Begin to discuss it with her. Tell her: You met somebody, you care about her, it's time to make the change. It'll be all right. It's a new chance for everybody.
But Bud couldn't even begin to form the words. It was inconceivable to him.
“No,” he insisted, 'things are fine. Just want to get rested up and read in the papers that they got Lamar. I swear to you.”
Her silence expanded to fill the air in the car and drive any other possibility out.
They got home and Bud saw a state car parked out front.
“Been there long?” he asked.
“Yes. Two men from the OSBI. There's another car out back. I asked them in, but they said they'd stay in the car and keep a watch out. Do you think he'd try anything against us?”
“Lamar? I don't know. I doubt it.”
“If you say so.”
“Well, you can't predict. But these boys out front'll prevent anything bad from happening.”
Bud waved at the two—sullen youngsters, under huge cowboy hats, with hooded eyes—who nodded in return and went back to eyeballing the neighborhood.
Bud went in—he had a moment of bliss, walking in his own front door, even if each step felt as if it pulled him through a bucket of glass.
Still, it felt good: to survive a goddamned gunfight and come back to this and see that everything was just as it had been, that Jen's sense of order had made certain that it was neat, that it was still a house rank with the odor of boys. He felt as if a weight had been lifted.
He went to the gun safe in the downstairs closet, spun the dial, and the thing opened up: his guns, gleaming in the low light, three short of course, lay in there. He decided to get a short-barreled shotgun out just in case, removed it, slid five 12-gauge double-oughts down its tube, but didn't crank the slide to jack a round into the chamber. He locked the door and laid the shotgun to rest against the wall.
“Honey, I got a shotgun out. You just have to throw the pump if it comes to it. In the closet. Next to the safe.”
“Okay, Bud.”
“Where're the papers?”
“In the living room.”
“I'm going to take them upstairs.”
She didn't answer.
Bud got them and took them upstairs. He slid out of his boots, took another Percodan, and lay back in his bedroom.
He read all about it, saw himself referred to by name as a highway patrol undercover officer—now there was a joke!
—and read quotes by the colonel and half-a-dozen other officials on what a good job he'd done. There was a murky official photo of him.
Generally, the press business was pretty favorable. It treated him as some kind of hero, and none of them mentioned that he was the patrolman jumped by Lamar and O’Dell three months back; that was good, it didn't make it look like this 'revenge” thing, as everybody seemed to think it would. Maybe the stupid reporters were too dumb to put it together but more likely, someone had said to them, don't stroke this angle and, for once, they'd agreed.
But he didn't like the games they played with the story of the fingers.
They almost seemed to think it was funny, that he'd done it on purpose.
If he'd been an expert shot, one bullet would have killed O’Dell, not thirty-three, and the second one would have killed Lamar.
Around one, he fell asleep. At three he awakened, saw that a note from Jen was on the bureau. She'd gone out on errands; Russ and Jeff would be back late; they wanted to go to the Meers Store tonight, was it all right? Or should they stay in?
Bud rolled over and dialed Holly's number.
“Hi,” he said, 'how're you?”
“Oh, Bud, they say you're a big hero! Bud, you're famous!”
“Oh, it'll go away, believe me. These buzzards forget as soon as they write something.”
“You're all right?”
“I'm fine, I swear to you. I'm done with the eyepatch but I have scabs on my face and a bandage on my leg, where there's still swelling and some pain, but I seem to be tougher than beef jerky. Lamar just can't git me dead. I can't git him dead either.”
“Bud, when can I see you? I want to be with you so bad.
I want to help you through this.”
“No help needed. I'm fine. Honey, I told you—it just depends. A day or two, when the ruckus settles down.
