After the Rain

Where Ace’s cheeks were smooth and defined, Dale’s were lumpy with moguls of persistent acne. Where Ace’s nose was straight, Dale’s was thick.

Being plain and naturally reticent, his quiet voice had grown softer and softer over the years.

His hair was dirty blond, unruly even when short, as it was now. It sprouted from his scalp like a neglected lawn taken over by weeds. His eyes were pale blue and flat, without sparkle.

And now he was ready. So he stepped out into ninety-two muggy degrees wearing distressed Levis, steel- toed work shoes, and a long-sleeved blue cotton shirt buttoned to the neck and to the wrists. A broad straw Stetson perched at an angle on his head.

He looked to the east, at the ambiguous sky. According to the Weather Channel the rain had finally tapered off in Minnesota. But the solid cover of clouds remained.

He locked the door to the office and motioned to Joe, who pushed upright in the lawn chair on the concrete apron in front of the office.

“Let’s go have a look,” Dale said.

Joe squinted and said, “I just was over there. I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“C’mon,” Dale cajoled and Joe grunted, reluctantly heaving to his feet. And so they walked across Highway 5. When Dale was little, the Missile Park had smelled like a saloon early in the morning. Sawdust and soap covering a deep underscent of alcohol and tobacco smoke. He remembered the morning sun catching fire in all those bottles behind the bar. Now the bottles were gone. Now it just smelled musty, like what it had become, an empty warehouse.

They stepped inside and saw the woman sitting at Ace’s table at the back of the room, next to the pinball machine.

Gordy was standing at the front window, sipping on a Coke. Without turning, he said, “Christ. Here come both of them.” Then he spun on his heel and went past her up the stairs.

She heard them before she saw them; heavy footfalls on the porch. Then the creak of the screen door, the two men coming into the bar. The big one came in first-a Yogi Bear ramble of a walk, heavy in the middle, a long neck. Grinning. This would be Dale, Ace’s odd brother. She was prepared for him being a little off. But not the way he wore his shirt buttoned up to his neck and down to his wrists on such a humid hot day. At the moment, however, she was more interested in the Indian, Joe Reed.

He took her in as his eyes swept the room; dark eyes doing that cold burn. They shot a fast dagger thrust. Quick, sharp, and deep. Too quick to read, but Nina thought she felt contempt in his eyes, maybe even hatred.

She didn’t know a whole lot about the social range of disfigured Indians. She’d only had one acquaintance with a Native American for any length of time: Ranger Sergeant Norby Hightower, a Cheyenne from Wyoming. Nina worked with Norby in Bosnia. Strong as a bear, Norby’s handshake was child-soft, a dissimulation of his true strength. His whole style had been probing, cautious, indirect.

Not point-blank and icy, like this guy’s.

Joe peeled off, walked behind the bar, opened a cooler, and took out a can of Mountain Dew. He popped the top, shrugged at Dale, and walked out the front door.

It bothered Dale deeply that she was more interested in watching Joe than him. But he brushed the slight aside for the moment.

She was pretty.

Maybe not as pretty as Ginny Weller had been-she was older and she’d had a kid. But still pretty.

As Dale walked down the length of the barroom toward the table, she looked up. When he felt her eyes he knew she was acting. The lazy, slightly vague, expression on her face was a mask. Behind that pretend mask she was watching Joe go around the bar, get a can of pop.

Dale swallowed and stared. He could hear Gordy and Ace talking upstairs. Joe got his look and now he walked back out. They were alone.

He was close enough to smell her now; a clean, rain-in-the-forest scent, distinct in the musty air. He knew he should look away, look down, be humble, or at least polite, but he stared. Starting at the top of her head, where her short red hair was carelessly combed by her fingers, then her face.

Her coloring, freckles, the strong cheekbones, the shamrock eyes. The red of her lipstick, hair, and freckles brought to mind images of a lake trout-smooth and supple, but also spiny with fins and stinging to the touch.

She crossed her legs and, staring at the flash of thigh, he had the powerful recollection of holding a struggling fish, feeling its life squirm against his encircling palm, peering into the red spasm of the gills.

As this sensation shuddered inside his bulk his gaze dripped down over her body like greasy water, gathering in her hollows, racing over her curves, marking every detail. Her strong body promised a lot of struggle.

She oozed confidence, like she wouldn’t bat an eye at the dirtiest joke. Like she’d seen it all before. She watched him walk up with a neutral expression in her eyes. She smelled like the Herbal Essence shampoo Ace kept in the upstairs bathroom.

She had this body that clothes always looked good on, lean and long-legged, but sinewy too. She was wearing a casual cotton-print dress with a green-and-amber pattern creasing down into her lap. The rounded neckline dipped low and he could see a only a suggestion of the firmness of her breasts, but what he saw looked more taut than soft. As Dale’s eyes drifted up, he mentally diagramed the apartment upstairs, all the rooms she had moved through, until he came to the bathroom shower stall. He imagined her naked up there, drawing a sponge across her stomach. “Hi,” he said, inhaling her.

Joe continued on across the road, finishing the soda in several long gulps. As he tossed the can, he noticed the green Ford Explorer was back, parked next to his van. He walked directly to it, tried the door. Locked. But the window was open a crack. Joe went to his van, rummaged in back, came back with a coat hanger, straightened it, hooked one end, slipped it through the crack, rotated it, and pressed the straightened end down on the lock button. He opened the door, ducked low, checked the glove compartment, the front seat. Almost immediately he found a holstered.45 under the driver’s seat with a Minnesota deputy sheriff’s badge. He took the pistol and badge, shut the door, got in his van, tossed them into the back. He started the van, pulled onto the highway, and removed a satellite phone from the glove compartment. He activated the phone and pressed in a number. When he had the connection, he said, “I delivered the message, but I’m not so sure about this.”

“Hi yourself,” Nina said.

Dale realized he was holding his breath and she was looking at him, taking in his appearance, assessing him, and being patient with him. She knows I’m Ace’s brother, and all the rest. She’s patronizing me. Finally in a burst of released air he said, “I’ll bet you went to the prom, didn’t you?”

She cocked her head and laughed, a feminine laugh that was pleasant to hear, like she was spontaneously amused.

“See,” Dale said, “I made you laugh.”

“I guess you did.”

“And you did go to the prom.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Were you the best-looking girl there?”

She shook a cigarette out of a pack on the table, lit it with a blue plastic lighter, and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. Then she tilted her head as if to let her mind roll backward. “Actually, I was about third or fourth in line for looks. I was on the skinny side.” She brightened. “But I’ll bet I was the smartest.”

Dale thought, but did not say, Oh yeah? Then what are you doing in this nowhere place? He studied her intently for several heavy heartbeats. He had no idea what a woman cop would really look like. All he’d seen were the ones on TV and in the movies, and they all had bigger chests.

He just nodded. “It’s good to be smart. But it helps to be pretty, too.”

She diplomatically didn’t answer that. She just shrugged her shoulders.

Dale smiled and said, “When Ace breaks your heart, I’ll take you out. I’ll be real nice to you.”

That amused her, too, because again she smiled a big smile, parting her teeth. She had good even teeth. And a hearty laugh. “I’ll tell him to keep an eye out for the competition.”

“Oh, I ain’t the competition. In fact I don’t mind being the last in line. I don’t mind sloppy lasts.” He broadened his grin, showing his gums, as she adjusted to the remark. Drew herself up. Tensed. Like she could bound right out the chair and pound him through the floor with kung fu or something. He imagined what it would be