snooping around.'
He shrugged uneasily. 'Sheer meanness, maybe.'
It didn't escape me that he hadn't mentioned them being mutilated. There had to be a reason for that, too- maybe that he was more deeply involved than he wanted to admit. I decided to come back around to it.
'So you went ahead and took them to the dump?' I said.
'Yeah. Covered them up and got the hell out of there. I was creeped, I don't mind telling you. I tried not to think about it any more, but then I saw you heading that way and I started getting nervous about how I'd buried them fast and didn't have nothing but a flashlight, and what if I hadn't done too good a job? So I went for a look, and sure as shit, there was a goddamned leg sticking up.'
I shook my head. 'I never paid any attention, Kirk. I guess I was too busy with my own trash.'
'Well, I got worried that maybe you had, and by then you'd took off. So I called Balcomb and told him we better find out.'
'And you came up with that bullshit about the lumber.'
'I never guessed he'd send you to jail.'
'Just brand me a petty crook and fire me?'
'I had to cover my ass, Hugh. If word had got out about them horses because I screwed up, Balcomb would have skinned me alive. He was red-hot pissed as it was.'
He flinched as I reached for him, but I only patted him on the shoulder.
'Always glad to do a favor for an old pal,' I said. 'That's quite a story, Kirk. But I don't get how it's supposed to do me any good.'
That earnest look came back to his face.
'I'm thinking you and me could team up, see? Tell Balcomb that now we got something on him, and get him off both our backs.'
So that was where he'd been going with this. I'd underestimated him. This wasn't just weaseling-it was gainful weaseling.
'Sorry to be a hard-ass, Kirk, but it sounds like you're more interested in helping yourself than me.'
'Hugh, I swear to God, the way I got this idea was trying to figure out how I could get right with you. But I got to admit, I don't want to take him on alone. And he's spooked by you. That's why he came down on you so hard.'
I was almost amused. 'Balcomb, spooked by me? I don't pack any weight.'
'That's just it. You pack a kind he ain't used to. He can't figure out how to get his boot on your neck, and he can't stand that.'
I supposed I should have been flattered, but it mainly added to my unease.
I tried to make sense of the way the pieces on the board had shifted again. Now I had someone to back up my story, and the chances of getting the sheriffs in action were a thousand percent better. Of course that wasn't what Kirk had in mind-he'd be looking at a meth pop, but that was his problem. My own dilemma was that if Balcomb stuck to our agreement, I didn't need to get him off my back anymore; and if I angered him again, the risks I'd worried about were still in play.
Although the thought of nailing him officially was tasty.
I decided not to decide just then. I'd been running too much stuff around in my head, and I was wearing out. But finding out where those carcasses had ended up would be damned good insurance, and I saw a way to push Kirk in that direction without being too obvious.
'He got his boot on my neck pretty good today,' I said. 'Well, I'm interested in your idea. But you're going to have to show me those horses.'
His eyes got slippery again. 'I can't do that.'
'Why not? I know he threw me off the place, but we could sneak on.'
'He made me go move them again today, soon as it got dark. I hid them good this time.'
I hardened my voice a notch. 'Then we're going to have to dig them up again. I'm not getting into it with Balcomb unless I know I'm standing on something solid.'
'Oh, I can prove what I'm saying. When I went back the second time, I took my camcorder. I got it right here.'
I blinked in surprise. I was getting more impressed with Kirk all the time, especially because he'd accomplished what I'd failed to.
I was even going to feel a little bad about taking the camcorder away from him.
He got it from inside the Jeep and gave it to me. His hand was shaking badly and his face was drawn so tight it looked almost skeletal.
The camcorder was a new model Sony, not much bigger than my fist. I flipped open the screen and pressed the start button, bracing myself for the sight of those ripped-up horses.
But sweet Jesus, what appeared was Celia rising up out of Lone Creek, naked and streaming wet and lovely just like in my memory.
I stared, stupefied, as she waded thigh-deep through the pool below the falls. Then it started to dawn on me that this wasn't Celia-it was Laurie Balcomb.
Kirk had been keeping an eye on her, all right.
She was hard to look away from, and maybe I stayed riveted to that screen a couple of seconds longer than I needed to. I barely heard Kirk's feet make a quick shuffling sound behind me.
Something slammed across the back of my head so hard it knocked the camcorder from my hands and buckled my knees. He hit me again as I tried to turn around, and maybe again after that.
21
When I started coming to, I seemed to be hanging in space outside my head, and for a few seconds I couldn't get back in. Then I connected, and the harsh ache in my skull brought me awake fast.
I was propped up behind the wheel of my pickup truck. The engine was running and the truck was moving jerkily down the sloping headland toward the lake-which ended in a sheer fifteen-foot drop into the water.
Kirk Pettyjohn was trotting along outside my open window, steering with one gloved hand on the wheel. We had about ten yards to go.
It took me another couple of seconds to start my legs moving. I got my right foot onto the brake and stomped it as hard as I could. The truck lurched to a stop, setting off a clatter of empty beer cans on the floor.
Kirk's hand tore loose of the wheel and he went windmilling onward. The truck bucked a couple of times, still in gear, and then the engine died. As I wrenched the door open, Kirk turned around, but instead of coming toward me he ran past me back uphill.
I knew damned well he'd have a gun in that Jeep.
I stumbled out and went after him, but he had a head start and he was moving faster. The only weapon I had was an old Schrade folding knife that I carried in my back pocket. I managed to claw it out as I ran, but I didn't have time to open it before Kirk reached into the Jeep.
He came out with the cold moonlit glint of metal in his hand-the blued barrel of a pistol. But he hadn't taken off his thick work gloves, and he fumbled, trying to force his finger through the trigger guard. I skidded on my knees, scooped up a handful of loose sandy soil, and flung it at his face.
He spun away, spitting and dragging his sleeve across his eyes, and took off again-but this time he was tugging at his gloves with his teeth. I managed to get my knife open as I chased him.
He stopped suddenly and gave his head a shake like a terrier killing a rat. A glove went flying. He started bringing up the pistol, with his right hand now bare.
I was only a step away by then, the knife clenched in my fist like a chisel, with the edge forward. I drove it at his hands as if I was throwing a right cross, with the last-ditch frantic hope that I could knock the gun aside or land a slash that would shock him into dropping it. But its upswinging barrel caught my wrist and sent the punch glancing off his chin.
I felt the blade drag just slightly, like I'd sliced its tip through an overripe pumpkin.
