have seen it, jumped in his own rig, and caught up with me here.
But the why of it was a lot less soothing. If his contacts in the sheriffs' department had told him I was a flight risk, and he was nervous enough about it to chase me down, it suggested that I was still very much on the radar in Kirk's disappearance-that if anything, the heat was rising. They might even have come up with new reasons for suspicion since this morning.
'What did you hear?' I said.
The lit end of the cigar pointed at my face. 'Don't bullshit me. You know what I'm saying.'
'I'm not bullshitting you. Gary Varna talked to me about Kirk, yeah, but everything seemed OK.'
'That's between Gary and you. What I'm telling you is if you don't show, you don't know what trouble is.'
That might not have been entirely accurate, but it was true that he made the law look benign.
'I'll be there,' I said. 'Trust me.'
He blew out a contemptuous snort of smoke.
'Let me give you a little advice. Don't never say that to a bondsman.'
'Sorry,' I said. 'It just sort of slipped out.'
His stare bludgeoned me a few seconds longer, but then he gave a nod that seemed grudgingly satisfied.
I wanted to find out what he knew, but it was clear he hadn't come here to share information, and I'd heard stories of him punctuating these kinds of warnings with a couple of thumps that would leave a man pissing blood. I started edging toward the door of the bar.
But Bill seemed to relax, his tone turning almost friendly.
'If things go your way tomorrow, your girlfriend got some money coming back,' he said. 'She can come by the shop and pick it up.'
'Thanks, I'll pass that on,' I said, remembering unhappily that I'd never returned Sarah Lynn's call.
'Or you could leave it on retainer. Let's say the pop's a hunnert next time.'
'What? A hundred thousand?'
'Right. That's ten grand up front for me, so we're talking another seven and a half,' he said, with an air of cheerful companionship. 'Now, if a guy's got trouble coming up with that kind of cash, I'm willing to work with him, but I'd need some collateral. You got a place up Stumpleg Gulch, right?'
'Jesus Christ,' I said. 'Are you telling me this is about to happen?'
'You never know. I'm just saying you got backup, that's all.' He stepped forward abruptly and gave my deltoid muscle a viselike squeeze between his thumb and forefinger. No doubt it was intended as encouraging, but it made me feel like a chicken being sized up for the pot.
My new best friend lumbered away. I walked back into the bar, lightheaded, like I'd just gotten up from a knockout punch and wasn't quite in touch with where I was. I told myself that he didn't really know anything solid. It was perfectly reasonable that he wanted his hat in the ring if a lucrative bond came around. He was just a businessman trying to drum up a little trade.
The bartender hadn't dumped my drinks and eighty-sixed me, thank God. He still seemed wary, but I'd kept my trouble outside, which was the cardinal rule, and the hundred-dollar bill had probably helped.
I downed the shot and chugged half the beer, and bought another of both.
28
Elmer came in a few minutes later, wearing the pearl gray Stetson he saved for town. He was well known at the Red Meadow-all the men greeted him, and when he came to stand next to me, I could feel my status rise. The bartender brought his drink, a brandy sage, without his having to ask. I'd never known anyone to drink sages and presses-short for Presbyterians-except these kinds of aging westerners. Probably not many bartenders knew how to make them anymore.
When Elmer reached for his wallet, I stopped him, and we went through the little hand-wrestling match that men did in situations like that.
'This is on me,' I said. 'Least I can do for you taking the time.'
'Hell, I was glad for the excuse. Besides, you ain't even got a job anymore.'
'Yeah, but I just came into a little windfall.'
He put his wallet away, gruffly pleased. I wished I could have told him where the windfall was from-that would have tickled him more still.
The bartender retired to the well to wash glasses, leaving Elmer and me in private.
'I know I'm putting you in an awkward spot,' I said quietly.
'Don't you worry about it. If Kirk got in trouble, I'll give you ninety-nine to one there ain't nobody to blame but Kirk. I don't know what all he was up to, but I know some of it wasn't much good. So does Reuben, and probably so do the sheriffs.'
'I sure hope so.'
He cocked his head to the side and eyed me. 'From what you told me, it sounds like you got a notion.'
'There's something ugly rustling around out in the bushes, Elmer. That's about all I know at this point, and I've got to be real careful what I say.'
'Never mind about that, neither,' he said. 'You get to be my age, there's more and more you'd as soon not know. Ask what you want and I'll tell you what I can, and that'll be the end of it.'
We touched glasses and drank.
'I'm interested in a pair of horses that showed up at the ranch a couple days ago,' I said. 'Thursday, near as I can tell.'
The creases in his forehead deepened. 'I didn't hear nothing about it. Thoroughbreds?'
'I don't know, but they didn't go to the new stables. They got put in that calving shed at the north end, and they were gone next morning.'
He pushed his hat back with his knuckles. 'Well, I promised I wouldn't get nosy, so I won't ask how the hell you know that. But I don't see how it could of got by me.'
'Maybe it was set up that way,' I said.
I could see that he wasn't just puzzled now-he was real unhappy that something like that had happened on his turf.
'Anybody moving stock on or off the ranch is supposed to come to the office and file a record,' he said. 'It goes into a computer now, but I don't get along too good with that, so I get a paper copy, too. I look them over every day before I leave, same as I always done. And I'm damn sure there ain't been nothing about horses.'
So-it sounded like they'd been sneaked in, probably at night. I doubted Balcomb had brought them himself. Unloading horses from a trailer was no job for somebody who didn't handle them well. It might have been Kirk, or another accomplice, or just a delivery driver who wouldn't have had any reason to suspect anything was out of the ordinary.
But there was still no hint about where they'd been brought from, or why.
'Anything else that's gone on around the ranch that seems, you know, not right?' I said.
''Not right,'' he said musingly. 'Well, nothing flat-out wrong, at least that I know of. There's plenty that don't make sense to me.'
'Such as?'
'Their thoroughbred operation, for one thing. It don't much exist.'
I'd been aware of personal tensions on the ranch, but this was the first I'd heard that things weren't going well inside the inner sanctum of the Balcombs' compound. Elmer was the only person I knew who had access to it, and I'd never talked to him about it before.
'I thought that was the whole point of them buying the place,' I said.
'That's what they told everybody, all right. Big-time breeding, and selling all over the world. But there ain't any horses there, to speak of-just their own two, and a couple it seems like they keep more for show than anything else. Not a one bought or sold yet, or bred, neither. Stands to reason they'd take a while to get started, but it's
