counted. In general, I spent a fair amount of energy in my daily life trying to find little ways to propitiate those powers in advance for times like this, when I had to cut corners.
The ranch's electric fencing didn't extend this far into the hinterlands-there was just old-fashioned barbed wire strung on posts of lodgepole pine. I climbed over it, waded Lone Creek without taking off my boots, and stopped inside the edge of the sheltering line of trees along the stream.
The shed was about a hundred yards away, a dark bleak mar against the horizon, underscoring the solitude in the way that abandoned signs of human presence sometimes could. Nothing moved in the surrounding stubbly hay fields except some scatterings of alfalfa and timothy that the swather had missed, their fronds dipping and tossing in a submissive little dance to the wind.
When I got there everything looked the same as when Madbird and I had left last night, with the hay bales still at the ambush site. I opened the barn doors to let in light and started prowling. I didn't have any specific ideas of what to look for-only the faint hope of turning up something we'd missed.
He was right about there being shotgun pellets in the walls-I found a few right off. But like the organic residue, they were worthless as evidence-a ranch hand could have been hunting rats or just expressing himself after downing a six-pack or two. It didn't offer any hints about what was behind this, either. I kept looking, but I didn't see anything else that seemed out of place.
I'd been there about ten minutes when I thought I heard a faraway sound deeper than the wind. I strode to the doors. I couldn't see anything new moving out there.
But my eye was caught by a strip of bright blue embedded in the ground a few yards in front of the shed. I'd missed it on my way in-it was tiny and hidden, from most angles, by a ridge of dirt.
A ridge, I realized, that had been made by the Cat's blade.
I knelt beside the blue strip and pulled it free. It was a shred from a nylon tarp-like the one that had been wadded up with the carcasses in the dump.
Then I heard the noise again, a low rumble like an engine's. It might have been a passing plane or even thunder, but I couldn't take the chance. I slammed the shed doors shut and ran in a crouch for the trees. My wet boots were heavy to pick up and slogged down with ankle-turning clumsiness, and the distance seemed a lot longer than a hundred yards. I got behind a good-size bull pine and leaned against it, breathing hard. The sound was clear now, even over the pounding of my pulse. I edged my face out for a look.
Sure as hell, a pickup truck was approaching on the dirt road. It looked like one of the several almost identical gray Fords that belonged to the ranch.
I sagged back against the tree. I couldn't believe that anybody had seen or heard me coming here-the country I'd crossed was as deserted as the dark side of the moon. But it was almost as hard to believe that somebody would happen along, in this blowy Sunday twilight, for any other reason. Maybe I'd tripped some kind of security device I didn't know about. I faded another twenty yards into thicker cover. But I couldn't resist getting a look at who was in that truck.
The driver was just stepping out-a fit-looking man wearing jeans and a cowboy hat pulled low. But I didn't recognize him as any of the hands, and he seemed to walk a little awkwardly, like he wasn't used to his boots.
It was Wesley Balcomb himself.
Ordinarily, he drove a sunburst orange Humvee. I'd never seen him in one of the ranch rigs. The Humvee was a glossy, pristinely kept showpiece-maybe he hadn't wanted to take it over rough dusty roads. But my stronger guess was that he didn't want to be recognized by anybody who might glimpse it.
Instead of going to the shed, he walked away from it until he had a clear view in all directions. Then he turned slowly in a full circle, taking in the wide horizon of what he owned. There was no way in hell he could have seen me, crouched in the timber almost two hundred yards away. But I'd have sworn that his gaze paused for a couple of seconds just after it passed.
I didn't move again until he'd driven away.
31
The hired hands' trailers lay deeper into ranch property, but I was able to ride most of the way there still staying outside the boundary. I stopped just short of where the electric fence started. This time when I cut the engine I spent a good long minute listening. The trailer settlement was the one place on the spread where people would definitely be around right now, and the coincidence of running into Balcomb, if that was what it was, had me feeling extra edgy.
No man-made sounds broke the evening stillness. Everybody was probably inside. I climbed the barbed wire again and quietly walked the half mile to the trailers' lights. There were half a dozen double-wides, set far enough apart and shielded by trees to give reasonable privacy. It looked like Doug Wills was home-his big red pickup was parked outside.
I spent another minute thinking about what-ifs. It was all too likely that he'd take one look at me and call the sheriffs to bust me for trespassing, or even try to regain some of the macho turf he'd lost yesterday. I was banking on the good Knob Creek bourbon I'd brought to soften him up. But I was ready to bail out fast, too.
I hyperventilated a few times, then climbed the few steps and tapped on the trailer's flimsy aluminum door.
Doug answered the knock himself. His badly swollen nose stood out like a hazard light, and he had deep purple bruises under both eyes. I swallowed hard and held up the bottle in offering.
'Look, I know you're really pissed at me, and I know I'm not supposed to be here,' I said. 'I came to apologize.' I'd taken that cue from Kirk. Even though I hadn't believed him, it had lulled me into dropping my guard.
Doug glared at me, then at the whiskey, then at me, then at the whiskey again. Finally he took the bottle in his fist and stepped back, leaving the door open.
'All right, I ain't holding any grudges,' he said gruffly.
I exhaled quietly in relief, but I stayed wary as I followed him inside. It felt too easy-I'd expected at least a show of teeth. But the fight seemed to be out of him. No doubt the broken nose figured in-that would leave a man sore all over and laboring to breathe for some time to come. And yet, he looked puzzled, distracted, rather than whipped. Maybe it was because in his own mind he'd been the kingpin of his little world, and that idea had been shaken enough for something else to start working its way in.
The trailer's inside was cramped and noisy, with a huge satellite TV screen blaring a reality cop show and kids running around hollering. I knew there were only three, but the place seemed to be full of them. The diaper smell and clutter were the same as I remembered from the time I'd come in to unjam the cheap pocket door to the bathroom.
The living room and kitchen were separated only by a counter, where Tessa-Doug's wife and occasional horizontal passenger in Madbird's van-was chopping vegetables for dinner. She gave me a brief cool stare, but if she recognized me, it didn't show. She was tall and angular, with wide flat hips and a blond shag hairdo bleached almost stiff. Her mouth had a tough set to it and her face would have been prettier with a few corners knocked off. But that made it more attractive in an odd way-for sure, more interesting, with a hint of wildness. I didn't have any trouble seeing why she appealed to Madbird.
Doug walked on to the kitchen, automatically stepping over children and piles of stuff. I stayed just inside the doorway, still nervous that he might pick up a phone or gun. Instead, he got a couple of tumblers from a cupboard and filled them with bourbon. Tessa ignored him completely.
He handed me one of the brimming glasses and went to his chair, gesturing me to another one. But even though things might be OK with Doug, I didn't want to be trapped inside if somebody like one of the Anson brothers showed up, who knew I was trespassing and wasn't inclined to shrug it off.
'Thanks, I'd just as soon stand,' I said, and pressed my hand under my heart. 'If it makes you feel any better, you damn near broke a couple of my ribs. I don't think anybody ever hit me that hard.' That wasn't true, but I could tell it smoothed things over a little more.
'I know you were some kind of boxer,' he said. 'I never done any of that, but you try riding a two-thousand- pound bull some time.'
