Judas Horse

been through.”

The shooting incident.

“I think I have a fairly good handle on reality, Angelo. This is acting. The bullet is a blank.”

But my thinking mind goes vacant as my senses seem to cut off one by one — except for the slight scent of burning brake lining, and a high-pitched chatter, like headphones at full volume pressed against my ears.

Angelo consults his watch. His voice sounds faint. “We can catch the three forty-five to L.A. if we leave right now.”

As they head back toward the car, Donnato says something about scheduling the psychological evaluation.

“You’re going to fake a killing, and I’m the one who needs to see a shrink?” I say, managing a grin through the deafening clamor of the two red squirrels, jumping branch to branch.

Twenty-nine

Cars are parked way up the road. It is the midsummer festival at Willamette Hazelnut Farm. Megan is sticking close to Stone, who presents himself tonight in a neatly pressed western shirt, the red suspenders, and a crisp straw farmer’s hat — your happy host to the alternative lifestyle, urging people to gather in the large bubble shed, where a borrowed sound system plays a cheerful band out of Austin, Texas. Stone told me they had poured the concrete floor just for dances, which sounded pretty goofy, but with the silver blow-up panels animated by moving shadows and the doors thrown open, warm yellow light tumbles across the gravel road, illuminating the American flag, and you can believe in country music.

It is an eclectic blowout — a mix of neighboring farmers, “kindreds” from the pagan community, straitlaced hazelnut distributors from Portland, and random tourists from the local B and Bs, all happily passing the traditional Asatru libation, great huge horns of beer.

Slammer is standing on the roof of the farmhouse with the local boys, totally hammered on rum. That has pretty much been his MO since the burial attempt, despite empty threats to beat the crap out of Allfather, which came in a whispered confab with Sara. They were huddled like frightened children at the foot of the stairs as Slammer struggled out of his filth-encrusted clothes. Sara quickly balled them into her arms, as if to shrink an unthinkable humiliation down to the size of a load of laundry.

“You can’t let him do that to you.”

“That’s him, dog.”

“We should get out of here. We should call the cops.” “Are you serious? You want to go home?”

“No, but…He scares me.” Sara flushed pink and began to hiccup with tears.

“Poor little princess.”

“Guys!” I stepped between them. “Don’t get on each other.” Sara had dropped the clothes and was staring at me defiantly.

“Slammer, you have every right to call the police,” I said. “Is that what you want to do?” Slammer’s eyes went vacant. “Actually,” he said, “I’m kind of hungry.” After that, you could hear pickups burning rubber at two o’clock in the morning and raucous male shouting as Slammer came and went with the locals. Nothing changed on the farm. Maybe Stone had made his point. Maybe he was waiting to make another.

I see Sterling McCord has arrived and is talking to Sara, who doesn’t want to stand still and listen. He’s been on her case about Geronimo — how it would do her good to care, really care, for an animal, get up at dawn and muck the dung, not just mouth off about it — but she’s laughing, tossing it off, flirting instead. Incapable, is more like it. Meanwhile, McCord has the loosest pelvis on the planet. He’s standing tilted back on his heels, as if in the saddle at a trot. He’s wearing a silver conch belt and his usual washed-out jeans, a midnight blue shirt open at the chest.

I have noticed that you can’t go wrong on wardrobe if you’re a cowboy.

The sorting equipment and red tractor have been moved outside, so there is room for line dancing. The song is something about “old Amos.” I draw back from the doorway and the shining, eager faces go past the American flag and into the colder shadows. Sara and McCord are free to get it on — but me, I’m on the job. Undercover work — this is how it gets to you. The loneliness digs down like fast-growing roots and cracks your resolve. This is exactly when you are supposed to call your contact agent. Dose of reality. Remember who you are. It is 9:36 p.m. and Donnato is most likely home with his family.

Candles are still burning in jars on a half-cleared table near the orchard, illuminating a forest of smudgy fingerprints on abandoned wineglasses. An older couple is camped out at one end, picking at brownie crumbs in an aluminum pan. I move past, fishing out the last Heineken from the frigid waters of the cooler.

“Looks like Noah’s ark,” Sterling says from behind.

I turn toward the lighted shed and smile.

“They’ve got all the animals, right?”

“And they’re all gonna be saved. Any more beers?”

I give him the Heineken and pull out a Coors.

“I could use a set-down,” he suggests. “How about yourself?” At the other end of the table, in the half dark, an enormous white man is holding forth to a slight man of color — the first black face I’ve seen in Oregon. As we sit, I recognize the voice: like a sixteen-wheeler groaning uphill in second. That’s when I realize the fuzzy shape in the diffuse light is Mr. Terminate.

“John! It’s Darcy! From Omar’s bar.”

The other couple take a good look at John and decide to get out of there, leaving us with the dour biker, massive thighs dwarfing a folding chair, clutching a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He has left the black top hat at home, revealing long, thin tresses trailing off a half-bald dome.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Crashin’ the party.”

“Who’s your friend?”

“Toby Himes,” says the black man, extending his hand.

In the rural crowd, Toby Himes is a standout, neatly dressed in pressed slacks and a windbreaker. He keeps his hands inside his pockets while surveying the scene. He sports a tweed snap-brim cap and a white goatee, and takes his time, not intimidated. At first, I make him for another cop.

Because it takes a minute to dial it in. The biker and the black man, having a drink in the dark? This isn’t random. They know each other. And Mr. Terminate is not eating ashtrays, or washing his hands in someone’s pitcher of suds.

He is calm, like Vesuvius on a good day.

This is so inconsistent with John’s attitude toward the darker nation that the hair goes up on the back of my neck and I hook a leg over the bench, curious to find out why.

I introduce McCord as the wrangler who saved me from the wild horses, tell them the story of the arrests at the BLM corrals and try to draw them in.

“Should we all go out and save the wild horses?”

“I’ll tell you about horses,” wheezes Mr. Terminate, and begins a tale that has nothing to do with horses. “Up in Colorado, some of the fellas came into a load of computer stuff.” “Just dropped from the sky, did it?” Toby Himes laughs and takes a sip of beer. “I know how that is.” “You know bull crap. Excuse my French, but this is top secret shit, vital pieces of our national defense system.” “A vital piece of our defense network is missing?” McCord says. “John, you know, that really helps me sleep at night.” “How’d they steal it?” I ask.

Mr. Terminate shakes his head and pours a little Jack into a plastic cup.

“That I cannot say. But I do know this.” He points a pinkie with an inch-long curved fingernail, a built-in spoon for snorting coke.