Bone Dry

allowed in the park, and killing any type of animal on the premises was against the law. In the end, Marlin wrote him a citation for possession of a firearm within the park boundaries. He could have been much tougher, arresting the young man and confiscating his rifle, a cheap bolt-action.22.

The remainder of the morning was slow, so Marlin headed back home for lunch at twelve-thirty. While eating a sandwich, he noticed the light blinking on his answering machine. He hit PLAY.

“Yeah, John, this is Lester Higgs. I got something out here, and uh, well, I don’t want to get into it over the phone, but I really need to see you right away. It’s about eleven-thirty and I’ll be here at the house for a few minutes. But I’ve got to head back to the southern property line and you can find me there, near the back pasture. It’s urgent, John. You’ll understand when you get here.”

Lester Higgs was a Blanco County native, about Marlin’s age, now foreman of the Hawley Ranch, a large hunting operation. People called the game warden all the time with “urgent” problems, but Lester’s tone told Marlin he’d better return the call right away. Marlin knew Lester to be a man who wasn’t easily ruffled. Many years ago, Marlin had seen Lester get kicked in the head by a horse during a rodeo. Lester went to his truck, stitched the wound himself, then rode a bull an hour later. Lester wasn’t the type to call the game warden every time he heard a late shot or saw a spotlight in an oat field after dark. Marlin dialed Lester’s number but got no answer. He grabbed his sandwich and headed out the door.

Fifteen minutes later, Marlin arrived at the gate of the Hawley Ranch. There were no vehicles at the foreman’s quarters, so Marlin navigated the rutted dirt roads to the heavily wooded back pasture. He passed a red late-model SUV on the side of the road, rounded a curve, and spotted Lester’s white truck along the fenceline. Marlin parked beside it.

Marlin shut his truck door and immediately heard Lester calling to him from behind a dense curtain of cedars. A tall deer blind loomed over the treetops.

Marlin came through the trees and found Lester just yards away, squatted on his haunches with his dirty Stetson in his hands. In front of him was a body.

Five summers ago, Emmett Slaton had been in the drive-through at the local bank when he’d glanced over at the parking lot of the grocery store next door. He noticed a rough-looking couple sitting on the tailgate of a jacked- up yellow truck. The man was dressed in a leather Harley-Davidson cap and a matching vest with no shirt underneath. The woman wore a green bikini top and greasy blue jeans. On her left biceps was a tattoo of a penis and a caption that read Born To Ride. Between them was a cardboard box that read, FREE PUPIES. Apparently, they were down to the last pup in the litter, a wormy-looking black-and-brown runt that lay panting on the hot pavement at their feet.

The biker hoisted the puppy up into the bed of the truck and shoved a bowl of water in front of it. When the puppy went to drink, the man slid the bowl out of its reach. The puppy tried again, and the man moved the bowl once more. After three or four attempts, the puppy lay down with its head between its paws. The man picked up the puppy by the scruff of its neck and gave it a good shake, as if scolding it for giving up so easily. With his free hand, the biker roughly jabbed the puppy’s belly.

Slaton had seen all he needed to see. He wheeled his Ford out of the bank line and pulled in next to the yellow truck. He grabbed a tire iron from behind his seat and held it beside his leg as he approached the man in the vest.

“Son,” Slaton said, “don’t you know you shouldn’t treat an animal that way?”

The biker glanced at Slaton, then gave the woman an exaggerated, I can’t believe this shit expression. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Emmett Slaton, and I believe I’ll take that dog off your hands.”

The biker looked down at the dog. “This’n here? Gonna cost you a hunnert bucks.”

“Your box says it’s free.”

“Yeah, they was free to the general pop’lation, but for assholes, they’s a hunnert bucks.”

Slaton reached down to pick up the dog and the biker grabbed his arm in an alarmingly strong grip.

Slaton brought the tire iron down fast and hard and felt the bones give way in the biker’s arm. “Son of a bitch!” the biker yelled and laid down in the bed of the truck, bringing his knees up to protect himself from another blow.

“Now, there,” Slaton said. “That’s how you treat an animal.” He glanced over at the woman, who smiled coolly and exhaled a mouthful of cigarette smoke. She gestured at the dog. “He’s all yours.”

Sitting on his front porch Tuesday afternoon, Slaton remembered that afternoon as if it were yesterday. He had nursed the puppy to good health, and it became a strong, confident dog. For five years, Patton had been his companion, his best buddy, right there by his side day and night. Slaton loved that ornery old mutt, even if he didn’t always come when he was called.

Slaton was heartsick. He had hung around the house all morning, even canceling a doctor’s appointment in San Antonio, waiting to hear the familiar yip at the front door. But it never came. If Patton didn’t show up by sundown, Emmett Slaton just didn’t know what he was going to do.

It was one o’clock now, and Slaton got into his truck to take a slow drive along the county road near his home.

About goddamn time, Vinnie said to himself as Emmett Slaton pulled out of his driveway. Vinnie had been waiting and watching from the same cluster of cedar trees he had hidden in the night before. He grabbed the Hefty bag off the ground and proceeded toward the house. He couldn’t help but grin. His dad would love the poetic symbolism of the act Vinnie was planning. It was pure genius, that’s what it was.

He tried the back door, found it unlocked, and quickly made his way to the master bedroom.

Emmett Slaton returned from his drive feeling worse than ever. No sign of Patton. That damn dog was going to give him more gray hairs than he already had.

Slaton went to the kitchen, hoping to find new messages on his answering machine. He had left word with area kennels, veterinarians, and the county dogcatcher-asking them all to be on the lookout-but the red light stubbornly refused to blink.

Slaton fixed a bourbon on the rocks and went to his den. He flipped the TV on but couldn’t get interested in any of the programs.

He decided to go take a little nap, to give himself plenty of energy to continue his search later that evening.

At his bedroom doorway, he noticed the door was closed. Strange, he thought. He never shut that door because the room got too hot if he did.

He swung the door open and cautiously flipped the light switch. Everything looked normal. Nothing out of place. “Getting paranoid,” he muttered. “Either that or Alzheimer’s.”

He sat on the edge of the bed to pull his boots off, then stood and peeled off his shirt and jeans.

He tugged the blanket back and came face-to-face with a bloody nightmare. He didn’t even realize he was screaming. There, in his bed, was the severed head of his beloved Patton.

Slaton gingerly picked up the head and clutched it to his chest, his screams now subsided to a low moaning wail. He staggered into the bathroom-he didn’t really know why-and placed the head in the sink. He began rinsing it off, watching the blood swirl down the drain.

Even in his grief, the gears in his mind were frantically spinning. The head in the bed-I’ve seen this before, he thought. What was it? A movie?

Then he had it. The Godfather. The scene where the Hollywood producer wakes up in bed with the head of his prize stallion.

The anger-the pure, unadulterated fury-built in Slaton’s heart as it never had before. This was no subtle message. It was designed to taunt him, to tell him exactly who did it. And he received that message loud and clear. Cradling the sopping head of his dog in his arm, Slaton turned to retrieve his.45 automatic from his nightstand.

CHAPTER TEN