The coffee was scalding, but he drank it without noticing the heat, his eyes fastened on Noie. “You like those eggs and sausage?”
“You know how to cook them,” Noie replied. “What my grandmother would call ‘gooder than grits.’”
“You’re a card, Noie. So this fellow was from a law enforcement agency?”
“I don’t know if I’d call Parks and Wildlife that.”
“And he lives in the state capital?”
“Yep, that’s what he said.”
“And you let him take your photograph? Does that come right close to it?”
Noie seemed to reflect upon Jack’s question. “Yeah, I’d say that was pretty much it.”
In the early-morning shadows, Noie’s nose made Jack think of a banana lying in an empty gravy bowl. His long-sleeve plaid shirt was buttoned at the collar, even though it was too tight for him, and his suspenders were notched into the knobs of his shoulders like a farmer of years ago might have worn them. He was freshly shaved, his sideburns etched, his face happy, but his jug-shaped head and big ears would probably drive the bride of Frankenstein from his bed, Jack thought. Noie preoccupied himself with whittling checker pieces he kept in a shoe box, and he had the conversational talents of a tree stump. Plus, Noie had another problem, one for which there seemed to be no remedy. Even though he bathed every night in an iron tub by the barn, his body constantly gave off an odor similar to sour milk. Jack decided that Noie Barnum was probably the homeliest and most single man he had ever met.
“Did it strike you as unusual that this couple would want to photograph a man they’d known for only a few minutes?”
“My grandmother used to say people who are rank strangers one minute can turn out the next minute to be your best friends.”
“Except we’re not rank strangers to the law, Noie.”
“That brings me to another topic,” Noie said. “I know the government wants to get their hands on me, but for the life of me, I can’t figure why you’re running from them.”
“You’ve got it turned around, pard. I stay to myself and go my own way. If people bear me malice, I let them find me. Then we straighten things out.”
“I bet you give them a piece of your mind, too.”
“You could call it that.”
“You ever take your guitar out and play it?”
“My guitar?”
“You keep the case under your bed, but you never take your guitar out and play it.”
“It sounds like it was tuned to a snare drum. That’s because I tuned it.”
Noie’s expression had turned melancholy. He set down his fork and studied his plate. “That couple I met on the trail don’t mean us any harm, Jack. Particularly toward a fellow like you. I don’t know why you choose to be a hermit, but you’re the kindest man I’ve ever known, and I’ve known some mighty good ones.”
“I believe you have, Noie.”
“I worry about you because I think you’re bothered about something in your past, something you probably shouldn’t be fretting yourself about.”
Through the back window, Jack could see the rain from last night’s storm still dripping off the barn roof and dew shining on the windmill and steam rising off the horse tank. The blueness of the morning was so perfect, he didn’t want to see the sunlight break over the hill. “We’ve got us a fine spot here,” he said. “Sometimes if you listen, you can hear the earth stop, like it’s waiting for you to catch up with it. Like it’s your friend and it wants you to be at peace with it. That’s why I live alone and go my own way. If you don’t have any truck with the rest of the world, it cain’t mess you up.”
Noie seemed to study the content of Jack’s words, then he stared at his plate again and put his arms below the table. “I got blood on my hands,” he said.
“From what?”
“Those Predator drones.”
“It’s not your doing.”
“Those things have killed innocent people, Stone Age peasants who don’t have any stake in our wars.”
“That’s just the way it is sometimes.”
“My grandmother used to say there’re two kinds of men never to associate with. One is the man who’ll shed the blood of the innocent, and the other is a man who’ll raise his hand to a woman. She always said they’re cut out of the same cloth. They’re of Cain’s seed, not Abel’s.” Noie picked up his fork and waited for Jack to speak. Then he said, “Go ahead.”
“Go ahead what?” Jack asked.
“You looked like you were fixing to say something.”
“If you see that Parks and Wildlife guy again, don’t be in a hurry to have your picture taken,” Jack said.
“Where you headed?” Noie asked.
“I thought I might tune my guitar. I’ll be up yonder in the rocks.”
“Why are you taking your binoculars?”
“After a storm, there’re all kinds of critters walking around, armadillos and lizards and such. They’re a sight to watch.”
That same morning Anton Ling received the most bizarre phone call of her life. “This is Special Agent Riser, Ms. Ling,” the voice said. “You remember me?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied. “You’re with the FBI?”
“I was the supervising agent who talked to you after your home was invaded.”
“I’d like to believe you’re calling to tell me you have someone in custody.”
“You don’t think much of us, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“I don’t blame you. I want to tell you a couple of things, Ms. Ling. We have a file on you that’s three inches thick. I’ve tapped your phones and photographed you from a distance and looked with binoculars through your windows and invaded every other imaginable aspect of your privacy. Some of my colleagues have a genuine dislike of you and think you should have been deported years ago. The irony is you worked for the CIA before a lot of them were born. But my issue is not with them, it’s with myself.
“I want to apologize for the way I and my colleagues have treated you. I think you’re a patriot and a humanitarian, and I wish there were a million more like you in our midst. I think Josef Sholokoff was behind the invasion of your home. I also think we’ve failed miserably in putting his kind away. In the meantime, we’ve often concentrated our efforts on giving a bad time to people such as yourself.”
“Maybe you’re too hard on yourself, Mr. Riser.”
“One other thing: Be a friend to Sheriff Holland. He’s a lot like you, Ms. Ling. He doesn’t watch out for himself.”
“Sir, are you all right?”
“You might hear from me down the track. If you do, that’ll mean I’m doing just fine,” Riser said.
Ethan Riser closed his cell phone and continued up a deer trail that wound along the base of a butte with the soft pink contours of a decayed tooth. He passed the rusted shell of an automobile that was pocked with small- caliber bullet holes and beside which turkey buzzards were feeding on the carcass of a calf. The calf’s ribs were exposed and its eyes pecked out, its tongue extended like a strip of leather from the side of its mouth. The air was still cool from the storm, the scrub brush and mesquite a darker green in the shadow of the butte, the imprints of claw-footed animals fresh in the damp sand along the banks of a tiny stream. Ethan was sweating inside his clothes, his breath coming short in his chest, and he had to sit down on a rock and rest. Behind him was a young man dressed in pressed jeans and a white shirt with pockets all over it and canvas lug-soled shoes. He wore an unpretentious black-banded straw hat with the brim turned down and a western belt with a big, dull-colored metal buckle that fit flat against his stomach.
When the young man reached the rock where Ethan was sitting, he unslung a canteen from his shoulder and unscrewed the cap and offered Ethan a drink before drinking himself. “I got to be honest with you. I think this is a snipe hunt,” he said.
“Hard to say,” Ethan said, blotting his face with a handkerchief.
