streaked with water, as though he had walked through wet weeds. He grinned stupidly at the receptionist, his gaze raking her face and breasts.
“What were you doing at the Finley place?” I said.
“Taking a drain,” he said, his eyes still fastened on the receptionist. He started to speak to her.
“Hildy, go down to Kinko’s and pick up our Xerox work, will you?” I said.
“Gladly,” she said, picking up her purse.
I walked inside my office and closed the door after Wyatt was inside.
“Nice little heifer you got out there,” he said.
“You have thirty seconds.”
“Got the goods on Darrel McComb. Seems like he’s been doing some window-peeking up the Rattlesnake. My official statement on the matter might do a whole lot to hep that Indian boy. I might also have some information about that senator always got his nose in the air.”
“What do you want for this?”
“You got to sign on as my lawyer.”
“Why me?”
“I need investors in my rough stock company. Folks don’t necessarily trust their money to a man who’s been jailing since he was fifteen.”
“Forget it.”
“We’re more alike than you think, Brother Holland.”
“You’re wrong,” I said.
“Tell me the feel of a gun in your hand don’t excite you, just like the touch of a woman.”
“We’re done here.”
“Violence lives in the man. It don’t find him of its own accord. My daddy taught me that. Every time he held my head down in a rain barrel to improve my inner concentration.”
“Get out.”
“Walked the rim of your pasture this morning. I’d irrigate if I was you. A grass fire coming up that canyon would turn the whole place into an ash heap.”
But my morning involvement with Wyatt was not over yet. Two hours later Seth Masterson came into the office, sat down in front of my desk, and removed a Xeroxed sheet from a sheaf of documents inside a folder. “Read this,” he said.
The letter had probably been typed on an old mechanical typewriter; the letters were ink-filled and blunted on the edges. The date was only one week ago, the return address General Delivery, Missoula, Montana. It read:
Dear President George W. Bush,
I am a fellow Texan and long supporter of the personal goals you have set for yourself and our great country. I particularly like the way you have stood up to the towel heads who has attacked New York City and the Pentagon. With this letter I am offering my expertise in taking care of these sonsofbitches so they will not be around any longer to get in your hair. Let me know when you want me to come to Washington to discuss the matter.
My character references are William Robert Holland, a lawyer friend in Missoula, and Rev. Elton T. Sneed of the Antioch Pentecostal Church in Arlee, Montana.
Your fellow patriot,
Wyatt Dixon
“Is this guy for real?” Seth said. His legs wouldn’t fit between his chair and my desk and he kept shoving the chair back to give himself more space.
“You must have pulled everything available on him. What do you think?”
“He’s a nutcase. The question is whether he should be picked up.”
“Wyatt does things that give the impression he’s crazy. At the same time he seems to stay a step ahead of everyone else, at least he does with me. Is he dangerous? When he needs to be.”
“You seem pretty objective about a guy who kidnapped and buried your wife.”
I paused a moment. “Two years ago I tried to kill him. I got behind him and shot at him four times with a forty-five revolver and missed.”
Seth looked at me for a beat, then lowered his eyes. “Got a little head cold and can’t hear too well this morning. Keep me posted on this guy, will you?” he said.
“You bet. He was just in here.”
“This is quite a town,” he said.
“Why you bird-dogging Johnny American Horse, Seth?”
“I’ve got to get something for this dadburn cold. My head feels like somebody poured cement in it,” he replied.
Some people have no trouble with jail. In fact, they use jails like hotels, checking in and out of them when the weather is severe or if they’re down on their luck or they need to get their drug tolerance reduced so they can re- addict less expensively. But Johnny didn’t do well inside the slams.
Fay Harback called me on Thursday. “Been over to see American Horse?” she asked.
“Not since Tuesday,” I replied.
“Go do it. I don’t need any soap operas in my life.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m not unaware of Johnny’s war record. Maybe I’ve always liked him. I don’t choose the individuals I prosecute.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“I’ll say good-bye now. But you have a serious problem, Billy Bob.”
“What might that be?”
“An absence of charity,” she replied before hanging up.
I put on my hat and coat and walked over to the jail in a sunshower. The trees and sidewalks were steaming in the rain and the grass on the courthouse lawn was a bright green. Upstairs a deputy walked me down to an isolation cell, where Johnny sat on the cement floor in his boxer undershorts. His knees were pulled up in front of him, his vertebrae and ribs etched against his skin.
“It’s his business if he don’t want to eat. But he stuffed his jumpsuit in a commode. We probably mopped up fifty gallons of water,” the deputy said.
“It’s pretty cold in here. How about a blanket?” I said.
“I’ll bring it up with his melba toast,” the deputy said, and walked off.
“Why provoke them, Johnny?” I said.
“I wouldn’t wear the jumpsuit. But it was another guy who plugged up the toilet with it.”
“Why not just tell that to somebody?”
“Because they know I’m going down for the big bounce and they couldn’t care less what I say.”
He combed his hair back with his fingers. His hair was black and had brown streaks in it and in places was white on the ends. He looked up at me and grinned. “Dreamed about red ponies last night. Thousands of them, covering the plains, all the way to the horizon,” he said.
“You’re going to be arraigned in the morning. You have to wear jailhouse issue,” I said.
He shrugged his shoulders. “They’re going to ask for the needle?” he said.
“Maybe.”
“Ain’t no maybe to it, partner,” he said. His eyes seemed to glaze over with his inner thoughts.
At 9 A.M. Friday, Johnny stood in handcuffs before the bench and was charged with capital murder. His bond was set at two hundred thousand dollars. That afternoon I called Temple at her P.I. office.
“Johnny doesn’t have the bondsman’s fee and his place has two mortgages on it,” I said.
“And?” she said.
“I’d like to put up a property bond.”
“You’re going to risk Heartwood on Johnny American Horse?”
“They’re taking the guy apart with a chain saw, Temple.”
The line was so quiet I thought the connection had been broken. “Temple?” I said.
“Do it,” she said.
“You’re not upset?”
