“Wyatt-” I said, holding my hand up for him to discontinue.
“No, you hear me out. That same kid grows up cruel to the bone. He don’t enjoy sex unless he’s hurting someone while he’s doing it, and when he finally gets to the joint, he lets everybody know he’s the huckleberry who’ll bust a shank off in your back for a deck of smokes. Worse, he ain’t got no fear of God ’cause he murdered all the light in his soul. That’s the ones got the mark of the beast on them, counselor. I been jailing with them since I was fifteen years old.”
His description of a sociopath was possibly the most credible I had ever heard, and I wondered if it came from self-knowledge rather than his experience. Then I realized he had read the question in my eyes.
“I ain’t one of them kind. Least I don’t think I am. But you never know, do you?” he said.
He opened the driver’s door to his truck and threw his crutches inside.
“What’s your purpose here, Wyatt? Do you just want to be a source of worry and irritation and grief? Is that why you come here?”
“Maybe you and American Horse both owe me. I got confidence in you. You’ll figure it out directly. Lordy, you got a nice place here,” he said, surveying the house and the deep green of our pasture under the pall of yellow smoke that hung over it.
Just before the sun slipped in a red orb behind the ridgeline, an FBI agent named Francis Broussard served a search warrant on our property. He was a trim, rosy-cheeked, olive-skinned man, with a fresh haircut, a dimple in his chin, and a Cajun accent. “We’ll be working our way over the top of the mountain and into your backyard. We’ll try to get out of your way as soon as we can,” he said.
“Mind telling me what you’re looking for?” I asked.
“I think you know. Yes indeedy, I surely do,” he said.
“ Yes indeedy? ”
“Come on up the hill and help us out. I’ll make note of your cooperation in my report. That might give you greater credibility later.”
“I’m glad to know y’all are in a lighthearted mood.”
He held a clipboard in one hand and wore a blue windbreaker with the abbreviation for his agency in bright gold letters on the back. He gazed abstractly at the haze on our pasture and the purple shadows spreading across the valley floor.
“Is there something else you need?” I said.
“Yeah, I hate to ask you this. But could I use your bathroom?” he replied.
For the next hour, Broussard and the agents under his supervision fanned across the hillside and worked their way down through the timber toward the house and the barn. The wind began to blow out of the east, clearing the ash from the sky but feeding the fires that were raging on the Idaho line. When I stood in our front yard, I could see streamers of sparks rising in the west and twisting columns of smoke that were filled with light, almost like water- spouts on the ocean. Then I heard an agent shout to his colleagues up on the hillside.
I saddled my Morgan, whose name was Beau, and rode him onto one of the switchback deer trails that zigzagged up to the ridgeline behind the house. The fir and larch trees looked mossy and shapeless in the evening shade. Up ahead I could see a dozen FBI and ATF agents shining their flashlights across rocks and deadfalls and arroyos that were littered with leaves and pine needles and the detritus from years of snowmelt. Even though the tips of the trees were bending in the wind, smoke was trapped under the canopy, the air was dense and acidic, and I was starting to sweat inside my clothes.
With the exception of the agent in charge, Francis Broussard, none of the agents even bothered to look at me, which told me they had already found what they were searching for and hence my presence was of no interest to them.
“Glad you dropped up to see us, Mr. Holland,” Broussard said. “See that broken place in the deadfall? Something heavy, with hard edges, probably metal ones, bounced down the hill and crashed right through a bear’s lair. Pretty interesting, huh?”
“You bet,” I said.
“Except whatever came crashing down the hill is no longer here. Know why not?” he said.
“You got me.”
“Somebody hauled it out, probably with a rope and a horse. Step down here, if you don’t mind.”
I swung down from the saddle and looked at a torn area of broken leaves and dirt on the edge of the deadfall, where he was now shining his flashlight.
“See the hoofprints and the drag marks going back up toward the log road? I bet somebody had a rope looped around a big, heavy metal box and towed it up the hill there. What do you think, Mr. Holland?” he said.
“I’m probably not qualified to make an observation, Mr. Broussard.”
“Notice anything unusual about those hoofprints?”
“Was never much of a tracker.”
“The horse wasn’t wearing shoes. What’s that tell you, Mr. Holland?”
“Nothing.”
“The horse we’re talking about has hard feet. Like an Appaloosa might have. You own an Appaloosa, Mr. Holland?”
“Two of them. But the last time I looked, they were both shoed.”
“I’ll take your word for it. Know why anybody might want to drag a heavy metal box up the hillside?”
“When you find out, let me know.”
“You don’t like us much, do you?”
“I like you fine. I just don’t like some of the causes you serve.”
“You were a Texas Ranger and an assistant U.S. attorney?”
“That’s right.”
“Ever listen to that shock jock on the radio, guy was a disgraced FBI agent, did a federal bit for a B and E, always putting down the government?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard him,” I replied.
Broussard’s eyes looked straight into mine for a beat. “He’s an interesting study,” he said. He clicked off his flashlight and walked up the hill, his back to me.
A gust of wind blew through the tree trunks. The sweat on my face felt as cold as ice water.
But I didn’t have time to worry about Francis Broussard’s condemnation. Somebody riding an unshod horse had rope-dragged the goods from the Global Research burglary off our property. It had to be someone who had access to the ridgeline, someone perhaps riding an Appaloosa, a breed known for its hard feet. The only candidate that came to mind was Wyatt Dixon. He used a farrier and veterinary service in the drainage just over the hill from us, and he had a way of finding excuses to wander onto our property. Could he have seen Johnny’s flight up the mountain and followed him?
I went back into the house and told Temple of my conversation up the hillside with Francis Broussard and the removal of the metal box.
“Well, maybe it’s over, then,” she said.
“I think Dixon took it.”
“Who cares?”
“You’ve got a point,” I said.
I began fixing a cold supper for both of us. I opened a bottle of wine and poured Temple a glass and one for myself.
“I think I’ll just have some Talking Rain to drink,” she said.
“You feel all right?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“On Saturday night you always have a glass of wine.”
“I’m just not in the mood. Want to take a walk? We can eat when we come back.”
“Sure,” I said.
I put the food back in the refrigerator and followed her outside. The valley was dark now, the sky still blue, the evening star twinkling in the smoke to the west. I heard the phone ring inside. “I’ll be right back,” I said.
I picked up the phone receiver in the hallway. Through the front window I could see Temple waiting for me in the yard, the gallery light shining on her hair, one knuckle pressed against her chin, her face lost in thought.
