Blue Heaven (44 page)

She reached up and blotted her tears with the rolled-up cuff of the barn coat. She was surprised that he continued.

“This place,” he said, gesturing toward the open barn door but meaning the ranch, “is the only thing I’ve got that connects me to my own father and mother, and to my granddad, who homesteaded it. They passed along a pretty good thing. They said to work hard and pass it on to my own kids. That’ll never happen. It doesn’t look like I can keep it,
or leave it to anyone. Developers want it, and they’ll likely get it. It belongs more to the bank than it does to me.

“So,” he said, “there’ll be nothing for me to pass on. I’ll leave no mark on this valley. But if I can help out Annie and William, maybe help them get a leg up, well, that’ll be fine. It means I’ve got something to live for. I’ve got someone to defend. That means …everything.”

He turned away, the expression on his face telling her he thought he had said too much. But he hadn’t, and she leaned over and hugged him, buried her face into his neck, said, “You’re a good man, Jess. You’re such a good man,” and meant it, feeling such affection for him, wondering why she hadn’t called him years before to see how J.J. was doing, thinking how sometimes, it was the hardest men who were the softest.

J
IM HEARNE thought,
It feels good to sit a horse again.

He had slowed Chile to a walk once they entered the timber on the other side of the meadow. He wanted both to conserve her energy and give her the opportunity to pick her way through the gnarled undergrowth. She could see much better than he could in the dark beneath the closed kettle lid of the tree branches, so he gave her her head and let her go. She picked through the downed timber, placing each front step carefully, her back feet knowing instinctively how to mirror the movement to keep them going forward. He also slowed her down because he knew there was a barbed-wire fence ahead somewhere, the fence that separated the Rawlins place from forest service land. She would likely see it before he would.

She was purposeful, he liked that. He could see why Jess liked this horse. She was the kind of horse that was best if she had a job: cutting cattle, herding, or, in this case, delivering him to Kootenai Bay. He was glad he had a purpose, too, that he was doing something that might save the lives of the Taylors, Villatoro, and Jess. It was the least he could do. He was glad it involved doing something physical. He didn’t want to have the time to think about how his own actions had incubated the
whole situation, how he was culpable. He was finally doing something good, doing something right, for Monica and Annie. This ride was his ride of redemption. When he thought about those words, he smiled. Man …

The rain had stopped, and the sounds of the forest returned: chattering squirrels warning of his arrival, the crunch of pine needles beneath the hooves of the horse, the panicked scuttling of creatures he never saw getting out of his way. Sitting the horse connected him to the ground, made him part of it. He could feel the softness or hardness of the ground transmitted up her legs through the saddle. It was as if sinews had reached up through the dirt and reattached themselves to him. He had forgotten about the feeling of being connected. It wasn’t something he felt in his car.

Could he convince the sheriff? He thought he could. Simply the fact that he was riding into town on a horse should tell Carey something.

HE COULD feel Chile hesitate, feel her muscles bunch beneath his thighs, and in a moment he could see the four thin ribbons of barbed wire coursing down through the trees ahead of him. At the fence he turned her to the right, uphill, parallel to the fence, and walked her up a slope looking for a gate. If he couldn’t find one, Hearne would need to do the old cowboy trick of detaching the wire from the posts to stand on while leading the horse over. It was a tricky maneuver that sometimes spooked horses because they thought the wire was water and felt a need to bolt or jump.

The trees cleared into a grassy mountain park washed blue with starlight. The sky opened. He could see better, but he couldn’t see a gate.

Hearne was studying the fence line with such intensity that he almost didn’t realize that the forest sounds had stopped and left only the soft footfalls of his horse and the creak of the leather saddle. Something had silenced the sounds. He saw that Chile was looking ahead, her ears alert, her eyes wide, her nostrils flared as if to woof.

Above, in the black timber on the other side of the meadow, a twig snapped.

Hearne signaled Chile to stop with a tug on her reins, and he sat the saddle, trying to make his eyes pierce the darkness of the stand of trees.
He thought,
The fence line goes all the way up to the road. If someone were to walk the perimeter of the ranch, they would likely use the fence line as their guide.

The voice came from the trees. “You need some help, mister?”

It was deep and had a Mexican inflection. Hearne froze.

The shotgun was deep in the saddle scabbard under his right leg, the butt poking out from the sleeve of leather. Hearne leaned back in the saddle, letting his right hand drop to his side. He felt the metal butt plate and slid his fingers around the stock.

Chile crow-hopped as a form emerged from the dark trees. The movement caught Hearne off guard, and he scrambled in the saddle for balance, but a light from a flashlight blinded him. There was a metallic click, and he never heard the shot.

A
S THE CLOUDS parted to reveal a cream wash of hard, white stars, Newkirk felt a hangover of epic proportions forming in the back of his brain. His mouth was dry and tasted of whiskey and Gonzalez’s thumb, and his eyes burned for sleep. He looked at his wristwatch. Gonzalez had been gone for hours.

Newkirk and Singer were in the white Escalade, backed up into a stand of trees, pointed at the locked gate to the Rawlins Ranch. Their lights were off and the windows open, and they were far enough off the highway that they wouldn’t be seen by anyone on the road. Before leaving to scout the ranch house below, Gonzalez had parked his vehicle beside them. Swann was in Gonzalez’s pickup, slumped against the door. His sudden appearance at his home had surprised them all. Swann smelled of antiseptic, blood, and panic. Cuts on his face were stitched closed, and dark bruises were forming under his eyes. Newkirk thought Swann should have stayed in the hospital because the sight of him was sickening. But Singer welcomed the display of loyalty and had clapped Swann on the back. Now, though, Swann was sleeping and, Newkirk thought, useless.

Before joining Singer in his Escalade, Newkirk had parked the UPS
truck deep into the trees down a logging road ten minutes from the ranch gate.

Gonzalez had taken the handheld radio and his scoped .308 Winchester rifle. Above them, resting on pine branches and swinging in the slight northern breeze, were the power and telephone lines Gonzalez had cut away from the utility pole hours earlier. Both Singer and Newkirk thought they had heard a muffled gunshot in the distance, and had waited for a second shot to confirm it that never came. Singer had tried to raise Gonzalez on his handheld, but there was no response. Singer assumed Gonzo had squelched the receiver, and they had no choice but to simply sit and wait.

Newkirk shifted in the seat and moaned involuntarily, his head pounding like the drumbeat of a marching band. Singer looked over at him, and he saw a slight curl of disdain on the lieutenant’s lips, knew the man despised weakness.

“You gonna make it?” Singer asked.

“I’m fine.”

“You need to hang in there. Drink some water.”

“Water’d be good,” Newkirk said, reaching for a canteen. He fought a crazy urge to confess he’d not killed Villatoro, that he’d let the rancher take him. Just to see the rage and confusion on Singer’s sanctimonious face. But he stanched it, like he did his thirst.

Singer had a police scanner and radio mounted under his dashboard. It had been silent for most of the night. There was nothing going on in town other than town cops calling in the ends of their shifts, and a license check of an abandoned car left in a bar parking lot. Singer told Newkirk he had been concerned the sheriff would call his men together to form a team for an early-morning meeting, but it hadn’t happened. Apparently, Carey was simply going to wait for the Feds to arrive, brief them on the situation concerning Monica Taylor and the missing children, and turn the whole case over to them. That Singer had been able to persuade the sheriff to put that off this long was a major victory for them.

On the bench seat between Singer and Newkirk was a detailed topo map of the area that included the Rawlins Ranch. On the map was a handheld, the volume down and the squelch minimized. Gonzalez had its twin out there somewhere in the dark. Singer’s cell phone was on but silent next to the handheld.

Newkirk couldn’t figure out what Singer was thinking. The plan the lieutenant had come up with had been simple: cut the power and phone, set up at the gate, wait for Rawlins to come to them. When the rancher got out of his truck to unlock the chain, they would cut him down in a cross fire. Then, using the rancher’s rifle, they’d take care of the Taylors, implicating Rawlins. Newkirk would get the UPS truck and drive it down and hide it in the rancher’s barn. That way, there would be a link between Boyd and the rancher—two secret pedophiles, one who kidnapped and delivered the children and the other who abused and murdered them. Just like Fiona Pritzle’s theory, only a little more lurid. Then call it all in to the sheriff after it was over; say, “It happened so fast, we had no choice but to return fire.”

But the rancher never came. And Newkirk knew that the rancher had Villatoro, so that might complicate things. But Singer didn’t know that.

Newkirk noticed Singer looking at his own wristwatch with more frequency as the night went on. If the lieutenant was worried, he didn’t show it. But he never showed anything.

When the handheld chirped, Newkirk jumped, causing the pounding to resume in his head.

Singer snatched the receiver, whispered, “Gonzo? Is that you?”

A beat. “It’s me. I’m approaching the gate. Don’t let Newkirk shoot me.”

A moment later, Newkirk saw a dark form emerge from the shadows of the heavy timber, a glint of a rifle barrel in the starlight as Gonzalez climbed through the barbed wire of the fence. Then the sergeant was at the driver’s side window, next to Singer.

Gonzalez said, “I walked the fence line and ran into your banker. Who the hell knows why he was out there, he surprised the shit out of me. I thought it was that cowboy trying to get away on his own on horseback. He won’t be a problem for us no more.”

“Jesus,” Newkirk said.

Gonzo’s teeth reflected blue as he smiled. “One shot and he went down. The horse ran off. I guess you didn’t hear the shot, eh?”

“We heard it,” Singer said, distracted. Then: “I didn’t expect that. I didn’t think Hearne would be around. How did
that
happen?”

Gonzalez shrugged. “Who knows? There’s always something.”

Newkirk thought,
There’s more
…

“I went down the road until I could see the house,” Gonzo said softly. “I thought I saw a light once through a window, but when I looked through the scope I couldn’t see anything. The house is dark, and nobody’s moving that I could see.”

“Is the rancher’s pickup there at the house?”

Gonzo nodded. “It’s parked in front. He’s there, all right. Another car is there, too. I’d guess it was the banker’s.”

“Maybe they’re sleeping,” Newkirk said, his voice a croak. “Maybe they don’t even know they don’t have power. Maybe the Taylors aren’t even there.”

Singer and Gonzalez both looked at him, said nothing, dismissing him. Newkirk closed his eyes, tried to shut out the hurt of humiliation, tone down the pounding in his head.

“Could you see another way out, besides this road?” Singer said. “The map shows a road out to the south, but it’s a hell of a long way to get to the highway.”

Gonzalez shook his head. “You mean if they walked out? Or took another vehicle? I don’t think so. There’s a big meadow in back of the house, and I could see it pretty good through the scope. I couldn’t see anybody on foot, and I didn’t hear any motors.”

Singer processed the information, rubbed his nose with his index finger while he did so.

The radio came to life. “This is USGID-4 in Boise for Sheriff Ed Carey. Come in, Sheriff Carey.”

“The chopper pilot,” Singer said, looking at the radio.

“This is Sheriff Carey.” He sounded wide-awake, Newkirk thought.

“The chopper’s fueled and ready, and we’ve got clearance,” the pilot said. “We’ve got just about everybody on board.”

“Well,” Carey said, “come on up. I’ll start a pot of coffee. When do you think you’ll be here?”

The pilot said, “ETA is 0600.”

“About an hour then,” Carey said.

“Roger that.”

“An hour,” Singer repeated.

“I wonder if Carey told him about this place?” Gonzo asked. Singer shrugged. “I doubt it. That would make too much sense.”

“What if they come over the top of us on the way to town? I think we’d be right on their flight path,” Gonzo said. “Or fly straight here? Shit.”