Brown-Eyed Girl (13 page)

This was a woman he had once, he had to admit, loved. He'd found her in bed with Sam Branch and driven straight south to Colorado Springs, where he'd put his fist through the single grimy window of his room in the Super 8. The cuts had taken months to heal. He could hardly believe that he was almost thinking about falling in love with her again. And now she was telling him that she'd betrayed him more than once. Was he that big a sap?

But she was someone older and new, too now, someone intriguing. A distinguished professor. He preferred women his own age, and in his very eccentric opinion, she probably qualified as a worthy companion and a babe in the first degree. She had also lit him up all night long.

On the other hand, she was a guilt-stricken, vulnerable, complicated, fully adult woman. As far as he knew, she had lately lived alone a lot. So had he. He liked it. It wouldn't be easy to adjust to having someone else asking questions and making demands.

He would have to take it one moment at a time. Hawk decided that wasn't a problem. He was older enough, and wiser enough, to realize that this was a moment for a really good kiss. He gave Sally one, and then put on a daypack and cinched the straps.

She tightened up her own pack and narrowed her eyes at him, awaiting an answer in words. On that late August Sunday, as far as he knew, he wasn't going anywhere except up Medicine Bow Peak with Sally Alder. They'd go up it, and when they came back down, they might get some dinner and then, assuming she was as interested as he expected to be, they might want to go back to bed. Sex wasn't a cure for loneliness, but it was a pretty good placebo. “Let's walk,” he said.

The first half mile was gentle. They loosened up their legs and chatted about their new jobs. Sally had caused the University of Wyoming as much embarrassment as anything else during her brief affiliation two decades before. She had gotten drunk and abusive at parties for visiting scholars, had endlessly mocked the pomposity of the ivory tower, had insulted members of the faculty on many occasions.

Hawk said, “It really is amazing they'd let you back in the state.”

“It really is,” Sally agreed, gasping as they passed the cold shores of Lookout Lake and headed up the loose gray quartzite scree of the switchbacks. They walked on a careful path through fragile meadows dotted with tiny pale phlox, amid stands of spruce and fir krumholtz, scrubby trees flattened by wind. Willow bogs grew level with the krumholtz, providing a home for obstinate late-summer mosquitos.

Hawk had been a boomer, a hitchhiker on the state's mineral wealth at a time when deals created a lot of work for lots of people, most of them horribly maladjusted. He'd been, in the words of an immortal bumper sticker, oilfield trash, and proud of it. What in the hell had happened since the time he was walking up and down the obscure slopes of the Sierra Madre, cashing a paycheck, hoping to find radioactivity? He had loved the stingy, breathtaking country as much as anyone who had ever known it on foot. But what had he done to merit coming back as a college professor?

He told the story as they hauled from switchback to switchback, pausing to take in each spectacle. Glaciers had scooped out immense bowls of whitened rock and ice. The gnarled things that grew out of snowmelt and thin soil spoke mutely with the stubbornness of Darwinian victors in the cold, scant air.

Wyoming's Medicine Bow Peak, in the little-heralded Snowy Range, towered a couple of paces more than twelve thousand feet above sea level. Getting to the top and back was half a day's work. It was a mountain to climb for the views, not for the wilderness champ points. If you wanted coolness awards in the world of climbing mountains, nothing counted except bourgeois Fourteeners in Colorado. The good news was that the spandex crowd tended, to a surprising degree, to leave Wyoming alone.

Hawk and Sally had climbed the Medicine Bow Peak together three times, many years before. She had snapshots in albums, of the two of them with a changing crew of sunburned friends, hair flowing, toasting each other at the top with—could you believe it?—cans of Old Milwaukee. But elapsed time, and the sense of rediscovery of the place and each other, and the putting of one foot in front of another made the walk once again something to be registered, savored, paid attention to. The air kept getting thinner and colder, paler gray and icier like the unreliable rocks under their feet. Even in late August, there were still ovular fields of crusty, wet, rust-streaked snow curving along the cirques. Their boots got soaked and their feet got cold, so they hiked a little harder. Both of them were breathing hard and happy to rest from time to time.

And Hawk had much to tell. How he'd come back from Argentina and decided he might as well go back to school. He'd wanted to study rocks that might make money. “Emphasis,” he added, “on ‘might.'” He'd worked in the gold and silver country in the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada, and in the high Andes, and in remote parts of Brazil. He had looked, too, for diamonds. His father had taken him in on some gigs in South Africa and Zimbabwe.

“My dissertation was, as geologists say, an advanced piece of arm-waving,” Hawk admitted as they leaned panting against freezing boulders, swigging from water bottles , breaking off pieces of a Hershey bar and feeding them to each other. “But it attracted some attention among people with money.”

And so he'd worked in wild, hard, compelling places, running field crews up tough woody slopes and down cliffs and into valleys and canyons on foot and in clanking trucks and by helicopter. He'd made a name as an independent, to say the least, consultant, but he'd also kept his hand in, publishing in the scholarly journals. He'd lost and made money betting on the rocks he found.

By the time he'd told this much, they were on the last, high, steep scramble to the top, over slick rocks and slippery snow. They stopped talking. Neither was willing to concede the rigor of this part of the climb, and they were saving their air to breathe. Arms and legs working, they made the summit. And then they looked around.

A small part of Wyoming spread out immense and cold and magnificent before them, swooped endlessly and pitilessly down to high, faraway valleys. They drank more water, ate the cheese and fruit and the banana bread, gaped amazed. They both knew what it was to blow good chances, and they both felt, for the moment, immensely grateful for tastes of good fortune. What in the hell had they ever done that life could be so good to them?

Part Two

Chapter 14
With the Truckers and the Kickers

Over twelve years of sobriety, Dickie Langham had fallen off the wagon only twice. The first time was six months after he'd started cleaning up his act. The second time was seven years ago. And now, for the first really itchy time in seven years, he was sorely tempted to get himself a bottle of Cuervo and call up a friend.

He'd made a fire in the fireplace, and he got up to throw on another log. It popped and hissed. It was way after midnight; he didn't even know how late. Mary had gone with Josh to a state band competition in Powell. They'd called to say they were snowed in at a motel in Thermopolis. Ashley had an apartment with two other UW students, so who knew where the hell she was. Brit lived at home, but she was working. He was staring out through his living room window at snow falling in the night, thick and bright and soft in black velvet darkness. Jimmy Buffett was dreaming of Havana on Dickie's stereo, and Dickie was remembering tropical beaches, big scores, and pretending he didn't have any responsibilities. God, just this once.

Jesus help me.

Jesus, as usual, appeared to be hard of hearing.

Dickie zipped the cellophane off his third pack of Marlboros in twenty-four hours. Struck a “strikeanywhere” match against the brick facing on his fireplace. Filled his lungs up with smoke, let it out, reached for the giant plastic “Diamond Shamrock Fill-er-Up” coffee mug on the end table next to him and took another strong swig.

People on the high plains got real squirrelly the week before Thanksgiving. They knew there'd be a snowstorm that would shut down the roads relatives would try to travel, strand thousands in the Denver airport en route to turkey dinners and family feuds, generally fuck up everyone's plans and leave the world so damned silent and beautiful into the bargain that you felt guilty for resenting the inconvenience. This storm had come a little ahead of schedule, starting on the Friday morning before the holiday weekend. Usually the Thanksgiving blizzard waited until Wednesday night, to have the best chance of screwing the greatest number. Nonetheless, it had generated plenty of action for the newly elected but not yet installed sheriff of Albany County. Cars sliding off the roads, damned fool drivers trying to bullshit their way onto roads the highway patrol had closed, people with gunked-up chimneys setting their houses on fire, housebound husbands drinking themselves into mean-ass stupid brutes when their football teams lost.

And the second incident in a month at the Dunwoodie place.

The first had come Halloween weekend. Sally often parked her Mustang in the garage, but on that particularly risky night, for some reason, she'd stupidly left it in the driveway. The next morning, all the windows were broken and a swastika had been spray-painted on the hood. She'd been pissed as hell of course, and ranted and raved and all that. But ultimately, she'd chalked it up to Halloween pranksters (that's what ten years in LA would do for you) and called the insurance company. Had said that after she got it fixed, she'd go on down to John Elway Toyota (the Broncos were 11–2, heading for immortality once again) and get herself a Land Cruiser and garage the Mustang.

When they had an informal Wrangler's Club meeting on the following Monday morning, Dickie had explained that Laramie was the kind of town where you could easily find out who was likely to be into swastikas, and he thought he might look into it. Delice had added that she could think of a couple of possible suspects. Sally assured him that she didn't feel like hassling the matter (more blasé LA-type ennui) and insisted that her insurance was covering the damages. Delice had given Dickie a “let's talk later” look and told Sally where to get her windows fixed and who did a good paint job. It occurred to both Dickie and Delice to ask Josh and Jerry Jeff whether they might know about any notorious Halloween mischief.

A couple of days later, Dickie had run into Hawk at the Diamond Shamrock. He happened to mention the incident, and Hawk said he'd see that Sally used her garage. Then Hawk had looked thoughtful for a moment, and finally he'd said, “Actually, Dickie, I took her car down to Mike the mechanic to get the carburetor and the brakes adjusted a couple months ago. When I went to pick it up, Mike told me it was a good thing the brakes were pulling, because otherwise he'd never have found out that a brake line in the right rear wheel was about to snap. Said it looked like it had been filed.”

“You might have mentioned that to me, Hawk,” said Dickie.

“I would have, if I'd believed it. But at the time, I didn't even tell Sally. I didn't have any reason to think anybody would do such a thing. Now, I guess I do.”

“Anything else you haven't said?” Dickie asked him.

“Not that I can think of. If anything occurs to me, I'll give you a call,” Hawk said gravely. “There's no reason to worry Sally about this, is there?”

Dickie chuckled. “The less we worry her, the easier it will be for all of us.”

That afternoon, the second thing had happened. The Dunwoodie house was empty. Sally and Hawk had taken off that morning, Friday, in Hawk's truck, hoping to beat the storm and get a long way toward Tucson to visit Hawk's folks for Thanksgiving. About two o'clock, Maude Stark had come by to get the mail and check on things. As Maude told the story, she'd come in the front door, heard noises in the basement, and gone immediately back out to her truck to get the deer rifle she kept in her gun rack.

She'd opened the front door as quietly as she could and tiptoed to the basement stairs. She could hear the sound of her own breathing. It seemed to her she could hear somebody else breathing, too.

“Beggin' your pardon, but what in God's name did you think you were doing, Miss Stark?” Dickie had asked her.

“I thought I was going down into the basement to shoot a prowler, Sheriff,” she said reasonably. “I was scared, but I was madder than I was scared. And you can call me Maude,” she finished.

Turned out she was right about at least one thing. Somebody was indeed hiding in the basement. But it wasn't clear whether mad or scared had the upper hand with Maude at the moment when the intruder came rushing up the stairs and socked her hard enough in the head to flatten her. According to Maude, who was spending the night in the Ivinson Memorial Hospital, the assailant had then hit her several more times, in the head, stomach, and chest, thrown her on the floor and stomped on her back. He'd pulled her up by her hair, gotten her in a choke hold and punched her, and told her she was “lucky he didn't fucking kill her.” In the process, she reported, she'd only gotten in one good lick on him, smashing the end of the rifle stock against his left ankle so hard that the gun had broken. That was probably a good thing, she observed, because he would certainly have shot her if he could have.

The sheriff, she added, should look for a man who was limping.

She'd tried to get up and run after the culprit. She was a large, strong, determined, and by that time undilutedly furious woman, but the guy had a big head start, and to tell the truth, he'd hurt her pretty badly. By the time she dragged herself to the door and staggered out into Eleventh Street, bloody, dizzy, enraged, there was nobody in sight.

At least she'd had enough sense to go immediately to a neighbor's and call the police. Dickie had taken the call himself, then sent for the ambulance.

The intruder had broken a basement window and crawled in. Dickie wondered, as Jimmy Buffett gave way to Hoyt Axton singing about dreaming of love in prison, if this particular criminal had a fondness for the sound of things shattering. The man had beaten up Maude and busted windows; he might like to break other things, too. Like brakes. Dickie's shoulder ached (physical violence always reminded him of that long-ago unpleasantness with the bad guys from Boulder), and he rubbed it. He could imagine the hot-cold peppery taste of just one shot of Cuervo Gold, slipping down his gullet. But if he did that, he'd need a little something to keep him alert enough to think this thing through . . .

Still deaf there, Jesus?

He went into the kitchen, cigarette dangling from his lips. Stuck his mug in the microwave. Pushed high.

Pulled the cup out and drank deeply, and thought about making another pot.

Meg Dunwoodie's basement was a hideous mess. According to Maude, the boxes that held many of Meg's papers had been haphazardly organized, to say the least, and Sally had spent the best part of the fall going through the materials, making inventories, arranging things into more or less rational piles. She'd told Maude that she'd decided not to start by reading anything carefully, but instead to begin with identifying and sorting the papers by time, place, and subject matter. She'd left things in precarious, but organized, piles on the floor. Now there was paper scattered everywhere, crumpled and wrinkled and jumbled. Dickie did not like to think about how Sally would react when she got a load of that basement.

Dickie had no idea what the guy had been looking for, or whether he'd found it. The mad disarray of papers bespoke frustration. Sniffing the air, he'd smelled something burnt, and rooted around until he found a cigarette butt ground out hard in the middle of what looked like a typescript of a poem on watermarked vellum paper. Dickie read a few lines, realized he hadn't seen that arrangement of words before, and found himself furious at the thought that some scumbag had put out a fucking butt on an unpublished Margaret Dunwoodie poem. He stepped on the anger and bagged the butt and the typescript for evidence. He smiled grimly and enjoyed the thought that this bastard hadn't reckoned on dealing with a cop who loved poetry.

Maude was going to be okay. Her face would be a mess, and she'd hurt all over for a couple of days, and she'd have trouble swallowing for a week or so, but nothing was broken. She was also the kind of woman who could be a help or a nuisance to the police, and she was plainly pissed off. He let his deputy work methodically through the crime scene while he accompanied Maude to the hospital, and put a little energy into convincing her that her best course lay in trusting the police to see about justice. He wasn't convinced he'd been successful. Her bruised and spattered mouth reminded him of Clint Eastwood when she thanked him politely and told him she was sure they'd “get the prowler and find out what was going on, one way or another.”

Just what he needed: a six-foot Social Security vigilante. And who the hell knew how Mustang Sally was likely to react (he recalled the night she'd tried to run over Sam Branch). He knew he ought to be around when she first saw the wreckage in that basement, but he wasn't looking forward to the experience.

Fact was, he'd been keeping half an eye on the Dunwoodie place for quite a while, and had stepped the pace up to a full eye after Josh had told him about the chromedome in the land shark. And Dickie knew who it was. The guy was no rocket scientist—he'd just sat there in front of the house, three or four times a week, assuming nobody would notice. Josh got the license plate numbers early in September. County five Wyoming plates. Nineteen sixtynine Pontiac Catalina, registered to one Shane Parker, age twenty-four, at an address just south of Albany, Wyoming.

Shane had a sheet. Busted for pot in 1988. A couple of charges—no convictions—on B & E. Passing bad checks. Carrying a concealed weapon. Possession and distribution of methamphetamine, convicted in 1995, served six months in Rawlins, then conviction overturned on appeal, on a technicality.

But there were things Dickie knew that didn't show up on his record. Such as that Shane qualified as Laramie's closest thing to a skinhead. That he had been seen around town with strangers who shared his grooming habits and presumably his loathesome politics. That people whispered about guns and dope and neo-Nazi stuff. And that, according to that fountain of local history Delice Langham, Shane Parker was the great-great-grandson of Wilton Shepherd Parker, who'd been the brother of Gertrude Parker Dunwoodie, Meg's mother. When he'd asked Maude about it, she'd admitted that yes, she'd recognized her assailant as a no-good distant cousin of Meg's and a bad neighbor of her own.

Dickie'd gone out to Albany looking for Shane Parker, but nobody was home when Dickie knocked on the door of the decaying ranch house. There were tire tracks in the snow in the turnaround at the end of the driveway, so somebody had been home recently. Judging from the treads, the tires were regular car tires and pretty bald— more than likely Shane's Pontiac. There were bootprints, too, one deeper than the other: The driver was limping. But the falling snow was fast burying those tracks and really coming down by then, and Dickie had to get back to town or face the possibility of being stuck in Albany for a couple of days. He banged on the door one more time, then got in the cruiser and headed back. He was disappointed at not getting to talk to Shane Parker.

Maude hadn't been able to say if anything was missing from Meg's basement, and since they didn't know where Sally was—somewhere on the road, maybe snowbound, maybe not—Dickie couldn't ask her. But he had a kind of bad feeling about what was shaping up. And Dickie Langham had learned to trust bad feelings, the kind that froze your lungs and sent electrical impulses into your bowels and down your legs. He'd learned a lot about that kind of shock while he was on the run. Doing law enforcement in Albany County, Wyoming, wasn't usually very scary or thrilling, but he'd certainly encountered that freezing crackling a time or two. He'd learned to associate it with something evil—a screaming man, a terrified child, a woman with blank eyes. He knew that for all his long history of sinfulness, he wasn't a bad guy. What he hadn't learned, evidently, was how to cope with even a hint of evil without wanting to get wasted.

He looked at the revoltingly full, smoldering ashtray next to him. Went ahead and lit another cigarette anyway. He poked the fire, wished to hell Mary were home. Stared out the window some more. All at once, outside his window, snowflakes danced in the beams of headlights. He heard the quiet scrunch of tires packing down deep falling snow, the sound of a car door. 2:15 a.m. It might or might not help, but Brit was home. He felt a rush of relief, or maybe even happiness.