The Winslow Incident (30 page)

Pulse quickening, he chastised
himself for being so frightened.
It’s only a wolf—and you’re the one
with the Smith & Wesson.
He looked down at his shaking hand. Suddenly the
revolver felt burning hot, searing his palm, and he dropped the gun to the dirt
with a dull thud and a splash of dust. And just as suddenly, he could not
possibly have been any more disgusted with himself, disgusted with the worry
and the weakness, with the debilitating fear.

Stooping, he picked up the
revolver. The grip wasn’t hot; it was never hot.

That was when the brown dog burst
from the woods.

On muscular legs the chocolate Lab
raced toward him where he teetered on the rim of the canyon. If he didn’t move
she’d plow him backward over the edge. If he did, she’d continue over by
herself. He decided to make a stand because it was the Peabody’s dog Molly. A
sweet dog.

Only she didn’t look sweet when
she came to a stop in the dirt eight feet away from Nate. Teeth bared, she
growled low and deep.

“What’s the matter, girl?”
Offering her his left hand, he held the gun tight in his right.

The dog whined and for a moment
Nate thought it was going to be okay but then she snapped her head and jerked
her body around as if she’d been bitten on her back. She darted away, yelping
and leaping into the air and twisting again, before racing back Nate’s
direction.

“What is it? What is it?” He could
do nothing but watch helplessly as she ran in frenzied circles.

Abruptly Molly dropped into the
weeds and Nate saw her struggling to get back up but her legs seemed to have
given out on her.

He stepped slowly to where she
lay, cautious not to startle her further, trying to reassure her. “It’s all
right, girl.”

But as he got closer he heard her
chewing, heard her biting on something hard, making loud crunching and grinding
sounds. When he reached Molly he saw what was in her mouth.

A rock. She was gnawing on a
fist-sized rock and her mouth was covered in blood and her teeth were cracking
and falling into the dirt.

Nate took careful aim. One
well-placed shot to the head.

Then he turned away from Dead
Horse Point and marched resolutely in the direction of town.
I’ll go back
in. I’ll face what needs to be faced.

“
D
amn those Winslows!” Dread stuck snugly in Ben
Mathers’ craw. He wished that Patience could be right, that Lottie really were
here, because Lottie always knew how to ease his tangled mind. Ben was
convinced that if Sarah Winslow’s appetizer hadn’t killed his wife, she would
have found another way. He leaned over the steering wheel and through his
goggles glared at The Winslow perched contemptuously on the hill, lording over
the whole town.

He shook his head, reminding
himself,
I warned her, didn’t I?

He shifted his focus back to the
road. Prospect Park passed by on his left, the buildings of Civic Street on the
right. He peered intently straight ahead. No longer accustomed to driving the
Valiant, it required his full concentration. There hadn’t been reason to go
anywhere lately. For years, really. Not since Lottie was murdered. Bitterness
twisted his gut. “I warned her.”

But she hadn’t listened. Now, not
only were things worse, things were
much
worse. Fire at Holloway Ranch,
his granddaughter suffering delirium, people beyond themselves—

A couple holding hands stepped out
into the street in front of him. Ben slammed the brake pedal to the floor and
the Valiant jerked to a stop. They were, he realized, buff-bare as the day they
were born. But these were no babies.

When the man made a move toward
the Valiant as if coming over to share something, Ben yelled, “Stay away from
me! Keep away!”

The man (who looked a lot like
Bowen Marsh only Bo had been gone for awhile) held up his bare arms as if to
say,
Okay, take it easy
. Then he retook the woman’s hand and the pair
finished crossing the street into the park.

Ben yanked down his mask to call
after them, “Put on some clothes for decency’s sake!”

He shook his head again.
Much
worse.

The sun was setting over the
Lamprey River canyon, and he recalled the July when they were just boys and Bo
Marsh and Randall Winslow and Hawkin Rhone hiked with Ben into the woods beyond
Ruby Creek. It wasn’t dark when they set out. That was later. When he was
trying to find his way back. When he was trying to swallow the panic. When the
night was choking up all around and the day was sneaking away from Ben just as
stealthy and mean as the other boys had when they ditched him. He’d been lost
for hours, way past terror by the time he finally came upon The Winslow. If his
father had been around to teach him about things, he would’ve never let himself
get tricked like that. Ben Mathers learned that day not to trust just anyone.

Now no one could be trusted, not
even his Patience. When he’d looked at his cherished granddaughter’s face he
could see the sickness raging beneath her skin and behind her eyes.

As for Ben, he refused to get
sick. Somebody had to keep a handle on things and Nathan Winslow certainly
wasn’t around. Some sheriff he turned out to be. The minute a real crisis hits
the sonofabitch is nowhere to be found.

That definitely did not help the nervous
roiling in Ben’s belly.

He dared another peek at the
hotel.
I warned her, didn’t I?

Up ahead a pair of cowboys on horseback
crossed the street and rode into the park. Ben didn’t know what Pard Holloway
might be up to but had no cause to trust him either and decided to steer clear.
There was a menace to the cowhands even under normal circumstances. They
carried guns.

Should I just leave? Should I
just keep driving?
Ben suddenly wondered,
surprised that the idea hadn’t occurred to him before then.

No
, he decided and straightened up behind the wheel.
This
is my town now.

He realized he’d drifted over to
the wrong side of the road and yanked the steering wheel hard right.
Overcorrecting, he sent the Valiant smashing into a parked pick-up.

The jolt and noise were
extraordinary.

For a stunned moment, Ben sat motionless.
Then a smile formed on his lips.

He backed up his car at a diagonal
to the Chevy and sat idling. Squinting through the sunset, he contemplated the
dented truck bed. Then he glanced around. Had anybody seen? If the cowboys had
heard, they obviously didn’t care for the street remained deserted.

Gunning it, he slammed into the
truck again, collapsing the driver’s door into the cab of the Chevy with a
scream of metal and a hail of glass. The impact was astounding and the
Valiant’s engine abruptly died. The old man slammed both gloved hands against
his steering wheel in a confusion of triumph and frustration.

Then, belly shaking and tears
welling in his eyes, Ben Mathers laughed.

P
ard Holloway wiped the sweat from his face with
a bandanna. It smelled of horse. He liked that smell. He got along better with
horses than people and didn’t suppose there was much wrong with that.

Tugging the reins, he turned
Blackjack left onto Ruby Road, glad to leave The Winslow behind.
They’ll be
okay
, he told himself. Just need to buck the hell up, is all. Lord knew
he’d already sacrificed. A hundred head of cattle worth of sacrifice. And since
he was starting to suspect that his initial gut instinct had been right along
and that his animals had been poisoned, that sacrifice might prove to be a
complete waste. But one thing was for damn certain: no one was leaving Winslow
until he found out exactly how this happened—and why.

Pard shook his head, fighting the
persistent notion that townsfolk’s wild paranoia and half-cocked speculating
were affecting him more than he cared to admit.
Maybe this madness really is
contagious
, he thought.

He peered up the street, wondering
where the crash ’em up derby he’d heard while he was up at the hotel had taken
place, but he didn’t see any wrecked cars along Ruby Road.

As they continued into the park,
Pard found Blackjack’s steady gait reassuring. Pard wanted to believe he had
everything under control, yet he had his doubts. For one thing he still
couldn’t find Doc Simmons. Or his nephew. Or the sheriff.

At least that bastard sun was
finally going down, blanketing the town in pleasing orange light. He let
himself think then that everything would be fine. That it would all be over
soon.
We’ll wind up this sorry business and get back to the way things were.

With no interest in ranching, the
rest of the Holloway clan had left the mountainside and were now scattered
around the state—around the country, for all he knew. And his niece Hazel
had as much intent to stick around Winslow as a bucket of ice at a Fourth of
July picnic. So childless himself, Pard hadn’t planned on having anybody to
pass it all on to. Except now there was this kid—this smart-ass, skinny,
annoys-the-hell-outta-me
kid. If he could somehow whip Tanner into shape . . . but he had serious
doubts. He hadn’t meant for his nephew to get hurt at the rodeo Saturday. If
only Tanner had held on like he’d told him to do. Clearly Pard would not be
making a buckaroo out of that boy anytime soon.

When he rode into Prospect Park he
came upon Hap Hotchkiss pushing his lawnmower under the monkey bars. Out of
gas, apparently, since the motor was silent. Hap, hunched over the mower handle
and sweating like a horse thief, nodded slightly as Pard passed.

Have to send a man out here to
take care of him
, Pard thought. It was
getting damn hard to keep track—

“Keep up the good work,
Hotchkiss!” Jay Marsh ran by, bare-ass unshucked.

Pard watched Jay scurry out of the
playground to the duck pond, where half a dozen people had congregated. Some
were sprawled beneath the shady oak while others sat on the low wall
surrounding the pond. No one spoke when Pard rode up.

“You folks know we got quarantine
on, don’t you?” he said.

Nobody answered; few even looked
at him.

“That means you’re picking
yourselves up and going home.”

Nobody moved. That included the
two ducks floating dead in the pond.

“That means
now.
” The end
of his patience was very near. He had enough problems at the ranch, didn’t need
more nonsense in town.

Jay had joined Julie Marsh (also
unshucked from muzzle to switch) where she sat in the shallow water. Pard
dismounted Blackjack and walked to the edge of the pond.

“It’s hot,” Jay informed him.

This was really too damn much.
Pard put one foot up on the low wall and leaned in. “Get out of that water, get
some clothes on, and get yourselves home.”

“We’re not bothering anybody,” Jay
said.

“You’re bothering me. Get the hell
out of there!”

Reluctantly the Marshes stood
while Pard turned to address the others. “If you’ll just do as I say, you’ll
all be fine.”

“Your cattle weren’t fine,” Jay
said from behind him. “You planning to firebomb us too?”

Pard reeled around and punched him
just below the eye, and Pard thought he felt the man’s cheekbone give way
beneath his fist. Wearing a look of pure astonishment, Jay was flung flat on
his back into the pond. And when he sat up, blood-sullied water cascaded from
his nose. Looked a lot worse than it actually was, Pard speculated.

Julie’s mouth opened wide, though
nothing came out. At first. Then an angry screech split the dusky air just as
Pard turned his back.

“This is about damage
containment,” he told the rest of them. He strode back to Blackjack and swung
himself up onto the horse’s back. “And we can do this the easy way or the hard
way. Your choice.”

He jerked the reins to turn his
horse around and then rode out of Prospect Park to the accompaniment of Julie
Marsh’s furious sobs.

Pard had had enough.
Why won’t
they just cooperate?
he thought.
For their own damn good.
He’d send
his men to take care of these people, to clean up this mess. Once they were
done at the bridge.

T
anner Holloway wasn’t sure how it would all
play out, but the idea of riding off into the sunset sounded pretty good. And
he didn’t know what he’d do once the sun went all the way down and he was stuck
on the pass in the dark. That didn’t matter yet. Getting out was all that
mattered.

For now, that orange ball of
misery was shining right in his eyes as he rode the Kawasaki toward the bridge.
Whenever he blinked, sweat dripped off his eyelashes.

Of course it’d been bullshit about
taking Hazel to her mother. He had no clue where Anabel Holloway might be. But
it’d almost worked. She bit hard; he saw it in her eyes. Then he’d watched as
she’d struggled with her desire to go running to mommy versus her guilty need
to stay and make up for being such a disloyal bitch to Sean Adair. Poor dumb
bastard. At least Tanner had been able to set him straight about her. Sean and
Patience both. Poor dumb Patience.