Brian Garfield: Relentless

It was one of the regional facts of life they had impressed on Watchman when they had assigned him to the district. At first he hadn’t believed the size of the sums involved but when you worked it out it added up. You had more than twelve thousand workers drawing down an average wage of two hundred dollars a week. With a biweekly payroll that added up to five million dollars every two weeks. If five thousand of those men drew half their pay in cash that came to a round million dollars, part of which made a one-way trip to Las Vegas. Usually it didn’t come to that much but the bank had to prepare for the maximum and so every other Friday morning the armored truck brought in one million dollars in tens, twenties, fifties and hundreds: largely hundreds, because the big bills were popular with weekend gamblers. The truck waited all day and after closing it would transport whatever was left back to the head office in Salt Lake City. It was a long day’s run and the Utah office provided maximum security: the armored truck carried four guards and was convoyed by two cars, one in front and one behind, each containing two armed men. The run itself was judged to be that risky. But once the money reached the San Miguel bank it appeared to be safe enough, partly because the eight armed guards and the driver hung around the bank all day but mostly because the single highway through town could be stoppered at both ends on five minutes’ notice to prevent getaways. There were no other roads out. Not even dirt tracks. And the buckled terrain around the flats was impassable to anything but goats.

Even so, these Fridays were tense for old Jasper. He was the head guard: the safety of all that cash was his responsibility.

Jasper took it very seriously because it had taken him thirty-five years to work his way up to this job from a sheep-flock beginning in a hardscrabble back-country hogan forty miles from Kiacochomovi village on the Window Rock Reservation. Jasper and Sam Watchman’s father had been Agency Policemen at Canyon de Chelly together; Jasper was like an uncle to Watchman and he still called Watchman by his Navajo name, which was Tsosie Duggai, and Watchman loved the fat old man with deep fond warmth.

Jasper flapped a hand toward the bank door. “I keep telling Mr. Whipple we ought to put in some of them bank protection devices. We going to get hit one day.”

“I doubt it. More likely they’d go for the truck out on the highway someplace. Up in Utah.”

“With all that armor plate and all them guards?”

“If they hit the bank how are they going to get out of here? You want to relax, Jasper.”

“Maybe. I es-still think we ought to put in some cameras and bulletproof plexiglass panes for them tellers to work behind.”

“You’ve got a good alarm system and a big gun on your belt. But I’ll tell you what, Jasper, if you really want to keep the bad guys scared off maybe you ought to get yourself a feathered headdress and a tomahawk.”

He stopped just outside the cafe and looked at the sky: he could smell a change in weather coming, a thin scent of winter in the air. The sky was clear cobalt, only a few cloud banks to the west, but there was a sharp chill to it and those clouds were advancing fast. Snowstorms sometimes hit the high plateau as early as the end of September and here it was the fourth Friday in October. It was a sudden country.

He went inside. The cafe was filled with the bass thumpings of Johnny Cash on the jukebox. “Custer’s Last Fight” on the wall and denim buttocks arrayed in a row along the counter stools; high-top boots and cowboy hats. Ranch fresh eggs and chicken-fried steaks and the smell of fried grease. Over in a booth Buck Stevens was consuming a hamburger with lots of raw onions. Stevens was a wholesome kid with a square sturdy face and bright china-blue eyes that had an antic way of bobbing about, seldom missing much. He was going to make a good cop.

Jace Cunningham was there in the same booth, wolfing a sandwich, keeping his hat on while he ate. When Watchman reached the table Cunningham slid over into the corner without missing a mouthful and said something muffled that Watchman took to be an invitation to sit.

“How’s it going, Jace?” He sat down and planted his elbows on the plastic table top.

Cunningham wore a business suit with an elaborate brazen badge pinned to the lapel. It looked like the kind of badge you could buy in the toy department at Woolworth’s; it said “City Constable.” Cunningham had a long spare body and a solemn little face. His skin was as freckled as knockwurst. He had been born fifty-three years old-dependable, proper, sober, de-liberate. He was employed by the copper company as chief of police in San Miguel and he was one-fourth of its manpower.

The buxom blonde waitress came over and propped her left elbow into her waist to write in her pad. “Looks like a policemen’s convention here. What’ll it be, Trooper?”

Watchman studied the chalked menu on the blackboard above the counter. “How’s the chili today?”

“I don’t know. I ain’t tried it.”

Stevens was watching her and she was aware of his attention; she cocked her hip slightly.

“Maybe you ought to try it,” Stevens said. “Might put hair on your chest.”

“In a minute,” she said in a tone laced with scorn, “I’m leaving. I can’t take this police brutality.”

Watchman said chili and coffee. When the girl went away, with a little extra swing in her walk because she knew Stevens was watching, Cunningham said, “They got snow over to Nevada last night. Like as not we’ll catch some tonight. You two planning to stay up here or go on down to Flag?”

“Hadn’t thought about it,” Watchman said.

“Maybe you ought to. You don’t want to get caught up in them high passes.”

The diamond ring in its little box made a hard knot in his pocket and he said, “I guess we’ll start back for Flag, then. All right with you, Buck?”

There was a rowdy flavor to the rookie’s grin. “Snow hell. You just want to get back to Lisa and cozy up in Flag till it blows over. Snowstorm? Hah-red man speak with forked tongue.”

Cunningham, with his mouth full, rolled his eyes from face to face to see how Watchman would take that. Cunningham had always been a little uneasy with him: Cunningham was an old wrangler from Texas. Watchman had been down in West Texas once years ago and he hadn’t stayed any longer than he’d had to: in the filling station they’d had three sets of toilets- Whites, Coloreds, Mexicans — and evidently if you were a native American you had to practice extreme continence in those parts.

Watchman slid the ring case out of his pocket and pushed it across the table. Stevens clicked it open and his mouth formed a circle. “Jesus. I’ve seen Eskimos living on smaller rocks than this. What’d you pay for it-twenty-four dollars in glass beads and red cloth?”

Cunningham squirmed and addressed himself to the remains of his sandwich.

Watchman laughed softly and retrieved the ring and Stevens said, “You figure to give it to her tonight?”

“I had it in mind.” All the months of counting up the back pay he’d saved: this night was going to be sweet. He could picture the soft shine of joy on her face.

The waitress delivered Watchman’s chili and when she turned away Stevens reached for her wrist. “Honey, what’s your name?”

“Francine. What’s yours?”

“Buck. Buck Stevens.” He said it with an aw-shucks tilt of his head and the blond cowlick fell over his eyebrow and Watchman tried to repress a grin. “You weren’t by any chance looking for a lift into Flagstaff this afternoon, Francine?”

“Now if I was, what makes you think I’d go with you?”