Chuck Logan - Vapor Trail

Angel flung out her arms and thrust her chest forward, sprinted through an imaginary finish line.

Yes.

Broker talked to J. T. on his cell as he drove, explaining his predicament. J. T. mostly listened. Then Broker hung up and traveled the back roads south into Lake Elmo. Ordinarily he’d enjoy this drive; escaping the malls, the subdivisions, the freeways. The last few miles to J. T.’s farm, Broker traveled on a timeless two-lane county road. Just rolling fields broken up by tree lines and the silhouettes of silos and barns floating on the horizon in the haze of heat.

Pretty country, except Broker’s eyes kept wandering to his rearview mirror, where he could see the face of the grinning driver of the red Stillwater Towing truck that had loaded his shit-afflicted Ranger on its flat tilt bed.

The sign by the mailbox said: Royal Kraal Ostriches. J. T. Merryweather ran about two hundred birds on one hundred acres. Besides the pens for the stock, J. T. had fields in alfalfa, oats, and corn. He had a big red barn and a comfortable farmhouse in the shade of a huge willow tree. Today the long willow branches hung like a limp hula skirt.

Broker directed the tow truck driver to unload the Ranger next to a manure spreader J. T. had parked by the barn. He paid the driver and watched the truck turn back on the county road and disappear.

Then he walked toward the toolshed in the lower level of the barn. He passed a bird pen, and several of the eight-foot-tall hens bobbed along in the heat; a gaggle of long legs, long necks, big popped-out curious eyes, and droopy gray feathers.

Broker selected two short-handled shovels and a hoe and stepped back outside. He was fighting the sinking thought that the whole truck cab was a write-off.

Goddamn Harry.

He went around the barn and spotted a green tractor hitched to a box kicker and the red rails of a hay wagon marooned out on an alfalfa field.

Then he spotted a golf cart scooting along the side of the field, heading in toward the barn. Broker waited in the barn shadow, priming the handle of the hand pump, then bending to the stream of cold artesian water and slaking his thirst. He straightened up and inhaled the heat-fermented malt from the bins of oats, the stacked alfalfa bales. He watched the barn cats scuttle through the stanchions of an old windmill tower.

J. T. Merryweather wheeled his golf cart up to the barn, got out, walked toward Broker, and flung an arm at the sky.

“Farmer’s nightmare: burned on top and wet on the bottom. Not a good day to have a hay crop cut and lying in the field. Goddamn humidity is 83 percent. Just won’t dry out.” Broker followed J. T.’s gaze, squinting up at the orange smear in the haze.

J. T. wore a black Stetson, was six feet tall, and was cooked black on black by the sun. He was field-hand lean, leaner than he’d been in years. Farmwork and fresh air agreed with him more than the desk he’d used as a captain running St. Paul Homicide. His face was large and generous, but his tight brown eyes had always preferred the mysteries of the sky to the predictable people beneath it. So he took early retirement and started up this farm.

They shook hands.

Broker looked around. “Where’s Denise and Shammy?” J. T.’s wife and daughter were not in sight.

“Denise took Shammy to the Cities, club team tournament.”

Broker nodded. The daughter practiced basketball like a religion.

“Okay, let’s go have a look,” J. T. said. He couldn’t suppress a grin.

“Not funny, goddammit. Look at that.” Broker jabbed his finger at the shattered mirror.

“Six hundred yards, you say.” J. T. mulled it over.

“More like six hundred fifty. I walked it off,” Broker said.

“The man always could shoot,” J. T. said.

Broker dug in his pocket and showed J. T. the.338 round. “He gave me this as a taunt when it all started, like I told you on the phone. The drunk sonofabitch could have killed me!”

J. T., who, like Harry, had a basement full of reloading presses, took the rifle bullet from Broker and turned it over in his fingers. “That’s a 378 Weatherby Magnum necked down to 338. Weatherby’s a low-end elephant gun. Basically this shell casing is too big for the bullet, got way too much powder behind it. I’m surprised the whole mirror frame didn’t explode. And if he would have clipped you anywhere around the head, we wouldn’t be having this conversation because your head would be this fine red mist floating over a strawberry bog in Wisconsin.”

“Spare me the hymn to gun freaks, okay?”

“Just saying. . he hit what he wanted to hit. Six hundred yards is an easy shot for a guy like Harry. He’s just fuckin’ with you.” J. T. tossed the bullet back to Broker, who caught it, stuck it in his pocket, and turned toward his truck.

Grumbling, he opened the passenger door, and the full aroma of the sun-ripened cow dung rolled over him.

J. T. spotted the badge-and-gun sign, the arrow pointing down, and began to howl.

Broker ignored his glee and started shoveling out clots of manure. J. T. went around to the other side with the other shovel. “Eureka,” J. T. crowed as he gingerly lifted Broker’s.45 on his shovel. A moment later they found the badge.

J. T. brought out a five-gallon can full of kerosene and dumped in the gun and badge. He turned back to the truck. “Forget the shovel. Get on the horn and call your insurance agent; call it vandalism, whatever. You’re going to have to replace everything, the seats, the dash. I doubt you’ll ever get the smell out.”

“Can’t hire a couple farm kids to scrub it out, huh?”

J. T. snorted. “Shee-it. They are no more farm kids. Average age of the American farmer is fifty-seven.” J. T. toed the dirt. “You know, I was you, I’d think of changing trucks. You don’t have a lot of luck with Fords.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, two years ago August, Popeye kicked your last Ranger to junk; now this,” J.T. said.

True, J. T. had made the mistake of driving Broker’s truck into a pen with Popeye, his four-hundred-pound aggressive stud. Popeye had pulverized the truck with kicks and damn near killed J.T. when he made a break for it. Now Popeye was gone. J. T. had sent for the fatal ride on the big truck.

“It ain’t like you’re on a fixed income,” J. T. said. “What do you think about the Toyota Tundra?”

Broker waved his hand in a disgusted gesture. They left the truck and took the can of kerosene over to an outside workbench next to the toolshed. J. T. went in the shed and came out with two wire brushes and a handful of small glass jars.

Broker fished out the badge, unpinned it from the leather backing, and hurled the round hunk of leather at the nearby burning barrel. No way the leather would ever clean up. He scrubbed at the badge with the wire brush.

Meanwhile J. T. methodically took the.45 apart and put the various pieces in the glass jars. He took out a Leatherman tool and patiently began to remove the smallest screws.

“Whoa. I’ll never be able to get that back together,” Broker said.

“I’ll give you a loaner,” J. T. said. When he had the pistol totally disassembled, he poured clean kerosene into the jars.

They scrubbed their hands under the pump with Boraxo, then went over to the picnic table in the hot shade of the willow. J. T. went in the house and came out with a frosted pitcher of iced tea. He took out his pipe. Broker reached for a cigar, then, still hot and shaky from his walk in the sun, decided not to.

J. T. lit his pipe and poured iced tea. He took a sip and stared at the dusky waves of heat rolling over his fields. “Got a call this morning. Bubble Butt Reardon’s dead. Dehydrated. Heat stroke. Just like Corey Stringer. Cutting his lawn. .”