Steven Havill: Out of Season

“Are you all right?”

“Nothing a chiropractor can’t fix, given time,” Costace said and shook his head.

“Was Eddie’s version pretty close to the way you saw it?”

“Not pretty close, Bill,” Costace said. “The embarrassing thing is that he was exactly right. Thirty-five years’ experience between the two of us, and now this.”

“These things happen sometimes,” I said, moving Neil Costace another couple of rungs up my ladder of estimation.

“All I could think was that Johnny Boyd was shooting at us. And when Hocker went down, I knew he was. My first thought when Mitchell kicked the gun away was that he was in on something with Boyd…that the two of them were working together. If that’s not enough to make a man feel goddam simple, I don’t know what is.” He looked soberly over at me.

“These things happen,” I said again for want of anything better.

“Your sergeant had his eye on Boyd. Hocker and I obviously didn’t.” Costace shook his head again. “Jesus,” he said. “And so what are you thinking? It’s obviously not about going to some dark corner somewhere and actually getting some sleep.”

“Two things,” I said. “First of all, it’s ten minutes to eleven, and Johnny Boyd isn’t going where he said he was going.”

“Okay. I had that thought too. But there’s an endless list of perfectly innocent possibilities.”

“If you’re an incurable optimist,” I said. “Remember our little set-to in the Boyd kitchen earlier? You remember that temper of his?”

Costace nodded. “He does love his federal government, that’s for sure.”

“Well, all right. And tonight he lets his temper go again and takes the risk of firing off a handful of rounds? In the dark? In the glare of headlights that spook everyone? With three armed law officers standing right there? But now, all of a sudden, he’s perfectly willing to acquiesce? To let federal agents rummage through his safe deposit boxes? To be Mr. Nice Guy? I don’t think so.”

“Maybe it’s exactly like he said. He realizes what a stupid thing that was to do. If we wanted to be real sons of bitches, I guess we could come up with twenty or thirty things to charge him with. I’d hate to bring any of them into court except in front of a drunk judge, but they’d sure be enough to hold him in jail for a day or two. Boyd’s got to know that, smart as he is. He’s trying to mend fences.”

“Neil, come on. He could have just kept his mouth shut and been about as far ahead.”

“You think there’s something else, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not the answer I wanted to hear, Sheriff,” Costace said.

Torrez’s vehicle was kicking up plenty of dust, and I hefted my handheld radio. “Give him plenty of room, Robert,” I said, and the lead vehicle slowed. Occasionally, when the swell of the prairie was just right, I caught a glimpse of the taillights on Boyd’s truck, and then, considerably farther back, Mitchell’s unit.

“He’s headed right for the main road,” Mitchell said quietly.

“Don’t ride him,” I said into the radio. “Three-oh-three, you copy?”

“Three-oh-three, ten-four.”

Costace swerved to avoid a rock outcropping that was wearing its patient way up through the tire tracks. “So he’s not going to the magic fence,” he said. “I wonder what the hell he’s doing.”

“Wait a couple of minutes and I’ll make a guess,” I said.

Our two vehicles ambled across the prairie, letting the distance between us and Mitchell’s unit widen as he followed Johnny Boyd toward the highway.

In a moment, Torrez’s brake lights flashed, and then he turned onto a two-track off to the right. We had driven no more than a hundred yards before the radio came in again.

“Three-ten, three-oh-three. Sir, he’s hit the pavement and is heading in toward town.”

“Just follow,” I said, and then added off the air, “Shit.”

“You thought he might be headed up to the Finnegans?” Costace asked.

“That was the most obvious possibility,” I said.

“And the others?”

“Buddha doesn’t know,” I said.

We saw the brake lights of Torrez’s vehicle flash, bright and harsh in the darkness. We’d been idling along with our headlights off, depending on Torrez not to lead us into the middle of an earthen stock tank somewhere. After ten minutes, our eyes had adjusted so that the two-track we were following was a mere trace.

The beam from Torrez’s perpetrator light was just a bushel-basket-sized yellow ghost moving along the side of the trail.

We stopped, and I could make out Torrez’s large form outside the truck. Suddenly a ray of light stabbed out, illuminating a fence line.

“Gate,” I said to Costace, but no doubt he was capable of figuring that out for himself. It took a moment for Torrez to wrestle the barbed-wire gate back across the road so we could pass. He did so, got back in his Bronco and drove through for two car lengths. We followed, and as we pulled to a stop, he closed the gate behind us.

He paused at Costace’s elbow. “About a quarter mile or so,” he said, then added, “I think.”

I had cranked my head around and was looking back at the fence, the wires a faint gleam in the starlight.

“Shine your light over at the fence, Bob,” I said. He did so and I grunted. “Sheep fencing,” I said, seeing the rectangular, four-by-six-inch openings in the wire. “And four strands of barbed wire.”

“He’s got it on the gate, too,” Torrez said. “Makes it a bear to pull open.”

“Huh,” I said. “Finnegan raises sheep?”

“Never knew him to,” Torrez said. “Good antelope fence, though.”

“Why would he bother trying to keep antelope off his range?” Costace asked.

“Maybe not off,” Torrez said. “Maybe in.” He didn’t elaborate, but returned to his vehicle. We had driven no more than five hundred yards when his brake lights flashed again, and then the spotlight on the windshield post burst out across the prairie.

“Well, look at that,” Costace murmured. The antelope herd was off to the left, most of it bedded down in the bunchgrass, but a few of the animals were standing and looking toward us, curious. Torrez swept the beam across the herd. One of the large bucks took two steps and stopped, its head turned away from us, the flashy white hairs on its butt grabbing the light and warning the rest of the herd. The spotlight died and the image vanished, replaced by uniform black. For a moment, all I could see was the tiny red light on the top of my handheld radio.

“That’s a fair-sized herd,” Costace said. “Fifty, maybe?”

“At least,” I said.

“Amazing animals,” Costace said. “With all the traffic back and forth out here, I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of them.”

“We’re a ways from the main road,” I said.

“You ever watched them run? My God, they’re fast. We watched a couple of ’em when we drove over here yesterday…whatever day it was. Just two of them, not a herd like that one. They angled away from us, right over the hill. Must have been hitting thirty-five or forty miles an hour.” He shook his head. “I don’t think a little four-foot-high sheep fence would matter to them. They could jump that without breaking stride.”

“I’ll be damned,” I said to myself, and then chuckled.

“Now what?”

I lifted the small radio. “Bob, stop for a minute,” I said, keeping my voice soft. He did so without hitting the brakes, letting the unit roll to a halt. As we crunched up behind him, I asked Costace, “Does your dome light work?”

“ ’Course it works,” Costace said, and I could see the motion of his hand toward the light switch.