J. JANCE - Hour of the Hunter

“You know,” he said thoughtfully, “the ‘Playboy Advisor’ always said there were girls like you in the world, but I never believed it. Not for a minute.”

“Girls like what?” Diana asked, feigning innocence, as though she had no idea what he meant. She wanted to hear him say the words.

“Girls who like doing it,” he returned.

She bit him gently on the exposed side of his neck, and was gratified to feel under her fingertips the fine layer of gooseflesh that rose at once on the bared skin of his chest.

She remembered how, during one of their Rodeo Royalty weekends in Pendleton or Omak or one of those places, her attendants had explained to her in gory detail exactly how biting affected men, how it turned them on. It was one of those all-night gabfests with the chaperon fast asleep in the motel room next door when Diana finally confessed to the others that the current year’s queen of the Chief Joseph Days Rodeo was still a virgin. Shocked runners-up Charlene Davis and Suzanne Lake took it upon themselves to give Diana Lee Cooper the benefit of their own somewhat wider experience.

“If you really want to drive a man crazy,” Charlene said, “you bite him all over. Most men can hardly stand it if you do that.”

“Or lick ’em,” Suzanne added mysteriously. “Like an all-day sucker.”

The other two girls rolled on the bed with laughter, although Diana didn’t quite understand what was so funny.

“And then. .” Suzanne said, still laughing and gasping for breath, “. . and then. . when they’re all excited, you leave ’em high and dry. I did that to stupid Joe Moore, remember him? I’ll never forget. His little prick was standing straight up in the air, waving like a rabbit’s ear. When I got out of the car, he started to cry, I swear to God. I mean, he was literally bawling like a baby. He came after me and begged me to get back in the car and finish it, and I said to him, ‘I don’t know what kind of a girl you think I am.’”

And Suzanne and Charlene laughed some more. Diana joined in, but only half-heartedly. It wasn’t so funny to her, because she knew then for the first time what her father had meant when he called her that-a prick-tease. Once more she swore to herself that she wouldn’t be that. If she teased a man, it would be because she intended to do something about it.

She bit Gary Ladd again, harder this time, just at the base of the neck, her sharp teeth leaving a line of small indentations in the smoothly tanned skin. He groaned above her, and she could feel the hardness of him pressing at her through the covers.

He pawed at the sheet and blanket and pulled them away from her, then he fell on her, burying himself deep inside her body. Bruised and sore, she nonetheless raised welcoming hips to meet him, while behind them, on the silenced television set, Jack Ruby mutely gunned down a handcuffed Lee Harvey Oswald.

It was a weekend where no one got quite what they bargained for-not Ruby, not Oswald, and certainly not Diana Lee Cooper.

Because Toby Walker had essentially stolen a county car, Brandon was reluctant to report it through regular channels. He called Hank Maddern at home and asked for advice.

Maddern’s suggestion was succinct. “Report it,” he said at once. “That’ll get word out to the cars so everybody’s looking. In the meantime, I’ll come over and we’ll see what we can do.”

Leaving Louella with strict instructions to remain by the phone, Brandon escaped from the house and his mother to the relative sanity of Hank Maddern’s Ford F-100. Maddern drove through the neighborhood in ever-widening circles while the younger man brimmed over with self-reproach.

“It’s all my fault,” he fumed. “All of it. I never should have left the damned keys there in the first place, but I just didn’t think about it. In our house, car keys have been kept on that pegboard for as long as I can remember.”

“He’s never done anything like this before?” Hank asked.

“Never.”

“There’s always a first time,” Maddern said with a shrug.

One-handed, he shook two cigarettes out of a pack, passed one to Brandon, and then punched the lighter. “And for Chrissake, forget about whose fault it is. Fault doesn’t matter. By the way, what was your old man wearing when he took off?”

“Pajamas,” Brandon answered. “Red-and-white-striped cotton pajamas.”

“Somebody dressed like that shouldn’t be too tough to find. How were you fixed for gas?”

“Gas? Almost empty, actually. I should have filled before I left the office yesterday, but I didn’t want to take the time. I drove all the way out to Sells and back last night.”

“And didn’t come home until late, either,” Hank added with a mischievous wink. “Did you get lucky?”

“Look, Hank, it wasn’t anything like that,” Brandon said quickly. “Diana Ladd needed help with the boy, that’s all.”

“Until five o’clock in the morning? According to Tom Edwards, five was the last time your mother called looking for you.”

“Great,” Brandon muttered, shaking his head. “That’s just great. A little privacy might be nice.”

Maddern heard the edginess in Brandon’s voice and dropped the subject. “Does your dad have money?”

“With him? A little, maybe, but not much.”

“What kind of credit cards? Any bank cards?”

“No. Mom took those away. The department-store cards as well. He probably has a Chevron and a Shell. Maybe a couple of others.”

“That’s where we’ll start then, with gas stations.”

They headed north on Swan, stopping at every gas station along the way where Brandon knew his father had a working credit card. They went west on Broadway and south again on Alvernon. At a Chevron station on Alvernon south of Twenty-second Street, they finally hit pay dirt. The young Mexican kid tending the pumps remembered Toby Walker well.

“Hey, man, I thought it was crazy. This guy comes in wearing pajamas and no shoes, driving a county car, and wanting to know how to get to Duluth. Where the hell is Duluth?”

“Minnesota,” Brandon said quietly.

“Duluth,” Maddern repeated. “Why Duluth?”

“It’s where he grew up. On a farm outside Duluth.”

The attendant thumbed through the credit-card receipts. “Here it is. Tobias Walker. He took 15.9 gallons of premium and said something about a farm, about going there for dinner. He asked me how to get back over to I-10, and I told him.”

They drove to where Alvernon intersected with the freeway. “Which way?” Walker asked. “He’s got plenty of gas. He could drive two hundred and fifty miles in either direction without having to stop for more.”

“At least we know what to do now,” Maddern said.

“What’s that?”

“Call the Highway Patrol. If your dad’s out on the freeway, it’s not just our problem anymore.”

Public transportation as known in the Anglo world was nonexistent on the reservation. Hitchhiking was the alternative.

As Fat Crack left Casa Grande for Sells late in the afternoon, he stopped for a hitchhiker just inside the reservation boundary. Fat Crack could tell from the way the man shambled after the truck that he was drunk, but he offered a ride anyway. “Where to?”

“The Gate,” the man said. “I just got outta jail, and I want to get drunk. It sure was bad in there.”

For an Indian, this was a talkative drunk. Fat Crack found himself hoping his rider would pass out and sleep until they reached Sells.

They drove past the turnoff to Ahngam. “Do you know Eduardo Jose?” the rider asked.

Fat Crack nodded. Eduardo Jose’s bootlegging exploits were legend.

“His grandson’s sure in big trouble,” the man continued. “They brought him in to the jail this morning. For raping and killing a white lady.”