Neil McMahon - Lone Creek

"You think something happened to him?" I said.

"I got two minds about it. I'm still mostly willing to bet he fell in love for the night. Maybe he did turn it off, or dropped it or stepped on it or run over it. But together with him not turning up-that's unsettling. So we're asking around." Gary's gaze stayed on me.

I shrugged. "Last time I saw him was yesterday afternoon at the ranch, right before I came to visit you."

"He was holding a rifle on you, is that right?"

I'd suspected that would get thrown at me sooner or later, too, but it was still the hardest jolt yet.

"Well-yeah," I said.

Then I swung around to face him.

"What are you getting at, Gary? Nothing happened between Kirk and me-we never even talked. He was just there in the background, doing his job."

"That's all I'm doing, too-just my job. This is informal, but if you don't want to talk to me, you don't have to."

It didn't look informal, with that uniform and hogleg.

"Sure I'll talk to you," I said.

He lifted his chin in approval. "Why don't you give me a quick rundown of what you did last night?"

I'd rehearsed this over and over during the drive back here and the hour or so before I'd fallen asleep, but it was still like walking through a minefield. I spoke hesitantly, as if I was trying to remember.

"I got home from jail. I was pissed off and restless. I went down to O'Toole's and had a couple. Then-can we keep this private?"

"For now," Gary said. "Not if it comes to bear legally. So think it over."

"It's nothing that serious. I went out to the ranch and picked up my tools."

"Am I remembering right that Balcomb eighty-sixed you from there?"

"Yeah, but the way he was fucking with me, I was nervous he'd impound them or some goddamn thing and I'd never see them again."

Gary pushed his hat brim back and scratched his forehead.

"I can't say that was a good idea, but I can see it," he said. "Give me a time frame to hang this on."

"I probably left the bar around ten and got back to town around midnight."

"That's a long trip out there and back."

"I took it slow, on the ranch. Kept stopping and listening, in case there was somebody else around."

"All right, you got to town about midnight," he said.

"I stopped by Sarah Lynn's to pay her the money she'd lent me. Then I went home and took that slow, too. I had a lot to think about."

"Anybody see you during all this?"

"Not that I know of. I mean, people might have seen me, but there was nobody I talked to."

"What time did you get here?"

"I never looked. It must have been at least two o'clock, maybe three." I hadn't wanted to say that-it was in the time range when Kirk's cell phone would have gone on the blink.

"That puts a little kink in my brain," Gary said. "Your truck engine seemed a touch warm. You'd think on a chilly night like we're getting, it'd go stone cold between then and now."

Son of a bitch again. So that's what he'd been doing with the hood open.

The only answer I could come up with was bone lame.

"I might have driven around longer than I thought."

Gary didn't say anything to that-just took another look around the cabin, then stalked to the door. I followed him.

"OK, Hugh," he said. "That all seems reasonable, even if some of it ain't exactly legal, and we can check it out if we have to. Let's hope we don't."

"Look, you know Kirk and I aren't buddies." I was careful not to use weren't. "But we get along. I'd sure never wish him any harm."

"That's good to know. Unfortunately, it don't much matter. What does is if something bad happened to him. And with him being Reuben Pettyjohn's son-" Gary paused, then added, "Make that, 'last surviving son'-it kind of turns up the heat on me, know what I mean?"

I knew, all right. He'd do his damnedest to put somebody away, and he wouldn't bat an eye at bending the rules.

"Anything I can do to help, Gary, just let me know."

"I appreciate your cooperation."

I couldn't tell if he meant what he said any more than I did.

Stepping outside, he raised his head and sniffed the air, then turned his gaze to the heap of charred wood and dirt a hundred feet away.

"I thought I smelled something, coming in," he said. "What you been burning?"

I'd been nursing the faint hope that he'd assume it was slash or other debris and not say anything. Fat chance. I damned well couldn't accuse Kirk-that would give me another motive for revenge, this time in neon lights.

"Balcomb's lumber," I said, shifting my shoulders uncomfortably.

For the first time, Gary showed surprise. "Well, now, how the hell did that happen?"

I looked at the floor. "I pounded down some drinks after I got home from jail, and I just blew up. Next thing I knew, I was scrambling to put the fire out."

"You did it?"

"Yeah."

Gary didn't like the sound of this, it was clear.

"How come you didn't tell me?" he said, hard-voiced now.

"I feel like an asshole about it."

"We're not talking about your goddamn feelings, we're talking about withholding information."

"I didn't think it figured in."

"That been happening to you often?" he said. "Blowing up and doing something stupid without even realizing it?"

"Come on, Gary, you know me better than that."

"I used to think so. This worries me, Hugh. Drunk driving, trespassing-hell, those are the kind of things that could happen to anybody. But when a guy goes flat crazy and shoots himself in the dick, that makes an old cop nervous. Anything else you forgot to mention?"

I shook my head, squeezing my closed eyes between my thumb and forefinger.

"It was like you said-I had a world-class bad day. I handled it piss poor, and I'm sorry. Real sorry, because now I owe Balcomb another thirty-five hundred bucks on top of everything else."

"I'm afraid you're going to be more sorry yet," Gary said. "I was just about to tell you your luck was changing. I went out to see Wesley Balcomb first thing after I talked to Reuben, in case Kirk might be around the ranch. He let me know he was dropping all charges against you, including the demand for restitution. Said he only took it so far because you seemed to have an attitude, and he wanted to, quote, 'impress upon you the seriousness of the matter.' Unquote."

I sat down heavily in the doorway. "I think I'm going to cry."

"I don't blame you. I'll leave you to it in peace."

The tires on Gary's cruiser glistened where the black tom had sprayed them, sending a telegram to cats at the next stops along the line. I watched him pull away, with my pulse hammering so hard I could feel it in my head.

All charges dropped. Now I was going to have to wrestle again with whether I'd been wrong about Balcomb, or this was another of his ploys.

But first I had some urgent problems to deal with-starting with hiding a body so it would never be found.

"Had a feeling I better find out how you were doing," a gravelly voice said.

I lurched to my feet, swiveling toward it so fast my neck burned.

Madbird was standing beside the cabin's rear corner, looking like he'd just materialized there.

Neil McMahon – Lone Creek

"I got another feeling that ain't just coincidence," Madbird said, jerking his head toward the fading dust cloud from Gary's car. He must have hiked in around the back of my property like I'd done last night. In the woods, Madbird was a ghost.

"I didn't tell him anything about you," I said. "But somebody might have seen us leave the bar together."

"I can handle that. Kirk?"

I hesitated. I'd never in my life been so glad to see anybody as Madbird right now. But from this point on, anybody who helped me or even knew about Kirk was on felony turf.

"I've gotten you in too much trouble already," I said.