Neil McMahon - Lone Creek

"Hell, I was glad for the excuse. Besides, you ain't even got a job anymore."

"Yeah, but I just came into a little windfall."

He put his wallet away, gruffly pleased. I wished I could have told him where the windfall was from-that would have tickled him more still.

The bartender retired to the well to wash glasses, leaving Elmer and me in private.

"I know I'm putting you in an awkward spot," I said quietly.

"Don't you worry about it. If Kirk got in trouble, I'll give you ninety-nine to one there ain't nobody to blame but Kirk. I don't know what all he was up to, but I know some of it wasn't much good. So does Reuben, and probably so do the sheriffs."

"I sure hope so."

He cocked his head to the side and eyed me. "From what you told me, it sounds like you got a notion."

"There's something ugly rustling around out in the bushes, Elmer. That's about all I know at this point, and I've got to be real careful what I say."

"Never mind about that, neither," he said. "You get to be my age, there's more and more you'd as soon not know. Ask what you want and I'll tell you what I can, and that'll be the end of it."

We touched glasses and drank.

"I'm interested in a pair of horses that showed up at the ranch a couple days ago," I said. "Thursday, near as I can tell."

The creases in his forehead deepened. "I didn't hear nothing about it. Thoroughbreds?"

"I don't know, but they didn't go to the new stables. They got put in that calving shed at the north end, and they were gone next morning."

He pushed his hat back with his knuckles. "Well, I promised I wouldn't get nosy, so I won't ask how the hell you know that. But I don't see how it could of got by me."

"Maybe it was set up that way," I said.

I could see that he wasn't just puzzled now-he was real unhappy that something like that had happened on his turf.

"Anybody moving stock on or off the ranch is supposed to come to the office and file a record," he said. "It goes into a computer now, but I don't get along too good with that, so I get a paper copy, too. I look them over every day before I leave, same as I always done. And I'm damn sure there ain't been nothing about horses."

So-it sounded like they'd been sneaked in, probably at night. I doubted Balcomb had brought them himself. Unloading horses from a trailer was no job for somebody who didn't handle them well. It might have been Kirk, or another accomplice, or just a delivery driver who wouldn't have had any reason to suspect anything was out of the ordinary.

But there was still no hint about where they'd been brought from, or why.

"Anything else that's gone on around the ranch that seems, you know, not right?" I said.

"'Not right,'" he said musingly. "Well, nothing flat-out wrong, at least that I know of. There's plenty that don't make sense to me."

"Such as?"

"Their thoroughbred operation, for one thing. It don't much exist."

I'd been aware of personal tensions on the ranch, but this was the first I'd heard that things weren't going well inside the inner sanctum of the Balcombs' compound. Elmer was the only person I knew who had access to it, and I'd never talked to him about it before.

"I thought that was the whole point of them buying the place," I said.

"That's what they told everybody, all right. Big-time breeding, and selling all over the world. But there ain't any horses there, to speak of-just their own two, and a couple it seems like they keep more for show than anything else. Not a one bought or sold yet, or bred, neither. Stands to reason they'd take a while to get started, but it's getting on two years now."

It seemed clear that Balcomb didn't care for horses, and the reason Laurie had given for his wanting to raise them seemed supplied. Still, it was hard to understand why a shrewd businessman would sink a ton of money into a setup and then sit on it. There was plenty of expert help available, and the word was that Laurie's family connections would provide a springboard to the high end of the market. A top thoroughbred could sell for millions of dollars. A stud fee could go well into six figures.

"I guess they must have enough of their own money," I said.

"I guess. The cattle operation pays for itself and then some, but it sure ain't paying for all that new building. Well, I'll double-check about them two horses, Hugh. Balcomb probably just didn't bother to tell me. Seems like the only reason he even keeps me around is so when he gets visitors, he can trot me out like I'm Buffalo Bill or some goddamned thing."

"I can see where that wouldn't sit too well," I said.

He shrugged. "At first I kept thinking I didn't mind too much, but then I started minding thinking that, if you know what I mean. Anyway, it just don't feel right any more. I'm about ready to get out-probably should have when it sold. Reuben treated me real good, so I'll get a couple thousand a month as long as I live, plus Social Security and the VA. It's just-"

He lifted his Stetson with his right hand, smoothed back his hair with his left, and replaced the hat, a gesture as unconscious and automatic as breathing. His face looked weary and disturbed.

"That's been my life, pretty much," he said. He raised his glass and drained it, the ice cubes gently rattling. I signaled the bartender for refills.

There went another piece of the real old west.

I got back to my place about five o'clock, parking down the road in the trees and looping around the back on foot like Madbird and I had done earlier. Everything was quiet and seemed untouched. I was starting to feel the strain from nerves and lack of sleep, and the temptation to crash came down hard on me. But-especially if I was going to end up back in jail soon-I had more ground to cover.

I wanted another look at the calving shed where the horses had been killed, this time with good visibility. And as long as I was at the ranch, I might as well try making a peace offering to Doug Wills, the man I'd fought with yesterday, and take a shot at picking his sullen brain. If I'd had my preference, I'd never have laid eyes on him again. But he was the foreman-out and around the place all the time, handling stock and privy to business dealings-and the other person besides Elmer most likely to know something about those horses.

If I hustled, I could make it to the shed before dusk, but there was still the problem of getting caught. Besides the Balcombs, only a few hired hands lived on the ranch, and none of them would be working now. But somebody might be driving to town or out on another errand.

I'd been thinking hard, and I'd come up with a possible answer-to go around the ranch instead of on it. The shed was just inside the north border. Beyond that lay a couple of miles of empty grazing land, with no roads or people. I knew where I could cut off the highway and cross it-except that darkness would fall long before I could make the hike, and even a four-wheel-drive pickup would be stopped by deadfalls and rock slides. But a motorcycle would be just the ticket.

I went out to the garage my father had built. Occasionally I still worked on the truck or dressed game in there, but mainly I used it for storing stuff like tools and camping gear. It also housed a 1966 BSA Victor that I'd bought in high school for a hundred and fifty bucks. The previous owner had stripped it down into a bastardized dirt bike, a beefy, dinosaur four-banger that couldn't begin to maneuver with the newer two-stroke MX models. But I loved its deep rumble and solid feel, and I'd gotten to where I could horse it around pretty well up hills and over trails. Riding with my friends I was usually last in the pack, but for a couple of summers, I'd had a hell of a good time on it. When I'd gone to college I let it fall into neglect. Then, during my first solitary summer back in Montana, I'd refurbished it, spending weekends learning about the marvels of British engineering and finally turning it over to a pro for fine-tuning. It had been another part of that illusion of freedom, but a good one. For a while I'd ridden a lot, mostly in the back country nearby, where I could cruise for hours on the network of trails and disused roads without seeing a soul. That had fallen off again, but there were a couple of days every summer and fall when taking it out for a spin was the only right thing to do.