Neil McMahon - Lone Creek

After she was done we got into the smorgasbord. We'd eaten sandwiches from a convenience store earlier in the day, but we were plenty hungry again, the food was delicious, and we pretty well demolished it. Then I took a shower and shaved, savoring yet another pleasure of hot water and feeling clean.

When I came out, she was sitting up in bed, looking solemn.

"She loved horses, too," Laurie said.

Her eerie revelation about Celia last night had been swirling around in my head with all the other craziness. The only explanation I could come up with was that my overheated brain had given Laurie's words a meaning that wasn't really there.

But goddammit, she was starting again.

"A lot of people do," I said.

"I mean in a special way. She could feel them-their pain."

"I'm not sure what you mean. No horse she was around ever got mistreated."

"Maybe not outright. But we geld the males, force the females to breed with strangers, take away their children."

I'd never thought of it like that.

"They loved her back," Laurie said. "They wouldn't have hurt her."

I blinked. This was getting less imaginary.

"How do you know she got hurt?" I said.

"I just do."

"Do you know how?"

Hesitantly, she said, "There was a stallion."

That flat startled me. It was a stallion that supposedly had thrown and killed Celia.

"You said a horse wouldn't have hurt her."

Laurie shook her head, confused now. "It's gone from my mind. It was there for just a second, and it seemed right. No to a horse, yes to a stallion."

I sat on the bed beside her. I still couldn't believe this was anything but crazy, but I couldn't stop a tickle of wondering if I'd been maligning Pete Pettyjohn all these years.

Her face softened and she relaxed against the pillows, turning on her side toward me.

"Do you want her again?" she said.

"I want you," I said, but in truth, I was talking to her and Celia both.

I was falling into the sleep that my whole being craved, soothed by the good bed and the comfort of the woman beside me. Her fingernails stroked my chest, sending me into near rapture. But then they started digging in, harder and harder until I opened my eyes.

"We can't rest yet," she said. She was propped up on an elbow, watching me.

"We can't?" I said groggily.

"I've been hopeless for so long, Hugh. But I feel like you've given me a new chance."

That was sweet to hear, but I couldn't see that I'd done much to earn it. When she'd yelled at me about jerking off, she was right. My scenario might have enough meat by now to get the cops interested, but the danger from Balcomb hadn't changed. He was probably already working on a replacement for John Doe. I'd been clinging to this dream time with her, holding off the snarling black dog of reality. But she was right about that, too-we couldn't just hide out and wish it away.

But all I could see was the same wearying labyrinth of dead ends.

"I was hoping I'd have something smart by now, but I don't," I admitted.

Her fingers returned to their light delicious teasing.

"You know there's only one real answer," she murmured.

I did-killing Wesley Balcomb.

The thought came instantly and naturally, without any element of shock. I realized that Laurie was only voicing aloud what had been growing in my mind all along.

But while I'd turned over many plans during the day's driving, I hadn't come up with any that weren't risky as hell. Right off came the problem of getting physically close without alerting him. Then there was the near certainty of getting caught. Rationally, I knew that spending my life in prison was preferable to both her and me being dead, but I still couldn't bring myself to accept it.

"I'd do it," I said. "I just can't see a good way."

"Maybe I can help."

I waited, not expecting much. Suggestions were cheap.

"That rifle is Kirk's, right?" she said.

"Yeah?"

"But nobody knows you have it. I mean, the police would never find out."

I ticked off the chain of ownership in my head. Balcomb had given the rifle secretly to John Doe, to plant the suspicion that Kirk had murdered me. For either of them to admit that would incriminate them. Laurie, Madbird, and I were the only others who knew what had happened to it.

"Probably not," I said.

"Wesley's a night owl. He's in and out of his office all the time, checking business on his computer. There are windows around the desk."

That got my full attention. I sat up.

"You drop the rifle like you panicked, and you hurry back here," she said. "The drive's not long, is it?"

"An hour and change."

"So it'll still be night. Nobody will see you. And I'll swear you were with me the whole time." Her fingers kept moving, making slow circles on my chest. "They'll find Kirk's rifle and think it was him. You'll have an airtight alibi. I'll have money again, so if there's any trouble, we'll hire the best lawyers in the country."

I had no trouble understanding her wanting Balcomb dead. Still, I was impressed at how much thought she'd given it.

"You think he'll be checking his computer, with everything else that's going on?" I said.

"He's compulsive about it. He'd do it if there was a mushroom cloud on the horizon."

"How would I get inside that fence?"

"I don't think you'd have to. It's not that far from the house."

I'd never been inside the compound, so I didn't know the layout.

"Show me," I said. I got up, walked to the window, and pulled aside the curtain. The vehicles in the parking lot glinted with unnatural colors under the sodium vapor lights. She came to stand beside me, scanned the area for a few seconds, then pointed at the logo above the entrance to the motel.

"That sign."

The distance was about sixty yards. The Mini-14 was very accurate at that range, and would fire thirty rounds as fast as you could touch them off. A backlit, stationary man framed in a window would be a prime target-a variation on what cops called a vertical coffin.

I closed the curtain and we got back into bed. She settled in snugly beside me, her breasts teasing my skin.

"You know it's not just us," Laurie whispered. "It's her, too. She's afraid she'll be hurt again. And this time, gone forever."

I gazed at this woman who I barely knew, and realized that she'd again touched something hidden in my thoughts. It didn't make any more sense than the rest of this. But it didn't have to.

She had already given me the gift of fulfilling a dream in a way that few people ever did. Now fate was offering me a second gift: redemption. As a boy, I had appointed myself Celia's protector, and I'd failed her.

If I could keep Laurie safe, I'd allow myself to believe I was also saving the mysterious presence of Celia that seemed to be touching her.

I found the bag of crosstops, swallowed four, and pulled on my clothes.

I left Great Falls in a state of cold euphoria, with my path lit by the dark inner lamp that Laurie had kindled. It was about one-thirty in the morning. The roads were almost deserted. I stayed just under the speed limits and casually shielded my face when another vehicle did come close.

Laurie had sketched a rough map of the compound while I dressed. Knowing that Balcomb would be in that room was the key. The rest fell readily into place. I'd leave the truck at the dead end of the same dirt road where Balcomb had tossed Kirk's rifle for John Doe to pick up. From there it was a few hundred yards on foot, skirting the fence, to the stakeout point. There was no one else staying there now, and the closest residences were the ranch hands' trailers, a good mile away. If anybody heard the shots, I'd be gone before they could get there. Most likely he wouldn't be discovered until somebody missed him and went looking for him.