Neil McMahon - Lone Creek

"The reason people like you get ahead, Balcomb, is because you don't carry the same loads the rest of us do-no fairness, no generosity, no sense of obligation. Maybe you've got superior genes for survival. I don't care. It makes me sick knowing you're on this planet."

We all got out. I opened up the doors of the shed. Reuben gave Balcomb a shove with the shotgun barrel toward the interior. He must have believed that we were just out to scare him-we were two-bit rednecks who wouldn't dare to really harm him, and his revenge would start as soon as he was safe again. He stalked forward, shaking his head in scorn.

But when he got to the doors, he hesitated. He took a step in, but immediately backed up. He stayed there maybe fifteen seconds, staring into the darkness inside.

"This has gone far enough," he said again, but this time he muttered it.

He turned around, looking distracted and furtive. Then he made an abrupt lunge, trying to scurry past Reuben.

Reuben brought the shotgun barrel up sharply and clipped him across the head.

Balcomb reeled away into the shed, spinning and clutching at air. Reuben followed and belted him again, this time with a full home run swing. I'd never heard anything quite like the sound it made.

In the stark silence that followed, Reuben said, "Got into some hand-to-hand on the Yalu. Too thick for a bayonet to do much good. Best deal was to take your rifle like that and swing it."

Balcomb was sprawled on the ground, where he'd come to rest after crashing against a stall. Reuben dragged him by the shirt to a scattering of dung that the Cat's blade had pushed against a wall. He turned Balcomb facedown into it, then put a boot on the back of his head and gave it his weight.

I'd once read a rumor about Cardinal Mazarin, Richelieu's successor, whose arrogance and harsh treatment of the common people had greatly stoked the fire that would become the French Revolution. In his last years, he'd suffered increasingly from an unknown disease, possibly syphilis. The hapless pseudo physicians of the day tried every remedy in their repertoire, to no avail. As he lay dying in agony, an old peasant woman appeared at his palace with a wondrous poultice, which she claimed would save him if it was applied inside his throat. Never mind that this smacked of witchcraft, and Mazarin had enthusiastically condoned the torture and burning alive of women accused of it-in desperation, he agreed. The old crone faded quietly away and was never seen again.

The poultice turned out to be manure mashed up with cheap white wine. Thus, with his mouth packed full of horseshit, the world's most powerful man went to meet the God he had professed to serve.

Wesley Balcomb, the poor boy who had craved to be among the elite, had achieved a bond with one of the biggest names in history.

Reuben and I caused quite a stir when we showed up at the courthouse a little after eight o'clock the next morning. Handcuffs practically flew onto my wrists. Besides the trouble I was in, the deputies didn't like what they saw. We both looked like shit anyway, and we'd gargled scotch and knuckled our eyes red to fake hangovers. Reuben added to the effect by lumbering around like a wounded bison, glaring and just itching for somebody to get in his way. Nobody did.

Gary Varna came out of his office right away and took us back in with him. He sat us down, unlocked my cuffs, then eyed us.

"If you think we were out having fun, think again," Reuben said belligerently.

"'Fun' ain't a word that comes to mind, Reuben. I'm just trying to get used to this. It's-unexpected, to say the least."

The room had a cell-like feel, with just one small window, and it was neat to the point of severity. Photos of Gary's family were the only personal touch-his pretty wife who was a nurse, his son who'd played football for Montana State, a daughter in pharmacy school, and another with two cute kids of her own. It gave me a twinge, a little stab that in his life, he'd done right all the things that I'd done wrong.

Reuben came out of his corner swinging. Some of it was a smoke screen, but not all. He'd made the point that if we wanted something from Gary, we'd better give him something, too.

"We've been figuring Wesley Balcomb and Kirk were in on something together," he said. "They were both coming up with money there was no accounting for."

Gary's slate blue eyes focused a click.

"Something like what?" he said.

"That we don't know. But we're thinking they crossed somebody and Kirk went on the run." Reuben paused, his gaze wavering, as if he recognized the other possibility but refused to allow it. "I want you to take a hard look at Balcomb, Gary. I've got some financial information I can give you, and Hugh found out some things."

"Well, now, ain't that interesting." Gary leaned forward and clasped his hands on his desk. "We just got a call from your ranch-excuse me, ex-ranch. Seems Balcomb's gone missing, too."

We did our best to look blearily shocked.

"He didn't show up for an appointment this morning," Gary said. "The video camera on his security gate shows him driving out about one AM. But he left his vehicle there, and nobody knows where he went."

Reuben slapped his palm down emphatically on the desk.

"You can't tell me that's just coincidence," he said. "Both of them taking off for no reason, in the middle of the night. I'd say that gives our notion some pretty good clout."

Gary glanced at me. "I guess if it was true, you'd be off the hook."

I wasn't sure how barbed that was-somewhat, without doubt. I kept my mouth shut.

He settled back again, gazing past us, tapping one forefinger on the arm of his chair. Then he checked his watch.

"I'll be glad for whatever information you fellas have, and believe me, I'll start digging," he said. "Right now, it's going to look bad if I don't put in a personal appearance at the ranch for an eminent citizen like Mr. Balcomb. Hugh, I need to know where you've been. We can talk quick and informal, same as last time. You can wait for a lawyer if you'd rather."

I could wait for a lawyer, sure-in a little cell down at the end of that long jailhouse hallway.

My much better bet was that one of the most influential men in the state was sitting beside me, in my support, which in itself made clear his belief that I didn't have anything to do with his son's disappearance. He was also vouching for my whereabouts when Balcomb went missing. I'd spent the last hours preparing my story according to his advice-including not to say one more word than necessary, and to let him handle the rest.

"I stopped by Reuben's yesterday evening," I told Gary. "I wanted to tell him in person I didn't know anything about Kirk, but I'd found out some stuff that might interest him. He had a bottle of good scotch going and invited me into it. We started talking and putting things together. Then it was dawn."

Reuben nodded gruffly in affirmation. Barring disaster, that much was solid. It would take a hell of a lot to start anybody doubting Reuben Pettyjohn.

"All right," Gary said. He picked up a sheaf of notes off his desk and paged through them. "The last we know of you before that was, let's see, just about forty-eight hours earlier. We got a call from Josie Young, saying you'd been to her place."

So it was that little bitch who'd ratted me out.

"After you came to see me, I knew I was under the gun, so I tried to play detective," I said sheepishly.

"You ever do it for a living, that'll cure you." He kept watching me expectantly.

This part of the story was going to be a lot tougher to float than the last one. "Try to make it just unlikely enough so he might believe it," Reuben had said. Oddly enough, I'd remembered something Laurie had told me that seemed to fit-that when her fear of her husband had erupted and she'd tried to flee, she'd gone to a place where she'd felt safe as a child.