C Box - In Plain Sight

Wyatt didn’t look up, but said reluctantly, “Pretty much. Not all the movie stuff, though.”

Arlen chuckled in a condescending way Joe found irritating. “In an effort to stave off another violent confrontation, of which there have been many over the years, I decided to drive over to Hank’s side of the ranch and try to calm down the situation. Wyatt decided to follow me in his truck. I spotted Hank just across his side of the line…”

“Hold it,” Robey said, raising his hand. “You’ve made a couple of references to ‘his side of the ranch’ and ‘our side of the ranch.’ And now you say there’s a line. What’s that about?”

Arlen smiled paternalistically at Robey, as if graciously offering an explanation that should have been well known by all. “In order to keep the peace, Mother decided a few years ago that we should live on opposite sides of the ranch. Hank built a fine hunting lodge on the east side, and the rest of the family remains on the original homestead on the west side. There’s an old fence line that more or less cuts the ranch in two, and we’d all come to understand that it wasn’t to be crossed. Nothing legal, just an understanding until Hank decided to lock all of the gates. Julie and her mother moved down to live with us. I have adopted Julie as my own. Unofficially, of course, and much to Hank’s dismay. He would rather they both stay up there on his side, pining for him while he takes clients to Kenya to hunt for months on end. But Julie needs some stability.”

“Thanks,” Robey said. “Go on.”

“I saw Hank’s truck tearing across the ranch toward our side at the same time we were trying to find him. I pulled over and waved him down, so we could talk. After all, Wyatt and I are just as concerned about where Mother might be as Hank is. I thought, for once, we could put the animosity aside and try to work together and figure out where she was.”

Joe was struck by how Hank and Arlen used the word “Mother” when they spoke. Men their age should say, “My mom,” “my mother” or “our mother,” or “our mom,” it seemed.

“So I got out of the truck and went to talk to Hank. Wyatt came up behind us. But alas”-Arlen paused, and again took the rag away from his head-“instead of talking, Hank grabbed his irrigation shovel and started swinging. I grabbed mine in self-defense. I guess that’s when you were called.”

Arlen stopped speaking, and winced, as if a sudden jolt of pain had coursed through his head. Either that, or a conspicuous play for sympathy, Joe thought.

“Is that how it happened, Wyatt?” Robey asked.

Wyatt slowly nodded his head, but refused to look up.

“Hank, you agree?” Robey asked warily.

Instead of answering, Hank sighed and stood up, a movement so swift and unexpected given his previous stillness that the deputy beside him didn’t reach out. Joe slid off the desk, ready to step between Hank and Arlen if necessary.

“It’s pretty accurate,” Hank said, his voice tight. “I ain’t gonna dispute what he said about the fight. I think he left out the part about what he did to Mother, and where he hid her.”

Hank turned to Arlen, who was still seated. Arlen looked back calmly, knowing, Joe thought, he had already done as much damage as he could do. Wyatt took that moment to look up, see what was happening, and drop his head again, as if figuring that if he didn’t watch it nothing could happen.

Hank couldn’t raise his hand to point since it was cuffed behind him, so he set his shoulders in a way that seemed to point at Arlen’s face. Hank said, “And I don’t want to hear another fucking word about Julie coming out of your mouth.”

Arlen arched his eyebrows. “Why? Because she’s come over to my side? Just like her mother?”

That did it. Hank emitted a guttural, anguished sound and hurled himself at Arlen, head down, closing the space between them so quickly that neither the deputy nor Joe could stop it.

Hank head-butted Arlen square in the face, and the force of his body took them both backward, smashing into the filing cabinets. Framed photos fell from the wall and broke on the floor. Both deputies pulled at Hank’s bound arms and shirt collar, but his thrashing legs tripped Reed and the officer fell heavily on the pile. Joe and the other deputy grabbed Hank’s ankles and pulled him away, facedown along the floor, leaving a smear of blood on the linoleum.

“You got no idea what he’s capable of!” Hank shouted.

Arlen’s face was covered with blood from his broken nose, and he shouted: “THROW THAT ANIMAL IN A CAGE!”

Joe breathed deeply after the scuffle and watched the deputies carrying Hank through the door to a cell. While Robey helped Arlen to his feet, he looked at Wyatt, who had not moved. Wyatt sat still, his head hung low, his huge body settled into the cupped seat of the molded-plastic chair. As Joe watched, Wyatt reached up and covered his head with his huge hands, lacing his thick fingers through his hair.

Joe saw where the Flex-Cuffs had bitten into Wyatt’s fleshy wrists, and what remained of the cuffs on the floor under the chair where Wyatt had snapped them off during the fight. Joe had never encountered a man strong enough to snap cuffs before. Next to the shredded cuffs, Joe saw a splat of moisture. Then another. He realized Wyatt was shaking, his big shoulders heaving up and down as he sobbed.

TWO HOURS LATER, after Joe had finished giving his deposition to Robey concerning his recent encounter with Opal Scarlett, Deputy Reed stuck his head into the office.

“I thought you guys would want to know we’ve sent a couple of cars out to pick up a fishing guide named Tommy Wayman,” Reed said, glancing at his notepad. “His wife, Nancy, called it in. They had a fight and Nancy said Tommy told her he would do the same thing to her that he did to Opal Scarlett if she didn’t shut up.”

After a beat, Joe said, “Which was…?”

“‘Throw her in the river like fish guts,’” Reed said, looking at his pad to emphasize that he was quoting.

SO IT WAS Tommy Wayman, Joe thought. Tommy was a longtime local, a throwback, given to white snap-button shirts and stretch Wranglers. He ran three boats and two rafts on the Twelve Sleep River, his business doing well despite the fact that Tommy would much rather fish himself than tend to detail. The guided operation was flourishing now, though, due to MBP Management, Marybeth’s company.

Wayman had the oldest fishing service in the valley, and was the first to change from live bait to flies, flat-bottomed jon boats to beautiful McKenzie-syle drift boats, the first to preach catch-and-release instead of killing and taking caught fish. It had been a nod to progress and a realization that the resource was unique but limited. Joe encouraged Tommy and urged other guides to change their methods while he managed the river for quantity and quality of trout instead of meat in the water.

Tommy had contended with Opal Scarlett for years. Maybe he had finally snapped.

IT WAS AFTER TEN WHEN JOE DROVE TOWARD HIS home on Bighorn Road. Maxine was asleep on the passenger seat, tucked in on herself, her deep breathing punctuated by occasional yips as she dreamed of what? Chasing rabbits? Watching men beat each other with irrigation shovels?

The night was remarkably dark, the moon a thin white razor slash in the sky, the stars hard and cold. There were no pole lamps this far out of town, and it was one of those nights that seemed to suck the illumination out of the stars, rather than transmit the light, leaving pinpricks.

He had called Marybeth to tell her he’d be late.

“Sheridan told me what happened,” Marybeth said. “Julie, that poor girl. I wish she hadn’t seen her father and uncle fighting like that.”