T. Parker - Iron River

“Congratulations to both of you,” said Hood. And for a moment his hope for them was stronger than his dread.

Near midnight the crowd surged outside where the rodeo arena was now bathed in the floodlights. The bulls shuffled and snorted in the pen adjacent. There was a black bull in the chute and it stomped and snorted and threw its haunches against the rails, and Hood could hear the crack of wood. When the stands were full, a cowboy climbed onto the animal. The crowd was yelling loud when the black bull exploded into the arena and the kid rode its fury up and down, casually enmeshed in the circling chaos of the animal until he was suddenly flung from it and he landed and rolled and made the wall. There were five more bulls and five more riders. Hood watched them through an absinthe glow, transfixed and grinning.

Then Bradley sprung down from his seat and walked toward the chute. Erin turned and ran from the arena. Bradley stripped off his tuxedo jacket and flung it to his little brother, Jordan, who ran to keep up with him and appeared to be instructing him. Bradley climbed atop the chute, and the crowd roared into the night, and he lowered himself onto the dappled gray-and-white beast. Hood could see the shine of Bradley’s patent leather shoes against the great flank of the bull and he watched Bradley take the rope as a cowboy instructed, and the cowboy spoke fast to Bradley, and little Jordan was speaking, too, and Bradley listened with lessening patience, then he shrugged and nodded to the gateman. A gray-white bolt shot to the middle of the arena and went into midair without seeming to have jumped. It landed and Bradley, with his one hand high and his other locked to the rope, crashed hard to the bull’s back. The animal twisted and launched itself into the air again and this time Bradley was thrown high. The crowd went silent as Bradley sailed. Hood watched the bull watch him. Bradley gauged his speed and his height correctly and he landed on his feet and pitched forward and bowed. The crowd burst into cheers. He bowed again, then heard the thunder behind him and scrambled over the wall inches ahead of the slashing black horns. The audience mobbed him, and two men began bashing each other with chairs out in the bar area, and another ran for the pond with a bottle of vodka upturned in his mouth, and a great Dane on its hind legs lapped the pink punch from the glass maiden’s bowl, and two of the saloon girls danced burlesque on the bar top, waving their bras overhead like pennants.

“One more teensy little absinthe?” asked Beth.

“I don’t see why not.”

Beth threw herself into the bar crowd, and Hood found the coffee station and got a triple shot of espresso. Erin and McMurtry were onstage with the Inmates and the Heartless Bastards and two of Los Straitjackets, singing a not quite synchronized duet that advanced like an armored column.

Hood and Beth danced a song that became two more, then a slow one that Erin had written. They leaned into each other, bodies warm and hearts flush. Beth guided Hood off the floor and collected her goblet and aimed him around the rodeo arena and up the sloping barnyard to the tent city. There she delivered him to a unit up near the brushy hillside, set apart and unoccupied and welcoming. He turned on the lantern and held open the door for her. She stepped past him into the tent, clicking the lantern off on her way by.

Two days later, Hood sat in his replacement Yukon behind the Pace building and watched through the dark windows. There was a tall container of coffee on the console, and on the seat beside him were a bag of tacos and a package of cookies. He looked out at the rear of the building-warehouse, freight dock, loading ramp. There were pallets stacked along one wall and a motor home along another, the yard lights dull against the filthy windshield. A few minutes later he drove around the block and parked on the street out front, fifty yards away from the entrance.

Again the shift began at five o’clock. He watched the men park their old vehicles in the employee lot out front and wait to be let into the manufacturing floor. They carried plastic bags and beverage containers like his own, and some smoked. They looked relaxed and they talked and laughed quietly. The old ones reminded him of his father before his mind had betrayed him, back when he was easy and content with who he was and what he had made of his life and the working was never bad but never quite so good as being finished for the day.

He watched and thought about Beth Petty and the wedding and after. They’d made it halfway through the second day of dancing, eating and drinking before running out of energy. Someone had gotten the bulls drunk and let them loose and they had terrorized the dance and bar tents briefly, then wobbled off to lie in the shade of the hillside oaks or graze the barnyard or stand knee-deep in the pond, drinking and peeing. Bradley and several other drunken young men had gotten ATVs from the barn and attempted a roundup. It failed, with minor injuries to two men and one ATV that ran off the dock and sank out of sight in the pond. The bulls were unharmed and barely noticed the men. Hood had driven home with Beth conked out against the window, asleep and snoring at times, her hair dangling wildly, her knit dress somewhat stretched and lightly smudged, sapphires intact and atwinkle in the afternoon light, a wedding-gift absinthe goblet wrapped in wedding napkins peeking from the top of her purse. Hood smiled. She had part of his heart now and that was good.

Deeper into the night, Hood stole across the street and hunkered among the begonias and rhododendrons around the perimeter of the building. He moved slowly and found the place where he could see in. He watched for a few minutes, getting a good look at the handguns being finished inside. They were nice-looking weapons. Hood guessed.32 caliber by the bore, but at this distance they could be.22s or even.38s. He also saw something that wasn’t there the last time he’d surveilled Pace Arms: wooden shipping crates. Open and ready. The tops and packing material were stacked separately. The crates were roughly eighteen inches square. There were ten stacks of ten. At ten guns each, a thousand total. All crates awaiting their precious cargo. Soon, Hood thought. Soon.

He stood and was about to cut back across the street to his vehicle when he saw the Porsche Cayenne Turbo tear into the parking structure. The driver waited, then snatched the ticket from the dispenser. A moment later, newlywed Bradley Jones, trim in his Explorer uniform, strode to the Pace Arms entrance and pushed the speaker button on the wall. Then Bradley pulled open the lobby door and let the door swing shut behind him.

Hood’s heart raced and fell at the same time. He closed his eyes and opened them. He was surprised but not. Sad but not. Hugely pissed off at Bradley is what he mostly was, and at himself for believing in Bradley. How many times could he look at this boy but fail to see him? Suddenly the stolen fifty thousand rounds of.32-caliber ammunition made simple and terrible sense. And the Tiffany vase became nothing more than a symbol for his own sentimentality and daft hopes.

Bradley and Pace.

Pace and Bradley.

He knelt back down in the darkness again and watched the men make guns and felt the hard thump of his heart down in his chest. A few minutes later, Pace and Bradley appeared amidst the workstations, Pace convivial with the workers and Bradley silent. Bradley walked along the tables, looking down at the emerging weapons, his uniform crisp, his expression speculative, lost in thought.

“Mike,” said Gabe Reyes. “Meet Father Quang from St. Cecilia’s.”

“How do you do, Father?”