James Burke - Bitterroot

I SMELLED alcohol on Xavier Girard when he answered the door. But he wasn't drunk, at least not so that I could tell. In fact, his thick hair had just been barbered, his eyebrows trimmed. His shoulders were straight, his demeanor casual and nonexpressive. If his mood could be characterized at all, it was a bit melancholy and perhaps resigned.

"Am I disturbing you?" I asked.

"I was writing."

"Can you give me ten minutes?"

"Come in," he replied.

I followed him into a spacious office with cedar bookshelves that ran from the floor to the ceiling. The windows were arched and looked out on wooded hills and a red barn down below and a pasture that was full of Appaloosa and quarter horses.

The wall was covered with framed book reviews, all of them sneering indictments of his work. The centerpiece was a legal form initiated by the censor at the Texas State Prison in Huntsville, stating Girard's last novel had been banned from the Texas penal system because the dialogue made use of racial and profane language and encouraged a disrespect for authority.

The convict whose copy of Girard's novel had been confiscated was in the Ellis unit, awaiting execution.

On the shelves above Girard's desk were his two Edgar Awards, in the form of ceramic busts of Edgar Allen Poe, and a display of arrowheads and pottery shards and a collection of.58-caliber oxidized lead minié balls and rusted case shot.

"This is Civil War ordnance. You dug this up in Louisiana?" I said.

But he wasn't listening. I thought I heard voices through the wall or perhaps the ceiling.

"What could I help you with?" he asked.

"Nobody's looking at you for the murder of Lamar Ellison," I replied.

"Are you?"

"He vandalized your vehicle and punched you out just before somebody boiled his cabbage."

"You want a drink?"

"No."

"You don't really think I killed Ellison, do you?" he asked.

"Probably not."

"Then why are you here, Mr. Holland?"

"The sheriff's got you and Ms. Girard on his mind. I just don't know why."

"If that's all, I'd better get some pages ready for my editor," he said.

I could hear a knocking sound, like a headboard slamming into a wall, and a woman's voice mounting to a barely suppressed shriek. I felt the skin draw tight on my face. Xavier's eyes lifted toward the ceiling.

"You wanted to say something?" Girard asked.

"No, not really."

"People have different kinds of relationships, Mr. Holland. It doesn't mean one is better than another."

I nodded, my eyes averted.

"I'll let myself out. Thanks for your time," I said.

"Sorry. It looks like the landscaper has you blocked in. I'll find him. He's out back somewhere."

So I had to wait ten minutes for the landscaper to move his vehicle. But at least the sounds from upstairs had stopped. As I turned around in front of the garage, Nicki Molinari came out the front door of the house barefoot and headed for my truck, gesturing at me to stop. His hair was wet on his shirt collar. "Say it," I said.

"Don't drive out of here with your nose in the air. You got the wrong idea about what's going on here."

"You were bopping the guy's wife while he was downstairs," I said.

"He's a marshmallow and a drunk. Besides, we didn't know he had come home."

"Take your hands off my truck, please."

"I checked you out, Mr. Holland. You killed your best friend. I knew your kind in 'Nam. A ROTC commission and a cause stuffed up your butt, except it's always other guys who get turned into chipped beef."

"You should have put your shoes on, Nicki," I said.

"What?"

"You stepped in dog poop."

He stared down at the brown smear his toes had left on the cement.

I drove away from the house and up on a rise above the river and got out of my truck and looked down at the cottonwoods below, the words of Nicki Molinari ringing in my ears. I wanted to go back to the Girards' house and kill Nicki Molinari, literally blow him all over the grass. In the old days I could have done it and sipped a cup of coffee while I reloaded. I wondered if L.Q.'s ghost would ever let me rest.

The next morning I received a phone call from the sheriff.

"That kid, Terry Witherspoon, the one you think was watching Maisey Voss in her bathroom? He's in St. Pat's Hospital. Somebody tossed him out of a car," the sheriff said.

"Why are you telling me?"

"Maybe the girl would like to know. A crime victim's day don't always come in court," he replied.

"Who did it to him?"

"Maybe he'll tell you. He was wearing lipstick and rouge when the paramedics brought him in. Why would queer bait want to be looking at a young girl through a bathroom window?"

"I think Wyatt Dixon is AC/DC. Witherspoon is his boy."

"Our worst problem around here used to be pollution from tepee burners. We even had a whorehouse over in Wallace, Idaho. It's sure nice to have you new folks around, Mr. Holland," he said.

"How should I interpret that? You're really a cryptic man, Sheriff."

"Thank you," he said, and hung up.

When I entered Terry Witherspoon's room he was standing by his bed, putting on his shirt. His elbows and forehead were barked and one eye was clotted with blood.

His face jerked when he saw me, as though he feared I might be someone else.

"Wyatt was going to rape Maisey the other night, wasn't he?" I said.

He put on his glasses and crinkled his nose. A sun shower had burst on the hills rimming the valley and the hills were green and shining with light, but it was not a good day for Terry Witherspoon. His face was pinched with resentment and shame, like a child who had been unjustly punished.

"You did an honorable deed, Terry. It takes a standup guy to 'front a dude like Wyatt Dixon," I said.

"He's picking me up. You'd better not be here when he does," he said.

"Free country," I said.

"It used to be. Before the likes of y'all took over," he replied.

"Who's this 'y'all' we're talking about?"

"Liberals, muff divers, tree huggers, the people who are ruining everything."

"You want to be a hump for Wyatt the rest of your life?"

"Don't call me a hump. I'm not a hump."

"You only listen to people who denigrate you, Terry."

"Do what?"

"You grew up being dumped on. So in your mind the only people who really know you are the ones who run you down. A guy like me tells you you're standup and you blow me off."

He looked out the window, down onto the sidewalk.

"He's coming. Get out of here," he said.

"You like Maisey?" I asked.

He looked at me silently, as though there were a trick in the question.

"Ellison and his friends already put their mark on her soul. Give her a break. Stay away from her," I said.

"I'm not good enough?" he said, his glasses full of light.

"Back in North Carolina you broke into a house and tied two people to chairs and shot the man and cut the woman's throat. They'll stand by your deathbed one day, kid. Count on it."

His jaw dropped and his breath went out of his mouth as though I'd punched him in the stomach. Then I saw his attention shift to the doorway. I turned and looked into the face of Wyatt Dixon.

"Why, I be go-to-hell if it ain't the counselor again, right in the midst of it all. Counselor, every time I see you I'm put in mind of a shithog ear-deep in a slop bucket. Search me for the explanation. By the way, did you know that boy of yours pulled a skinning knife on me this morning?"

He let his grin hang, his eyes dancing with delight at the expression on my face.

I DROVE BACK to Doc Voss's place on the Black-foot but Lucas wasn't there.

"You know where Sue Lynn Big Medicine lives?" I asked Maisey.

"Lucas said by a junkyard in East Missoula," she replied. "You saw Terry this morning?"