James Burke: Swan Peak

“Sir, maybe I could help,” Molly said.

“I’m fine here,” the man said.

“I was a nurse in-”

“I’m fine,” he said, not looking at her, his expression empty.

She felt her face tighten with embarrassment. She placed her soda can in a trash barrel and went outside. Albert was loading his new saddle in the camper shell that was inserted in the bed of his paint-skinned pickup. He shut the door on the camper and peeled the wrapper on a Hershey bar. “You drive, will you?” he said.

The morning sun created a glare on the window as she backed out of their parking spot. Simultaneously, the white limo was backing up from the gas pump to make way for a motor home. Molly’s trailer hitch gashed the taillight out of the limo’s fender molding, sprinkling glass and chrome on the concrete.

Lyle Hobbs got out from behind the wheel of the limo to inspect the damage. He chewed his lip, his fists propped on his hips, his dry hair blowing in the wind. He let out his breath and took off his aviator glasses and looked at Molly. “I guess if I was sitting on top of an elephant, you might have seen me,” he said.

“That’s very clever. But people don’t usually back up from gas pumps. That’s why this store has an entrance and an exit. You drive into the entrance. You put the gas in your car and drive out of the exit. That’s usually understood by most literate people. Maybe the problem is with your dirty windows. Can you see adequately out of them?”

“You’re Ms. Robicheaux, right?” he said. “Don’t even answer. Yes, indeed, here we are once again.”

“This truck is mine. Address your remarks to me,” Albert said, standing on the pavement.

But Lyle Hobbs continued to stare into Molly’s face and did not acknowledge Albert. “Can you tell me why we keep having trouble with you people?” he asked. “Is this ’cause I broke Mr. Purcel’s fishing rod?”

“I’m sure ‘you people’ refers to a specific group of some kind, but I’m afraid the term is lost on me,” Molly said. “Can you explain what ‘you people’ means? I’ve always wanted to learn that.”

The charcoal-tinted windows of the limo were half down. A gold-haired woman in back pressed the window motor and leaned forward, the sunlight striking her tan skin and blue contact lenses. “We’re late, Lyle. Check her insurance card and make sure it’s current,” she said. “The attorney will handle the rest of it.”

“Your attorney won’t handle anything. Your vehicle backed into me, madam,” Molly said.

But Molly had difficulty sustaining the firmness in her own words.

The man sitting on the far side of the gold-haired woman was grinning at her, if indeed his expression could be called a grin. The skin on his face and head and neck looked like a mixture of pink and white and red rubber someone had fitted on a mannequin, except it was puckered, the nose little more than a bump with two holes in it, the surgically rebuilt mouth a lopsided keyhole that exposed his teeth. He toasted Molly with his champagne glass and winked at her.

She felt a wave of both pity and shame rush through her. Behind her, she heard the metallic clatter of the man who walked with the aid of forearm crutches.

“I saw it all from inside,” the man with crutches said. “It’s our fault. We’ll repair our own vehicle and take care of theirs.”

“This man here is Albert Hollister, Mr. Wellstone,” Lyle Hobbs said.

The man on crutches paused. “You’re him, are you?” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Albert said.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Wellstone said. “What’s the damage to your truck?”

“The bumper is scratched. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“Then we’re done here. You agreeable with that?” Wellstone said.

“Your driver owes Mrs. Robicheaux an apology.”

“He’s sorry,” Wellstone said. He got in the front seat of the limousine, propping his crutches next to him on the rolled leather seat. Then he flopped open his newspaper with one hand and slammed the door with the other.

“Why is it I have the feeling someone just spit on the tops of my shoes?” Molly said.

Albert sniffed at an odor he hadn’t detected earlier. He bent down and looked under the bumper of his truck.

“What is it?” Molly said.

“The trailer hitch punched a hole in the gas tank. I’ll need to get us a tow and have the tank welded or replaced.”

“I should have seen the limo backing up. Dave and I will pay for it,” Molly said.

“I just remembered where I heard that snooty fellow’s name,” Albert said.

THAT AFTERNOON THElead story on the local television news involved the death of the University of Montana coed. At sunset the previous evening she and her boyfriend had gone for a hike up a zigzag trail behind the university. When last seen, they had left the main trail and were hiking up through fir trees, over the crest of the mountain. The girl was found two miles away, in a stony creek bed. Her body was marbled with bruises, her skull crushed. The boyfriend was still missing.

THE MISSOULA COUNTYhigh sheriff was a western anachronism by the name of Joe Bim Higgins. He had inherited the office after his predecessor fell off a barn roof and broke his neck. Joe Bim rolled his own cigarettes when no one was looking and wore his trousers stuffed inside Mexican cowboy boots, the kind stenciled up the sides with red and green flower petals. He had been at Heartbreak Ridge, and one side of his face was wrinkled like old wallpaper from the heat of a phosphorous shell that had exploded ten feet from the edge of his foxhole. He wore an oversize felt western hat of the kind Tom Mix had worn and seemed to care little about either his image or his political future.

In the early A.M. we thought dry lightning had ignited a fire on the far side of the ridge behind Albert’s house. But when I walked out on the porch, the sky was clear, the stars bright, and there was no trace of smoke in the air. Then we realized we were seeing the lights of emergency vehicles wending their way through the Douglas fir trees and ponderosa pines and that a helicopter was sweeping the canopy with a floodlight from the far side of the ridge.

At sunup Joe Bim Higgins’s cruiser pulled into Albert’s drive. Fifteen minutes later, the two of them drove to our cabin and tapped on the door. Molly was still in her bathrobe. I went out on the porch in the coldness of the morning and closed the door behind me. A helicopter swept by overhead, its searchlight off now, scattering the horses in the pasture.

Joe Bim was smoking a hand-roll, its tip wet with saliva. He asked if I had seen any activity on the hill behind Albert’s house two nights previous.

“I didn’t see anything. Maybe I heard a vehicle,” I said.

“What time?”

“After midnight. I didn’t pay it much mind,” I said.

“Know what kind of vehicle?” he asked.

“A car.”

He wrote on a notepad. “You didn’t think that was unusual?” he said, not looking up.

“Some loggers from the Plum Creek Company have been working up there,” I said.

“After midnight?” he said. He glanced at my face.

“I told you I didn’t give it much thought. I had no reason to.”

“I know you’re a police officer, Mr. Robicheaux, but I don’t like loading dead college kids into the back of an ambulance. This is the second one in two days. The coroner says this one has been dead at least thirty-six hours. Your wife hear anything?”

“No.”

“Let’s ask her,” he said.

“She’s not dressed,” I replied.

“How about we eat some breakfast and work on this afterward?” Albert said.