Come the middle of the afternoon, he got to feeling thirsty and thought how nice one of those ice-cold Coca-Colas Ruta Beth kept in the fridge would taste, and so he decided to head on in. He was a man very much at peace with himself and ready to face the world when he rounded the corner of the barn and saw a truck coming down the driveway toward the house.
Bud pulled up in front of the house. He heard no dogs barking; strange, because most of these farm places had dogs. But the Stepfords never did, either. Bud felt a little buzz from somewhere, he wasn’t sure where. It was like that time a week or so ago on the reservation; just a sense of being watched.
He picked up the mike.
“Dispatch, I am ten-twenty-three the Tull Farm, off 54 east of Altus.”
“That’s ten-four, six-oh-five, we have you.”
“Listen here, Dispatch, got me a feeling. Want you to run the name Tull through records real fast, see if anything kicks out.”
“Ten-four, six-oh-five. You hang in there.”
“Ten-four.”
Bud sat for a minute or two in the heat. Usually, you pulled into a farmyard, the Mrs. came out to see what was going on, or one of the hands leaned out of the barn or something. But it was just quiet. He could hear the slow tick of the truck cooling. An old farmhouse lay before him and beyond, in the emptiness, the Wichitas, standing out like boulders. The wind snapped; sunflowers along the red dirt road bobbed and weaved in its force. A cicada began to saw away like a lumberjack.
He looked back at the house. These people hadn’t given up: someone had commenced scraping to prepare the wood for new paint, though the job was at rest now. Still, it spoke of hope for the future. Looking around, he saw the fields were fallow, but they didn’t look grown out. Hard work: hard as hell. Bud had worked farms when he was a young man, between classes at Oklahoma U. before he had to drop out, and he’d hated it. There was no harder way to make a living than to pull it out of the earth with your own two hands.
“Six-oh-five?”
“Ten-four, Dispatch.”
“Ah, we have nothing on Tull in our records. I did do a cross-check and it seems some years back a Mr. and Mrs. Tull, that address, were killed, but there’s nothing in the records to indicate adjudication in the case.”
Maybe that was it. The feeling of death, heavy in the air; the way it sinks into the wood. A farm couple, murdered. Nothing in the records to suggest the culprit had been caught. Seemed eerily familiar, but he couldn’t place it.
“Okay, thanks, Dispatch. I’m going in. Wait for my ten-twenty-four.”
“Wilco, six-oh-five. Good hunting.”
Bud touched his three guns: the big new Beretta under his arm, the Colt on his right kidney, and the little Beretta .380 inside his shirt. Okay, he thought, time to go.
Lamar watched the man climb out of the truck. He knew he was a cop from the long time he’d spent on a radio in the cab. Now the man got out, looked around, set his hat just right, yet still paused, checking. Cautious bastard.
Lamar had sunk into the high grass. He didn’t move a muscle. Then the cop came around the truck, still looking, and by God, Lamar thought he’d fall through the earth itself. It was that goddamned trooper sergeant, the one he thought he’d smoked at the Stepfords, big as life!
Pewtie, that was it. Pewtie. Oh, ain’t you a tough bastard your own self? Pewtie was big and had that flat cop face, weathered and serene, that just drank in every damn thing. Lamar had seen that goddamned face a hundred times.
But now it was time to think. What’s he doing here? What’s he up to? Is it a raid? Goddamn no, there’d be SWAT people and FBI and choppers and OSBI hot dogs all over the goddamned place. This Pewtie was here on his own.
Lamar wished he had a gun on him and told himself he’d never again be without one. He thought of his two .45s upstairs in the bedroom, freshly cleaned, each with a magazine of glinting shells in it. But he also knew if he’d had a gun, he’d have drawn and fired and, no matter what, Pewtie’s 10-23 would have brought the boys here soon enough.
Then he thought of a new problem. What happens if he sees poor Odell? He’ll know him in an instant. He’ll draw and shoot and poor baby Odell will just go down, spitting blood out with his Frosted Mini-Wheats. Or Richard? He would recognize Richard, too, for he’d have that cop gift for memorizing a face off a bulletin, able to pull it up at a moment’s notice.
We are fucked, he thought. If he sees them two, we are fucked. If I kill him now, if I can, then maybe we’re not fucked so fast, but we are fucked.
Best thing that could happen?
Ruta Beth.
Come on, Ruta Beth honey. You got to get us out of this.
* * *
Bud looked around one more damned time. He could see nothing in the yard that seemed the slightest bit out of place. He decided just to get the goddamned thing over with.
He walked toward the house. A ladder leaned against it, and Bud could see the line where the paint scraping had halted. Whoever did the work knew what he was doing; the old paint was scraped off down to bare wood slicker than a whistle. Maybe they did it with a machine or something, but it just looked like hard work to him, the old-fashioned kind. No job for a slacker, that was for sure.
He climbed up on the porch. From inside he heard the sounds of the television, a cartoon show for children. That was good, too. Kids meant family meant probably not escaped-convict armed robbers and killers. Now he was feeling pretty good. He knocked on the door.
He heard some rustling inside, but he wasn’t sure what it was. At last, the door opened and a chalky-faced young woman stared at him. Her wide eyes were dark as coal, and she wore her dark hair pulled back in a long ponytail. She was in jeans and a nondescript print blouse, sleeves pushed up. She fixed a glare on him, which might have been fear and might have been hate.
“Miss Tull?”
“Yes I am,” she said. “If you’re here to sell me something, I don’t need nothing.”
“No ma’am,” he said, and took out his ID folio with its golden State of Oklahoma shield. “My name’s Russell Pewtie; I’m an investigator for the state highway patrol.”
“I ain’t done nothing wrong,” she said.
“I’m not saying you have, ma’am. It’s just that we’re investigating a crime and we may have a lead in a tire-tread mark so we know what kind of car it is. Your car fits the profile. I just want to take a look at it so I can cross you off my list and get on to the serious business.”
“Ah—” she said. Was it a look of panic in her eyes? Bud began to pick up a sense of disturbance.
“Ma’am, if you’d like to call the family lawyer and have him come on out or something?”
“I don’t have no family lawyer.”
“Well, ma’am, I’d be happy to wait until you called someone. If you like, I can give you the number of Legal Aid and they can either supply or recommend a lawyer. But no charges are pending against you, Miss Tull. We just want to account for these cars so by process of elimination we come down to ones we can’t explain. Those are probably our boys.”
“Okay. Sure, it’s—sorry, I’m just not used to policemen.”
“I understand. Wouldn’t be natural if you were, ma’am.”
She stepped outside. In a flash glimpse, he saw a kitchen and through a hall and two doors, the blue TV glow.
“Your son, ma’am?”
“What? Oh, the TV? No, I just like to leave it on. It keeps me company.”
“You live alone?”
“I do. Since Mother and Daddy died, I’ve been here by myself.”
“I see. You’re having some work done?”
“Yes. Got tired of looking at the old dead paint. Hired some men to clean it up and paint it. But then they got another job, so they ran off to do it. Said they’ll be back, but you know how hard it is to find quality work these days.”
It seemed to hang together, but Bud was wondering: Why is she so nervous?
* * *
Lamar
watched as the trooper ID’d himself to Ruta Beth and began to gull her into something.
Would she be smart enough? Would she make some stupid mistake? Goddamn, how could they have tracked him? He had been so careful, he had thought it out a step at a time, sometimes staying up all night just worrying his way through it. What could he have done wrong?
He looked this way and that. Odell must be still camped in front of the tube: if you didn’t give that boy an order, he’d be content to sit there like a bump on a log from June till November. Richard was the goddamned problem. Richard could bumble in at any moment and start to cry. The cop would recognize him, it would all fall apart.
It came down to this: Lamar hated the idea that the trooper sergeant he’d caught so flatfooted a month and a half ago would be the one to bring him down. He saw the stories now, for he knew how they thought: The newspapers and the TV would turn it all personal, they’d make this lucky motherfucker into the greatest goddamned detective since Dick Motherfucking Tracy! He, Lamar, would be the goat!
Lamar’s anger ruptured like a boiler exploding. He felt his muscles begin to tense and the blood begin to sing in his ears.
Be careful, he told himself. You get mad, you make a goddamned mistake.
He tried to clear his mind in order to figure out choices. Maybe he could double around, get into the house by the back way, get to a gun, and just blow the fucker away. But … that would take minutes. It might come apart before then, and he’d be stuck in the fields out back, while Bud Pewtie blew away Odell and Richard and called for backup.
What would Pewtie do? Would he go in the house or was he after something else?
Suddenly, Ruta Beth stepped outside, closing the door after her, and the two of them began the long walk to the barn.
Lamar slithered backward, a snake, then plunged into the darkness of the barn and began to look about for some kind of weapon. Then he saw it: the ax he’d used to split logs. He had it up in a second, and slid into a pool of darkness inside the door, dead still, not hardly breathing. The ax had killing weight to it. If he got just the smallest break, he’d be on Pewtie like the night. One swipe and it would be over.
“This must be that shoot-out in Texas,” she said. “It’s so terrible what them men did. Why do people have to be so cruel?”
“Ma’am, I’ve been a police officer for nearly twenty-five years, and the truth is, I don’t know. Four thousand dollars. Couldn’t buy nothing with that.”
But as he was talking, Bud was looking all about. Something still didn’t sit right with him. Her nerves, the idea of leaving a television on just to hear it. Why not a radio?
“I keep it out back by my wheel,” she said.
“Beg pardon?”
“Wheel. I am by profession a potter. I turn clay on a wheel. Then I paint it and glaze it and bake it in a kiln. I can make pret’ near anything by now. Then I go to craft shows on the weekend. It isn’t much, but it’s a living.”
“Well, that’s nice. Funny, I met all kinds but I don’t believe I met a potter before.”
“I’d be pleased to give you a pot, Mr. Pewtie.”
“Well, that’s kind of you, ma’am. I think I’ll just get it checked off and be out of your way.”
“Gits kind of lonesome out here, that’s why I’m talking up such a storm.”
“I can appreciate it.”
They walked through the barn and out back to her work area. Her potter’s wheel stood under a lean-to, the coal-fired kiln next to it, and on her bench were several cans of paint and her pots. They blazed with color. She seemed to be doing some imitation Indian thing with them, but they were better than any pottery he’d seen in the reservation shops. The colors were jagged, almost savage, and stood off the ocher like blood pouring from a wound.
“My,” he said, impressed, “you are a hell of a potter. Those things are beautiful.”
“Why, thank you, Officer,” she said modestly.
And then he turned to the car.
Lamar watched as she boldly led him toward the barn.
Beautiful sweetie, beautiful, he was thinking.
He could have pounced at any second, and in his mind he thrilled at the prospect of it. That was what he was addicted to: the hot fun of the violence. He saw himself really getting his weight into it and bringing that blade whanging down into the trooper’s bull neck. What a wound it would open! The meat would splay open, red and pulsing, maybe a sliver of bone would show. There’d be more goddamned blood than you could shake a stick at. Pewtie would turn, stunned, unbelieving, and his eyes would lock onto Lamar’s and beg for mercy, and he’d weakly raise his hands, but Lamar, with his great iron-pumper’s strength, would bring the ax down again and again in a rain of killing blows. It excited Lamar. He wanted to do it so bad!
They paused to gab a bit at her workbench, and the cop said something that Lamar didn’t catch. But when the cop started to examine the car, Lamar slid through the darkness and got almost within spitting distance. He could lunge out now at any instant and take the man down. His hand tightened and loosened on the ax shaft and he tried to control his excitement and think through the red rage that clouded his brain so that he could figure out the right thing. Hell, maybe he should just do it and to hell with it.
But he waited.
“Hah,” said Bud.
He stood up, a little disappointed. The old, once-red Tercel lay blistering in the sun. Its plaid interior had faded, and was anyway jammed with blankets. Spots of rust flaked the left rear fender, and the rear bumper also looked rotted out a bit.
Then he leaned back again, looking at the escutcheon on the old tire. Slowly he walked around, one by one, looking at them.
Nope! Goddammit, nope.
The tires were old, all right, but they were Bridgestones, not Goodyears.
For some reason, he’d just had a suspicion this one might be the one, the woman’s nervousness, the isolation, the anomalies of the TV and the hard male work put into the place.
“Well, thanks very much, Miss Tull. I see I can scratch your name off the list. No ma’am, I don’t believe you shot up any Denny’s restaurants lately.”
“Not in this lifetime, at any rate,” she said with a little laugh.
Bud disengaged abruptly from the situation. It was of no more interest to him.
“Well, I’ll be getting out of your hair now. Have to get over to Granite.”
“Sure, Mr. Pewtie. Now, I can’t interest you in one of them pots?”
Bud looked back. One of them really did leap out at him: ocher glaze, black diagonals, and a bright orange sunburst, like the end of a world.
“Could you sell me one?”
“I get fifteen dollars for the small ones and twenty-five for the big ones.”
Ouch! Not cheap.
“But I’ll tell you what. Your choice, ten bucks.”
“Hell, that’s a bargain if ever I heard of one.”
Fortunately the pot he chose wasn’t a big one, so he forked over the ten without feeling terribly greedy. He didn’t as a rule like to take little extras with the badge but hell … once in a while didn’t hurt a thing.
She fetched the pot, brought it to him, and the two of them walked back through the barn to his truck.
“Come on back,” she said. “I enjoy visitors.”
“Thanks, Miss Tull. Good luck to you.”
He got in.
Now if they were just lucky a little bit longer. If Odell or Richard didn’t come walking out of the house.
Lamar watched from the pool of shadow behind the barn door. His heart was thumping. Pewtie was too far away to get with the ax now. It was in the hands of God.
He diddled with the car a bit, picked up his radio, and called in what Lamar assumed was his 10-24—task completed—and then with majestic leisure started the truck. It took him another minute to back out of the yard and then three more minutes to pull down the dirt road to the macadam, take a left, and then disappear.
There se
emed to be a long pause in the day. Lamar found that he was doused with sweat. Unlike the race out of Denny’s he didn’t feel exhilaration; he just felt the total numbing meltdown of shock that attends survivors of near-death experiences. He didn’t like it a bit.
He looked up. Ruta Beth came out of the house, almost in a daze. She cupped her hands as if she were about to call to him.
“No,” he said, loud, but not a shout. “Don’t call. Don’t look left or right. Just mosey into the barn, in case.”
At that moment Odell opened the door, looked out in confusion.
“Odell, stay where you are. No, wait—and make sure the shotguns is loaded. Keep Richard in the house.”
Odell nodded and ducked back in.
Eventually, Ruta Beth came on over.
“You was in the barn the whole time.”
“I was. One silly move out of that boy and I’d have cut him open with this ax.”
“He had two guns. I saw them both. One under his coat, the other in his belt.”
“Probably had more, goddamn,” said Lamar. “That boy was loaded for bear. The car. It was the car he wanted to see, honey?”
“Yes it was, Daddy.”
“Tell me ’xactly what he asked. ’Xactly. I have to know the words.”
Numbly, Ruta Beth reiterated Bud’s explanation.
“I see,” said Lamar, concentrating mightily. “He said he had to ‘check it off.’ They still use that old one?”
“That’s what he said, Daddy.”
“Now, honey, you think real hard. Tell me the whole talk. Not just what he said, but what you said. I have to know if you said something that gave too much away and a sly old dog like him might sniff it out.”
Laboriously, she recreated the conversation, now and then prodded by Lamar’s insistent probing. It went on for ten minutes. But then she said, “I tried hard, Lamar. I didn’t do nothing on purpose.”