Light of the World

  “You never had trouble with wolves?”

  “No. It’s probably operating by itself. I doubt it’ll come back.”

  “In my opinion, that’s wishful thinking. That wolf is not afraid. He knows there’s food here.”

  “It’s nature’s way.”

  “If that wolf had its way, it would have grabbed one of your horses by its face, pulled it down on the ground, and ripped out its throat.”

  “I guess that’s possible.”

  This is not a rational discussion. Don’t say anything else, I told myself.

  The creek bed in the pasture was swollen with rainwater and running brown and fast over the banks in the grass, the cottonwoods dripping, the clouds of fog in the fir and pine trees so white and thick that we couldn’t see the tops of the hills.

  “I wish you hadn’t shot toward the end of the pasture, Dave,” Albert said. “There’s a house inside that box canyon.”

  “I know where it is. My angle was such that even if the bullet ricocheted, it would have gone into the hillside. I exposed no one to risk when I took those shots.”

  “Let’s not talk about it anymore.”

  “You want me to walk down there and knock on the door? I’d be happy to do that.”

  “I said forget it. I’m sure they’re fine.”

  Albert really knew how to plant the harpoon. “Who lives there?” I asked.

  “A part-time preacher and his wife and two teenage daughters,” he replied. “I’ll talk to them later, in case they wonder why we were shooting down here.”

  I ejected the spent cartridge from the chamber into the mud, and the rounds from the magazine, and did not bother to pick up the unfired rounds. I think I stepped on them and pressed them into the mud. I closed the bolt and handed Albert his rifle. “The next time I try to save your horses from a predator, please reload this and shoot me, and after you’ve shot me, please shoot yourself. The world will be better off all the way around.”

  “What set you off?” he asked.

  CLETE HAD MADE a lifetime practice of not arguing with fate. He had also accepted the harsh reality that most experience, whether good or bad, comes at a price. Was a hangover worth the experience of the previous night? Rarely if ever, he would probably reply, though he repeated the same behavior over and over. Was falling in love worth the cost? He didn’t have to dwell on the answer to that one. Life had no value if it didn’t contain love.

  Was there any worse fate than not loving another and not being loved in turn? If the color gray could be applied to an emotional condition, it was a life without affection or human warmth. The absence of love ensured depression, resentment of self, feelings of guilt and fear and hostility, and an inexplicable sense of personal failure that tainted every relationship and social situation. If you wished to destroy a person, at least in Clete’s opinion, you only needed to teach him that he was not acceptable in the eyes of God or his fellow man.

  These were the lessons he had to learn as a child in order to survive. He didn’t talk about the dues he’d paid, and he considered self-pity the bane of the human race. The downside of his stoicism was the emotional isolation it imposed upon him.

  On Thursday morning Clete arranged to meet Felicity Louviere in downtown Missoula. He thought they would visit a fly and tackle shop or perhaps investigate the antique and secondhand stores by the railroad tracks, or just enjoy the weather, the way other couples did. And that was what they did, under a blue sunlit sky that seemed to stretch infinitely over the horizon. At noon they ended up at a grocery store and deli that had been open since the late nineteenth century. They ordered salads and cold drinks and sandwiches bulging with sliced meat and cheese and lettuce and tomatoes, and found a table outside, under the canvas awning flapping in the breeze. The lampposts were hung with ventilated steel baskets that overflowed with petunias; bicyclists in spandex togs powered through the traffic; the mountains and hills surrounding the town were green from the spring rains, the air as pure and clean as wind blowing off a glacier.

  There was only one problem: Clete had brought his own rain cloud with him, and he didn’t know how to make it go away without paying a price that so far he had not been willing to pay.

  She ducked her head until she made his eyes meet hers. “You’re deep in thought,” she said.

  “It’s my kid. I think she’s getting a bad deal.”

  “With the sheriff?”

  “People are trying to kill her, but she gets rousted. I’d call that a bad deal. This guy who ended up with a pistol ball in his head? What’s-his-name?”

  “Tony Zappa. He was part of Love’s grounds crew.”

  “That’s not all he was. When he wasn’t clipping hedges, he was raping the girlfriend of this character Wyatt Dixon.”

  “I didn’t know him, Clete. Love hires ex-felons. I think that’s how he convinces himself all the other things he does don’t matter.”

  “What other things?”

  “Political intrigue. Despoiling the environment. Bribing Arabs. Whatever works. He grew up in a dirt-floor shack and thinks of the world as a shark tank.”

  “Because guys like him are in it, that’s why.”

  “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Somebody wants my daughter dead. She’s making a documentary that exposes some of Love Younger’s enterprises. What conclusion should I come to? In the meantime, this nutcase from Kansas is out there somewhere, and he’s probably got connections to the Younger family.”

  “That’s not what you’re really trying to say, is it?”

  Her hand rested on her plastic cup. There was moisture on the balls of her fingers, and he wanted to reach over and clasp her hand in his and warm it and protect her. But from what?

  “I owe my kid,” he said. “Her father let her down. That’s me. Now I got a chance to make it right. I got the feeling I’m not doing a very good job of it.”

  “Maybe you’d be doing a better job if you let go of me?”

  She was wearing a peasant dress and a beret and tennis shoes and a thin jade necklace. She looked outrageous and mysterious, like an orphan girl who had wandered out of a nineteenth-century novel into the world of the rich and famous. Or was that simply an identity she had manufactured in order to turn a burnt-out bail-skip chaser into a sock puppet? If she was looking for a guy to use, why him? If you wanted a thoroughbred, you didn’t go to an elephant farm.

  “I asked you a question, Clete. Do you want me to disappear from your life?” she said.

  “Don’t say that.” The canvas awning swelled in the wind, popping loose from the aluminum frame that held it in place. The sunlight was blinding. “I care about you. I don’t want to let go of you. But I can’t forget that you’re married.” His face reddened when he realized how loud his voice was.

  “You just noticed that I’m married? Somehow that got lost in your mental Rolodex?”

  “You don’t want to leave him when he’s in mourning. I understand that,” he said. “But it doesn’t make me feel too good.”

  She covered his hand with hers. “You haven’t done anything wrong. If anybody has done wrong, it’s me. I married Caspian because he was rich. I tried to convince myself otherwise, but that’s why I did it. It’s not his fault, it’s not yours, it’s not Love Younger’s, it’s not my father’s, it’s mine.”

  “What are we going to do, kid?”

  “I look like a kid to you?”

  “Yeah, you do. I’m old, you’re young. You’re a gift that guys who look like me don’t receive too often.”

  The color in her eyes deepened, and her face seemed to grow small and more vulnerable. He was sweating, even though the wind was cool; the sun seemed to be burning a hole through the top of his head. “We can go away,” she said. “Maybe for just a little while. Or maybe forever.”

  “Go where?” he said.

  “A friend of mine lets me use her ranch outside Reno. Her mother was an actress in western movies. It’s like going back to A
merica in the 1940s. The view is wonderful. In the early mornings, you can smell the sage and flowers that only open at night. We could have such a grand time together.”

  “I got to take care of my daughter. I got to help Dave.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You’ll always be my big guy.”

  “Let’s go somewhere. I mean now. Maybe the DoubleTree on the river.”

  “I can’t. I told Love I’d go with him to visit Angel’s grave. He’s not doing very well.”

  “He was close to your daughter?”

  “In his way. He’s a private man and doesn’t show his feelings. He thinks of the world as his enemy. His real tragedy is he tries to control the people he loves most, and he destroys them one at a time.”

  “Why didn’t you eighty-six this bunch a long time ago?” Clete said.

  “Greed, selfishness, anger, because my father’s ideals were more important to him than I was. Take your pick.” She rose from her chair with her purse. “I’ve got to go. Caspian was suspicious when I left.”

  “I hate that word. It makes me feel like a bucket of shit.”

  “I’m sorry for using it.”

  “Meet me tonight,” he said.

  “I think bad things are going to happen to both of us, Clete.”

  “In what way?”

  “What’s the expression? ‘Our fate lies not in the stars but in ourselves.’ No matter what happens, I’ll always love and respect you. I wish we had met years ago.” Then she walked away.

  He felt as though all the oxygen had been sucked out of his chest. He stared at her back as she walked to the end of the block, her dress swishing on her hips, her beret tilted on the side of her head. In seconds she was gone, like an apparition that had never been part of his life. He looked emptily at the street and took out his wallet to leave a tip on the table. That was when he saw Caspian Younger stepping into the intersection, after the traffic signal had turned red, crossing the street without looking at the cars, his face knotted with the rage of the cuckold or that of a dangerous drunk who had decided to sail across the Abyss.

  As Caspian threaded his way through the people on the sidewalk, Clete could see the weakness in his chin, the petty and childlike look of injury around the mouth, the flaccid and tubular arms that had probably never picked up heavy weights or split wood with an ax, the hands that were incapable of becoming fists that could deliver a blow stronger than a mosquito bite. Caspian Younger had been one who was always shoved down in line, or stuffed headfirst into a toilet bowl in the boys’ room, or bailed out of trouble by his father and treated as an infant by his mother; he was one of those whose dreams were filled with bullies at whom he flailed his fists while they laughed in his face. He was also the kind who would pull a .25 auto from his pocket and park one between your eyes before you ever saw it coming.

  Clete remained seated, raising one hand gently, avoiding eye contact. “Whoa,” he said.

  “I warned you before,” Caspian said.

  “You got a right to be mad, Mr. Younger. But not here. We can talk about it somewhere else.”

  “I’ll decide that.”

  “Yes, sir. That’s your right. But no good will come out of this. I say let it slide for now. I’ll stay out of your way.”

  “You’re balling my wife and you dare lecture me? Where did she go?”

  “Sorry, I don’t know.”

  “She’s meeting you at a motel? Don’t tell me she isn’t. I know her pattern.”

  “Time to turn the volume down, Mr. Younger.”

  “Really? How’s this?” He picked up Clete’s iced tea and threw it in his face.

  “I might do the same thing if I was in your shoes,” Clete said. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his face. “Maybe I’d do worse. None of this is on your wife. If there’s one person responsible, you’re looking at him. But I’m asking you to call it quits.”

  “Stand up.”

  “No, I won’t do that. I’ll get up and leave after you’re gone. In the meantime, I’m sorry for the harm I’ve caused you.”

  “I’m overwhelmed at your humility. Is this hers? Must be. Her whorehouse-purple lipstick is on it,” Caspian said. He picked up Felicity’s plastic cup of Coca-Cola and poured it slowly on top of Clete’s head, the crushed ice sliding down his forehead and face onto his shirt and shoulders.

  Clete wiped his hair and face again. “She’s a good woman,” he said. “I think you’re a lucky man.”

  “You’re just going to sit there, in front of all these people, and not defend yourself? Stand up. I’m not afraid of you.”

  “You don’t have any reason to be,” Clete said. “I’m leaving now. Stay away from me. Don’t take your anger out on your wife. If you do, you’ll be walking around on stumps.”

  He put on his porkpie hat and walked down the street toward his Caddy, his pale blue sport coat striped with tea and Coca-Cola and grains of melting ice, everyone at the other tables too embarrassed to look directly at him.

  TWO HOURS LATER, he called me from the only saloon in Lolo, a biker hangout, one often crowded during the summer, particularly in the run-up to Sturgis. “Come on down. I’ll buy you a lime and soda,” he said.

  I could hear music and a clatter of pool balls in the background. “You sound like you’re half in the bag.”

  “My mind is crystal-clear. That’s my problem. When my mind is clear, I go into clinical depression.”

  “Come back to the cabin, Clete.”

  “No, I dig it here, big mon. Right now I’m watching this fat slob with an earring through his eyebrow shoot nine ball.” He took the phone away from his ear. “Yeah, I’m talking about you. That last shot was a rocket. You’re beautiful, man. I’ve never doubted the genetic superiority of the white race.”

  “Are you crazy?” I said.

  “When did I ever claim to be normal? Are you coming down here or not?”

  “Did something happen between you and Felicity Louviere?”

  “Dave, I feel like killing myself. I’ve never felt worse in my life.”

  How’s that for getting a jump-start on the evening? I got in my pickup and drove down to the saloon. Two rows of motorcycles were parked outside. Clete was standing at the far end of the bar by himself, a longneck Bud and three full jiggers of whiskey in front of him. The bartender stopped me. “You know the guy down there?”

  “That’s Clete Purcel. He’s an old friend. My name is Dave Robicheaux. I’m a cop,” I said. “He’s a PI. He doesn’t mean any harm.”

  “He needs to go home and take a nap. Maybe start the day over.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “The guys at the pool table paid for those three whiskies and the Budweiser. They were all in Afghanistan or Iraq.”

  “There won’t be any trouble,” I said.

  I ordered a Dr Pepper and carried it down to the end of the bar. The back of Clete’s neck looked oily and red and pocked with acne scars in the neon glow of the beer sign on the log wall. His coat was folded on top of the bar, with his porkpie hat placed crown-down on it. “What’s the haps, noble mon?” he said.

  “You called me on your cell phone.”

  “I did? What did I say?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them and looked into space. “I feel like my brain has been soaked in a septic tank.”

  “Did Felicity Louviere cut you loose?”

  “You know how to turn a phrase, Streak.”

  “You were talking about killing yourself. What am I supposed to say?”

  He told me everything that happened at the outdoor table under the awning, on a breezy day in early summer, in the midst of an alpine environment that you would consider the perfect backdrop for star-crossed lovers. When he told me what Caspian had done, I had to drop my eyes and clear my throat and pick up my glass of Dr Pepper and cracked ice and cherries and orange slices, and drink from it and pretend that nothing Clete had told me was that s
erious in nature. At the same time, I wanted to tear Caspian Younger apart.

  “I think you did the right thing,” I said.

  “Right thing in what way?”

  “Walking away. Taking the heat for his wife. You don’t lower yourself to the level of a guy like that.”

  “That’s not what I was asking.”

  “Then what’s the question?”

  “You know what the question is.”

  “You mean is a certain someone trying to do a mind-fuck on you?”

  “In a word, yeah,” he said.

  “How would I know?”

  “You’re smarter about women than I am.”

  “I say blow it off. Let go of her.”

  “She bothers me. I can’t get her out of my head.”

  “You don’t think you deserve a good woman’s love. That’s the real problem, Clete. That has always been the problem.”

  “Quit it,” he replied. He tipped one of the shot glasses to his mouth and drank it down, then upended the Bud and swallowed for a long time, until foam ran down the inside of the bottle’s neck into his throat. He set the bottle on the bar, the alcohol glowing in his cheeks. “Somehow Surrette is a player in all this, isn’t he? With Angel Deer Heart, with Caspian Younger, and maybe with the old man.”

  “Take it to the bank.”

  “Remember Randy’s Record Shop? Randy would come on the air at midnight and say, ‘Hang on, chil’en. We’re coming to you direct from Gatlinburg.’ Then he’d kick off the show with ‘Swanee River Boogie’ by Albert Ammons. It was great back then, wasn’t it?”

  “You bet,” I said, avoiding his eyes and the chemically induced glow in his face.

  “Maybe it’s still the top of the sixth,” he said. “You think?”

  “Why not,” I said, falling into the old lie that both of us told ourselves.

  He looked at the two remaining whiskies on the bar, then put on his porkpie hat and his stained sport coat and laid his big arm heavily across my shoulders and walked with me through the front door and out into the sunlight.

  “You think she meant that about running off to a ranch in Reno?” he said.

  This time I had nothing more to say.

  THAT EVENING AFTER supper, Alafair and Albert and I watched the network and the local news. The lead story locally was about a twenty-six-year-old single woman who had failed to show up at the café where she worked as a waitress on Interstate 90, east of Lookout Pass. Her name was Rhonda Fayhee. Her automobile was found parked in front of her small frame house, the keys in the ignition. All the windows and doors in the house were locked and the doors dead-bolted from the inside. Her purse and wallet were on the dining room table. Her three cats were inside the house, their water bowls half full. Dry cat food was scattered on a piece of newspaper someone had spread on the kitchen floor.