Lone Creek

23

We took my bloody clothes from last night to a creek a good mile away, soaked them with gasoline, and burned them to ashes, then dissolved the ashes in the swiftly flowing water. There were a few things left-my knife and belt buckle, some grommets from my boots and the rubbery residue of their soles, and Kirk's camcorder. I'd almost dumped that along with the Jeep, but then realized that experts might be able to recover its images, and there just might be something that would point to me. But I checked it while the clothes were burning, and the only footage was that brief scene of Laurie Balcomb in the creek. I doubted her husband knew that Kirk had done his job of shadowing her so thoroughly.

I pounded the camcorder to small pieces with a hammer and washed them and the other nonflammable stuff clean of blood and fingerprints. Then I took it all down into a thickly brush-choked draw and foamed it into a rockpile like we'd done with Kirk. I kicked a small landslide over the site for good measure, and headed back.

I was sure I'd left loose ends in spite of all my caution, and without doubt the investigation would soon come around to me in a serious way. But this was going to have to do it for now.

Madbird and I drove home.

He followed me through the trees to my cabin, this time carrying the old lever-action 30-30 he kept in his van. I trotted in a crouch to the windows and peered inside. Everything seemed the same as when I'd left. I turned to him and raised my hand. He saluted, and then he was gone. Neither of us had said much more. It was like we'd been on a fishing trip instead of doing what we'd done. But I knew he was thinking the same thing I was-that it would be best if we didn't hang around together for a while.

It was a little before one o'clock. The afternoon had taken on a hazy warmth. But when I stepped inside the cabin, it felt so cold and lifeless that I stopped in the doorway. I hadn't ever fired up the woodstove last night, and the log walls held in the chill. I'd never finished making that coffee for Gary Varna, either. The unheated kettle was still sitting by the sink.

I closed the door and walked back out to a big wind-twisted Doug fir that was probably the oldest living thing on the place. The sun was obscured by light clouds that might signal coming rain, but it showed as a ragged yellowish blur behind them. I sat on my heels facing it, with my back up against the fir. I'd started doing this after the end of my marriage and that previous life that had gone along with it. Eventually, I'd realized that it was an unconscious attempt to soak up energy, sandwiching my body between the sun in front and the tree behind, in the hope that this would trickle-charge some internal battery that was drained dry. The warmth always felt good and sometimes it seemed to help in other ways, but not today.

That grief was still with me, but I was starting to wake up to the reality of what Madbird had pointed out. My notion that I might have falsely accused Balcomb had vaporized. I was certain that he'd sent Kirk to kill me. He didn't know what had happened to Kirk, but he'd have realized from talking to Gary Varna early this morning that something had gone wrong. Dropping the charges against me was another of his smoke screens, a way to establish his ignorance of the murder attempt and to keep me off guard.

There were a couple of spin-offs. First, whatever was behind the slaughter of those horses was worth killing for.

Second, Wesley Balcomb was still alive and no doubt still wanted me dead. He would try again. My luck had been twisting and turning, but it had come through for me big-time last night. I couldn't keep counting on it.

I'd be crazy to hang around like a sitting duck. But if I left town, with Gary Varna as suspicious as he was already, it would be taken as an admission of guilt for Kirk's disappearance. The law would damned sure find me, I'd go back to jail, and my little cover-up scheme would be put under the kind of scrutiny that would rip it apart.

I got an armload of split larch and kindling from the woodshed and carried it to the cabin. This time I made it all the way through the door and saw that the phone machine light was blinking.

The voice was Sarah Lynn's, agitated to the point of trembling.

"Hugh, Gary Varna just left here. He said Kirk Pettyjohn's gone missing, and he wanted to know when you were here last night and how you seemed, and all that. What's going on? Call me."

The little man in the phone machine said the call had come at 8:47 AM. Gary had left here about eight. That meant he'd gone straight to her place.

And that meant he was real interested in checking out my story.

I started to punch Sarah Lynn's number, but then hesitated. Rationally, I felt justified about the deceiving I'd done so far, but my gut didn't like it, and lying straight out to her about killing a man we'd both grown up with would be excruciating. I knew I was going to have to do it and keep on doing it, not just with her, but with other people who trusted me. But not just yet.

I made a small fire in the stove to break the chill. My belly was reminding me that I hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday. My mind wasn't interested, but my body demanded food. I dumped a can of corned beef hash into a frying pan and put it on the hot plate, then rummaged for something to go with it. I usually did my laundry and grocery shopping on Sunday mornings, and right now I was out of just about everything. The best I could come up with was a couple of bread heels and half a bag of stale potato chips. I put the bread in the toaster oven and got out cream cheese and Tabasco sauce from the refrigerator. I filled the kettle with fresh water and put it on the hot plate's other burner, ground up some coffee beans, and shook the powder into a filter cone to make myself a good strong cup.

The cabin was warming up, but it felt small and close. When the hash finished browning, I opened the door and ate standing up there, facing the quiet vista of forest and mountains.

The smell of the burned lumber was still hanging in the air, faintly disturbing-and it brought to light another of those slivers festering under the surface of my consciousness.

I'd taken it for granted that Kirk had set the fire and lied to me about it. But it must have started about dusk-right when he said he'd reburied the horses. That would have taken him a while, and the drive from the ranch to my place was close to half an hour. It would have been physically impossible for him to have gotten here that soon. Maybe he'd buried the horses earlier and lied about the timing, too. But I couldn't see any reason for that, and it made sense that he'd have waited till dark. I was concerned because if someone else had burned the wood-like Doug Wills, getting revenge for our fight-Gary Varna might find out I hadn't and I'd be caught in a lie really touchy to explain.

I was just finishing lunch when I heard a car coming up the road. I stayed in the doorway until I could get a glimpse. It was a small, off-white, fairly new sedan, not a sheriff's cruiser and not a vehicle I recognized as belonging to anybody I knew.