Lone Creek

43

The ranch that surrounded Kirk's place was owned by a family named Jenner. We drove past the headquarters, a distant cluster of lights inside their main gate, then another couple of miles to the back road Reuben had described. I didn't want to risk driving on their land, but Kirk's was only about a mile and a half in. I figured I could make it there on foot, take a quick look around, and be back within an hour. There was no good place to hide the truck-not a tree in sight, and the landscape was flat as a lake-but we still hadn't seen anybody, and the odds were slim that we would. I found a roadside patch of tall weeds, gave Laurie the rest of the brandy, and told her if somebody did come by to spin a story about a spat and a boyfriend out taking an attitude adjustment walk.

The autumn chill had a real bite up here, borne on that wind that never stopped. It gave me extra incentive to travel fast and I made good time, with enough moonlight for fair visibility filtering down through the hazy clouds.

The site was easy to recognize from Reuben's description. The flat terrain dropped abruptly into a shallow coulee, sheltered and pretty, with timbered slopes and a little creek running through. The road was carved to the bottom in a few long switchbacks. Near where they ended, I could just make out the small dark shape of the shack. I walked on down there, moving quietly now on the tiny chance that someone might be keeping watch for Kirk. But it seemed as deserted as any place could ever be.

I wasn't surprised to see that his building repairs hadn't gone any farther than hauling in some materials and dumping them haphazardly outside. The lumber was warped from long exposure to the sun and the insulation had the dead soggy look of many soakings. I turned on my flashlight and stepped inside. Even calling it a shack was saying too much. It was a box hardly bigger than a pickup truck, with a sagging tin roof, rotting floor, and gaps in the barn-wood walls. Broken glass panes in the couple of windows were stuffed with rags. The furniture consisted of a bunk like a workbench, a rickety table, and a pair of chairs. The bedding, dishes, and a few cans of food were all layered with dust.

So was the mining equipment-picks and shovels, a couple of gold pans, a chemical kit, and a collection of smaller items like hammers and a compass. There were also half a dozen books on the subject. Most of the stuff was brand-new, as if he'd gotten a list somewhere, walked into a store, and bought everything on it. There was an element both laughable and pathetic about it, like with a kid who decides he's going to take up a hobby and acquires all the gear, then quickly loses interest.

But it strengthened my guess as to the actual reason Kirk had wanted this place. He'd never intended to prospect or even spend any time here to speak of. The mining tools and building materials were for show-an excuse to come here and a red herring for the ranch hands. They probably shook their heads at his ignorant belief that he was going to find gold-but never suspected what he was really up to. The Canadian border was within another two miles-just a waist-high barbed-wire fence across those empty fields. The contraband could easily have been brought here or even thrown over the fence for him to pick up.

I also didn't have much doubt by now that I'd been wrong in thinking Wesley Balcomb wouldn't be involved in something so crude. His horse-raising business was just as much of a sham as the gold panning.

The pieces were fitting together better by the hour.

When I'd talked to Reuben last night-Christ, was it only last night?-he'd told me the story behind the sale. Balcomb had already looked at several other pieces of property around the state, without making any offers. But he'd quickly gotten serious with Reuben and agreed to the asking price.

Reuben was dubious. As a matter of course, he'd checked Balcomb's financial history and learned that it was shaky. Because of that and Balcomb's inexperience, Reuben figured the venture was doomed to foreclosure. But Balcomb came up with a down payment of more than three million dollars, which must have been the last of the money he'd been able to squeeze out of Laurie's trust, plus financing for the remainder. Reuben was surprised that any bank would give him that kind of loan-and more surprised when Balcomb not only kept up with the payments, but started throwing a ton more money into building projects.

"Everybody but the government understands that if you're already up to your ass in debt and you keep spending way more than you bring in, you're bound to crash," was how Reuben had put it.

He did some more clandestine checking through his banking connections, but all he could find out was that Balcomb's money was coming from numbered offshore accounts. His puzzlement turned to suspicion about the legitimacy of the income's source. But Balcomb had cashed him out and now owned the ranch, so at least officially, Reuben no longer had any dog in the fight. He let the matter go.

But now I knew that the money was coming from an ultrarich Belgian "investor"-a connection that Balcomb wanted kept secret.

For a man like DeBruyne to acquire, say, heroin in Pakistan or Afghanistan and transport it across Russia would be easy. Alaska was a short hop from Siberia, and its northern regions and the Canadian Arctic were so wild they made this area look like Disneyland. The tricky part would be getting the stuff into the continental United States. For the kind of money we were talking about, the quantities would have to be fairly large and the runs frequent. Strangers around here often would quickly attract attention, and would also face the vulnerability and complications of transporting the stuff a long way to its final destination. Kirk had a legitimate ticket to travel in and out of this area and an influential family name as an added buffer. He could get the contraband to the ranch quickly and safely, and Balcomb could put it on a private jet.

That was why he'd agreed so readily to Reuben's terms. The Pettyjohn place was a perfect glossy cover-nobody would dream that a wealthy, upper-crust gentleman rancher might be involved in such a thing-and Kirk was the perfect mule, already dabbling in crime and easily persuaded to go deeper.

The timing bolstered my guesswork. Soon after Balcomb's arrival on the scene, Kirk's supposed interest in gold panning here had flared up. Soon after that, he'd gotten flush. And Balcomb's much bigger money train had come rolling in, with the bonus of stroking his ego through living on a grand estate like a feudal lord ruling over his serfs.

There were plenty of gaps in the framework, but the only piece that really didn't fit was those murdered horses. What Madbird had suggested was still the only thing that made sense. But with Kirk's smooth setup in place, why the need for it? I had to think they'd been brought across the border under the eyes of the authorities-otherwise, using them for concealment wouldn't have made sense-and that meant extra risk and expense, plus the trouble of getting the contraband into them.

Not to mention the horror of getting it back out.

I spent a few more minutes poking around through Kirk's stuff. There wasn't much to see-nothing to suggest that he'd done more than occasionally pass through. The dates on the food cans were all about two years old. Then I noticed a folded sheet of paper sticking out slightly from one of the books. I was surprised that he'd ever opened them. It was a paperback titled Consumer Guide to Precious Metals And Gems. The sheet had numbers scrawled on it. I slipped the book inside my shirt. I doubted that people who might check on Kirk would notice that it was gone, and if they did, all they'd know was that somebody else had been here.

I hiked back up to the rim of the coulee, out of its shelter and into the cold raw wind, and stood there for half a minute, looking down at this little pocket of land that embodied Kirk's easy-money, wise-guy dream.

My hand had killed him, but that dream had pushed my hand.