Assumption

THE SHIFT

Ogden was pressing his way through brush along the Red River. The Red was a river in name only, being little more than ten feet at its widest, where he stood. In the spring the river could seem pretty formidable near its confluence with the Rio Grande, but it was late summer now, August, and the water was low. No one was fishing where Ogden now prowled and this occurred to him as his reason for being there. Up here in this low water there might be a good-sized trout in a pool or holed up behind a boulder, but mostly there were little trout, cagey and easily spooked. He crawled through dry weeds and cast from behind cover. He was using tiny size 22 midges and cinnamon ants bounced off the grassy bank and having pretty good luck, catching one and putting it back before sneaking up on another spot. He hiked back out after a few hours and drove south to the trout hatchery. There he sat on a grassy hill and ate his Stilton cheese sandwich. He stood there and stared down at the parking lot of fish. He finally settled on a gentle slope to have a bite. He watched a man and a boy standing on the pedestrian bridge over the fish ladder about thirty yards away.

“Hey, Deputy,” a man said, sitting down on the ground beside Ogden. It was Terrence Lowell, a game and fish patrolman.

“Terry.”

“How’s business?”

“Slow, thank god.”

“You don’t believe in god,” Terry said.

“How do you know?”

“Your shoes. They’re on the correct feet.”

Ogden laughed. “Well, we’re the only two nonbelievers in this county, you know.”

“I’d bet there’s another one.”

“You mean the Protestant guy over in Arroyo Hondo.”

Terry stared at the man and the boy. “How long have those two been standing there?”

“They were there when I got here. That makes it at least half an hour. The man has been back to his pickup a couple, maybe three, times.”

Terry nodded. Ogden ate the rest of his lunch. Another ten minutes passed.

“You went to the warden academy in Texas, didn’t you?” Ogden asked.

“Yep. Austin.”

“Then why are you here? I don’t mean that in a rude way.”

“Because that was Texas and this is New Mexico. What about you? Where’d you get your so-called training?”

“United States Army military police, I’m ashamed to say.”

“Why’s that?”

“People can say all they want about supporting the troops to make themselves feel better about having other people fight and do their dying for them, but the army is not full of our best and brightest. That just ain’t so.”

“You don’t sound so very patriotic.”

“Hitler was patriotic.”

Terry watched the man and boy again.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Terry said. He got up and walked off toward the fish ladder.

Ogden watched the big game-cop slowly cover the forty yards. Then he had a thought that he should follow, so he did. When the man on the bridge saw Terry approaching he put his hand on the boy’s back and guided him toward the other side of the bridge and the parking area. Terry broke into a trot. He caught up to the pair before either could climb into the cab of the red dually pickup. By the time Ogden walked to them, Terry had the man in handcuffs.

“What’s up?” Ogden asked.

“Got us a poacher.” Terry reached into the bed of the truck and flipped off the lid of a large Styrofoam ice chest. In it were at least ten good-sized trout.

Ogden studied the fish. “How?”

Terry pointed the man’s left leg. “Looky here.” He pulled a line at the top of the man’s waistband; the hook at the other end of it caught the bottom of the pant leg and yanked it up a couple of inches. “He was pulling fish up through his pants and walking them back here.”

“How’d you know?” Ogden asked.

“You catch bandits and speeders. I catch poachers. What I was trained by the state of Texas to do.”

“Still.”

“He left the kid alone too many times. Plus he limped only when he walked away.” Terry laughed. “Trouser trout.”

“You taking him in?”

“He’s got fish from a hatchery. That’s a serious offense.” Terry took the man’s wallet out of his back pocket. “Conrad Hempel. Well, Mr. Hempel, looks like this just isn’t your day.”

“You’re forgetting one minor detail,” Ogden said.

“What’s that?”

“The minor.”

Terry looked at the boy. He was standing next to the wide wheel well. “How old are you, son?” Terry asked.

“Eleven.”

“This here your father?”

“My uncle.”

“Where’s your father?”

“He’s at home.”

Terry looked at Ogden. “The deputy here will drive you home. You know where you live?”

“Of course I know where I live.”

“And where’s that?” Ogden asked.

“Eagle Nest.”

Ogden closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. It would take him at least two hours to get the kid home and then get back to Plata. By then it would be four and his day off would be over, more or less. “What’s your name?”

“Willy.”

“Willy Hempel?”

“No. My name is Willy Yates.”

“And you live in Eagle Nest.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Is there anyone at your house?” Ogden asked. “Are either your mother or father at home?”

“I got no mother.”

“What about your father?”

“I don’t know,” the boy said.

Ogden considered the prospect of driving all the way to Eagle Nest and finding either that the boy had no idea where he lived or his father was not there and nowhere to be found.

“You sure you want to run him in?” Ogden said. “Can’t you just cite him and get this over with?”

“What he said,” the man in cuffs said.

“I wish I could, but you know about the initiative to cut down poaching,” Terry said.

Ogden regarded the boy for a second. “Do you know your phone number?”

The boy shook his head.

Ogden looked at the uncle. “Do you know his father’s phone number? His address?”

“No and no.”

“Then where’d you pick up the boy?” Ogden asked.

“I know where the boy’s house is. That don’t mean I know the address.”

Ogden looked at the boy again. He seemed sort of small for eleven, but he had a big and somewhat annoying attitude. Ogden was pretty sure he disliked that. He was absolutely sure he didn’t like the fact that he was now responsible for Willy Yates.

Ogden took down Hempel’s information from his driver’s license. “Is this your current address?” The man said yes. “You live way down near Embudo?”

“That’s where my house is at.”

“And you picked up this boy in Eagle Nest when?”

“This morning.”

“Why?”

“Because his daddy had something to do.”

“What relationship is the boy’s father to you?”

“None.”

Ogden looked at Terry.

“Then how is it that you’re the boy’s uncle??”

“Because my sister is his mama.”

“Then the father is your brother-in-law,” Terry said. “Why didn’t you just say that?”

“He ain’t married to my sister.”

“Oh.”

“Where’s the boy’s mother?” Ogden asked.

“She moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with some religious biker dude.”

“What’s the father’s name?” Ogden asked.

“Derrick Yates.”

“How did he call you to pick up the boy?”

“He didn’t call me. I just stopped by and he said for me to watch Billy.”

“Willy,” the boy corrected him.

“Whatever,” Hempel said.

“Terry, this is a mess,” Ogden said. Ogden looked at the pair. Was this man the boy’s uncle? Did the boy’s father live in Eagle Nest? Was there a father?

“What are you saying?” Terry asked.

“Okay.” Ogden caved. “I’ll take the boy,” he said. “I’ll find out where his father is.”

Ogden put the boy in his rig and drove south. He was headed back to the station in Plata even though he had asked Felton to try to track down a Derrick Yates in the Eagle Nest area. He stole glances at Willy, wondered what his story was, and tried not to care too much. “What does your father do?” Ogden asked.

Willy looked at him.

“What’s his job?”

“I don’t know. He does things. He’s got a truck. He’s got a ladder on his truck.”

“Does he have tools?”

“I guess.”

“Hammers and saws? Those kinds of tools?”

“I don’t know.”

“What kind of truck does he drive?” Ogden asked.

“Why do you wanna know all this?” the boy asked. “It’s a blue truck, okay?”

Felton radioed. “I got four Yates in the area. Two with the initial D. I called them both, no answer.”

“What roads do they live on?”

“One on Iron Queen, one on B4G.”

“Iron Queen or B4G?” Ogden asked the boy.

Willy just looked out the passenger-side window.

“Thanks. Out.” He looked at his speedometer and saw that he was driving too fast, pulled back. “You really don’t know the name of the street you live on?”

“Don’t live on a street. Live down a road.”

“Okay, kid.”

They walked into the station and Ogden told Willy to have a seat beside his desk. Felton told him there was nothing else to know about a Yates in Eagle Nest.

“Bucky in there?” Ogden asked.

Felton nodded.

Ogden walked into the sheriff’s office.

“So, what’s going on out there?” Bucky asked. The fat man was sitting at his desk, staring at his computer screen. “I hate these damn machines. God, I’m sick of hearing myself say that.”

“I got stuck with a kid. Terry from Fish and Game arrested this guy for poaching trout and he left me with his so-called nephew.”

“So take him home.”

“That’s the problem. Seems the lad doesn’t know his address, not even his street name. Oh, I’m sorry, he doesn’t live on a street, he lives down a road.”

“We should be able to figure something out,” Bucky said. “Bring him in here. I’ve got some cookies in my desk.”

Ogden stepped to the door and looked over at his desk. He scanned the entire room, but didn’t see the boy. “Willy?” he called out. “Felton, where’d that kid go?”

“What kid?”

“What do you mean, what kid?” Ogden said. “The boy I walked in here with. The Yates kid.”

“I didn’t see him. There’s not much I can add to that.”

Bucky stepped out. “What’s wrong?”

“The boy’s not here.” Ogden walked quickly to the door and out onto the street. He saw no kid. He saw no one on the street. Back inside, he said to Bucky, “I didn’t see him.”

“There was no boy,” Felton said.

Ogden glared at the man.

“He’ll find his way home,” Bucky said.

“He’s eleven.”

Bucky looked out the window across the room and sighed. “Well, get out there and find him. You, too, Felton.”

“Jesus,” Felton complained. “I don’t even know who I’m looking for. What’s this phantom boy look like, Ogden?”

“Like an eleven-year-old. Four feet five. Blond hair.”

“And invisible.”

“On and off,” Ogden said.

Ogden walked west and Felton east. Ogden imagined that the kid would have walked to the highway and tried to hitch a ride to Eagle Nest. If he’d been successful, of course, there would be no way for Ogden to know. He met Felton back at the station.

“No sign of a kid,” Felton said.

“Nothing,” Ogden said. “There was a boy.”

“Don’t get your skivvies in a knot. I believe you. It’s just that I didn’t see him, that’s all.”

“Now I have to find his father so I’ll know if he got home. Give me those addresses and I’ll drive over there later.”

Ogden thought it pointless to drive all the way to Eagle Nest before the boy had a chance to get home. He drove through the plaza several times and across the streets around it, eyeing every kid on foot or on a bike. He drove the length of the main drag through town twice. He finally stopped at his mother’s before heading east.

“The weather’s going to turn,” she said as he approached her. She was on her knees in her garden. “These roses will be the end of me. If it’s not black spot, it’s rust. If it’s not rust, it’s aphids.”

Ogden said nothing to this, just watched her popping off the dead heads.

“What’s wrong?” she asked without looking up at him.

“Trying to find a kid.”

“A child is lost?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Whose child?” she asked.

“His name is Willy Yates. I brought him to the station and he slipped out when I wasn’t looking. Right out the front door. It’s my fault he’s lost.”

“If he’s lost. You said that.”

“If he’s lost,” Ogden repeated. “I’m going to drive over to Eagle Nest and check out a few addresses. That’s the thing, we don’t have an address for him. All we have is a maybe-uncle.”

“Are you hungry? You can take a sandwich with you.”

“No thanks.”

Ogden got back into his rig and just sat there in his mother’s driveway. He had a thought that he should talk to Terry about the man he’d taken in earlier or talk to the man himself. Talk to Terry. The warden had taken the man to Santa Fe. For what good reason, Ogden didn’t really know. He’d drive to Eagle Nest, check out the addresses, then he’d contact Terry if it was necessary.

The community of Eagle Nest was very small. The lake was formed behind a dam built around 1920. It had been a site for illegal gambling and hookers around the turn of the century. The police killed all that and left the lake by itself, with a few slot machines and gaming tables at the bottom of it. A plateau at eight thousand feet, there were few trees and so, lake notwithstanding, the landscape looked as barren as the moon. The population was about three hundred and nearly all of them were white. It was on the eastern circumference of the so-called Enchanted Circle, but it seemed apart, certainly less than enchanted.

It took Ogden about an hour to get there and another twenty minutes to find the first address among the few streets and houses. An elderly, overweight man came to the first door and seemed amused, if not pleased, to have a visitor, even if he was a cop.

“What can I do you for?” he asked.

Ogden looked at the man’s overalls, brand spanking new, actually creased down the legs. “I’m looking for the family of a boy named Willy Yates.”

“We’re the Yateses, but ain’t no Willy here.”

“I might have the name wrong,” Ogden said. “An eleven-, maybe twelve-year-old boy. Do you have a grandson or a nephew?”

“So, you think I’m too goddamn old to have a son that age?”

“No, sir, I don’t,” Ogden said.

“Relax, son, I’m just funning you. Course I’m too old. I’m older than the dirt I sleep in.”

“Do you know of a boy around here named Yates?”

“There are two Yates households in this little community. Everybody knows everybody and I’m telling you as sure as pigs got curly tails there ain’t no Yates boy around here.”

Ogden thought better of asking the man if he was certain and so simply thanked him. He thought about not going to the second address, but realized he couldn’t get sloppy or lazy. He drove the thirty seconds across town and found an elderly, overweight woman named Yates. Though not dressed in overalls, the effect was the same. The expanse of yellow shift fell to just above her wrinkled knees.

Her story was the same as well. “No Yates boy here.”

“Do you have any relatives in the state?”

“Nope.”

“Do you know any other Yateses besides the man I just talked to?”

“Nope.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Are you married?” she asked. She raked her dirty blond hair from her face and settled her eyes on him.

“No, ma’am.”

“Would you like to be married?”

“Pardon me?”

“I have a daughter.”

“Thank you, ma’am, but I’m not looking for a wife.”

“Shame.”

Ogden sat in his rig with the door open. The wind was picking up and, just as his mother had predicted, he felt a change in the air. Dusk was coming on. There would be no snow, but his trailer would feel like an icebox in the morning. Right now, though, he had to face the fact that he’d lost the boy. A lot of bad information from the kid and the so-called uncle had left him with nothing to go on. He called in.

“Sheriff wants to talk to you,” Felton said.

“All right.”

“Ogden?”

“Just what time did you say you saw Terry Lowell up at the hatchery?”

“I left him there at about one, I guess.”

“And he was okay, in control of the situation?”

“He had the guy cuffed. Why?”

“He didn’t report in. Fishery guy found his truck in the lower lot. There was blood on the seats, front and back.”

“Everything seemed okay when I left.”

“Well, come on back.”

“On my way.”

When Ogden walked into the station he felt as if the room was spinning. He wasn’t quite dizzy, but he really could not find the floor with his feet. Felton was at his usual place at the desk and Bucky Paz was standing behind him in the middle of the room with another man. Ogden recognized him as from Game and Fish, but didn’t remember his name. There was also a uniformed state policeman there.

“Have you found Terry?” Ogden asked.

“No,” the state cop said to Ogden. “Have you heard anything from him?”

“No.” Ogden found the man’s question off-putting, especially given that he had just inquired about the man.

“You want to tell us what happened this morning?” the same man asked.

Now Ogden was certain he didn’t like the man’s tone, recognizing it as accusatory. He looked at the crew cut and he thought about the sergeants he’d never liked in the army and then felt the weight of his present uniform, felt suddenly uncomfortable and so unhappy. “Like I told Bucky, Terry decided to arrest a man for poaching. The man’s name was Conrad Hempel. He was with a boy he claimed was his nephew. The boy told me his name was Willy Yates. Neither Hempel nor the boy knew the boy’s father’s address. Terry told me I had to take the boy. So, I brought him down here.”

“And where is the boy now?” the Fish and Game man said.

“He slipped out,” Ogden said.”

“Did you talk to the boy?” the state cop asked Bucky.

“I was in my office,” Bucky said.

The state cop looked at Felton. “I didn’t see him.”

“Were you out of the office?”

“I was sitting right here.”

“But you saw Deputy Walker.”

“Yeah, I seen Walker.”

“But no boy.”

“Could have been a boy,” Felton said.

“But you didn’t see him.”

Felton looked at Ogden, almost apologetically. “No.”

“What’s going on?” Ogden asked.

“They found Terry,” Bucky said. “He’s dead. They found him a hundred yards downstream of the hatchery.”

Ogden felt a wave of nausea that faded quickly.

“He was shot,” the state cop said. “Two times in the chest. May I see your weapon, please?”

Ogden removed his pistol from his holster and handed it grip first to the man.

“A Sig P226. Nice weapon.”

Ogden nodded.

The cop pulled back the slide and sniffed the ejection port. He looked at Bucky and at the Fish and Game man. “When was the last time you discharged this pistol?”

“A couple of weeks ago on the range,” Ogden said.

“You cleaned it?”

“I always clean it after I use it.”

“It’s dirty right now.”

“What do you mean it’s dirty?” Ogden asked.

“It’s been fired, Deputy.”

“That’s not possible.”

“It’s been fired.”

Ogden found a chair and sat down.

“Tell us about this boy,” Bucky said.

“Willy Yates, eleven years old. Looked eleven. Light brown, maybe blond hair, blue eyes. He was wearing a striped T-shirt and jeans, sneakers.”

“What about this Hempel?”

“Average. Maybe six feet. He had a tattoo on his, um, right arm, I think. I don’t remember of what. Receding hairline. Light-colored hair as well.” Ogden stared at the floor. “Terry.”

“What about him?” the cop asked.

“Nothing,” Ogden said. “I can’t believe it.” He looked up to see the state cop putting his pistol into a plastic evidence bag. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“Does it look like I’m joking, Deputy Walker?”

“Why would I shoot Terry?”

“You tell me.”

Ogden looked at Bucky. The fat man looked scared, helpless. “Am I under arrest?”

The cop looked at the sheriff. “Will he run?”

Bucky shook his head.

The cop looked back at Ogden. “You better not run. You’re not under arrest, but I’ll have the ballistics back tomorrow morning and then things might be just a little different.”

The Fish and Game man and the state cop walked out without another word or glance at Ogden or Bucky. Ogden looked at Felton and then at the sheriff. “What the fuck just happened?”

Bucky shrugged.

“I’m going to go grab some coffee,” Felton said. He wouldn’t look at Ogden’s eyes.

“You didn’t see the boy?” Ogden asked him.

“I’m sorry, Ogden.” Felton left.

“Bucky, what am I supposed to do?”

“You need to find that boy or Hempel or both.”

“Okay. That’s what I’ll do.”

“And you’re not going to run,” Bucky said, but it was more of a question.

Ogden looked at him. He was a little disappointed, but he understood. “I’ll find them.”

Bucky turned and walked back into his office, closed his door. Ogden sat at his desk and turned on his computer. He was clumsy with the thing, but what he had to do was simple. Check the DMV and the phone book. There were three Hempels in New Mexico with a license to operate a motor vehicle. All women. Two of them over sixty, one was thirty-one, all three living down in Albuquerque. Ogden called all three and described Conrad and all three claimed to know nothing and he, unfortunately, believed them. There were two more in the phone book, one man in Raton and the other man down in Pilar. He called the man in Raton and it turned out he had died six months earlier. The last man was listed as Cyril Hempel. Ogden called and there was no answer. Pilar was even smaller than Eagle Nest, wedged in the Rio Grande Gorge, a place where you had to look up to look out. It was also close to Embudo and so it was his first choice of a place to look anyway.

Ogden’s sometime partner Warren Fragua walked into the station. “What’s shaking, cowboy?” he said.

Ogden leaned back in his chair and stared at his screen.

“Cold out there,” Warren said.

“Bucky call you?”

“Yep.”

Ogden nodded.

“Sounds bad.”

“Feels bad. Must be bad.” Ogden leaned forward in his chair and held his face in his hands.

“What can I do?”

“I don’t know, Warren. I just don’t know.” Warren stood and walked to the window, looked out at the darkness. “If I hadn’t told it so many times to myself and others, I’d give you an account of everything that’s happened.”

“I think I get it.” Warren pointed at the computer. “Doing any good? Where to now?”

“Pilar. I’m looking for a Conrad Hempel. I found a Cyril in the white pages.”

“It’s a C anyway.” Warren bit his lip. “So, let’s go.”

“Bucky tell you to keep an eye on me?”

Warren shrugged. “He wants to make sure you don’t get hurt. After all, one man is dead.”

“Tell you what, why cover the same ground twice? You search and I’ll search and we’ll see if we can’t find Conrad Hempel and an eleven-year-old who might be named Willy Yates.”

Warren didn’t want to agree, but he did. “I’ll call all the schools in the morning. You can’t go to Pilar tonight.”

“I’ll go to my mother’s house.”

“Good.”

Ogden didn’t walk into his mother’s house like he always did. Instead, he tapped lightly on the door and waited for her to answer. She was confused by his knocking. She looked beyond him to see if he was alone.

“What’s going on,” she said. She closed her robe against the cold night air. “Get in here. What do you mean by knocking like that? What is it? What’s wrong?”

“You know Terry Lowell?” Ogden asked. “Works for the Fish and Game Commission?” He followed his mother inside and they sat on the sofa, where they never sat.

“No.”

“Well, he’s dead.”

“Oh my. What happened?”

“Somebody shot him.”

“I’m sorry, Ogden. Was he a friend of yours?”

“I knew him, but that’s not the real problem. For me, anyway. Some people seem to think I killed him.” Ogden watched his mother swallow hard. She pulled her robe even tighter “Now I’m trying to find the man I last saw him with.”

“Oh, Ogden. What can I do?”

“Nothing, nothing at all, thanks.”

His mother hugged him and he hugged her back.

“Do you mind if I sleep here?” Ogden asked.

Eva Walker was puzzled by the question. “Of course you can sleep here. Ogden, are you all right?”

“No.”

“Are you hungry?”

“I can’t eat. But thanks. You go on to bed now, Mom. I’ll be out of here really early, so don’t worry when you wake up and don’t find me.”

She stood, looked down at his face, and sat again. “You’re scared.” It was her way of saying she was scared.

“Yes, Mom, I’m a little scared. I’ll get it sorted out. Don’t worry. Get some sleep.”

Just before daybreak Ogden dressed without showering. He started to strap on his empty holster, but stopped, tossed it onto the high shelf in the front closet. He made some coffee and drank it while he stood in his mother’s kitchen. He held his hand out in front of him to see if he was steady. Not quite. He told himself that he had never liked carrying his pistol, but someone had shot Terry Lowell. Someone out there was dangerous. Ogden went back to the same front closet and found the Colt.32 semiautomatic his father had bought for his mother so many years ago. The so-called hammerless pistol was old, but it had never been fired and so Ogden had no idea if it would discharge now. He loaded seven.380 cartridges into the magazine and slapped it in. It needed oiling, but he didn’t have time. Anyway, if he needed it he hoped it would be for show and not action.

He quietly left the house and drove south toward the pass and to Pilar. His overeagerness had him in the front yard of Cyril Hempel at an inappropriately early hour. He thought it best to wait for some sign of movement or at least seven o’clock before he started knocking. In the draw, the early hour was accentuated by the walls of mountain that blocked out the rising sun. He put his head back on the seat and drifted enough to dream.

Terry Lowell was walking toward Ogden. Ogden was standing on the stream just above the hatchery, far enough away that the hatchery office was out of view. The light of the moon was diffused behind a bank of drifting clouds.

“What are you doing?” Terry asked. The patch sewn to the sleeve of the man’s right shoulder was starting to come away at the top. Threads frayed. Everything was fraying.

“What am I doing?” Ogden said. “What do you mean, what am I doing?”

“Here, with that shovel.”

“You should leave, Terry. Go get in your truck and drive away,” Ogden said. He could feel that his eyes were red. They burned. He looked up and saw clouds moving clear of the ridge. “Really, you should get out of here.”

“What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?” Terry asked again and again.

“Really, Terry,” Ogden said. The water in the stream seemed to slow. A crow landed in a nearby tree and cawed wildly. Ogden pulled his Sig from his holster.

Ogden jumped. He was awake. Light had crept over the top of the mountain and was making the sky pink. A bearded man was looking out through the curtain at Ogden’s rig. Ogden looked at his watch. Seven fifteen.

He got out and walked to the door. The house was little more than a shack. It was set up against a bluff, the huge rock looming over it and making the house look even smaller. There was a rock chimney and a weak pulse of smoke rose out of it. Ogden knocked even though the man had seen him approaching.

“Awful early in the morning,” the man said. He was old, maybe eighty, maybe older.

“Sorry about the hour,” Ogden said. “Are you Cyril Hempel?”

“Who wants to know?”

“I’m Deputy Walker from the sheriff’s department.”

“What you want?”

“Do you have a son or a grandson, a relative, by the name of Conrad?”

“No Conrad.”

“Do you have any male relatives?”

“I got a spinster sister down in Albuquerque.”

“Male.”

“I got a son named Leslie.”

“Does he ever use the name Conrad?”

“Why would he do that?”

“Is he about six feet, light-colored hair, tattooed? Slightly receding hairline?” Ogden tried to see past the man into the house.

“That sounds like my son, but I ain’t seen him in weeks. But that ain’t unusual.”

“Do you have a daughter? A grandson?”

“Hey,” the man said. “What’s this all about. No, I ain’t got no daughter.”

“And you don’t have a grandson named Willy or Billy or William or anything?”

“I’m not sure I’d tell you if I did, but I don’t, so I don’t have to worry about that. Like I said, I haven’t seen my so-called son Leslie in a couple of weeks.”

“You say that’s not unusual?”

“Not really. He’s a drughead. He’s on that meth and he looks like shit that’s been stepped on. If you find him, arrest him for me and then get him straight and I’ll give you a whole American dollar. What do you say about that?”

“Where does Leslie live?”

“Hell if I know. He’s a druggie, like I said. Where do druggies live? I don’t look for him. I stopped looking for him years and years ago. You should see what them drugs done to him. Find him and shoot him and I’ll give you two American dollars.”

“Do you know a boy named Willy Yates? Do you know anyone named Yates?” Ogden heard someone in the house. “Somebody here with you?”

“My girlfriend. Got a problem with that?”

“Mind if I ask her a couple of questions?”

Hempel turned and called into the house, “Penny, put on a robe and come here. Man’s got a question for you.”

A young, almost pretty woman in her mid-twenties came to the door. She clutched an orange robe close to her narrow frame. Ogden looked her bony face, her green eyes and dark hair, then down at her bare feet. The toenails on her left foot were painted black, the toenails on the right were unpainted.

“Do you know Mr. Hempel’s son?”

“I’ve met him.”

“Do you know where he might live?”

The woman looked at Hempel and back at Ogden. “Not really, but there’s a lab in the hills south of Hondo. I think that’s where he gets his stuff.”

“How do you know that?”

“I hear things.”

Ogden looked at Hempel, could see he was getting irritated. “Thank you, ma’am. And thank you, Mr. Hempel. Again, sorry to bother you so early.”

Hempel slammed the door.

Ogden drove back toward Plata. He was sick of the inside of his truck. Then he thought that it was preferable to the inside of a prison cell. He didn’t call in to the station. They would have called him if he was needed to come back. He drove through town and then aimlessly along the back roads east of Arroyo Hondo. He had a notion of where the meth lab the woman was talking about might be. It was an old Quonset hut that some so-called hippies had lived in during the sixties and early seventies. The meth lab was constantly moving and was operated by a rotating stream of Mexican mafia or so popular lore held. Whoever they were, they were scary, scary enough that they were given a wide berth by local and state cops, not to mention the DEA and their famous impotent war on drugs.

Ogden watched the exterior of the structure from about fifty yards, sitting on the hood of his rig. There was no movement except for a tassel-eared squirrel that ran back and forth between two juniper trees. Ogden slid down to the ground, walked around, and reached into his truck, shut off his radio. He took off his uniform shirt and put on a flannel one he kept in the back bay. He walked along the dirt road toward the building. The place and the area around it were still, quiet. The morning was cool and a breeze made it even cooler. He knocked on the old metal door. It had a rainbow-painted window in the middle of it. He knocked hard, with his closed fist, and the loose glass rattled.

A dark-skinned mustachioed man opened the door and glared at Ogden. He wore a red baseball cap with Carhartt written on it. This man wasn’t a meth user. He wasn’t high and he wasn’t sleepy. He was, as Warren would have said, fit and ready to hit. “What you want?” he asked with an accent.

“Hola, amigo. I’m looking for a white man named Leslie Hempel,” Ogden said.

“Don’t know him.”

“He’s got a tattoo on his arm and blond hair. Maybe he goes by the name Conrad.”

“Go away.” The man started to close the door.

Ogden put his left palm flat against the door. His right hand was wrapped around the pistol in his pocket. “No, I need you to think about this.”

“Are you crazy?” the man asked.

“Pretty much.”

After a pause and a look back into the hut, the man stepped from the door. There were two other men inside, as unfriendly and tough-looking as the first. Ogden stepped inside and saw that in fact this was a meth lab. Was a meth lab. They had disassembled their equipment. One man was a little shorter than the first. He wore a flannel shirt not unlike Ogden’s and khaki pants. His sneakers were strangely clean. The third was a flyweight. He wore a white wifebeater and jeans, had a cross branded onto his shoulder, and had a diagonal scar across his face. The mustachioed man stepped in front of the door as Ogden entered. Ogden could feel his pulse quicken as he watched the men’s hands. He was in a bad place and he didn’t wait, couldn’t hesitate. He pulled the pistol from his pocket and at the same time sidestepped the man who had let him in. He grabbed him by the hair and pushed the barrel of the little pistol into the man’s face, past his mustache, into his mouth.

“No estoy interesado en que los hombres.”

“What do you want?” the flyweight asked.

“I’m looking for a man. His name is Hempel.”

“We don’t know anybody’s name, stupid. We sell drugs.”

The man had a point and Ogden understood and even agreed that he was stupid. More so now that he had pulled out a weapon. “I don’t want any trouble with you,” Ogden said and felt ridiculous. “I need you to put your guns on the table.”

The two men pulled pistols from their waistbands and put them down.

“Knives, too.”

The flyweight tossed away a switchblade.

Ogden’s arm was getting tired. The mustache wasn’t fighting, but he was big and heavy. “Where does my friend keep his gun? ¿Dónde está su arma?”

“In his belt,” the flyweight said.

Ogden reached down, grabbed the mustache’s cheap 9mm and pushed him away. “Okay now, I just want to talk. Move over there.” He herded the men toward a corner away from the door, away from their guns. He walked to their weapons. There was a white five-gallon pail of what Ogden was sure was ammonia beside the table and he dumped the guns and knife into it. The men started to protest, but stopped. “Okay. I’m looking for a white male, about six feet, light brown or blond hair, and a tattoo on one of his arms. His last name is Hempel. His first name is Leslie. He might use the name Conrad.”

“We don’t give a fuck what somebody’s name is,” the mustache said. “You don’t know who you fucking with.”

“I’ll ask again. Have you seen anybody who looks like that?” Ogden asked.

“Unless they got boobies they all look like that,” the flyweight laughed.

“Tattoo,” the mustache said to the other two. “¿Que habla Meth-mouth?”

“This dude got no teeth?” the flyweight asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Meth-mouth,” the flyweight said, nodding. “We don’t know his name. He sleeps around here someplace. In the woods, maybe. We don’t know.”

No teeth. Ogden hadn’t noted that the man Terry was arresting had no teeth. He was barking up the wrong tree, he thought. But this was all he had. “I’m going to wait outside,” he said. “If this door opens, I’m going to shoot without looking who it is. ¿Entiendes?”

Ogden backed out through the door and immediately broke into a stumbling sprint toward his truck. He glanced back once he was behind the wheel and saw no one and no movement of the door. He started the engine and drove away, kicking up dust and gravel. Ogden drove back south, then west toward his little trailer. He tried hard to remember every detail of the previous day. He was trembling, even beginning to doubt himself, his memory, to doubt everything. Felton said he had seen no boy, was particularly adamant about that. Ogden found himself wondering if there had in fact been a boy.

Warren Fragua was sitting on the step of Ogden’s trailer, playing with a stick. He didn’t look up when Ogden rolled in, got out, and walked toward him.

“What’s the word, Warren?”

“State troopers are down in Plata,” Warren said, spitting onto the ground between his feet. “A bunch of them.”

“They send you to arrest me?”

“If I see you, that’s what I’m supposed to do.”

“Looking bad, eh?”

“Not looking good.” Warren wouldn’t look up. “What can I do to help? I need to do something.”

“Did you find Willy Yates?”

“If that’s his name, he’s not enrolled in any school in northern New Mexico. No Billy, William, Wally, Wilson. In fact, no boy named Yates. Two girls. One in Santa Fe and the other over in Chama. Both mothers have different last names because of marriage.”

“You’re telling me there is no kid.”

“I’m telling you there is no Willy Yates enrolled in a school. Any ideas how I might find him?” Warren dropped the stick.

“None. I’m going to go to the hatchery and see if the guys up there saw anything unusual.”

“Don’t tell me that.”

Ogden sat beside his friend. He looked at the man’s boots. Fragua always laced his shoes up extra tight. The black leather was covered with dust. The heels were worn on the outside, Warren being slightly pigeon-toed. An inch of white sock shone between his left boot top and his khaki pant leg. Ogden drew a circle on the ground with the stick that Warren had just dropped.

“You were friends with Terry, weren’t you?” Ogden said. “You two were close.”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry.”

“What’s going on, Ogden?”

“Hell, I don’t know. Last I saw, Terry had that guy in his truck and was driving away.”

“Had he called it in, that he was arresting somebody?”

“I thought so. Yeah, I’m pretty sure he did.”

Warren shook his head. “We’ve got to find who did this. For Terry. And for you, ’cause if we don’t, well, you’re shit out of luck, cowboy. They think your Sig fired the bullet that killed him.”

“That’s insane.”

“Maybe, but that’s the story. I guess it’s not conclusive, whatever that means. What do you want me to do?”

“Find that boy.”

“What about the guy? What about Conrad Hempel?”

“Find the boy, Warren. You can’t chase two rabbits.”

Ogden left his county rig and drove away in his pickup but did not go back to the hatchery. He remembered that the main office for some reason had been closed that day and he hadn’t seen anyone walking the fish ladder or the raceways. So there was no reason for him to go the hatchery. Also, he had told Warren that he was going there. Warren was too honest to hold in the truth for too long, especially when Bucky looked him in the eye. He was driving up into the mountains to the yurts. The felt-covered structures had been erected in the sixties, just one in a slew of failed utopias in northern New Mexico. Now, perhaps there were more utopias than anyone had ever dreamed, inhabited as they were by like-minded or no-minded drug users. That was at least the common perception. Ogden was fairly sure the man the Mexicans called Meth-mouth was not Conrad, but he was a Hempel and it was the only lead he had to follow. There were policemen out looking for him, he knew that, but though this was small-town America, the space was also huge. If he wanted, he could get lost forever in these mountains. The thought crossed his mind.

The yurts were relatively high, at about eight thousand feet, too low for the aspens to grow but thick in the firs. Another tassel-eared squirrel ran across the old mining road and reminded Ogden to focus on his driving. Ahead in the trees he saw glimpses of white and yellow, the yurts. He pulled his truck off the road and into some brush, covered it as best he could. He approached the village.

A light drizzle began to fall. It was near midday now, oddly colder than it had been earlier. His empty stomach rumbled. There was a mucky trail and he walked along beside it, his boot prints looking huge next to a pair of small barefoot prints. There was an empty plastic milk jug hanging from a branch, bending the branch over so that the jug almost touched an oily-looking puddle. A few yards away a metal garbage can had been ransacked, probably by a bear, Ogden thought; the lid was still held down by straps hooked onto the can’s handles, but the sides had been folded up and resembled a pair of wings. He could smell the musk of some animal, maybe a bear, more likely a raccoon, certainly not a skunk. The rain fell not so much harder, but in a way that made it seem it would never go away. He would have felt it fully but for the canopy of forest. A couple of magpies landed beside a yurt and pecked at some discarded food. He stepped over a used condom, then stepped cautiously by what he knew was human waste. He approached the nearest yurt. The bold magpies merely hopped away from him,

dragging strings and flaps of food, bread, and some kind of cold cut. Ogden knocked.

A young woman opened the rickety door. She was tall and thin, unhealthy, emaciated, her arms just cords of muscle and skin stretched over bone, her clavicles making deep hollows below her neck. Her green eyes were like sea glass, that sick color of the unwell, not quite clouded. Her lips were chapped. Her sleeveless T-shirt was, however, bright white, clean, the light cotton ribbed and accentuating the length and thinness of her torso. It was her hands that Ogden studied. Her hands were twisted, gnarled, like an old woman’s, her unpainted nails showing bluish in the strange light of the overcast day. “What?” she asked. That was it, only, “What?”

“I’m looking for Conrad or Leslie Hempel.”

“I don’t know either one,” she said. She found her words deliberately, as if each and every syllable was something she was reluctant to let go.

“I was told one of them might be around here.”

“There are a lot of people around here.”

Ogden looked around. There were more yurts than he thought, twenty, twenty-two of them. “One of them might be known as Meth-mouth.”

The woman didn’t exactly freeze, but something happened to her face. Perhaps it was suspicion, perhaps fear, or perhaps, and it was likely given her state, she had just recalled a dream or some substance had kicked in.

“Meth-mouth,” Ogden repeated. “One of them has a tattoo on his arm.”

“Who doesn’t have a tattoo on his arm,” the woman laughed. When she opened her mouth Ogden could see the rotting teeth in the back and the stud piercing her tongue.

“Let’s try this a different way,” Ogden said. He was light-headed. There was a trembling inside his hand as he rested it on the rusty spring of the screen door. He stared at the woman’s feet; her shoes at least were different sizes. “Can you tell me if there are any men around here in the yurts?”

“Yes,” she said. “I can tell you.”

“And?”

“There are some men around here.”

“Are any of them white?”

“Yes.”

“Any of them have light-colored hair?”

She was silent as she thought. “Maybe.” Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she almost took a step backward.

“Are you all right?” Ogden asked.

“Yes.”

“Do any of the men around here that you’ve seen have tattoos?”

“All of the men around here have tattoos.”

“Do you know where one of these men is? Any man?” Ogden looked around the quiet compound.

“Do you have any drugs?”

“No. What kind of drugs?”

“Any kind of drugs. Meth, heroin, alprazolam. Can you get me some drugs?” Her eyes changed again, from probable suspicion or fear to desperation, anxiety, or even eagerness.

“If you help me I’ll try to find you some drugs,” Ogden lied. What struck him as odd, unusual, was that he did not feel bad lying to this woman. Ogden believed he had never been able to lie about anything. “I promise.”

“I know somebody they call Meth-mouth.”

“Do you know where he is?”

The woman leaned around the door and pointed. “Over there. The light blue yurt,” she said. “The light blue one. Over there. Light blue.” She was close to Ogden. Her lean frame was like a coat rack and she smelled of body odor.

“Thank you,” Ogden said.

“My name is Mary,” she said. “You know, like in the Bible. Jesus’s mother. The light blue one.”

“Got it.”

The light blue yurt was thirty yards away. Ogden zipped up his jacket as he walked. It was colder now, raining still, making noise on his shoulders and head. The light blue yurt didn’t have a door. Someone had been pissing and shitting just yards from the side of the building and it smelled awful. Worse than decomposing flesh, Ogden thought, mainly because it was a harbinger of decomposing flesh, the living conditions of those about to die, those as good as dead.

He stepped through the doorway of the yurt and stood just inside. The weak light from the outside did not penetrate very deeply into the round structure, but the felt walls kept it from being terribly dark. There was a man sleeping in the middle and two women curled up together at the back. There might have been another person, but it could also have been a pile of clothes or blankets. The inside of the yurt stank nearly as bad as the outside. The man sleeping on the floor was not the Conrad Hempel he had met, but he walked over and kicked him in the thigh anyway. Ogden didn’t say anything, but kicked him again. “Hey,” he said. “Hey.” He glanced at the women. They were awake, but weren’t concerned or impressed enough to stand or sit up. The man slowly came around, blinked, and looked up at Ogden. His eyes were blue and red, puffy, and as he rolled completely over onto his back the blanket fell off and revealed his naked body, his ribs showing above a belly covered with bruises. “Leslie Hempel?”

“What the fuck?”

“Are you Leslie Hempel?”

“I’ve seen you before. I know you.” The man nodded.

“What’s your name?”

The man yawned and Ogden saw why he was called Meth-mouth. There was one yellow tooth in the front of his mouth and the rest were decayed nubs. His breath stank from six feet away.

“What do you want?”

“Leslie?”

“My name is Beetle,” he said.

“What?”

“They call me Beetle.” The man smiled without showing his bad teeth.

Ogden studied him, was immediately and completely irritated by him. He couldn’t tell what Beetle’s hair color really was. He had no tattoos on either arm, but a word was written in black ink across his neck. Rose or Rosa. He had probably lost weight and so the last letter had folded in on itself. “It’s like this,” Ogden said. “I’m looking for a man named Conrad Hempel.”

“You’re sure that’s his name?”

“Yes, I think that’s his name.” Ogden watched as Beetle pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a soiled light green T-shirt. He took a step back to give him some room. “Do you know him?”

“Let’s go outside.”

Ogden allowed the man to go first.

Outside Beetle pulled a pack of clove cigarettes from his sweatpants pocket and shoved one into his mouth. “Those bitches won’t let me smoke in there,” he said. He laughed and lit it with a match from a book. “I’d offer you one, but, hey, I can tell you don’t smoke. Do you want to know how I can tell?”

“Tell me.”

“You kept your hands in your pockets while I lit up. Cool, huh? Little things like that can tell you things. I’m almost psychic because of my attention to body language.”

“Cool. Hempel?”

“You sound like you really want to get ahold of this guy.” Beetle smiled ever so slightly.

The smile confused Ogden and he felt an urge to punch the man. He looked up the mountain and saw that more clouds were rolling in, this time from the east and that seemed bad.

“I mean I can probably help you find him, but, you know, he might be a friend of mine and I think I ought to know what kind of mess I’m getting him into.”

“I just want to ask him some questions. So, you know Conrad Hempel.”

“I don’t know if I know him. I run across a lot of people. Do you have anything to trade?”

“Trade?”

“You know, you scratch my back and I scratch yours.”

“What if I just beat the shit out of you?”

“Look at me.” Beetle held his arms up. “What can you do to me that matters, motherfucker? If you beat me up, I’ll probably feel better. You want to find this guy?”

Ogden stood down. “Yes, I do.”

“Then first you can give me a ride. You got a car, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“You need to get dressed?”

“I’m as dressed as I get,” Beetle said. “Now just let me grab some shoes.”

Ogden watched him walk back into the yurt. While he waited he turned his face up and let the rain hit him. What was he falling into? He didn’t sound like himself. How long hadn’t he sounded like himself? How long had it been? He was losing track of time, it feeling like days since he’d talked to Fragua, weeks since he’d been at his mother’s house, a year since he’d last seen Terry Lowell.

Beetle came back out and now he was wearing flip-flops that didn’t match.

“Aren’t you cold?” Ogden asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I am. It’s freezing out here.” Beetle grabbed a blanket from the floor just inside the door and wrapped it over his shoulders. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“A house up north. Near Red River. Well, just past Red River, but off that road, you know?”

Ogden looked at the mountains. “How far past Red River?”

“I don’t know, man.”

“Red River’s quite a drive.”

“The man I know up there might know the man you want to find,” Beetle said.

“Who’s he?”

“He. You got any money?”

Ogden shook his head.

“That’s okay, that’s okay. Let’s go.”

Nearly as soon as he was seated in the passenger’s seat, Beetle was asleep with a second unlit cigarette stuck to his slack lower lip. Bad weather or not, Ogden was going to do his best to stay off the county roads and highways. He’d driven these mountains his whole life and though it would have been impossible for him to instruct someone on how to get from where he was to Red River, he knew he could do it. Miles and miles of logging, mining, and forest service roads made it possible to get anywhere, though never directly and never never never quickly. Some of the trails were treacherous, a few downright deadly, but they were there and he was going to use them, bad weather or not. He was wishing he’d driven his county rig instead of his pickup. Even though his truck had four-wheel drive it was still empty in the back. After a couple of fishtails over the slippery road, he stopped and began to pile the heaviest wood and rocks he could find into the bed. He shook the truck with a big log and woke up Beetle. Beetle opened his door and got out. He leaned against the wheel well, asked what Ogden was doing. Ogden had half a mind to make Beetle ride in the back, but his weight would have been negligible. Beetle irritated the hell out of him, but the man hardly mattered in the long run and Ogden realized this. But it was annoying how the rain, which was coming down harder now, and the cold didn’t seem to bother him. This, even though he appeared very near death.

“Get back in the truck,” Ogden said.

“Why all the wood?”

“Just get in.”

“You’re a bad man, right?”

“Just get in.”

“Yeah, we understand each other.”

Ogden drove up a forest road that traversed a precipitous slope and really worried that the road might crumble and give way. It hadn’t been used in some time, much less maintained. Beetle was asleep again and it was now afternoon. It would be late afternoon by the time they reached Red River on these roads, maybe dusk, and that was all right with Ogden, though he wanted to be off these deadly dirt tracks before darkness fell. He slipped and skidded down a steep grade into a back valley and dreaded what he might find at the bottom. He had been correct to worry as when he reached the trough there was water there and it wasn’t standing, but moving and rising. He drove slowly into the stream and then the truck dropped down off a shelf he could not have seen and the transmission slipped out of gear, stalling the engine. Ogden turned the key back and tried the engine. It worked to turn over, but wouldn’t. Beetle awoke to see the water flowing in their direction and for the first time showed some kind of concern for something in the real world. He screamed and slapped his palms up against the ceiling of the cab. Ogden got the engine started and the truck in gear and rolled on out and just like that, as if nothing had happened, Beetle was drifting again into a peaceful sleep. The rain let up, but the drizzle continued. The slope back up was not so scary and so Ogden had a moment to catch his breath, which was both good and bad. He was terrified of having been implicated in the murder of Terry Lowell and more terrified that he felt so lost and unsure of what had actually happened and of what he had seen. How could there be no trace of the boy? Warren was good at his job and didn’t miss much, so where was Willy Yates? Was there a Willy Yates? That he could even ask that question made him feel strange and sick to his stomach. He could feel the lack of sleep catching up to him. His head hurt, his gut felt hollow and icy cold, his eyes itched and burned, but even if he could have pulled over and killed the engine he would never fall asleep. He looked at Beetle, who was twisting to make himself comfortable. Why was he going anywhere with this man? What did he hope to find? The answer was a desperate anything. The last mining road down before the steep rise to the highway that would take them through Red River was frightening. Nearer to civilization, someone had gotten a notion to try grading the road and had made a terrible washboard mess that managed to channel the water anywhere but off the track. At one point, when the grade might have been fifteen percent, the pickup began to slide and there was nothing Ogden could do. Ogden pumped the brakes and twisted the wheel in the direction of the skid, but it turned out to be just something to do while disaster approached. Luckily the truck bumped and scraped along the upslope side of the trail and Ogden regained control. His heart raced. His flannel shirt was soaked with perspiration beneath his jacket.

Ogden had to take his mind off the driving and so he punched Beetle in the shoulder. “Wake up.”

“What?”

“Wake up, Beetle. We’re almost to the highway. Which side of Red River is this place?”

“East.”

“You sure you know how to get there?”

“Sure I’m sure.”

The short stretch of trail up to Highway 38 was not so bad after all. Ogden was glad that he didn’t have to find a way across the river, small as it was up there. He halfway expected to find the state police waiting for him when he hit the pavement, but there was nothing there but wet, empty highway.

He drove them through the dead town of Red River. It was too early in the season for skiing and the RV traffic was gone after summer. Like this, the town was dismal and uninviting. The one open restaurant looked lonely, but right at that moment welcoming. Ogden reluctantly drove past it.

“How far?”

“Keep going.”

Ogden did. Now, off the back tracks and on the smooth and monotonous pavement, he began to feel tired and sleepy. He rolled his window down all the way and let the wet, cold wind slap his face. They rolled through the tiny blink Elizabethtown and Ogden realized that just a few clicks away was Eagle Nest.

“Here, turn left here,” Beetle said.

Ogden did. If there had been rain on this side of the mountains, it hadn’t amounted to much. The dirt road was more than decent. After three or so miles the house came into view and the road made sense; rich people enjoyed good roads, paid for good roads. The house was a beautiful, sprawling adobe with a wraparound portal that seamlessly connected the structure to the exterior planting of yucca, juniper, cacti, purple sage, and salvia.

“You know the people who live here?” Ogden asked.

“Yeah, he’s my buddy.”

“What his name?”

“Derrick.”

“Derrick what?”

“Derrick. His name is Derrick.”

Ogden asked no more questions. He stopped the truck in the clearly demarcated gravel parking area and looked at the heavy, antique front door set into a windowless seven-foot-high adobe wall. There were no other cars. Beetle climbed out and Ogden followed the mismatched flip-flops across the path of pea-sized stones through the garden. Beetle opened the door and they stepped into a courtyard. The house faced the yard on three sides and was all windows, even the bedrooms. A well-shaped and healthy pagoda tree was centered in the yard. There was no sign of anyone. Beetle walked to the glass door of the living room and slid it open, walked in without hesitation. Ogden followed him, but with, if not hesitation, reservation and even reluctance. He called into the house once standing on the polished saltillo tiles. The room was warm. He called out again, “Hello!”

“He’s not home,” Beetle said.

Ogden didn’t know what to do.

Beetle plunked himself down on a red leather sofa and pulled a Zapotec blanket over himself. “So, now we sit and wait a little bit. He’ll be here.”

Ogden walked around the room, looking at the photographs, looking for some face he had seen before, looking for a picture of a child, any child, looking for Conrad Hempel. He looked for magazines or letters, anything with a name on it and found nothing. There was a burning in his brain, a rage that wasn’t exactly new and that frightened him for its familiarity. He sat in the leather chair that matched Beetle’s sofa and before he knew it he was asleep.

There was no rain, only bright sunshine, late morning sunshine, cool air but hardly a breeze, the stream below the little dam but a trickle, a western bluebird saying nothing and Ogden standing there, leaning there on that tool, his shirt off, sweating and drying. Terry Lowell was there, too, looking concerned, looking worried, his hands held away from his sides, his breathing short and catching. He wore his Fish and Game uniform, his trousers creased, his shirt collar stiff and hugging his neck though his top button was not fastened, his eyes fixed, his gaze fixed, the frame behind him nothing but blue sky and a bit of the mesa’s rim, as he was standing on a boulder’s upslope. And he wanted to know, wanted to know, and Ogden attended to his business, his own business, his hands wet with his business and he was not the Ogden he knew, was not the Ogden that Terry Lowell knew, as he stood there, leaning on his tool, looking down and away from Terry’s eyes, finding a key somewhere and ready to lock or unlock, he could not tell which, waiting to turn one way or the other, the sky so blue and framing Terry just so and filling the deep gorge just so, just so, just so. Ogden moved his foot and he brushed against something. He glanced down, thinking it was the blade of the tool he held, but it was not. Sutures showed through the torn surface, ragged and torn and peeling back, layers. Ogden tasted bile and it burned in his throat, in his belly, in his head.

“Who are you?” the voice came into Ogden’s sleep, but it was not Terry’s and not his own.

Beetle was awake, straightening himself, a comic effort, stepping out of one his flip-flops. “Hey, Derrick, this here is my man.”

“What’s your man’s name?”

Beetle didn’t know.

“My name is Ogden.”

“What are you doing in my house?”

“Waiting for you,” Ogden said.

“I can see that.”

“What’s your last name?” Ogden asked.

“Fuck you,” Derrick said. “This is my fucking house.”

“I’m aware of that. My name is Ogden Walker, I’m a Plata County deputy sheriff.”

Derrick turned to Beetle. “You fuck, you brought a cop to my house?”

“Do you have a son?” Ogden asked.

“No, I don’t have a fucking son. What kind of fucking question is that? And this is illegal entry, you know that?”

“I don’t care what you’ve got here,” Ogden said. “Is your last name Yates?”

“I’m not telling you shit.”

“I can find out your name,” Ogden said.

“Then find it the fuck out, Sherlock.” Then, to Beetle, “Get your ass out of my house and take your man with you.”

“I came all this way. You gonna set me up, right?” Beetle did a little dance.

“Get out.”

“No, man, no no no, I need something, anything. I came a long way. I got here. You said if I ever got here, you’d set me up. You said it. I even got me some money.” Beetle pulled a wad of cash out his sweatpants pocket.

“Get out of my fucking house!”

“Where is the kid?” Ogden asked.

“There ain’t no kid.”

A vehicle crunched to a stop out on the gravel. Ogden looked out at the big door to the courtyard. He wondered if Warren had traced the kid to this house. When the door opened he saw that it was the flyweight from the meth lab. Ogden realized as he saw the small man approach that he, Ogden, was in fact afraid of him. Flyweight was hard, a seasoned criminal, and it showed in his walk and in the way he’d reacted when he’d had a pistol pointed at him. Of course the barrel of the weapon had not been in his mouth, but nonetheless he had remained calm, had measured the situation. Ogden had seen him do it. And now he was coming into this house. Flyweight leaned forward a bit as he walked, trying to see into

the house. It was clear he didn’t have a good view from outside, glare perhaps. Ogden turned his back on the room and walked to the kiva fireplace as the man entered.

“What is this, a party?” Flyweight said. “What’s that junkie doing here? How you get up here, junkie? Somebody was looking for you, Meth-mouth.”

Ogden could feel the man’s eyes on him.

“Hey,” Flyweight said, a note of recognition in his voice.

Ogden turned with his pistol out of his pocket and pointed at Flyweight.

“Again with the gun,” the small man said.

“Afraid so,” Ogden said.

“I see you found Meth-mouth. So, why the gun?”

“Because you have one,” Ogden said.

Derrick was now visibly frightened. He backed a couple of steps away.

“You stay with the pack,” Ogden said. “Stay close. I need you close. I need you to tell me where Willy Yates is.”

“What are you talking about?” Derrick asked.

“He’s loco,” Flyweight said.

Beetle fell onto the sofa and curled up in the fetal position, muttered to himself, saying, “Just a little, just a little and I’ll be gone. I don’t need to be here. Need some dope, man.”

“I’m telling you there is no Willy Yates, man. And there ain’t no kid,” Derrick said.

Ogden listened to Derrick. No Willy and no kid. That did not sound like a lie. It was no lie. Ogden looked around the house. It looked so familiar. Had he ever been here? “Have I ever been here?” he asked.

“This is my house,” Derrick said. “I don’t know you.”

“He’s loco,” Flyweight said.

“Everybody sit,” Ogden said. “Sit!”

Derrick sat next to Beetle. Flyweight sat on the leather chair, on the edge of the cushion, leaning forward.

“I want you to toss your pistol over here,” Ogden said.

“I don’t have no pistol,” Flyweight said.

“I won’t ask you again.”

Flyweight took a.45 from the back of the waistband of his pants. Ogden told him to be careful.

“I’m being careful,” he said calmly. He put it on the floor and kicked it to Ogden; it didn’t make it across the floor.

Ogden shook his head. “That’ll do.”

“Who is this guy?” Derrick asked Flyweight.

“He came in when we were taking the lab down. Was looking for Meth-mouth.”

“My name is Beetle.”

“Where’s your son?”

Derrick shook his head. “What is it with this guy? What’s your problem? I don’t have a son. I don’t have a wife!”

Ogden sat on the far arm of the sofa. His leg was shaking. His head was aching. The rain had starting falling outside along with the night. Along with the night. Ogden studied the three faces and found his finger tapping the trigger guard. He watched the flyweight watching him, watched the flyweight staring at his.45 on the floor beside the edge of the Navajo rug, black against the red of the saltillo. Tap, tap, tap on the trigger guard, tap, tap, tap.

A parachute dragonfly placed at the top of a riffle. It landed beside a large stone that’s been made concave on one side by millions of years of relentless flow, relentless push. A tug. A twitch. The yellow line straightened, paused, went slack, and then carved a path down the broken water to the pool below. In the pool the trout swam in a circle looking for shelter. Warren got his line on the reel and sat down on the bank to watch. Ogden stepped farther into the Rio Grande. The water was at his waist, lapping at his elbows. It was cold. Ice had formed in the eyelets of his rod. He let the fish run. Warren stood. Ogden let the fish go some more. The trout grew tired and slowed. Ogden grabbed his net from his back and scooped up the fish. A fifteen-inch cutthroat. The red slash was bright in the gray morning. Warren did not move closer. Warren did not move. Ogden put one hand under the trout’s belly, with the other he held the tail. He let it flow there in the water in his grasp. The trout struggled. Ogden held on. The trout strained against Ogden’s grip. He held on. He let go. The trout disappeared downstream. Warren watched, turned, and could not find Ogden.

Warren didn’t even know there was a road off this stretch of Highway 38. The rains had rolled through and left the sky clear and the air remained cold. He parked behind Bucky Paz’s rig and walked past a couple of state troopers, through the door, through the courtyard and into the living room.

“It’s a mess,” Bucky said.

Warren looked around. A small man, probably Hispanic, was spread out on his back on a stuffed leather chair, a bullet hole in his forehead. A white man, slight in build, was halfway over the leather sofa, a hole in his side and one in the same side of his head. The third was on the floor, head toward the kitchen. Warren couldn’t see his face, but there were a couple of holes in his back. There was blood everywhere. State cops were snapping pictures, dusting for prints, combing the rugs, and sweeping the floors.

Bucky looked around and shook his head. “What do you think, Warren?”

“Got any names?”

“Just that guy.” Bucky pointed at the man headed for the kitchen. “Derrick Yates. UPS guy found them this morning.”

“Yates?”

“That’s what I said.”

“How about that?”

“You got anything you want to tell me?”

“No.”

“Good. That’s a good thing.”

“Is the boy around here? Is he okay?”

“Seems there is no boy. Mr. Yates lived here by himself.”

Warren scratched his head. “This is hinky as hell, Bucky.”

“You think? I need a fucking doughnut, that’s what I need. Chocolate with sprinkles.”

“I’m going to go now.”

“Want to tell me where?”

“Not sure yet,” Warren said.

“Stay in touch. And be careful.”

Warren looked up at the sky as he got closer to his truck. Yes, the rain had let up, but the weather change wasn’t done. A red-tailed hawk circled overhead. Some crows and a magpie prowled at the far edge of the grounds. And a couple of optimistic turkey vultures rode the currents high above him. Feathers everywhere. So, as he drove back to the highway he recalled a conversation many years earlier with a Navajo singer, a medicine man. Warren had asked him if he used only eagle feathers for his ceremonies. The old man shook his head and said, “No, no, we use many feathers. We use hawk feathers, crow feathers, owl feathers, Woody Woodpecker feathers.” Warren sat there with his cousin and they just looked at each other, wanting to laugh and wanting to show proper respect. So at thirteen Warren learned the way the white world, for lack of a better or worse term, had eaten or bored its way into his culture. But that was not a good or a bad thing, just a thing, he thought. A chick cannot stay in its shell forever. That was how his father had put it. Then his father would squint, smile, and say, “It becomes a bird or breakfast. That’s just how it is.” Warren, done distracting himself, turned his mind to Ogden. His friend was in grave danger, it seemed. One of his friends was dead and now another might be. At the very least Ogden was in deep trouble, with the police and with someone who was not hesitant about killing.

Warren had searched the state for a Willy Yates and there was none. No boy, no old man, no tombstone, real or imagined or metaphoric, with the name etched into it. Ogden had told him the last time he saw him that he was going to the hatchery, so that’s where he’d go. He drove west through Questa and turned south. A thunderhead was forming far off in the west, but over him there was nothing but robin’s-egg blue.

The office of the hatchery was little more than a trailer bolted to a concrete slab. In fact, that’s just what it was. There was a pair of portable toilets parked on either side of it, one for men and one for women. The hatchery manager was a tall, skinny man named Buddy Baker. He’d had a cleft palate as a child and some rather rough surgeries had left him with a pronounced scar that was not covered well by his mustache.

“Howdy, Deputy,” Baker said as he stepped from the office.

“Buddy.” Warren looked around at the facility.

“Sad about Terry,” Buddy said. “I liked him. Knew him for a long time.”

“I liked him, too. Were you the one that found him?”

“No, Wilson, the guy who cleans the toilets, he found him and then he came and got me. I saw him, though. It was awful.”

Warren nodded.

“His chest looked like it was blown open.” Baker looked at the west rim of the canyon. “I ain’t never seen anything like it. I met his wife one time.”

“Did you see anyone else around that morning?”

“I didn’t get here until three. Wilson, I don’t know what time he got here.”

“Is he here now?”

“Yeah, he’s washing some graffiti off the raceway wall. Do you want to talk him?”

“I do, but first can you show me where he found Terry?”

“Sure, this way.”

Baker led the way past the hatchery and past the little dam. He then walked downhill to a trail that led to a shallow muddy beach of the Red River. Baker with his sneakered feet stepped into the mud as if it were nothing and turned to face Warren.

“Here?” Warren asked.

“Right where you’re standing.” Baker pointed with his chin, then his finger. “Faceup, eyes open like he was looking at the sky.” He turned to watch the river.

Warren looked down at his boots. “You notice anything else around here?”

“I didn’t look. But the state police crawled around here on all fours for hours.”

Warren nodded. With all the rain there would be no sign of blood anywhere, but there was possibly a slight depression from where his body had lain. At least he thought he could see something. He felt something. A column of red ants marched through the sand where Warren imagined the dead man’s head.

“Can I talk to Wilson now?” Warren followed Baker back up the way they’d come. “And you didn’t see anybody else that day?”

“Nope.”

Wilson was walking toward the office with a bright yellow five-gallon bucket and cleaning supplies when Baker called out. “Somebody wants to talk to you.”

Wilson put his bucket down outside the door.

“This here is Deputy Fragua.”

“We’ve met,” Warren said. Warren had taken Wilson in for public drunkenness some months back. Thinking that his boss might not have known about it, Warren said, “Mr. Wilson helped me get my truck started one day.”

Wilson shook Warren’s hand. “Deputy.”

“Well, I’m going to go in and do some paperwork,” Baker said.

Warren thanked him.

Baker entered and closed the door.

Wilson said, “Thanks for that.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“What can I do for you?” The large man wore the sickly sweet smell of an alcoholic. That odor mixed with the ammonia of the cleaning fluid made Warren feel queasy.

“I want to hear about the day you found the warden’s body. Tell me what you can remember.”

“Not much to tell. I came to work about one, one thirty, cleaned the men’s room, and then took my walk.”

“Walk?”

“Yeah, man, these chemicals I use to clean these toilets smell real strong. They’re real toxic like. So, I always take a little walk between doing the men’s room and the ladies’ room. Just to clear my head, you know?”

Warren understood.

“So, I walk down to the water and there he is. First I thought he was sleeping. Then I saw the blood. Scared the shit out of me. I mean I didn’t know if the guy with the gun was still around or what.” Wilson started to shake a bit. He needed a drink.

“What time did you find him?”

“You know, I told all this to them other policemen.”

“I know. One more time.”

“Like I said, I just cleaned the men’s room, so it must have been two thirty, something around there, could have been two or three. I don’t wear a watch.”

“Were there any vehicles in the lot before or after you came out of the men’s room?”

“Just the warden’s truck.”

“Where was it parked?”

“Over there in the lower lot.”

“Was there sign of anybody else? Litter? Cigarette smoke? Anything?”

Wilson thought about it. “I did pick up some trash. Lunch trash, you know. A part of a sandwich. A wrapper from one of them yuppie candy bars, a power bar.”

“What kind of sandwich?”

“I didn’t taste it.”

“Thanks, Wilson. That’s all I need.”

Warren walked through the lower and upper parking lots, listening to the birds and staring at the asphalt. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just listening to the birds, waiting for them to tell him something. One of them must have been there that day.

Ogden’s trailer looked abandoned. The place looked as if it had been empty for years. Warren stopped his rig in the front yard and killed the engine, ate a couple of piñon nuts. He looked around for Ogden’s dog and realized he hadn’t seen him for a while. He got out and walked around the trailer. Then he walked inside. Ogden never locked the door.

Inside, Warren sat at the little table that faced the front window. The surface was messy, but he had seen worse. His own desk was an example. There was a glass tumbler on the table, whatever had been inside, probably orange juice, was dried. There was a Denver Broncos mug next to the sink on a little wooden cutting board. The green tea bag was dried hard to the inside wall. He looked out the window at the sage. Where was Ogden?

Eva Walker came out of her house to meet Warren as he stepped from his rig. She didn’t have to say anything for Warren to know what she was asking.

“I’m looking for him,” Warren said.

“Oh, Warren, he told me he was in trouble. He was scared, I never saw him like that. Oh, Warren.”

“Let’s go inside.” Warren helped the woman onto the porch and into the house. She sat on the sofa and Warren stood. He looked out the window at the sky and the weather. That seemed to be all he was capable of doing, looking through glass, windshields, house windows.

“What’s going on, Warren?”

“I don’t know, Eva.” He was not going to tell her about the three dead bodies up north. “Ogden knows how to take care of himself. You just remember that.” Warren looked at the old woman’s eyes. “Did Ogden mention anyone and anything that was worrying him? I don’t mean just the last time you saw him, but recently. Not even recently, did he ever say anything that made you worry or wonder?”

“No.”

“Notice anything different about him, the things he did, a change in habits, shampoo?”

“Not really. He was coming around a little less. He always said he had a headache.”

“I know I don’t need to say it, but I’m supposed to: If Ogden contacts you, in any way, please give me a call.”

“All right, Warren. Find my boy.”

“I’ll find him.”

Warren went back to the station. The medical examiner’s report was sitting on his desk. Cause of death was what everyone knew, gunshot wound to the chest. But there was a note about lividity. The examiner believed that Terry had not been shot there, but somewhere else and moved there. It also placed the time of death at fifteen hours before discovery. Warren closed his eyes and imagined the crime scene he’d visited earlier. With the rain and the trampling there was no way to tell from sign what might have happened. But given where Terry had been lying, the shooter would have been standing in the river. Why put him there?

“You see that report?” Bucky asked. He was out of his office and holding a chocolate doughnut.

“Yep.”

“I’ll tell you what this is, it’s two gallons of shit in a one-gallon bucket.” He bit into his doughnut. “The pictures from today are there, too. Positive ID on Derrick Yates. The little guy was a Mexican named Luis Guerrero. A record as long as my arm. Nobody knows the third guy with the flip-flops.”

Felton stopped by Warren’s desk and picked up the photos. “Hey, I know this guy.”

“Which guy?” Warren asked.

“This one here, flip-flop guy.” Felton handed the photograph to Warren and he looked at it with Bucky. “They call him Bug or something. Gave him a warning a few weeks back about walking on the wrong side of the highway. I gave him a ride back to the yurts. He was drugged up, but I didn’t see no reason to bring him in.”

The yurts. “That’s something anyway,” Warren said. “Do we have a picture of Ogden around here?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure there’s one in his personnel file,” Felton said.

The midday sky was still blue, but the increased activity of the hawks told Warren that more rain was coming. He bumped over the messy track, the mud having hardened into a real kidney buster, and parked close to the yurt nearest the road. He approached and knocked on the frame of the door.

“What you want?” a man asked. He looked about sixty, but sadly was probably only thirty. He was wearing a brown tweed sport suit coat over a tight Grateful Dead T-shirt. That was all. No trousers, no underwear.

“Do you want to finish getting dressed?” Warren asked.

“I’m dressed.”

“Do you know a guy called Bug or something like that?”

“I don’t know any insects.”

“What about this guy?” Warren showed the man the picture of the man’s dead face. “You know him?”

“No.”

“What about these guys?” Warren showed him crime scene pictures of Yates and Guerrero.

The man said nothing, but he reacted, ran a hand through his greasy hair. “All these people are dead,” he said.

“Yes, they are. Dead. Ever seen any of these men when they were alive?” The man shook his head, but Warren knew he was lying. “This guy’s name was Luis. Did he ever sell drugs to you? He’s dead now, so you don’t have to be scared.”

“Never seen him or the other two.”

“And what about this man.” Warren showed the man a photo of Ogden.

The man seemed more afraid than before, biting his lip, swallowing and looking past Warren at the slope of the mountain.

“You know this man, don’t you?”

“He’s a cop, right?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t know him. I think I’ve seen him around, but I don’t know him.”

“Where did you see him?”

“Around.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“A couple weeks ago, I think.”

Warren took his pad from his breast pocket and his pen. “What’s your name, sir?”

“Listen, I don’t want to be involved. Hey, do you mind if I put on some pants?” When Warren nodded it was okay the man stepped back into the yurt, grabbed some jeans from the floor, and put them on.

“This is just procedure. I have to have your name.”

“It’s Jesse, Jesse Harris.”

“Okay, Mr. Harris. I want to thank you for your help. If you see this man, the cop, you give me a call, all right? His name is Ogden Walker. My name is Warren Fragua and my number’s right there on this card.”

Jesse Harris nodded.

“I’m going to go check your neighbors, okay?”

“Okay.”

Warren moved on to the next structure, knowing nothing more than that he was confused. More so with each piece of this puzzle, if in fact these were pieces, if in fact this was a puzzle. At the next yurt, two women stepped out just as he arrived. They looked enough alike to be sisters. He was struck by how remarkably clean they appeared.

“Excuse me, ladies, before you go, I need to ask you just a couple of questions.”

They stood shoulder to shoulder and faced him.

“Do you know this man?” He showed them the photo of the man he thought might be called Bug.

“That’s Beetle,” one of the women said.

“Beetle,” Warren repeated the name.

“Is he dead?” the same woman asked.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Oh my god,” the second woman cried.

The first woman did not cry. “What happened to him?” she asked.

“He was shot.” Warren pulled out the other photos. “What about these two men, do you know them?”

“That one gave drugs to Beetle to sell.” From the first again. She pointed to the photo of Yates. “And that guy, I think he made meth in a lab over in Hondo. I’m not sure.”

“What about this man?” Warren showed them Ogden.

“He came and talked to Beetle yesterday.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the second woman said.

“And Beetle went someplace with him. He came back in and grabbed some shoes and said he’d be back.”

“Did you hear what they talked about?’

“No.”

“Had you ever seen him before?”

“I think so,” said the second woman. “Around here a couple of times. He beat up a guy once.”

“This guy?” Warren tapped on the picture of Ogden. “This guy beat somebody up?”

“I think it was him.”

“What was Beetle’s name?”

“Beetle.”

“His real name.”

“That’s what he called himself,” the first woman said.

“Where did he live?”

“Around,” the second said. “He slept a lot of places, but most of the time here with us.”

“Here? Are his things here?”

“Yes.”

“I need to look through them. Do you mind if I go in and look through his stuff?”

The women said it was okay. They gave Warren their names and showed him the pile that was Beetle’s belongings. The pile was in the center of the foul and sour-smelling yurt. Warren picked through the clothes and magazines, mostly humor magazines and a couple of celebrity rags. There was an Idaho driver’s license near the bottom, but the face on it was not Beetle’s. The name on the license was William Yates.

“What about this guy? You know this man?” Warren showed the license to the women.

“That was the guy who got beat up.”

“Where? Where did he get beat up?”

The woman pointed. “Over there, across the road. That was the only time I ever saw him.”

“You?” Warren asked the other woman.

“I never saw him.”

“Thank you.”

“So there is no boy?” Bucky Paz said.

“There’s a man,” Warren said.

“I told you there was no boy in here,” said Felton.

“Not unless it’s a Willy Yates, Jr.,” Warren said.

Bucky turned toward his office. “Warren, come in here.” Bucky flopped down in his chair and spun to face the window. “What the fuck is going on?”

“I do not know.”

“Any guesses?”

“Not one,” Warren said.

“I have a really, really bad feeling,” the sheriff said.

“It’s hard not to have one.” Warren paced away and came back. “Something’s happened to Ogden. I know that.”

“You think he’s dead?”

“No, I don’t.”

Warren sat at his desk, thinking about Ogden, recalling everything he could about his good friend. Ogden was hiding someplace and Warren knew that to find him, he’d have to think like him. Then he saw the small foil-wrapped candy on his desk. He’d lifted a bag of them from his daughter’s Halloween haul one year and had liked them so much that he’d told Ogden to hide them. Ogden would pull one out on occasion and eat it to tease Warren. Finally Warren asked where they were hidden. Ogden showed him. He had placed them on the far corner of Warren’s desk, in plain sight next to an empty wrapper. Ogden had laughed.

Warren went home and found Mary sitting in the kitchen working on a quilt. He sat without speaking.

Mary kept sewing.

Warren looked over at the stovetop. There was a pot of something simmering there. “Is that chili?”

“Yes,” Mary said. “Where is Ogden?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think is going on?”

“Do you remember when we thought a raccoon was getting into our garbage?”

Mary kept sewing.

“Turned out it was dogs.”

“Would you like some chili?”

“Not right now,” Warren said.

“Are you going out again tonight?” she asked.

“I might be out for a while, so don’t wait up.”

“Is Ogden all right?”

“No.”

It was dark, but Warren knew he had to drive out there. The rain had finally arrived, rolling in first with fog that made the driving difficult, then the rain began to sweep through as if in sheets. Warren turned off his lights as he crossed the cattle guard off the highway. The hatchery office was closed, as it should have been, and it was dark, as it should have been. Warren had a thought that if a person wanted to steal fish, this would be when he’d try. Both the lower and upper parking lots were empty. Warren sat in his rig, his back aching from so many hours in that seat, and tried to control his breathing, concentrating on exhaling, trying to force everything out, everything. He reached above his head and removed the bulb from his interior ceiling light, then opened his door and got out. He walked slowly past the hatchery and past the dam, the wind and rain pushing him forward and then back, unable to make up its mind which way to blow, he thought. The beam of his flashlight raked through the trees and brush. He caught the bright yellow eyes of a raccoon cruising through the wet night on its way to poach a few trout. The animal didn’t bolt, but calmly moved past him. Warren came to the spot where Terry’s body had been found. He shined his light all around and moved on downstream. Another fifty, then a hundred yards. He moved his light slowly, looking for anything that didn’t seem right, anything that made him stop the light. No one ever came down here. The footing was treacherous and that was if you could find a place to stand at all, much less fish. And there were no good lies for the trout, so when Warren saw a part of what he thought was a boot print, a heel, he became nervous. The rain was starting in earnest again now and the print that was dried hard would soon be gone. He got down on his knees and shined the light on every inch of dirt and between rocks and under boulders. He crawled up the bank a few yards and there was a hand, a real human hand, the fingers twisted impossibly, the rest of the body covered with branches and sage. Warren swallowed hard and felt momentarily queasy.

“I had a feeling.” The voice was Ogden’s.

Warren turned around and put the light on Ogden’s face.

“Turn the light off, Warren.”

Warren did. Then the only light was the one Ogden held on him.

“What’s going on, Ogden?”

“Not much. Not much. Why don’t you tell me what you think is going on?”

Warren couldn’t see his friend’s face, not that he would have recognized him if he could. “I think you killed this man right here. Somehow Terry Lowell found you with the body and you shot him, too.”

“That’s pretty much it.”

“Why, Ogden?”

“Because I didn’t want to get caught.”

“No, I mean why you’d kill this guy?”

“Pretty much because I could, Warren.” Ogden sighed. “It was a night sort of like this one. I brought him here and Terry was thinking he’d find a poacher at the hatchery at night.”

“Jesus, Ogden.”

“I’m a disappointment, I know.”

“You killed the men at that house, too.”

“I did. I suppose I did.”

“None of this makes any sense,” Warren said. He wished he could see his friend’s eyes. “What in the world are you into? Are you on drugs or something?”

“Of course it doesn’t make sense. What does make sense, Warren? Nothing in this damn world makes sense. Just look around. I’m out of my fucking mind. I must be. What do you think? Does that have it all make sense for you? I’m an evil man. Live is evil spelled backward or is it the other way around? I’m evil. I suppose that’s what they’ll say. I’m possessed by the devil, lived spelled backward. Does that have it make sense? I wanted some drug money. I’m hooked on meth. Do any of those reasons help this make sense? I was tired of being a good guy. Was I ever a good guy? How about that? Does that have it make sense for you? This is the way it is, Warren, simply the way it fucking is. Sad, sad, sad, sad, sad. Shitty, shitty, bang, bang. Nothing makes sense and that’s the only way that any of it can make sense. Here I am, the way I am, not making any sense. Blood in the water. Blood on my shirt.”

“You know, I’m not stupid, Ogden?”

“I know that, Warren. You’re unlucky, but you’re not stupid. And you found me. I knew you would. That makes you a smart guy, but you are unlucky.”

Warren watched the light as Ogden repositioned himself, adjusted his footing on the slippery rocks. He knew that Ogden had pointed a pistol at him. Warren was cursing himself for not carrying a weapon himself, but he never did and tonight was no different.

“I know you’re not stupid, Warren.”

“Are you going to shoot me?”

“I suppose.”

“I mean, I’m really not stupid, Ogden.”

“I’m counting on that, Warren.”

The shot made animals scurry through the darkness of the brush. It made Warren wince and tighten and his ears rang. Ogden took a step and fell forward.

Warren turned his light back on and looked at the face on his boots. It was not a face he knew. “I hope that’s you, Bucky,” Warren called out into the dark.

“It’s me.”