Cold Wind

35

Joe rolled into Saddlestring at 12:30 a.m. and drove straight to the Stockman’s Bar. There were several cars and trucks parked diagonally outside, and he was grateful it was still open. The Coors, Fat Tire, and 90 Shilling neon beer signs lit the small windows on the side. He knew Timberman often shut the place down before 2:00 a.m. if he had no customers or if the drinkers who were still there had stopped drinking.

Joe pulled into a space out front and killed the engine. He recognized a few of the vehicles and was pleased to locate the one he was looking for: a 1992 Ford pickup with a cracked windshield that had primer painted on the top of both rear fenders.

He got out and strode toward the bar and instinctively patted himself down to make sure he was geared up. Cuffs, pepper spray, bear spray, digital camera, digital recorder, notebook, pen, citation book, radio, cell phone, 40 Glock with two extra magazines in a holster. Not that he planned to pull his service weapon or, God forbid, try to hit something with it.

He paused outside the door of the bar, took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself down against anticipation, and pushed his way inside.

Timberman looked up, his eyebrows arched slightly, which meant surprise. Joe hadn’t been in the place so late at night for eight years or so, and it was obvious the barman wasn’t expecting him.

Joe nodded to Timberman and took in the customers. He recognized all of them. The one he was looking for avoided his eyes.

He walked down the length of the bar and took the stool once occupied nightly by Bud Longbrake Sr. Keith Bailey, Bud’s friend and drinking partner and the gatekeeper for the Eagle Mountain Club, leaned slightly away from him, putting space between them. Bailey slowly rolled a can of Budweiser between his big hands and there was an empty shot glass sitting on the bar next to Bailey’s glasses and a copy of the Saddlestring Roundup. Bailey turned his head a quarter toward Joe, just enough to see him warily with both eyes. His expression was stoic. Cop eyes, Joe thought.

When Timberman approached, Joe said, “A bourbon and water for me. Maker’s Mark. And whatever Keith is having.”

“We got Evan Williams,” Timberman said.

“Fine.”

“None for me,” Bailey said. To Joe, he said, “You’re out late.”

“Past my bedtime,” Joe said.

When Timberman turned and went for the bourbon bottle, Joe said to Bailey, “I bet you wonder what took me so long.”

Bailey’s response was a slight beery snort.

“All this time I’ve been looking for Bud and I never even thought of asking the most obvious guy,” Joe said.

Bailey shrugged.

“Where have you let him stay up there? One of the maintenance buildings, the club itself, or did you give him the keys to one of the members’ houses?”

Timberman delivered the drink, and Joe took a sip of it. It was cold and smoky and good.

When Timberman turned around, Bailey said, “He’s under a shit-load of pressure and pain right now. He needed some time away. There’s no law against helping a buddy out unless he’s wanted for something. You got charges on him?”

“No,” Joe said. “I just need to talk to him. I’ve been trying to find him for days and you know that.”

Bailey turned away from Joe and turned his palms down on the bar. He stiffened. “You never asked.”

“No, you’ve got me there. So are you hiding him from the sheriff as well?”

“So you’re freelancing?”

“Yup.”

“I’m not hiding him from anyone,” Bailey said. “He’s hiding himself. I’ve got no stake in this thing that’s going on, other than helping an old friend. Back in the day when Bud owned the ranch, before that witch took it from him, he was a big man around this country. He helped out a lot of people, and he wasn’t a jerk about it.” He seemed to want to say more, but like so many men Joe had encountered of Bailey’s age and station, he didn’t feel the need to go on.

“He’s struggling,” Bailey said, ending it at that.

“With what? With what he’s about to do?” Joe asked.

“I’m not getting into the particulars. That’s not my business. I’m not sure it’s yours.”

Joe sipped his drink again and shook his head at Timberman when Timberman raised his chin with a “Want another?” look.

Joe said, “I’m not going to hurt him in any way. You know me. I used to work for him, and we always got along. I shouldn’t even have to say that.”

“I’m not worried about you,” Bailey said. “But Bud seems to think there might be some other bastards after him. Trying to get to him before he testifies.”

Joe said, “Who?”

“Don’t know,” Bailey said. “We don’t talk all that much. He asked for a place to stay and I helped him out. We don’t sit around and share feelings.” He said it in a way that made Joe smile and like Keith Bailey more than he’d thought.

“He fades in and out,” Bailey said, “but you know about that.”

Joe nodded. He recalled Bud Sr. showing up in his backyard a year ago, waving a gun, looking for people who were out to get him. For some reason, he thought one of them would be Nate.

“He’s worse than that now,” Bailey said. “On account of his condition.”

“What condition?”

“You really don’t know?”

Joe shook his head.

“I’m not going to be talking out of school here. He can tell you what he wants to tell you. All I’ll do is let you know how to find him,” Bailey said. Then: “On one condition.”

“Shoot.”

“If you’re caught up there, you didn’t get the keypad code from me. I don’t care where you say you got it from-a member, maybe. Or that someone gave it to you so you could check out the wildlife on the place or something. But if you say I gave it to you, I could lose my job.”

Joe agreed, and Bailey tore off a corner of the Saddlestring Roundup and scratched out a seven-digit numeric code.

“You aren’t going to call him and tell him I’m coming, are you?” Joe said, taking the scrap of paper.

Bailey didn’t say yes, didn’t say no, but signaled Timberman for his check.

In the daylight, the Eagle Mountain Club overlooked the Bighorn River valley from its massive perch along the contours of a rounded and high eastern bluff. The club had a thirty-six-hole golf course that fingered through the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains, as well as a private fish hatchery, shooting range, airstrip, and about sixty multi-million-dollar homes that had been constructed long before the economy turned sour. Because of the airstrip, most of the members could arrive and depart without ever venturing beyond the gates. Built in the 1970s, the club was separate and apart from the moods, rhythms, and culture of blue-collar Saddlestring below it, although a handful of its members ventured into the community and some were great patrons of the museum, library, and other civic groups. The Eagle Mountain Club had only two hundred fifty members, and new people joined only when old members died, dropped out, or were denied privileges by a majority of the members.

The locals who worked at the club signed employment agreements to keep quiet about who the members were-CEOs, celebrities, politicians, magnates, a few trust fund moguls-and what went on inside. Still, most people in town seemed to know both, including Joe. What had always impressed him was how un-awed the locals were about the famous people who ventured down from the club and shopped and dined among them. There were never any public scenes of gasping recognition or autograph requests. Joe attributed the phenomenon to a wonderful mixture of proprietary pride-These rich folks could live anywhere in the world and they choose to live here with us! — and a stubborn independence and the optimism that perhaps, someday, they’d be members, too.

Joe had been within the boundaries of the club only a few times in his career. During his first year as district game warden, he’d located a rogue colleague holing up with a rich wife whose husband was away on business. Since then, he’d been on the grounds on calls where game animals had been found killed or local trespassers had been spotted. While he was there, he’d been shadowed by private resort security vehicles whose occupants had watched what he did and where he went through spotting scopes.

Access to the resort was via a guardhouse manned during the daytime hours by Keith Bailey. At night, members gained entrance by calling the security people at the front desk of the clubhouse. Closed-circuit cameras were hidden in the brush along both sides of the driveway and throughout the massive compound.

Joe drove up the driveway and punched in the numbers Keith Bailey had given him. The iron gates clicked and swung away. He eased his pickup past the empty guardhouse, looking both ways for security personnel who might swoop down on him any second. No doubt his entrance was being captured on videotape. Joe chose to believe that no security people were watching the monitors live, since it was September and most of the members had already left.

As the gates wheezed shut behind him, Joe crept along the banked blacktop entrance to the heart of the club. The road ran along the rim of the bluff, and the lights of Saddlestring were splayed out below to his right. Subtle lights marked both sides of the road.

He crested the hill and turned left, past the turnoff for the main clubhouse up on the hill. There were a few lights up there, but no activity he could see. The road dipped slightly, with large set-back houses on both sides, and he strained to see the plaques with the names of the owners in the grass marking each driveway.

He looked for a sign that read SKILLING. Kimberly Alice Skilling, heir to Skilling Defense Industries of Houston. She owned not only a large house on the grounds but also two guest cottages. And she’d asked Keith Bailey to keep a special eye on her place, especially one of the cottages where the pipes had burst the winter before.

Joe gave some credit to Bud Longbrake. Hiding in plain sight all this time.