Every Cloak Rolled in Blood

Chapter Thirty

I walk out on the veranda. The air is unseasonally warm, the early leaves of the cottonwoods barely puffing, the barometer dropping, a few rain rings dimpling the fast-running smoothness of the river. The sun is setting beyond Lolo Peak, but that is not why the light is fading. Montana and Louisiana share many similarities. The light doesn’t die in the evening or before a storm. It’s sucked into the earth, and almost immediately the trees become still and the leaves turn a darker green and the fish begin softly rolling under the surface of the lakes and waterways, disappearing with no sound, leaving not so much as a wrinkle. It happens in minutes. The air is clean and the blackness of the clouds and the trees of lightning pulsing inside them pose no threat, offer no warning, and instead are a testimony to the continuity of creation.

And it’s all free.

I go back inside and hope that Fannie Mae will join me. She always loved thunderstorms, even as a little girl, when we lived in the Florida Keys. She loved the waterspouts even more when, on a blazing-hot day, one would drop from a single roiling black cloud into the ocean and turn into a wobbling tube of spun glass. You never forget those moments, do you? Why did you have to die, Fannie Mae? Why? Why? Why? Those words beat in my head like the drumming of a taskmaster on an ancient prison ship filled with convicts at the oars. To my mind, the greatest suffering depicted in the entire Bible is that of Jesus’ mother at his crucifixion. I don’t know how anyone could bear it.

These thoughts give me no rest and tempt me into a dark place where the sword seems a far more appropriate symbol of justice than prayer beads or beneficence purchased at the expense of those who are gone and have no one to speak for them.

I open windows all over the house and fix a fried-egg sandwich and put it and a scoop each of potato salad and dirty rice and a slice of pecan pie on a tray with a glass of iced tea and sit down on the back steps and try to look at all the great gifts of the world.

The wind is up, blowing pine needles from the roof and feathers from the door of the chicken house. It’s a grand storm-tormented evening, the kind that somehow restores your faith and allows you to prove that insularity and freedom from fear are one and the same and that God is a friend and not a bearer of wrath and destruction.

I pick up my dishes and turn around so I can open the door. Then I hear an object whip past me, like someone trying to spit something off his tongue. But it does more than pass by my ear. It slices the skin, the kind of cut that stings right away. I drop the dishes and press my hand to my ear and then look at it. There is a star of blood in the center of my palm, as though it fell from an eyedropper. An arrow with a steel head, one as thin and sharp as a razor, is embedded in the wall of the washhouse attached to the house, the feathered shaft still quivering.

The yard and the pasture are empty. Whoever shot at me was far away. I can hear thunder beginning to crackle in the clouds and the horses nickering in the pasture, probably wondering if I will put them away for the night, which I always do in violent weather lest they be hit by falling trees. I go back in the house, dress my ear with some iodine, put on a slicker and my beat-up Stetson, drop the Peacemaker in my right-hand pocket, and walk down to the tack room. Why do I not dial 911 with my newly purchased smartphone? The adherents of Eugene Baker threw down the glove, not I.

I leave the arrow in the washhouse wall and wait an hour before I call John Fenimore Culpepper. I cut to it as soon as he picks up. “How you doin’, Mr. Culpepper? A short time ago somebody shot a hunter’s arrow at me. He fired from a good distance but was able to clip my ear. That means he has a powerful arm and a good eye. You know anything about this?”

“You accusing Leigh?”

“Did he return home? Has he contacted you? I saw his archery setup when I visited your house.”

“If somebody shot an arrow at you, Leigh didn’t have nothing to do with it. His bow and quiver was stolen.”

“When?”

“It was that Wetzel boy. Leigh sticks up for him, but I know it was him. He probably sold it for dope.”

“I dimed your son, Mr. Culpepper. I think he has reason to resent me.”

“You did what?”

“I told you he was using acid. I informed on him.”

“Leigh don’t go after people. It don’t matter what they do.”

How about painting a swastika on a stranger’s barn? I think. But I do not say it. “I didn’t call the cops. That doesn’t mean Jack Wetzel or Leigh gets a free pass. It means the opposite. Are you reading me on this, sir?”

“If you’re threatening my son, you’ll have me at your door in the next fifteen minutes.”

“Sorry to hear you talk like that, Mr. Culpepper,” I reply. “I thought better of you.”

I break the connection and look out the front window. The storm clouds up Lolo Pass are as black as soot. Ruby’s cruiser turns into the driveway, headlights on, windshield peppered with rain. She runs up the flagstone path to the veranda, her campaign hat on, her face uplifted and shiny, lit by the porch light, full of expectation.

I tell Ruby what has happened.

“You should get a couple of security people out here,” she says.

“Nope. Waste of time. Silly. End of discussion.”

“You don’t know the whole situation,” she says. She has taken off her hat and is wiping the rain out of her hair. “I know a couple of feds working on the res who say McNally is a degenerate gambler and into Jimmie the Digger for large amounts of money. They say my ex is a hump for him, too.”

“McNally told me he had seen them together.”

“Anyway, my ex is a dingleberry and has finally found his place in the universe. The feds told me they dug up a site that Kale had used for years. There were three sets of human bones in it but no money or stash.”

“So it’s true about Kale killing numerous people?”

“Ray’s terrified,” she says. “Actually, I feel sorry for him. He called me on my cell a little while ago. He wants me to help him get into the witness protection program. I told him he had to have something worth selling. He started crying. He says the people at the site on the res were buried alive.”

“It’s not what I want to believe, but I think Jack Wetzel was there.”

“You think Wetzel shot at you?”

“Hard to say. Jack is duplicitous and wants money. Leigh Culpepper wants the approval of his father. I took that away from him.”

We’re standing by the gun cabinet. I can see our reflections, as I did with Fannie Mae. Ruby presses herself against me, her cheek flat against my heart. “You’re a good guy, Aaron.”

“So are you.”

“I’d like to go up to Alberta and just keep going on all the way to the Northwest Territories. Just you and me.”

“That sounds like a fine idea,” I reply.

“I’m tired of pandemics and sleazy politicians and stupid people who refuse to put on a mask. I’m tired of greed and wars and people ruining the planet. I’d like to go where people have never been and stay there the rest of my life.”

“ ‘One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever.’ ”

“Where’s that from?” she asks.

“Ecclesiastes 1:4. I’ve been stealing plots from the Bible for sixty years.”

She’s not listening. Her body is close to mine, her eyes shut, her chest rising and falling, the top of her head under my chin. When I try to move, she tightens her arms around me. We stay like that for a long time. I close my eyes and almost fall asleep while standing up. When I open my eyes, my reflection has disappeared from the glass, although Ruby’s remains. This time I’m not afraid. I even wonder if I would be better off on the far side of the veil.

The landline rings on the kitchen counter. I pick it up hesitantly. This is not a night I want to hear any more about the problems of others. “Hello?”

“Well, how you doin’, Buster Brown?” Sister Ginny says. “I saw a cruiser parked in front of your house. You putting the blocks to Pocahontas?” She pauses. “That’s what I thought. Mr. Broussard, you are the dumbest white man I have ever met. Jimmie Kale is gonna split you up the middle, pour salt in your insides, and tack you on a fence post, like they do crows down in Texas. Are you listening?”

“Not really,” I reply. “I’ll be hanging up now.”

“Listen up: My son almost pinned your head to a wall. Yeah, Jack is my son. Don’t worry, I slapped the little shit upside the head till he thought he was a girl. Anyway, he wants to apologize.”

“It’s been great speaking with you,” I say. “I’ll be toggling off now. You know, putting the blocks to people and that sort of thing.”

“Jack stole the bow from John Culpepper’s house. As we speak, I’m making him return it. Jack holds you in high regard. Give him a chance.”

“Where is Leigh?” I ask.

“Living up in a cave or some shit. I think the kid has scrambled his own brains.”

“Tell Jack to give me a call.”

“You’ll talk to him?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Listen, Aaron, don’t throw away this opportunity.” She has never used my first name. “Go in with me and you’ll have more money than you ever dreamed of. All of your books will be on cable television. You got the manners and the talent, and I know how to kick ass. In comparison, what you got now is dick.”

“Why were you with Kale at the Roxy?”

“He’s a walking bank with as many friends as a pot of goat piss on a radiator.”

I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. “Go easy with the Culpepper family, Sister.”

“I’m supposed to be afraid of people who think the earth is six thousand years old?”

“A man already in hell doesn’t have a lot to lose. Thanks for your offer. You should think about scriptwriting. You’re one for the ages.”

There’s a beat. “You mean that?”

“Straight up.”

I hang up and turn around. Ruby is standing right behind me, looking at a text message. “Jesus Christ,” she says.

“What is it?”

“Jeremiah McNally was in a holding cell. Nobody took his belt. He hanged himself. This time he went all the way.”

I have to sit down. Like the loss of a child, the suicide of a friend or family member is one you never get over. I know because it runs in the Holland family. The person who commits it blights the life of every person around him. I have a hard time forgiving those who leave such an unjust burden for others to carry. Ruby looks sick.

“This is no one’s fault,” I say.

“I called him a fraud.”

“Don’t butt into this, Ruby.”

She widens her eyes and blows out her breath. “Okay, you’re right.”

But I’m not doing too well myself. I liked Jeremiah, and it’s hard to accept the darkness that obviously lived inside him.

“What’s the deal with Stokes?” Ruby says.

“I’m not sure. She’s trying to act like a mother, but she’s a consummate liar also.”

There’s a flash of lightning in the trees up the hill, followed by a boom of thunder that rattles the dishware in the cabinets. Inside the trees, a Douglas fir is ablaze from base to top, illuminating a circle of men in blue uniforms and kepis and slouch hats, all of them armed with pistols or .45–70 carbines. A figure I can’t make out is encircled by several enlisted men. The rain drenches the fire, and the soldiers disappear as though zipped up in a black bag.

“Your face is white,” Ruby says.

“Sister Ginny is going to make a move. Using her son or Jimmie Kale.”

“How do you know?”

“Major Baker is here. He’s a parasite. Evil can only function if it has a host. That’s why he’s come in our midst.”

“What did you see up there?”

“Baker’s men are holding someone captive.”

She looks at me, then at the bottle of Prozac on the kitchen counter, then back at me, blinking. “Who?”

I can’t think or speak. I feel weak all over. “I don’t know. I couldn’t see well. They were too far away.”

“A man or a woman?”

My heart is beating as loudly as a conga drum in my ears, the rancid stench of fear rising from my armpits. “The light was too dim,” I say. “There were too many people among the trees. It could have been anyone.”

I pray I did not see Fannie Mae.