Out of Range

TEN

On Friday morning, ex-Twelve Sleep County Sheriff O. R. "Bud" Barnum was seated at his usual place in the Stockman's Bar when he saw the stranger. The tall man stepped inside, let the door wheeze shut behind him, and stood there without moving, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness inside. It was eleven in the morning. Barnum didn't know the man, which in itself meant something. Barnum knew everybody.

Rarely did someone simply happen by Saddlestring, Barnum knew. The town was too out-of-the-way. It wasn't conveniently en route to anywhere. The ex-sheriff had studied strangers coming into his town for over thirty years. He could usually size them up quickly. They tended to fall into categories: outdoorsmen, roughnecks, tourists, ranch hands looking for work, junior sales representatives stuck with a bad, far-flung territory. This man wasn't any of those. Something about him, the way he moved and the fact that he seemed supremely comfortable in his own skin, Barnum thought, was menacing.

The tall man was in his late fifties or early sixties, with a shock of gray hair and a chiseled face. He was slim with broad shoulders, and Barnum noted how the stranger's dark brown leather coat stretched across his back as he found a stool and sat down. The man had a flat belly, which to Barnum was a physical characteristic he mistrusted. Cop, Barnum thought, or military. He had that ramrod-straight, no-nonsense air about him. Barnum wondered if the tall man felt the same thing about him sitting there. Barnum knew he looked like a cop, and always had. His mother once told him he looked like a cop when he was born. She said that even as a baby he had those suspicious, penetrating eyes, and the jowly, hangdog face that seemed to say, in cynical resignation, "Now what?"

Barnum had been reading the Saddlestring Roundup and drinking coffee. He hated both the local newspaper and the bitter coffee, but this is what he did now that he was retired. It was part of his routine. He still began each morning at the Burg-O-Pardner, as he had when he was sheriff, drinking coffee, catching up on local news and gossip, and eating rolls with the other local "morning men." The morning men at the Burg-O-Pardner were the men who owned most of Saddlestring and much of the county. Most were retired now as well, but still had local business interests. Guy Allen owned the Burg-O-Pardner and had the majority share of the Stockman's. Just that morning, Guy had been talking about the weather in Arizona, how pleasant it was. He'd be leaving soon, going to his home in Arizona, as winter moved into Wyoming. So would half of the other morning men. Barnum, who still lived full-time in Saddlestring and probably always would, got quiet during discussions of Arizona weather. Any chance he'd had of buying a winter place somewhere warm had disappeared when a bad land investment the previous year had taken his pension, and the ensuing scandal had cost him his job and his reputation. All that was left of his career was a solid gold

Parker pen his deputies had chipped in for. The pen was inscribed: TO SHERIFF BARNUM FOR 28 YEARS OF SVC. "svc" meant "service," McLanahan had explained, but the in-scriber ran out of room on the pen.

He was acutely aware of how differently the morning conversations flowed since he was no longer sheriff. The men used to listen to him, to defer, to stop talking when he spoke. They would nod their heads sympathetically when he complained. Now he could see them glancing at one another while he spoke, waiting for him to finish. Sometimes, the mayor would cut him off and launch into a new topic. He was just another retired old bastard, taking up their time. The kind of old fart Barnum used to glare at until the interloper would pick up his coffee cup and go away.

When the morning men broke up around 9:30, Barnum walked down the main street and set up shop here, in the Stockman's, where he would remain most of the day and some of the night. If people needed to talk to him, they knew where he would be. If someone came into the place before he got there and took his seat, which was the farthest stool at the corner of the bar where the counter wrapped toward the wall, the bartender would shoo the customer away when Barnum walked in. That's Sheriff Barnum's office, the bartender would say.

Barnum didn't stare at the tall man who had come into the bar. Instead, he shot occasional glances at him over the top of the half-glasses he needed to wear to read the paper. The tall man ordered coffee, and as he sipped it he looked around the place, taking in the ancient knotty pine and mirrored back bar, the mounted big-game heads that stared blankly down at him, the black-and-white rodeo photos that covered the wall behind him. The Stockman's was a long, narrow chute of a room with the bar taking up over half of it and some booths and a pool table at the back near the restrooms. A jukebox played Johnny Cash's "Don't Take Your Gun to Town."

As the bartender refilled the stranger's mug, the man asked him something in a muted voice. Barnum couldn't hear the exchange over the song on the jukebox. Then the tall man stood and nodded at Barnum. Barnum nodded back.

"Cute little town you've got here," the tall man said, making his way toward the bathroom.

"It doesn't look like a place that can eat you up and spit you out, does it?" Barnum asked.

The tall man hesitated a step, looked curiously at Barnum, then continued.

As the restroom door shut, Barnum slid off his stool, walked the length of the bar, and stepped outside. The cold sunshine blinded him momentarily, and he raised his arm to block out the sun. The tall man's late-model SUV was parked diagonally in front of the bar. Barnum circled it quickly, noting the Virginia plates, the mud on the panels probably from back roads, the fact that the back seat was folded down to accommodate duffel bags, hard-sided equipment boxes, and a stainless steel rifle case as long as the SUV floor. He walked back into the bar and assumed his seat.

Barnum raised a finger to the bartender, a half-blind former rodeo team coach named Buck Timberman. Buck had been a big-time bullrider but had retired after a bull stepped on his head and crushed it, resulting in brain damage. He still wore his national finals belt buckles, though, rotating them so he wore a different one each day of the week. Barnum liked Timberman because Buck was staunchly loyal, even stupidly loyal, and he still referred to Barnum as "Sheriff."

"Changeover time," Barnum said, thrusting his coffee cup forward.

"It's only eleven-thirty," Timberman said, looking at his wristwatch. "You've got a half hour before noon."

"So it's one-thirty Eastern," Barnum growled, "which means we've wasted an hour and a half of drinking time."

Timberman frowned while he drew a beer and poured a shot. "Why Eastern time?"

"Our new friend here is used to Eastern," Barnum said. "Didn't you notice how he said 'here'? He said 'here' like JFK. He's from Boston or someplace, but he's got Virginia plates and a lot of outdoor gear in his rig. Judging by the dirt on that car, I'm guessing he didn't fly and rent, he drove out all the way."

"I ain't seen him in here before," Timberman said, taking the coffee cup and replacing it with the draft and the shot.

"Nope," Barnum said. "He was asking you something a minute ago. What was it?"

Timberman looked over Barnum's shoulder to make sure the tall man wasn't coming back yet. "He's got an interest in falconry. He asked me if I knew of anybody around here who might have birds available. He also asked me if we have a range where he can sight in his hunting rifle. And he wanted to know where the bathroom is."

When the tall man returned he found a shot of bourbon and a glass of beer next to his coffee cup. He looked toward Timberman, who pointed to the ex-sheriff.

"Cheers," Barnum said, raising his shot glass and sipping the top off.

"Thanks are in order," the man said to Barnum, tentatively raising his whiskey, "but it's pretty early in the day."

Barnum said, "It's never too early to treat a visitor to some cowboy hospitality."

The tall man sipped half of his shot, winced, and chased it with a long pull from the beer, never taking his piercing brown eyes off Barnum.

"Who says I'm visiting?" the tall man asked.

Barnum tipped his head toward Timberman. "Buck here said you were asking about falcons."

"So much for the famed confidentiality of the bartending profession," the tall man said evenly. In his peripheral vision, Barnum could see Timberman suddenly look down at his shoes and shuffle away.

"I asked him," Barnum said. "What he told me will be treated with confidence."

The tall man's eyes narrowed. "And who are you, exactly?"

"I used to be the sheriff here," Barnum said.

"To a lot of us," Timberman interjected, "he'll always be our sheriff."

Barnum humbly nodded his thanks to Timberman.

The tall man seemed to be thinking things over, Barnum observed, trying to decide if he was going to say more or take his leave.

"I might be able to help you out," Barnum said.

The tall man turned to Timberman, and the bartender said, "You ought to ask the sheriff."

While the tall man pondered, Barnum closed his newspaper, folded it, and put his reading glasses and gold pen in his shirt pocket.

"Let me ask you this," Barnum said. "Are you looking for a falcon, or are you looking for a particular falconer?"

The tall man's face revealed nothing. "I don't believe we've actually met."

"Bud Barnum. You?"

"Randan Bello."

"Welcome to Saddlestring, Mr. Bello."

Bello picked up his shot and beer, walked down the length of the bar and sat down on a stool next to Barnum. Timberman watched, then went to the far end of the bar to wash glasses that were already clean.

"I'm looking for a falconer," Bello said, speaking low and looking at his reflection in the back bar mirror and not directly at Barnum.

"I know of a guy," Barnum said to Bello's face in the mirror. "He's got a place by himself on the river. Carries a.454 Casull. Is that him?"

Bello sipped his beer. "Could be."

Barnum described Nate Romanowski, and let a half-smile form on his mouth. "If he's the one, he's been a thorn in my side since he showed up in my county. Romanowski and a game warden named Joe Pickett. I've got no use for either one of them."

Bello turned on his stool and Barnum felt the man's eyes bore into the side of his head.

"So you can help me," Bello said.

At the end of the bar, Timberman made a loud fuss over cleaning some ashtrays.

"I can't think of anything I'd rather do," Barnum said, surprised that his bitterness betrayed him.

"I see."

Barnum said, "I understand you're looking for a place to sight in. There's a nice range west of town with bench rests. I could make a call."

"Let me buy the next round," Bello said.