Outlaw Mountain

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It was almost three o’clock in the morning before Joanna finally made it home to High Lonesome Ranch. She had stayed long enough for the Air-Evac ambulance to load Mark Childers’ ominously still body onto a stretcher and carry it away. She had stayed long enough for Ernie Carpenter to arrive on the scene.

“What do we do with her?” the detective asked, nodding in the direction of a no longer hysterical Karen Brainard, who had taken refuge in the back of Dave Hollicker’s patrol car. “Do we book her and haul her off to jail?”

“Not yet,” Joanna said. “We don’t know enough. I lave someone take her home for now, but tell her that she’d better not leave the county.”

After that, and with a heavy heart, Joanna drove to Bisbee and made her way up the steep steps to what had been Carmen and Lewis Flores’ home. As she climbed them, one al a time, it hurt Joanna to think that those very steps-the ones Lewis had wanted to spare his wife from climbing-were at the root of all the trouble.

When she arrived in the tiny yard, Joanna was dismayed but not really surprised to see that all the interior lights were off. Convinced her husband had merely taken off on a hunting trip without bothering to tell her, Carmen Flores had evidently gone to bed and to sleep. Roused by Joanna’s knock, Carmen flung open the door before she finished tying on her flannel robe.

“Joanna!” she exclaimed when she saw who was standing in the glow of the porch light. “What is it? What’s happened?”

And so Joanna told her story. This time she waited until Carmen’s sister Rose actually arrived on the scene before she left the Flores house. Then, knowing there was nothing else to be done, Joanna headed home. On the way, she called the department and left word for Dick Voland. She told him she was scrapping that day’s morning briefing and that she probably wouldn’t be in the office much before noon.

It warmed Joanna’s heart to drive into the yard of High Lonesome Ranch and see lights glowing at the window; to see Butch’s Outback parked in front of the gate. He and the two dogs, Sadie and Tigger, bounded out the back door to greet her before she managed to park the Blazer and turn off the ignition.

“Rough night?” Butch asked, opening the door.

“You could say that. But you didn’t wait up for me all this time, did you?”

“No. I dozed on the couch. Junior’s asleep on the living room floor. Jenny hauled an air mattress and bedroll down from the attic for him. She said you wouldn’t mind.”

“I don’t,” Joanna replied. “Come on. Let’s go inside. It’s cold out here.”

“Have you eaten?”

“I had a piece of pepperoni pizza,” she told him. “but I think that was several hours ago.”

“Do you want me to fix you something?”

Butch’s questions contained all the familiar words and phrases. Not only had Joanna Brady heard them before, she had actually said them as well. Once she and her mother had been on the other end-the solicitous end-of those carbon-copy conversations. When Andrew Roy Brady had come home after a long and grueling nighttime shift-once Joanna had finished being scared for him, once she had moved beyond being irritated with him for coming home so late-she had always offered to fix him a meal no matter what time it was, no matter how late. And Eleanor Lathrop, in her turn, had done the exact same thing for her husband, Sheriff D. H. Lathrop. It felt strange for Joanna to be the recipient of those ministrations-a receiver rather than a giver-and in her own home as well.

“All I want is a drink,” Joanna said. “A drink and some sleep.”

“It must have been bad then,” Butch said.

He wrapped one arm around her shoulder and led her inside. In the kitchen, he mixed her a vodka tonic, using some of the leftover stock of liquor he had moved down to Bisbee after the sale of the Roundhouse Bar and Grill up in Peoria. Due to a lack of storage space in his own house, he had used some of it to create what he called a respectable bar at High Lonesome Ranch.

While Joanna sipped her drink and told him what all had happened overnight, he fixed her a tuna sandwich. By the time she finished both eating and telling, Butch was standing, leaning against the counter. “Weren’t you afraid?” he asked.

“Of course I was afraid,” Joanna told him. “I was scared to death.”

“Flores could just as well have shot you instead of himself,” Butch observed. “What would have happened then?”

“I was careful,” Joanna said. “I was wearing my vest. I stayed in the Blazer. I used it for cover.”

“A vest will work for everything but a thick head,” Butch replied. “And you still haven’t answered my question. What would happen to Jenny if something happened to you? What if you hadn’t come home tonight at all? Are you sure this is what you want to do? Do you want to spend your whole life going to someone’s home in the middle of the night, waking up some poor sleeping woman, and telling her that her husband has just blown his brains out?”

Joanna felt her eyes welling with tears. “Please, Butch,” she said. “Not now. I’m too tired to fight.”

“I’m not fighting,” he said. “I’m talking. That’s why…” He stopped.

“Why what?”

“Never mind,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. Go on to bed. I’ll clean up here. Then I’ll wake Junior up and we’ll head home.”

“Don’t go,” Joanna said. “I don’t want you to go. I need you here.”

He took her glass and plate and put them in the dish-washer. “I don’t suppose a night on the couch will kill me,” he said.

“I don’t mean for you to sleep on the couch,” she told him. “We’re engaged. I want us to sleep in the same bed.”

“What will Jenny think?” Butch asked. “She doesn’t know we’re engaged. You didn’t tell her, remember?”

“I didn’t have a chance. I’ll tell her in the morning.”

In the end, it didn’t take all that much convincing to get Butch to give up the idea of sleeping on the couch and to come join Joanna in her bed. Still chilled from spending so much of the night outdoors, she snuggled up against the warmth of his body and felt her own muscles begin to relax.

“By the way,” Butch told her, “we picked up that book from Daisy-America the Beautiful.”

“Did you have a chance to look at it?”

“Jenny and Junior did. They spent at least two hours poring over every page.”

“Find anything?” Joanna asked, but she had to struggle to frame the words. She was fading fast. It was difficult to concentrate.

“I think so.”

“Tell me.”

Butch did, but Joanna Brady didn’t hear a word of it. She was already sound asleep, and she was still asleep the next morning when the phone rang at five past seven. Joanna was so groggy that even the jangling of a phone next to her bed didn’t wake her. Butch answered the call in the kitchen and then came into the bedroom.

“Phone,” he said, shaking her awake. “Something about a meeting you’re supposed to attend.”

“I called the department last night and canceled the briefing,” Joanna mumbled, turning over and burying her aching head in a pillow. “Tell them to forget it. Tell them I’ll come in when I’m good and ready.”

“I don’t think it’s that kind of meeting,” Butch said. “Jeff Daniels is on the phone. He says you’re supposed to be the guest speaker at a Kiwanis meeting this morning. When you weren’t there by the time they finished the Pledge of Allegiance, he was afraid you’d forgotten.”

Groaning, Joanna rolled out of bed. “I forgot all right. TelI him I’m on my way. But what about Jenny?”

“Don’t worry. Junior and I will get Jenny off to school,” Butch assured her. “You go do what you need to do.”

After showering and throwing on her clothes, and with only the barest attempt at puffing on makeup, Joanna pulled into the parking lot of Tony’s in Tintown some twenty minutes later-less than five minutes before she was scheduled to speak.

Slipping into the dining room, she dived as unobtrusively as possible for the open seat next to Jeff Daniels. “Where’s Marianne?” Joanna asked, her eyes searching the room as she poured herself a much-needed cup of coffee.

“At home,” Jeff said. “She’s really feeling rotten. I’m afraid it’s something serious, Joanna. What if it’s stomach cancer or something like that?”

“Has she been to see a doctor?”

“No. I guess she doesn’t want to know.”

“What about her resignation? Did she hand that in?”

“No. Not yet,” Jeff admitted. “It’s like she’s paralyzed, Joanna. Emotionally paralyzed. She’s just going through the motions. Ruth keeps asking me what’s the matter with Mommy. I don’t know what to tell her. Would you try talking to her, Joanna? She won’t listen to a word I say, but maybe you can get through to her.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

By then the business portion of the meeting was winding down and Joanna knew it would only be a matter of seconds before she would be called upon to speak. She had been invited to discuss the county-wide DARE program. But, in view of what had happened at Oak Vista the night before, Joanna had already scrapped her planned speech and was busily constructing another in her mind. No doubt people would have heard rumors about Lewis Flores’ suicide. The story had hit too late to make the morning edition of the Bisbee Bee, but sketchy reports had probably been aired on Tucson television and radio news broadcasts. Once again, unfortunate events in Cochise County were providing headline fodder for the rest of Arizona.

It wasn’t until Joanna stood up to speak-until after she had launched off into her rendition of what had happened the night before-that she noticed Marliss Shackleford seated at table on the far side of the room. An openly smiling Marliss Shackleford. What’s she so happy about? Joanna wondered.

She made it through her speech by operating on remote control. Her whole body ached with weariness. Her head hurt. Her mouth felt dry. All she wanted to do was fall back into her warm bed. When the speech ended and Joanna opened the subject up to questions, she expected Marliss to be among the first to raise her hand. Instead, Marliss slipped out of the room early without asking a single query. That struck Joanna as odd, but she was too tired to be anything but grateful about having dodged a public firefight with her most vocal critic.

Leaving the meeting, Joanna sat in the car for a few minutes and rested her head on the steering wheel. She felt rotten-almost as if she had the flu. So stop being a martyr, she told herself. Go home and go to bed.

After all, she was allowed ten days of sick leave per year. So far she had used only two days total. In the past few weeks Cochise County had exacted far more than its pound of flesh from its lady sheriff. With that realization, she called in to the department and told Kristin that she wasn’t feeling well. She was taking the day off and going back to bed.

“You and Chief Deputy Voland must have caught the same bug,” Kristin told her. “He called in sick, too.”

“If Voland is out, maybe I should come in after all,” Joanna began.

“No. Don’t bother. Chief Deputy Montoya is here this morning. He says he has everything under control. He offered to hang around all day if need be. You go on home.”

Joanna was too tired to require any more persuasion. “Good,” she said. “I’m on my way.”

When she turned onto the road to High Lonesome Ranch, she was surprised that Sadie and Tigger didn’t come racing to meet her. Their raucous greeting was so much a part of any homecoming that Joanna worried about it as she came up the road. Maybe Butch and Jenny had gone off to town that morning without remembering to put the dogs outside. In that case, it was a good thing Joanna hadn’t gone to work. No telling what mischief those two scoundrel dogs would get into if left to their own devices inside the house.

Joanna came through the last stand of mesquite, then jammed on the brakes when she saw a vehicle parked by the gate. Dick Voland’s Bronco sat there with someone slumped against the driver’s window. On the ground nearby lay Sadie and Tigger, both of whom now bounded to their feet and came running toward Joanna, barking their tardy greeting. Inside the Bronco, the slumping figure stirred and then moved. As soon as he straightened into an upright position, Joanna recognized that the driver really was Dick Voland.

Parking beside him, Joanna jumped out of her Blazer and walked up just as Dick rolled down his window. A cloud of boozy air erupted from the enclosed cab. The smell was so thick and pungent that it almost made her gag.

“What are you doing here, Dick?” she asked. “I thought you were sick.”

“I am sick,” he returned. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what? About Lewis Flores? I tried. At least I think I did. But you had already put in a full day by then. You had gone home.”

“About Butch Dixon,” Voland said doggedly.

Joanna was dismayed. “There was no reason to tell you,” she said. “Butch and I are-”

“I know. You’re engaged,” Voland finished, although that wasn’t close to what Joanna had intended to say. “1 know all about it. Marliss told me. She heard it from your own mother. How could you do that to me, Joanna? How could you?”

“Dick,” she said reasonably, “I didn’t do anything to you. Butch and I have fallen in love. What do you expect-”

Again Dick Voland cut her off. “I expected you to have the decency to tell me, that’s all. You must know how I feel about you. It’s been like that since you first came to the department. I’ve been waiting and waiting for you to give me some sign that it would be okay for me to ask you out. For you to say that you had spent enough time grieving over Andy and that you were ready to move on with your life. I didn’t see this coming. I didn’t think you’d do an end run around me and take off with someone else.”

He paused long enough for Joanna to say something, but by then she was too floored to speak.

“When Marliss came out to Oak Vista yesterday afternoon and told me all about it, I didn’t believe it. I was sure it was a lie-that she was just being Marliss. But she made it sound real enough that I had to know for sure. So I came out here to see for myself. I parked out on High Lonesome Road and waited. And sure as shit, the first person to show up is Butch Dixon in that little Outback of his. Jenny was in the car with him, and somebody else I didn’t recognize. Probably that cretin you dragged home from Saint David.”

“Dick,” Joanna said warningly. “I told you-”

“I don’t care what you told me,” he said. “I saw it with my own eyes. First he drove up and then, hours later, who should show up? You, Sheriff Brady-you and nobody else. Come home to shack up. If you didn’t care any more than hat about yourself, it seems to me that you’d at least care about Jenny.”

“That’s about enough,” Joanna said. “I think you’d better go now.”

“No, it isn’t enough. Not nearly. Here.” He reached in his shirt pocket and fumbled out a wrinkled, much-folded piece f paper.

“What’s this?” Joanna asked.

“My letter of resignation. I quit. As of now.”

Dick Voland had tried to quit once before-right after Joanna’s election. Back then she had talked him into staying because she needed his help, his expertise. Even now, she still could use his experience, but not without respect. Lacking that, sere was no way they could continue to work together. She unfolded the letter and glanced at the contents.

“All right,” Joanna said when she finished reading. “Considering what’s happened, that’s probably for the best. I’ll expect you to turn in your vehicle and your departmental weapons before the close of business today.”

“Don’t think this is the last you’re going to hear from me,” Voland warned as he turned his key in the ignition. The Bronco’s engine roared to life.

“No,” Joanna said. “I don’t suppose it is.” As soon as the heater fan caught hold, another cloud of rancid air blasted into Joanna’s face. “Are you sure you should be driving’?” she added. “It’s possible you’re still drunk.”

“I’m not drunk,” he insisted. “Besides, who’s going to stop me? You? I don’t think so.”

Voland rammed the Bronco into reverse and then stepped on the gas. Joanna had to sidestep out of the way in order to keep from being creamed by the outside mirror. He drove off, leaving Joanna in a cloud of dust.

Fleeing into the house, it was all she could do to press her door key into the lock. She dropped the letter on the dryer and then ran weeping through the house. She threw herself across the bed and buried her face in the covers. Joanna hadn’t cried that way for months. A wild fit of racking sobs came from deep inside her and shook her whole body. Her tears didn’t have their source in any one thing. It was everything: Dick Voland quitting. Eleanor bossing her around. Butch asking her if being sheriff was what she really wanted. Lewis Flores blowing his brains out right in front of her. And that was not all. There was also the fact that Joanna had lost her nerve and hadn’t actually told Jenny what was really going on with Butch. Now, thanks to Marliss Shackleford, everyone else in town already knew about it or soon would.

Eventually the combination of tears and exhaustion caught up with her. Joanna fell asleep. The next thing she knew, she and Butch were standing together at the altar of Canyon United Methodist Church. Butch, wearing a tuxedo, was grinning from ear to ear. Junior, standing beside him, was evidently best man, although the badge he wore in place of a boutonniere looked a little out of place on his tux.

Looking down, Joanna discovered that she, too, was dressed for the occasion. She was wearing her wedding dress-the same dress she had worn years earlier when she and Andy were married. Beside her, as maid of honor, stood Angie Kellogg, the ex-hooker Joanna and Marianne Maculyea had rescued from the clutches of a sadistic drug-enforcer. Living in Bisbee, Angie had achieved a certain kind of respectability, but in Joanna’s dream she had regressed. Standing in front of the church, the lushly voluptuous Angie looked anything but prim. One hip was cocked at a suggestive angle. She looked like a hustler standing on a street corner and waiting for her next trick to show up and make her an offer.

In front of them a smilingly oblivious Marianne Maculyea looked past the bridal party toward the rest of the congregation. “If anyone here present knows of any reason why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony,” Marianne in-toned, “let them speak now or forever hold their peace.”

Behind them, at the far end of the aisle, the church door slammed open. Joanna turned and looked back, but in her dream Canyon Methodist’s beautifully varnished mahogany doors had vanished. In their stead, separating the sanctuary from the entryway vestibule, was a shabby swinging door straight out of the Blue Moon Saloon and Lounge in Brewery Gulch, where Angie Kellogg now worked as relief bartender. And in front of the door, posing with his feet apart like some latter-day gun-slinging John Wayne, stood Dick Voland.

“I object,” Voland said. “I saw her first and that makes her mine. If anybody here disagrees with that, I’ll be happy to meet him outside and settle this man to man.”

That was all it took. Butch Dixon turned and strode down the aisle, leaving Joanna standing alone. “Come back,” she called after him. “This is stupid. Don’t do this.” But he just kept on walking. He didn’t even look back.

Joanna awakened with a start. One hand, trapped under her cheek, felt as though it were made of wood. As soon as she moved her weight off it, circulation began returning, sending a painful tingling all the way from her fingertips up to her elbow.

Turning over, Joanna glanced at the clock. It said one-thirty. That meant she had been out of it for over four hours. Her clothing was wrinkled. There was a wet spot on the bedspread where she had drooled in her sleep. She was thinking about getting up and maybe making herself something to eat when the phone rang.

“Mrs. Brady?” a voice asked.

That was strange. Joanna wasn’t used to being called Mrs. Brady any more. Most people addressed her as Sheriff. “Yes,” she said. “Who’s this?”

“Enid Sutton,” was the reply. “I’m the principal at Lowell School.”

Enid Sutton was new to Bisbee, but Joanna remembered meeting her once at a school open house. She hadn’t been particularly impressed one way or the other.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to come pick up your daughter,” Mrs. Sutton continued.

“What’s wrong? Is Jenny sick? Hurt?”

“She’s not hurt, but I am putting her on a three-day suspension.”

“Suspension!” Joanna gasped. “What on earth for?”

“For fighting, Mrs. Brady. I’ve tried to get to the bottom of it. She claims that some of the boys were teasing her at lunch. Apparently it was something about your upcoming marriage. I can certainly understand how a child might feel upset and threatened at having to deal with that sort of thing, but I’m sure you can see my position. We have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to violence on the school grounds. Jenny bloodied one boy’s nose and tore the other one’s shirt right off his back.”

Drowning in Enid Sutton’s words, Joanna closed her eyes and let the guilt wash over her. Once again she had failed her daughter. She had been so busy trying to save the world-trying to rescue people like Lewis Flores and Karen Brainard from their own foolishness-that she had left Jenny, her own precious daughter, vulnerable to attack from none other than the likes of Marliss Shackleford. It wasn’t at all a fair contest, and the awful realization of Joanna’s own culpability left her shaken.

How could I have done such a thing? she wondered. All it would have taken was a few minutes on her part-a few minutes and a few meager words of explanation to Jenny-and none of this would have happened. Jenny would be sitting in class at the end of her school day instead of being locked up in disgrace in the principal’s office.

How could I have been so cowardly and neglectful? Joanna demanded of herself. Instead of giving Jenny what she needed, Joanna had thrown her child to the wolves. It was unthinkable. Inexcusable. And totally unacceptable.

“I’ll be right over to get her,” a repentant Joanna Brady whispered into the phone. “Tell my daughter I’ll be right there.”