The Scent of Rain and Lightning

2

September 2, 1986

SOME PEOPLE SAID that the murder of Jody’s dad flared from a single nasty, isolated incident that escalated to worse, and then even worse, and then to the unimaginable. Nobody could have predicted it, they said. But other people claimed the trouble was a long time brewing and that Jody’s grandfather ought to have known better all along, that he’d been asking for trouble, if the hard truth be told. This was what came from trying to change people who didn’t want to change, they said. But Hugh Linder Senior would be Hugh Linder Senior, they also said-a good man, smart, honest, and tough, but maybe a touch too sure of himself where a little humility might have shifted the tragic course of things.

Whichever theory was true-single spark of fury or long-simmering burn of resentment-everybody agreed the final bloody act was set in motion on the fateful day when the rancher came walking around a cattle pen filled with jostling animals and caught Billy Crosby going nuts with rage at a cow.

It was Tuesday, in the early afternoon.

High Rock Ranch was sending cattle through the metal pens by the highway, separating six-month-old calves from their mothers and giving the calves weaning shots to protect them from getting sick during the stressful process of leaving their mothers on this day and then being trucked to feed lots at a later date. The adult cows-pregnant again-were being reinoculated against the bovine disease known as blackleg.

The cow in question was a big rangy old girl, experienced in the routine of cowboys, and so you’d think she would have known better. She’d been a dependable breeder and good mama for years, but she might have gotten a little senile in that long, hard head of hers. It happened to cows as well as to people. On that day, she wouldn’t move along, kept turning in the wrong direction, stalling the progress of a bunch of cattle toward a bend in the circular pen. She was bawling for her calf, her eyes rolling wildly, foam spewing from her mouth. The temperature of that September afternoon in 1986 was roasting man and beast as if they were all tied to spits over a Labor Day barbecue pit; both species were overheated, unhappy, angry at each other. The smell of fresh manure and cow bodies filled the dry air with an animal humidity. The noise of the cattle’s hooves on the dirt, the bawling of calves for their mothers, the yells of the men trying to control them, created a thunder of its own on a rainless day.

“Move, you son of a bitch!”

Hugh Senior saw his part-time cowboy poke the cow repeatedly in her side with an electric prod. Billy was one of the rancher’s “projects,” one of the local boys he had put to work on the ranch over the years, because he believed there was nothing like hard work with animals and machinery to straighten out a path that looked as if it was taking a crooked turn.

Billy had proved to be a tougher “save” than the boys preceding him.

Maybe it was because both of his parents were drunks, and not just one of them, as had been the case with a couple of the other kids who turned out pretty well after Hugh and Annabelle Linder got hold of them. Maybe it was because Billy wasn’t the brightest young bull in the herd, or because he had a temper with a trigger so sensitive a speck of dust could set it off. Whatever the cause, the result was that Hugh Linder’s regimen of sweat-labor wasn’t having much effect, in the opinion of the locals. Hadn’t Billy just lost his license again, after his second drunk driving conviction? Didn’t his poor little wife look bruised across her jaw the other day? Wasn’t their little boy more serious and careful than a seven-year-old should be? And wasn’t Billy Crosby drinking just as much, acting as belligerent as ever, chasing after women, and running his dirty mouth off where he shouldn’t? The Linders should have given up on him long ago, people said; anybody else would have thrown up their hands by now, that was for sure.

Hugh Senior saw that the old cow couldn’t possibly respond to Billy’s wishes.

She had gotten herself trapped in the wrong direction. But Billy kept stabbing at her with the prod. It was clear to the rancher that the cowboy had boiled over and was taking it out on the confused, frightened animal. Hugh yelled, but couldn’t be heard over the other noise. He picked up his pace, rushing toward Billy, but not in time before the cowboy climbed the rungs of the metal pen, threw his legs over so he was seated atop of it, and aimed a vicious kick straight at the head of the cow. The heel of his cowboy boot hit her left eye. Even as big as the cow was, the blow staggered her. Her head jerked sideways. Her knees buckled and she stumbled into the side of another cow, then righted herself, shaking her head and bellowing louder than ever. A ruckus broke out in the tight space where she had the other cattle trapped around her.

Billy pulled back his heel to kick her again.

His lips pulled back over his teeth, his eyes bugged with fury.

Hugh Senior grabbed the young man’s shirt and jerked him backward so he tumbled in a twisting fall off the top of the fence, landing hard at the rancher’s feet, sideways, eating dust.

“Go cool off, Billy.” Hugh Senior pointed back toward headquarters.

The rancher’s voice was loud, gravelly, no-nonsense.

“Why’d you do that, Mr. Linder?” The hired hand grabbed one shoulder and winced as he struggled to his feet. The twenty-four-year-old and the fifty-four-year-old stood eye to eye, reminding more than one of the witnesses of a young and old bull challenging each other in a pasture. Nobody could hear what they were saying because of the noise of the cattle, but the body language was clear enough. Even though Billy was six feet tall, the older man had four inches on him, along with a bigger, more muscular frame. The rancher had the light hair and blue eyes of his German forebears; Billy had a dark, sharp-featured resemblance to his own father, whose good looks had long ago dissolved in beer and whiskey. “I didn’t do nothin’!” he protested.

“You were abusing one of my animals, Billy.”

The rancher’s voice rang sharp with disapproval.

“Damned cow’s gonna die anyway!”

Contempt joined disapproval in Hugh Senior’s response to that despicable defense. “Doesn’t mean you get to torture her along the way.”

“Ain’t fair!” Billy whined. “I seen other men do it.”

“If I ever see that, I’ll stop them, too. Maybe you ought to just go on home now, Billy.”

The words were a suggestion, but the tone was commanding.

“How am I supposed to get home when I don’t even have a truck?”

As usual, Billy didn’t know when to shut up.

Hugh Senior lost what patience he had on that irritating day and ordered, “Step away from my pens, Billy. Now. Go get yourself something cool to drink. Stick your hot head in it while you’re at it. You can wait in the barn for Hugh-Jay to come get you and give you a ride home. And don’t be bothering Mrs. Linder up at the house.”

“I need a drink, all right,” Billy mumbled.

“That’s the last thing you need,” the rancher snapped back, knowing he meant alcohol.

Wiping dirt from his face, Billy limped away, observed by the disgusted rancher and the other men working the cattle that day. All of Hugh’s sons were there, Hugh-Jay, Chase, and Bobby, along with neighbors, a veterinarian, and a couple of other part-time hired hands. A few glances were exchanged among them, but only Chase said anything. “Good riddance,” he summed up for every man there.

That was all there was to it, all of them testified later.

It was nothing, and it was everything.

TWO HOURS LATER Hugh-Jay Linder drove Billy Crosby back to Rose, where they both lived with their wives and only children. At the last minute Chase hopped into the backseat of Hugh-Jay’s silver Ford pickup truck to ride along. It was three miles from ranch entrance to town limit, all of it along two-lane county blacktop. The pastures of their own High Rock Ranch spread out on either side of the road for the first two miles, followed then by a cemetery on one side and a ranch with a bison herd to the right, before scattered houses began to appear on the outskirts of Rose.

“What the hell’s eating your dad?” Billy said to the brothers, right off.

It was four-thirty and hotter than ever, although there was a forecast of rain for tomorrow. It was so hot in the truck that Hugh-Jay drove with his work gloves on the steering wheel to keep from burning his hands. It was too hot for the air-conditioning to kick in before they reached town, so he had the windows rolled down while the AC worked its way up to tepid. He cranked its fan up high, so that between that noise and the sound of the tires, and the hot wind whipping in through the windows, the three of them had to raise their voices to hear one another. From their faces to the back of their necks and on down their clothing, they were filthy from the cattle work. Their boots and their jeans stank of cow shit, a smell they barely noticed after a lifetime of breathing it.

“You are,” Chase joked from the backseat. “You’re eating him.”

They’d all gone through the county schools together. Billy had dropped out of high school on his third stab at a junior year, the same year Belle Linder was a senior, Chase was a sophomore, Bobby was still in middle school, and Hugh-Jay was at Kansas State University.

Keeping his gaze on the two-lane county highway ahead of them, Hugh-Jay said more seriously, “I think you know, Billy.”

Billy looked mulish upon hearing that. “I don’t know!” He reached under the seat and a beer can magically appeared in his hand when he sat up again.

“Where’d that come from?” Hugh-Jay asked, glancing over.

“Do you have another one?” Chase stuck in.

Billy smirked. “Brought it with me.”

Hugh-Jay had given him a ride out to the ranch for the day’s work.

Billy popped the top. The smell of beer filled the cab of the truck.

“How can you drink that hot stuff?” Hugh-Jay asked him.

Billy took a drink, then wiped off his mouth with his filthy shirtsleeve and shrugged. “A beer’s a beer, right, Chase?”

In the backseat, too hot to talk anymore, Chase didn’t answer.

“Dad said you mistreated an animal,” Hugh-Jay continued, refusing to be sidetracked. “You know how he feels about that.”

“It was a cow, for Christ’s sake, Jay. A fucking cow. She was jamming up the pen. Nobody could get past her, somebody had to get her to move. All I did was give her a couple of pokes and a kick. You never kicked a cow?” He turned around toward the back. “You never did, Chase?”

“Not like you.” Chase lolled his head back on the seat and stared at the ceiling.

“I didn’t hurt her none! She was just a cow.”

“And not your wife, you mean,” Chase drawled loudly, still staring up.

There was an instant’s loaded silence, and then Billy yelled, “What?” This time he turned all the way around to face the brother in the backseat. “What’d you say, Chase?”

Hugh-Jay shot his younger brother a glance in the rearview mirror.

Chase kept staring at the ceiling of the truck. “I happen to know the sheriff’s been out to see you a couple of times, because some people think you’ve been hurting your wife. You use a cattle prod on Val, too, Billy?”

“Screw you, Chase Linder. You people are unbelievable! I never hurt Val!”

At the wheel, Hugh-Jay said nothing, but his hands tightened on it.

“I never,” Billy muttered, before he chugged at his warm beer.

They covered several hundred yards in silence.

Hugh-Jay finally spoke. “You might want to apologize to Dad.”

“For what? I told you, I didn’t do nothin’!”

“You might want to work at our ranch again.”

Billy threw him an incredulous look. “Your dad’s not gonna kick me off for that.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure. That kind of thing’s important to him.”

“Fuckin’ cow.”

“You know he doesn’t like that kind of language.”

Billy muttered the offending word under his breath.

They drove in silence then, until Billy suddenly flung his beer can out his window, aiming at a bison bull as they drove past the herd. The can didn’t go five feet, and fell into a culvert.

Hugh-Jay braked the truck so fast that Billy jolted forward, putting out his hands to keep from flying into the dashboard, since he didn’t have his seat belt on. In the backseat, Chase nearly slid off the seat. “What the hell?” Billy exclaimed. He and Chase were flung back into their seats again when Hugh-Jay threw the truck into reverse and gunned it.

He made a hard stop again and turned toward his surprised passengers.

“Get out and pick it up, Billy.”

“What?”

“Pick up the beer can, Billy. What’s wrong with you that you’d do that?”

“What is wrong with you people that you care about shit like that?”

“Pick it up or I’ll pull you out and leave you on the side of this road.”

Billy flung open the door, got out, picked up the can, and threw it so hard into the open bed of the truck in back that when it hit the metal it sounded like gunfire that turned into machine-gun fire as it rattled around. When he got back in, slamming the door behind him, Hugh-Jay asked him, “Was that can empty?”

“You think I’d throw a beer away?”

Billy sulked in the passenger’s seat for the remainder of the drive.

Chase eyed the backs of both of their heads and then closed his eyes.

As the speed limit dropped on the approach to Rose, Hugh-Jay slowed to twenty miles an hour. They rolled past grain elevators, a convenience store, a Pizza Hut, a Chinese restaurant, an abandoned train station, and the Leafy Green Truck Stop with its attached café. He turned right onto Main Street, which took them down a four-lane corridor of modest frame and brick homes and then through the three-block downtown with its sprinkling of small enterprises. They passed Rose’s three-room public library, the two-room City Hall, the senior citizen center, an art gallery that was open only by appointment, the former bank where Hugh-Jay and Chase’s sister Belle were creating a history museum, and Bailey’s Bar & Grill, which was a tavern and the only place in town where a person could get served a decent steak, along with a beer or mixed drinks. As they passed other vehicles on the street, Hugh-Jay raised a gloved hand to greet their drivers, who performed the same friendly courtesy to him. His own home would have taken him north onto a block of big houses, but he turned south to get to Billy’s poorer neighborhood, where it sometimes seemed as if there were more old cars in the front yards than grass.

When Hugh-Jay parked in front of the small white house where Billy lived with Valentine and their son, he said, “You want cash for today?”

“Yeah.” Billy’s tone was sullen.

Hugh-Jay pulled out his wallet and counted out enough bills to equal the hourly minimum wage. Ordinarily, and without anybody in the family knowing, he would have added an extra ten, but on this day he didn’t do it. He handed the cash to Billy, who took it with an angry, disappointed grab, and said, “You think I’m ever going to see any more of this, Hugh-Jay?”

“I don’t know. Whatever you did, maybe you won’t do it again.”

Billy threw himself out of the truck, slammed the door, and yelled through the open window, “Didn’t fuckin’ do nothing wrong the first time!” Then he grabbed the rim of the open window, glared into the backseat and said, “Don’t think I’m going to forget what you said, Chase.”

Chase opened his eyes halfway. “You’re not supposed to forget it.”

As the brothers drove off, Hugh-Jay said, “Why’d you say that to him?”

“About beating Val? ’Cause it’s true.”

“You know that for sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“I don’t think pretty sure is good enough for an accusation like that.”

“Well, that’s your problem.”

Hugh-Jay glanced back, surprised at the acid in Chase’s tone. Instead of pursuing it, however, he said, “Do you think Dad overreacted today?”

“No. I think he ought to have stopped hiring Billy a long time ago.”

Hugh-Jay nodded. “You want to ride up here?”

“This is okay. We’re not going far, are we?”

Hugh-Jay sighed. “I guess you think you’re having supper with Laurie and me?”

Chase, who had a talent for instantly recapturing his own natural good humor any time he lost it, grinned at him in the mirror. “Doesn’t Laurie Jo always set an extra place for me, just in case I show up?” Chase and Bobby Linder ate at their brother and sister-in-law’s home so often they both kept changes of clothing there, for cleaning up when they came in covered with horse hair and dirt. Suddenly, Chase turned uncharacteristically serious again. “You don’t think Billy will take this out on Val or his kid, do you?”

It took Hugh-Jay half a block to think about it.

Then he turned the truck around and drove back.

“Let’s make sure,” he said.