Chapter Twenty
Step into a crowd of people, and sometimes it takes a few seconds to sort out who’s who-and who’s doing what to whom. This time, it was easy.
Even from across the open spaces of what passed for a front yard, I could see Miles Waddell’s red hair. He, Mark Denton, and Ed Johns were standing by the front of Miles’ new truck. I pulled in immediately behind them, missing the back bumper by a hair breadth, and Johns turned slightly to see who had arrived. The others were riveted on the action and could have cared less.
In this case, the action was Herb Torrance and his son Dale…and one of their blue healer pups. Two dozen steps away from the three men, Dale was backed up against the side of the mobile home, pegged there by a father whose face was livid. The dog was frantic, darting this way and that, yapping his fool head off, unsure whether to leap into Herb’s arms, jump on Dale, or bite them both.
I got out of the car just in time to see Herb come up with his right hand, hard. The blow took Dale on the face, a crack that I could hear across the yard. The kid’s head snapped around and for a moment he lost his balance. His right hand swung out against the side of the trailer for support as his feet flailed, one of his boots catching the dog in the face. At the same time Herb’s hand flashed again, and this time Dale sprawled against the trailer’s skirting.
Waddell leaned against the grille of his truck, his arms folded in satisfaction over his chest. He glanced at me as I rounded the side of their truck, and then nodded at Cliff Larson.
“I thought I told you to stay away from here,” I snapped, and Waddell shrugged.
“You took your own fair time getting here,” he said. “And hell, we’re just watchin’.”
As I advanced on Herb and his son, I couldn’t hear what the older man was saying, even if the dog hadn’t been hysterical. It was no yelling match. Herb bent down and grabbed Dale by the shoulder, their faces no more than an inch apart, Herb’s voice a hoarse croak.
“Just hold on there,” I bellowed as I approached. Two strides separated me from Herb’s back when Dale’s foot lashed out and caught his father on the ankle. At the same time, the boy twisted, taking advantage of his father’s loss of balance. Using both hands and feet, Dale scrambled wildly out of his father’s grip. He flailed wildly for traction even as Herb slammed his hand against the trailer to stop his fall.
“Dale!” I shouted, but the boy was a human jackrabbit. He’d gotten his feet under him and sprinted along the side of the trailer, Father in pursuit, blue healer dancing around them. Lame as Herb was from years of winter knees and livestock kicks, he managed a credibly fast sideways lope, his left leg dragging stiffly.
“Eeee haw,” Waddell cried with delight.
I heard Bob Torrez’s vehicle pull in behind mine. If there was chasing to be done, better someone sure of step, fleet of foot, and strong of heart. Waddell and his buddies weren’t about to help, and Cliff Larson would cough himself to death before he ran twenty feet.
For whatever reason, Dale Torrance headed toward the paddock area and the complex of loading chutes. What good that was going to do him wasn’t clear, other than to put some railroad ties between him and his father. Just when he had his father beat in their foot race, something caught the toe of his left boot and he went flying, crashing into the bottom two-by-six face first. The rough wood caught him across the mouth. It must have hurt like hell if he’d been in the mood to notice. But his father was bearing down on him.
Herb slowed enough to scoop up a length of splintered fencing, a chunk of wood about four feet long and maybe two inches square-about twice the size of a broom handle. The dog made a grab for the other end and missed.
Within range of the boy, Herb let fly and I could hear the wood sing. Dale had scrambled to all fours, blood streaming from his mouth. The swat caught him solidly on the rump, a hard whack that raised dust from the seat of his pants.
“Sir?”
I turned and saw Tom Pasquale at my elbow. A few yards away, the undersheriff was moseying toward us, in no hurry. Years before, I had heard him tell another deputy that the best way to survive a career of being called to break up nasty bar fights was to “arrive late and arrest the loser.” As sound advice as that might have been, it wasn’t Pasquale’s style.
I held up a hand. “If he starts hitting him in the head,” I said. “Otherwise, they’re having a little family discussion on family property.”
Herb made pretty fair use of that chunk of board, driving his son across the small corral that fed the loading chute. He connected two or three times, and by the second time, the healer decided that if Herb was hitting the kid, it was okay to bite him, too. On the other side of the corral, the dog got a mouthful of jeans just above the boot, and that put Dale off balance. The kid took the opportunity to roll under the fence, dog still tussling.
The seven of us had gravitated toward the corral, and if the fight went on much longer, we’d look like seven spectators at a rodeo. All we needed was to hike boots up on the bottom rail, nestle our elbows on the top, and chew idly on a wisp of straw, observing the action, making sage commentary, and placing side bets on the winner.
Herb was running out of breath, and when Dale went under the fence, the older man hesitated, bent at the waist, heaving and puffing. His face was blotchy, and if he kept it up, somebody was going to be practicing CPR.
Dale, under the fence and with the dog deciding they were playing after all, hesitated long enough to suck in three lungfuls of dust and air. He staggered to his feet and once more set off running, this time around the back of the trailer.
Herb remained rooted, his hands on his knees. He looked over at me and shook his head in disgust.
“You better go after him,” I said to Pasquale, and the young deputy took off like a shot. Dale Torrance had the head start he needed, and he was on familiar territory. He cut around the mobile home and emerged at the other end, in the clear. Two more strides brought him to the door of his truck, and he snatched it open and dove inside.
The diesel lit on the first crank. He pulled it into gear just as Pasquale dashed around the end of the trailer. The old Dodge surged backward in a cloud of dust and exhaust. The back bumper was one of those stout black creations that ranchers weld up out of scrap iron-sharp corners and edges. The bumper slammed into the left front fender of Miles Waddell’s fancy truck, driving the shiny bodywork in until chrome, steel, and plastic molded themselves around the tire and suspension.
The sound of the crash hadn’t died away when the back tires spun another dust storm as Dale surged his truck forward. I saw and heard Tom Pasquale’s hand smack down on the hood, but the deputy could see what none of the rest of us could. He had a straight-on view of the kid’s face. He made the right decision and jumped sideways, the front tire of the Dodge narrowly missing his foot.
“Goddamn,” Waddell said, groping for something intelligent to say. “He backed into my truck.”
“Well, now,” the livestock inspector added. The dual rear tires spewed fountains of dust and gravel as Dale Torrance floored the accelerator, feeding that turbo-diesel for all it was worth. The Dodge spun half a donut and careened through a small knot of juniper sprouts, jouncing airborne as it crashed over the old parent stump.
Undersheriff Torrez had kicked himself into motion, and he sprinted to the idling unit parked behind mine. The Torrance boy drove a beeline for the gate, and Torrez spun the Expedition in its own length, avoiding my car as he did so. He paused just long enough for Deputy Pasquale to grab the door and yank it open.
“Where do you suppose he’s headed?” Mark Denton mused.