“Either that, or the guilty man and a friend. Joe Hanratty and Tom Spears, for instance.”
“Why them?”
He told her about his run-in with the two cowhands. “The pickup they were using was a green Ford. Spears’s truck? He was driving.”
“Yeah. But Joe drives a Blazer, not a white pickup with a busted antenna. I wish I could tell you who belongs to that truck but I can’t. Lot of white pickups in this county.” She paused. “John T., Hanratty, Spears — they can all be hardasses. But cold-blooded killers? I don’t see it.”
“You saw it in Anna. You still do.”
No response. Dacy withdrew a cigarette from the pack in her shirt pocket, put it between her lips. Almost immediately she yanked it away and crumbled paper and tobacco between her fingers. “Fucking cancer sticks,” she said.
Messenger said, “People snap sometimes — we both know that. You can’t tell what somebody might do if he’s pushed far enough.”
“That goes for my sister, too.”
“Yes, but the point is, it goes for everybody. I don’t even know my own limits. Do you know yours?”
“Up to a point. After that... maybe not.”
“Dacy, isn’t there any doubt in your mind about Anna’s guilt? Even a shred?”
“Sure, a shred. You think I want to believe she killed my niece? But I tore myself up denying it at first, and I’m not going through all that again without proof. Show me some proof, Jim, any kind. Then I’ll fight like hell to clear her name.”
“I can’t find proof without help, your help. Give it to me and in exchange I’ll help you, if you’re willing to take a chance.”
“What’re you talking about? Chance on what?”
“Having me around for a while. Giving me a job.”
Dacy stared at him the way Espinosa had last night. “A job? Doing what?”
“Whatever Jaime Orozco used to do here. Whatever you want me to do — chores, scut work, anything.”
“I can’t afford a hired hand—”
“You don’t have to pay me,” Messenger said. “I’ll work for room and board. Sleep in the trailer outside; I’ve had enough of that motel in town.”
“You’re serious,” she said, as if she still couldn’t quite believe it.
“I’ve never been more serious.”
“And just how am I supposed to help you?”
“Not only me — you and Lonnie, too, if I’m right about Anna. You know the people involved, things about them I couldn’t find out on my own. If we put our heads together, there’s a chance we could come up with some fact or angle that’s been overlooked. That’s one possibility. Another is that my moving in here might force the real murderer’s hand.”
“Force it how?”
“It’s bound to shake him up, because it says I can’t be frightened off, I’m determined to settle in and keep digging for the truth. If he’s worried enough he might just make a mistake, do something desperate.”
“Like trying to kill you, is that it? You want to set yourself up as a target.”
“Not exactly. I’m not going to fall for any more tricks and I won’t get into a position where I can be caught unawares.”
“Famous last words.” Then she said, “But you’d be all right as long as you were on my land. Nobody’d dare come after you here.”
“Are you sure? The one reservation I have is that my moving in might put you and Lonnie in danger.”
“Shit, that’s not a worry. I know how to take care of myself and my son. You’ve seen what I can do with a rifle, Jim. Lonnie’s an even better shot than I am.” Her gaze now was speculative. “You really think this could lead where you want it to — prove somebody else killed Dave and Tess? I mean prove it.”
“I think it’s the only way either of us is likely to have a chance of proving it. All I’m asking for is ten days. What’s left of my vacation. If something hasn’t broken by then, I’ll go back to San Francisco and you’ll never see or hear from me again.”
“Ten days, huh? You ever work on a ranch?”
“No, but I take orders and I’m a fast learner.”
“Know anything about cattle? Horses?”
“A little about horses. I used to ride when I was a kid.”
“When you walked in here, what was I doing to Red?”
“I don’t know. What were you doing?”
“Putting on Cut-Heal medicine. He’s got a cut on his right fetlock.” She sighed, reached out distractedly to stroke the sorrel’s flank. “God knows,” she said at length, “there’s plenty of work that needs doing around this place, and most of it doesn’t require an expert hand. Hard work, dirty work. That kind bother you?”
“It never has.”
“You’d do as you’re told, no backsass?”
“No backsass.”
“I’ll have to talk to Lonnie. He’s got as much say as I have.”
“Of course.”
“Okay. While I’m doing that, you lead Red here outside and turn him loose in the corral. You can do that, can’t you? And take off his halter first?”
“Consider it done. And Dacy — thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” she said. “When you’re finished wait by the corral gate.”
He had no trouble with the sorrel. It plodded along docilely enough after him, stood still while he opened the corral gate and again while he unhooked the halter, and then trotted off to join the other two horses. He took the halter into the stable and hung it up. Then he went back out to wait.
Dacy was gone ten minutes. When she reappeared she had Lonnie with her. Without preamble she asked, “How soon would you want to start?”
“Any time,” Messenger said. “Right now.”
“Nothing you want to go and do first?”
“No. Am I hired?”
“You’re hired. Temporarily, anyhow. Lonnie, take him into the barn and show him where we keep the shovels and brooms.”
He spent the rest of the morning and half the noon hour cleaning the barn and the stable. It was hot, dirty work — shoveling manure, sweeping out stalls and floors, forking hay so dry the air swam with its chaff. At first the heat and exertion made his head pound furiously, built a thin churn of nausea under his breastbone. But hurt and discomfort were old acquaintances from his time as an endurance runner; he’d learned how to use them back then, how to channel negative feelings into positive energy — an old trick that every long-distance runner picks up and adapts. Once he applied it to his clean-up work, he began to feel better, to gain stamina. By the time Lonnie came to call him to lunch, he was nearly finished and even feeling a little of the exercise high you get from marathon running.
Lunch was tacos and a bowl of thick bean soup; he wolfed down his portion. Dacy said approvingly, “Looks like hard work may just agree with you, Jim.”
“Well, I’ve never shied away from it.”
“See if you feel the same in two or three days.”
“Planning to work me like a mule?”
Her grin had a wry bend in it. “Why not? You’re strong enough and sure as hell stubborn enough.”
After he was done at the stable, she set him to digging a new irrigation ditch for the vegetable garden. And when he’d taken care of that she told him to give Lonnie a hand repairing the broken blade on the windmill. He thought that might present an opportunity to draw the boy out a little, see if he could get an idea of what Lonnie knew and was hiding — another reason he’d wanted the job here. But the opportunity wasn’t there. The platform was too narrow for more than one of them at a time; his job was to stay below, fetch materials as they were needed, and send items up to Lonnie by rope.
The workday ended at five o’clock. He was stiff and sore, and there were blisters on his hands along with last night’s abrasions, but his headache was gone and he wasn’t as tired as he’d expected to be. Internally he felt fine — buoyed by a sense of having accomplished something worthwhile, of finally making progress. He washed up at the pump near the well, was drying his hands on a rough towel when Lonnie joined him.