She waited for me to go on, her face sharpening.
“I called up Karsten Mabus and told him Wyatt had the goods from the Global Research break-in. It’s between Mabus and Dixon now,” I said. I felt my eyes shift off her face.
She was quiet a long time. Then she took a quart of milk out of the icebox and poured it into a glass, slowly, as though she couldn’t concentrate on what she was doing. “Do you want something to eat?” she said.
“No.”
“I didn’t stop at the grocery because I thought we might go out.”
“I’m not very hungry right now. We can go out, though, if you want.”
“It’s not important,” she said, looking out the window now at the wetness of the trees and the mist floating on the hillside. She picked up her glass of milk and drank from it. “So Dixon has become shark meat?”
“He can take care of himself,” I said.
“Right,” she said. She poured her milk down the drain.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“Not much. It’s our one-year anniversary. I have your present in the car. I’ll go get it,” she said.
A HALF HOUR LATER, I got a call from Francis Broussard at the FBI office. “Johnny American Horse walked out of St. Pat’s Hospital today. You happen to know anything about it?” he said.
I couldn’t assimilate his words. “He walked-”
“He used a paper clip to pick his handcuffs and went out the front door with some painters. We think one of his buddies from the res planted some workclothes in the restroom for him to change into. His wife was waiting for him across the street. The question is, how did he and his wife set it up and where did they go?”
“You think I had something to do with it?”
There was a pause. “No, but you’re a personal friend and you know things about American Horse other people don’t,” he replied.
“Was Amber allowed to visit him?”
“No.”
“How about his lawyer, Brendan Merwood?” I said.
“He was there twice.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?” I said.
Again the phone went silent, and I knew Broussard had already drawn conclusions that he didn’t want to admit, at least to me.
“The escape couldn’t have been set up without Merwood’s participation,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s a possibility, isn’t it? But why would an oilcan like Merwood risk his career, plus serious prison time, on a pro bono case?”
“How about he’s scared shitless?”
“I did some background on Mr. Merwood. He’s represented a couple of Karsten Mabus’s enterprises. Do you know where American Horse and his wife are hiding?”
“No, I don’t,” I said impatiently. “You’re telling me Merwood is setting them up to get whacked?”
“You said it, I didn’t.”
“What about the painters?”
“We have an Indian from the res in custody. But he’s D, D, and D, and I don’t think that’s going to change.”
“He’s what?” I said.
“It’s the Indian concept of a dialogue with federal agents. ‘Deaf, dumb, and don’t know.’ ”
“Pick up Merwood and lose the paperwork. Move him to a federal facility and let him spend a couple of days in the bridal suite with a few swinging dicks who dig rap music.”
“I can’t imagine why the A.G.’s office was happy to see you make a career change. Call me if you hear from American Horse,” he replied.
THE REVEREND ELTON T. SNEED was not a man for whom the world was a complex place. He believed in Jesus, the flag, the devil, sin, camp meetings, Wednesday night services, helping his neighbor, tithing, jailhouse ministries, the restorative power of baptism, the gift of tongues, and the exorcism of demonic spirits, some of whom he called by name. The heroes and villains of the Old Testament moved in and out of his rhetoric as though they were contemporary figures who lived in the community. Unlike many of his peers’, his sermons seldom touched on the subjects of sex or politics, primarily because he had no interest in them. For Elton T. Sneed, the critical issue for a preacher was the wrestling contest between Yahweh and Satan.
For Elton, a ministry meant the acquisition of power-the power to heal, to cast out unclean spirits, and to wash away original sin. Salvation didn’t come with catechism lessons, attendance at church, or even the daily practice of good deeds. It came like the sun crashing out of the sky, crushing a person to the earth. “If you don’t believe me, ask St. Paul what happened on the road to Damascus,” Elton was fond of saying.
When Elton brought salvation to the willing, it was in the form of an exorcism that left them dripping with sweat and fear, or, if he baptized them, he pushed them under so many times they thought they were about to drown or had been mistaken for dirty laundry.
The problem for Elton was not his belief system but the consequences of it. If redemption and forgiveness of sin came with baptism, or if indeed the Holy Spirit descended through the top of the tent and entered the human breast, how could a Christian shun or turn away from a brother or sister whom Jesus had chosen to save?
Sometimes Elton’s jailhouse converts seemed to be a bit shaky in their beliefs after they made parole. They showed up at the parsonage door, asking for money, perhaps smelling of marijuana, a couple of women in the car, their faces averted. In these instances Elton usually gave them money, provided he had any, then would be filled with depression, a sense of personal failure, and a question mark about the worth of his ministry.
But he consoled himself with the changes he had witnessed in Wyatt Dixon, even though some of Wyatt’s friends were a challenge to Elton’s attempts at unconditional charity. His church and his larder remained opened to the worst of the worst. Who was he to judge? If he’d been dealt the lot of these poor souls, he would have probably turned out as corrupt and profligate as they, he told himself.
Look at the two men who had just pulled their pickup truck into his yard. The evening light was weak, the western sun veiled by smoke from dead fires, but Elton could see the faces of the two men getting out of the truck, and he wondered if both of them had been in a terrible accident or malformed in the womb.
The shorter man had a gnarled forehead, like the corrugation in a washboard, a squashed nose, and missing teeth. His eyes were set too low in his face and his upper torso was too long for his short legs, so that he gave the impression of a walking tree stump.
His friend was tall, with the flaccid muscle tone of a gorged serpent, a disfigured mouth that looked as if it had been broken with a hard instrument, and a hairline-to-cheek burn scar that had tightened the skin on one eye into a tiny aperture, as though he were permanently squinting.
Elton stepped outside the door of the parsonage, which was actually a house trailer enclosed in a wood shell, and nodded at the two visitors walking up the incline toward him. The air was damp from the rain and smelled of smoke and river stone and wet trees, and he thought he heard geese honking high overhead.
“Hep you boys?” he said. There was grease on his hands from his dinner, and he wiped his hands on a paper towel.
“Looking for work. Man at the State Employment said you might get us on bucking bales here’bouts,” the tall man said, his eyes going past Elton into the backyard.
“Haying is all done by machine today. Don’t many buck bales no more,” Elton said.
“We’re not choicy,” the tall man said. “Haven’t ate for a day or so.”
The two visitors stared at Elton, as though their problems had not only become his but somehow had originated with him. Elton put the paper towel in his pocket self-consciously. “I expect I could fix you something,” he said. “But it looks like y’all need a job more than anything else.” He tried to grin, and his face felt stiff and self-mocking.
“Nice of you to invite us in,” the shorter man said, walking past Elton into his home. His friend followed him, passing inches from Elton’s chest, the burned area on his face puckered like dried-out putty.