I spoke with a little more authority this time. “Ozzie.”
He stopped and glanced at his mother again, finally resting his eyes on his vehicle’s dash. Mrs. Dobbs moved a little past the profile of her son and looked at me imploringly. “I apologize, Sheriff. Ozzie Junior’s had a trying day, and I’m afraid his nerves are on end.”
I allowed a commensurate amount of silence to pass. “That’s fine, Mrs. Dobbs.” I studied the side of her son’s face, but I think he was embarrassed to look up. I stepped back, calling for Dog to accompany me. “I’ll say something to Geo, Ozzie.”
His mother, unwilling to leave things unsettled and impolite, leaned across and called out to me. “How is your daughter, Sheriff?”
I smiled and raised my voice to be heard over the diesel. “Cady’s fine, ma’am.”
“Still with the law firm in Philadelphia?”
“Yes, Mrs. Dobbs.”
“Betty, please. Are we going to see you at the Redhills Rancho Arroyo Survival Invitational this weekend?”
As a reputable and highly visible member of the community, I received an invitation to the goofy golf tournament every year, but since I wasn’t even a fair-weather golfer, I always ignored it. The Redhills Rancho Arroyo Survival Invitational was one of those midwinter golf tournaments where they played in parkas with optical orange golf balls, white not being a winter color for golf. “I’d love to attend, but I don’t golf, Betty.”
“Yes, but that lovely friend of yours does.” She smiled. “The Native American fellow?”
“Henry Standing Bear, he’s Cheyenne.” Even women in their eighties smiled at the thought of Henry; it was, as always, annoying. “He’s at my jail right now.”
Her forehead furrowed. “Oh, no.”
“Nothing professional; the pipes in both his house and where he works froze, so he needed a place to stay.”
“Doesn’t he golf?”
“Yes ma’am, he’s a scratch player.” I shrugged. “He’s good at everything.”
“He broke your nose, as I recall.”
“Eighth grade, at the water fountain.”
“Didn’t he go on to college?”
“Yes, ma’am—Berkeley.”
She nodded in remembrance. “I don’t suppose you could convince him to play? The benefits from this year’s tournament are going to the American Indian College Fund, and it would be wonderful if we could have a Native American participate.”
I waved, trying to indicate that the conversation was ending. “Well, when I get back to the office I’ll mention it to him.”
She continued to smile, but Ozzie pressed the button for the window. Mrs. Dobbs sat back as he put the truck in reverse, and I saw that Saizarbitoria and Geo were walking side-by-side down the inner road, the Basquo still holding the cooler under his arm, his hat now functioning as a makeshift mask.
About fifty yards away, Geo said something to my deputy, and they parted company—Sancho toward me, and the dump man, still holding the rifle, toward the scales.
I leaned against the grille guard on my truck and watched the young man approach with a slight hitch in his step and a general attitude of dissatisfaction. He reminded me of me.
He pulled up about two steps away and lodged the web of his thumb over the butt of the seventeen-shot Beretta at his hip. “All right, I set a preliminary grid with the twine, but I gotta tell you that in my learned opinion the thumb arrived in the cooler and we have nothing to gain by digging up the surrounding area.”
I crossed my arms and nodded. “You don’t think we’re going to find the rest of him out there, huh?”
“No, and Mr. Stewart says there hasn’t been anything disturbed in that area for a couple of weeks now and given the fragile nature of the container . . .” He squeezed the cooler till it squeaked. “I’d say it’s a new arrival.” He studied me. “Is digging up the entire dump in the freezing cold for the next two weeks going to be my punishment for leaving?”
I ignored him and asked another question. “You gonna check the permits for the weekend?”
“Yeah. The place is closed on Sundays, so it had to arrive either late Friday or Saturday.”
“Well, get the paperwork from Geo, and we’ll . . .”
I was interrupted by a series of shouts coming from the direction of the scales. I turned in time to see the scarecrow figure of Geo Stewart with the .22 rifle held at port arms standing on the scales in front of Ozzie Jr.’s truck. The developer gunned the engine on the vehicle to impress his intentions upon the dump man, even going so far as to lurch the one-ton forward so that the chrome grille guard was almost touching him. Butch and Sundance were leaping in the air in an attempt to gain enough purchase to burst through the office Plexiglas.
I held up a finger to the Basquo. “Just a second—I’ll be back in a minute.” I hustled across the broken ground, raised a hand, and shouted. “Hold on, hold on!”
I guess they couldn’t hear me—or maybe it was that they just didn’t want to—but Geo didn’t retreat, and I could see his mouth moving in response to what looked like Ozzie’s spitting tirade. I was about thirty yards away when the truck lurched again, and the junkman was thrown backward.
Geo hit the railroad-tie ramp with a liquid thump, and his head cracked against the hard surface of the creosote-soaked wood, the rifle falling to the side with the ch-kow sound that indicated it had gone off. At its discharge, the truck stopped but, as near as I could tell, it was still in gear.
“Put that thing in park!”
I scrambled forward—Dog was beside me now and was barking. I could see where the round had glanced off the windshield, cracking the glass and shearing a deep groove through the trim and the front of the cab.
I placed a hand on the elevated sill of the driver’s window, reached in through the narrow opening, turned off the motor, and snatched the keys from the ignition. “Are you two all right?”
Ozzie didn’t move, but his mother, pale and breathless, replied, “We’re fine, but what about George?”
I slipped from the door and moved to the front of the truck where Geo was stretching his neck to one side as he lay there on the ramp. He was feeling the back of his head. I kneeled down and supported him, and his hat fell back, exposing the waxy, pure white skin where the sun had never touched him. “Are you okay?”
He closed his eyes and then stretched them open, alternately flexing his jaw.
“Geo, are you all right?”
“Whoo-eeha.” He moved his mouth, with the fog from his breath condensing in the frigid air, and then drew a hand up to swipe the saliva from the corner of his mouth before it froze. “I didn’t shoot nobody, did I?”
I smiled down at him. “Just the truck, but I think it’ll make it.” We both chuckled. Dog was standing by the scales and barking at the wolf mutts that were now taking turns jumping against the window. I did a little barking of my own. “Enough!” He quieted down, and my eyes drifted past to Saizarbitoria, who stood with the cooler and evidence kit at his feet where he’d dropped them.
His sidearm was drawn and, even from this distance, I could see his hands shaking. I watched him until he became aware of me; he half-turned, lowering the Beretta.
Betty Dobbs was out of the truck and now crouched beside the shaken junkman, who looked up at her and smiled brilliantly from beneath the dirt and whiskers. “Are you all right? I didn’t shoot you, did I?”
She laughed and shook her head at him.
I cleared my throat and started to stand. “Betty, could you keep an eye on him for just a second?” She smoothed his hair back, and I figured George was in better hands. “I’ll be right back.”
As I stood, I became aware that Ozzie Dobbs Jr. had tried to open his truck door, but that the railing on the scale had him penned. “Did you see that? That crazy son of a bitch tried to shoot us!” He was still spitting, and his Chiclet teeth showed in a thin-lipped grimace.