Joe turned to Marybeth. "So you want to do it?"
Marybeth spoke practically. "We're out of room, Mom's sleeping on the couch, everything seems to be falling apart, and it would be a good time to get some repairmen in here when they're not bothering everybody. It seems like we're always here. It would be kind of like having a vacation."
"Which, as far as I know, you two have never had," Wacey chimed in. "Hell of an opportunity. Hell of an opportunity."
"We move in Thursday," Marybeth said.
"Then I guess the matter is decided," Joe said flatly, then drained his beer.
Marybeth asked Wacey if he wanted to stay for dinner. But Wacey said he had to get home. On the way toward the door, Wacey stopped suddenly and watched Lucy and Sheridan play.
"That's a cute little dog," Wacey said.
"I'M NOT A DOGGIE!" Lucy yelled back, arching up on her feet with her chubby arms curled under her chin while Sheridan fed her an invisible treat.
"What are you, then?"
"I'm not a doggie," Lucy said, folding back down to her haunches.
Joe Walked with Wacey out to his pickup. Wacey stopped and stood in the dark before he got in. Wacey had brought an unopened beer with him and Joe heard the top being unscrewed.
"Joe, do you know how it's going to look when word gets out that you burned down Clyde Lidgard's trailer?"
"Another bonehead move," Joe admitted, reaching into the bed of the pickup to see if his weapon was cool enough to touch. It was still warm. He tersely described what happened and said he couldn't understand how the fire had started. He left out the part about maybe seeing a Suburban.
"What a stroke of bad luck," Wacey said, looking at the now useless gun.
"I bet Barnum's having a good laugh about it. By tomorrow half the town will know."
Joe sighed. He couldn't believe he had lost his gun again. Wacey took a swig of beer.
"Are you sure this is something you ought to be pursuing?"
"Ote Keeley died in my woodpile. That makes it kind of personal. And to me the pieces just don't quite fit."
"What in particular?"
Joe rubbed his eyes. They stung from the fire. "Oh, I don't know. I guess I can't convince myself that Clyde Lidgard just up and shot three men for no clear reason and then stayed in their camp until we found him. And I don't know why Ote Keeley came all of the way to my backyard to die."
"Joe ..." Wacey's voice sounded high-pitched and pained, as if he were losing patience.
"Clyde Lidgard was a fucking nut. You can't explain a nut. That's why he's a nut. Just let it go."
"You sound like Barnum and everybody else."
"Maybe he's right for once," Wacey said. Joe could see the pale blue reflection of the moon on the bottom of Wacey's beer bottle as Wacey lifted it to his mouth.
"Trust me, Joe. It's been investigated. Everyone's satisfied. We're just Game and Fish guys. Guts and Feathers, as our critics like to say. We aren't detectives. People think we're nothing more than glorified animal control officers. Don't be a lone ranger here. You'll just embarrass the department and get yourself in more trouble, if that's possible."
Joe absently kicked the dirt with his toe and looked down.
"And you never know," Wacey said, "you might find a bad guy and then reach down only to remember that you lost your damn pistol again." Joe could tell Wacey was smiling at him in the dark.
"You've made your point," Joe answered sourly. "Just go on up with your cute little family and have a nice vacation at the Eagle Mountain Club," Wacey suggested.
"Besides, hunting season's just about to get hot and heavy, and you're going to be busy as hell. We both are."
"Maybe so," Joe said.
"That's what you say when you really don't agree but you don't want to discuss it anymore," Wacey commented. "I know you pretty good, Joe. You can be a stubborn son of a bitch."
"Maybe so," Joe said. Wacey grunted, and the two men stood in silence. Billowing dark clouds were low and moving fast through the sky, painting black brush strokes over stars.
"Why don't you and Arlene stay at Kensinger's?"
Wacey snorted.
"Arlene's idea of high class is eighty television channels. She wouldn't exactly appreciate that place the way Marybeth would. Besides, Arlene might find a sock of mine under the bed."
Joe nodded, though he wasn't sure he could be seen in the dark.
"I'm going to work one more week before I declare my candidacy," Wacey said after a long silence.
"I'm trying for a leave of absence with the state, but if I don't get it, I'll have to quit."
"What if you don't win?" Joe asked.
"I'm going to win," Wacey said, confident as always.
"But what if you don't?"
Wacey laughed and drained his bottle, then nipped it into the back of Joe's pickup where it would rattle around tomorrow. "Hell, I don't know. I haven't given it any thought at all. Maybe I'll go back to riding bulls for a living."
Wacey opened his truck door, and they looked at each other in the glow from the dome light.
"I'm not kidding you, Joe," Wacey said, climbing in. "Leave this outfitter business be. Just go back to work and have a fun vacation with your family. You've got one hell of a family, and one hell of a wife."
Wacey slammed the door, and they were in darkness again. Wacey started his pickup and the headlights bathed the peeling paint of the garage door.
Joe listened to gravel crunch and watched Waceys taillights recede down Bighorn Road.
Marybeth was suddenly beside him, and it startled him. He hadn't heard her come outside.
"We seem to be on a lucky streak," she said, looping her arm through his.
"First the job offer and now the Eagle Mountain Club."
"I might have broken that streak this afternoon," Joe said.
"What's bothering you?" Marybeth asked.
"You didn't exactly get excited when Wacey told you about it."
"I am excited," Joe said flatly. "You and the kids will probably love it. And your mom, of course."
She tugged on his arm playfully. "So what's the problem?"
He started to say "nothing," but she anticipated it and tugged on his arm again. He didn't want to mention burning down the trailer and losing his gun. Still, that wasn't the problem.
"I guess I just feel bad that we live in such a dump that housesitting seems like a vacation."
"Oh, Joe," Marybeth said, giving him a hug. "We both know this won't last forever."
***
Joe opened his mail while Marybeth got ready for bed. The mail was mostly junk, but there were several envelopes from headquarters in Cheyenne. There were two departmental memos, one about avoiding overtime and the other about making sure that original receipts were sent along with expense reports because credit card receipts could no longer be accepted.
When he opened the third envelope and read the letter it contained, he froze. It was written in terse bureaucratic prose and he read it three times before it sunk in. He blew a short, hard breath out through his nose in exasperation as he resisted the urge to tear the letter into tiny pieces.
"What is it?" Marybeth asked from behind a washcloth.
"Headquarters," Joe said dryly. "I've got to appear in Cheyenne on Friday for a hearing."
Marybeth stopped washing and listened.
"They're investigating the incident when Ote Keeley took my gun from me. They call it 'alleged negligence with a department issued sidearm." It says here that I could get suspended from the field."
Joe read the letter a fourth time to himself.
"Why now?" Marybeth asked. "That happened months ago."
"The state works in geological time," Joe said. "You know that."
"Those bastards," she hissed. She rarely said anything like that, and Joe looked up.