He was just another retired old bastard, taking up their time. The kind of old fart Barnum used to glare at until the interloper would pick up his coffee cup and go away.
When the morning men broke up around 9:30, Barnum walked down the main street and set up shop here, in the Stockman’s, where he would remain most of the day and some of the night. If people needed to talk to him, they knew where he would be. If someone came into the place before he got there and took his seat, which was the farthest stool at the corner of the bar where the counter wrapped toward the wall, the bartender would shoo the customer away when Barnum walked in. That’s Sheriff Barnum’s office, the bartender would say.
Barnum didn’t stare at the tall man who had come into the bar. Instead, he shot occasional glances at him over the top of the halfglasses he needed to wear to read the paper.
The tall man ordered coffee, and as he sipped it he looked around the place, taking in the ancient knotty pine and mirrored back bar, the mounted biggame heads that stared blankly down at him, the blackandwhite rodeo photos that covered the wall behind him. The Stockman’s was a long, narrow chute of a room with the bar taking up over half of it and some booths and a pool table at the back near the restrooms. A jukebox played Johnny Cash’s “Don’t Take Your Gun to Town.”
As the bartender refilled the stranger’s mug, the man asked him something in a muted voice. Barnum couldn’t hear the exchange over the song on the jukebox. Then the tall man stood and nodded at Barnum. Barnum nodded back. “Cute little town you’ve got here,” the tall man said, making his way toward the bathroom.
“It doesn’t look like a place that can eat you up and spit you out, does it?” Barnum asked.
The tall man hesitated a step, looked curiously at Barnum, then continued.
As the restroom door shut, Barnum slid off his stool, walked the length of the bar, and stepped outside. The cold sunshine blinded him momentarily, and he raised his arm to block out the sun. The tall man’s latemodel SUV was parked diagonally in front of the bar. Barnum circled it quickly, noting the Virginia plates, the mud on the panels probably from back roads, the fact that the back seat was folded down to accommodate duffel bags, hardsided equipment boxes, and a stainless steel rifle case as long as the SUV floor. He walked back into the bar and assumed his seat.
Barnum raised a finger to the bartender, a halfblind former rodeo team coach named Buck Timberman. Buck had been a bigtime bullrider but had retired after a bull stepped on his head and crushed it, resulting in brain damage. He still wore his national finals belt buckles, though, rotating them so he wore a different one each day of the week.
Barnum liked Timberman because Buck was staunchly loyal, even stupidly loyal, and he still referred to Barnum as “Sheriff.”
“Changeover time,” Barnum said, thrusting his coffee cup forward.
“It’s only eleventhirty,” Timberman said, looking at his wristwatch. “You’ve got a half hour before noon.”
“So it’s onethirty Eastern,” Barnum growled, “which means we’ve wasted an hour and a half of drinking time.”
Timberman frowned while he drew a beer and poured a shot. “Why Eastern time?”
“Our new friend here is used to Eastern,” Barnum said.
“Didn’t you notice how he said ‘here’? He said ‘here’ like JFK. He’s from Boston or someplace, but he’s got Virginia plates and a lot of outdoor gear in his rig. Judging by the dirt on that car, I’m guessing he didn’t fly and rent, he drove out all the way.”
“I ain’t seen him in here before,” Timberman said, taking the coffee cup and replacing it with the draft and the shot.
“Nope,” Barnum said. “He was asking you something a minute ago. What was it?”
Timberman looked over Barnum’s shoulder to make sure the tall man wasn’t coming back yet. “He’s got an interest in falconry. He asked me if I knew of anybody around here who might have birds available. He also asked me if we have a range where he can sight in his hunting rifle. And he wanted to know where the bathroom is.”
When the tall man returned he found a shot of bourbon and a glass of beer next to his coffee cup. He looked toward Timberman, who pointed to the exsheriff.
“Cheers,” Barnum said, raising his shot glass and sipping the top off.
“Thanks are in order,” the man said to Barnum, tentatively raising his whiskey, “but it’s pretty early in the day.”
Barnum said, “It’s never too early to treat a visitor to some cowboy hospitality.”
The tall man sipped half of his shot, winced, and chased it with a long pull from the beer, never taking his piercing brown eyes off Barnum.
“Who says I’m visiting?” the tall man asked.
Barnum tipped his head toward Timberman. “Buck here said you were asking about falcons.”
“So much for the famed confidentiality of the bartend
ing profession,” the tall man said evenly. In his peripheral vision, Barnum could see Timberman suddenly look down at his shoes and shuffle away.
“I asked him,” Barnum said. “What he told me will be treated with confidence.”
The tall man’s eyes narrowed. “And who are you, exactly?”
“I used to be the sheriff here,” Barnum said.
“To a lot of us,” Timberman interjected, “he’ll always be our sheriff.”
Barnum humbly nodded his thanks to Timberman.
The tall man seemed to be thinking things over, Barnum observed, trying to decide if he was going to say more or take his leave.
“I might be able to help you out,” Barnum said.
The tall man turned to Timberman, and the bartender said, “You ought to ask the sheriff.”
While the tall man pondered, Barnum closed his newspaper, folded it, and put his reading glasses and gold pen in his shirt pocket.
“Let me ask you this,” Barnum said. “Are you looking for a falcon, or are you looking for a particular falconer?”
The tall man’s face revealed nothing. “I don’t believe we’ve actually met.”
“Bud Barnum. You?”
“Randan Bello.”
“Welcome to Saddlestring, Mr. Bello.”
Bello picked up his shot and beer, walked down the length of the bar and sat down on a stool next to Barnum.
Timberman watched, then went to the far end of the bar to wash glasses that were already clean.
“I’m looking for a falconer,” Bello said, speaking low and looking at his reflection in the back bar mirror and not directly at Barnum.
“I know of a guy,” Barnum said to Bello’s face in the mirror. “He’s got a place by himself on the river. Carries a .454 Casull. Is that him?”
Bello sipped his beer. “Could be.”
Barnum described Nate Romanowski, and let a halfsmile form on his mouth. “If he’s the one, he’s been a thorn in my side since he showed up in my county. Romanowski and a game warden named Joe Pickett. I’ve got no use for either one of them.”
Bello turned on his stool and Barnum felt the man’s eyes bore into the side of his head.
“So you can help me,” Bello said.
At the end of the bar, Timberman made a loud fuss over cleaning some ashtrays.
“I can’t think of anything I’d rather do,” Barnum said, surprised that his bitterness betrayed him.
“I see.”
Barnum said, “I understand you’re looking for a place to sight in. There’s a nice range west of town with bench rests.
I could make a call.”
“Let me buy the next round,” Bello said.
Eleven
In Jackson, the funeral service for Will Jensen was being held in a log chapel built to look much older and more rustic than it actually was. Joe sat in the next to last row wearing the same jacket and tie he had worn for the wedding of Bud Longbrake and Missy Vankueren. His clothes were wrinkled from his suitcase. He had arrived a half hour early, to observe the mourners as they arrived, after calling home to find no one was there. There was a dull pain behind his eyes from the bourbon the night before and a practically sleepless night. It was cold in the chapel, and he welcomed the throaty rumble of a furnace from behind a closed door near the altar, indicating that someone had turned up the thermostat.