He let it sink in.
Duke moaned, “Oh, God. No.”
“Yes,” Tim said. “This morning. In that bed you know so well. She thought I was bending over to kiss her good-bye. And in a way, I was.”
Jack didn’t realize he was unconsciously stepping away from the boat until the picnic table hit him in the back of the thighs. The roaring in his ears drowned out the sound of the Chutes. Tim shouted to be heard over it.
“I’m sorry, Jack. I’m sorry to leave you here. But there’s a ranch house a couple of miles away. You’ll be fine.”
Jack said, “Tim, don’t do this. Please, Tim.”
“Too late, I’m afraid. They laughed at me, Jack. That’s the worst thing anyone can do to me. Remember how they used to laugh at me in school?”
“That was a long time ago, Tim. You’re a big man now. You’re a good man.”
Tim said to Duke, “No one laughs at me.”
Jack watched Tim say something else to Duke, and the boat slipped out into the current and was gone. Because of the heavy brush downriver, he lost sight of it quickly, but began to run parallel to the river, hoping he could catch them ahead on a bend. Hoping he could persuade Tim to pull the boat over before it picked up too much speed entering the Chutes and he’d lose them. And before Tim did something he’d regret.
Jack stopped when he heard the sharp crack of a shot. Then he lowered his shoulder and forced himself through the brush. Thorns tore his flesh and his clothing, and his face was bleeding when he broke through and stood knee-deep in the cold water.
The boat was a long way downriver. Beyond it Jack could see the huge boulders in the river and the foam of whitewater. Duke was bent over the oars, his head forward, his arms hanging limply at his sides. Tim had swiveled his chair around, his back to Duke’s body, to face the Chutes. Tim stood up in the fishing platform and braced himself. He tossed the gun into the water and reached up and clamped his hat on tight and then raised his chin to the oncoming rapids.
Jack shouted but couldn’t even hear himself. The boat began a lazy turn sidewise.
Pronghorns of the Third Reich
As he did every morning, Paul Parker’s deaf and blind old Labrador, Champ, signaled his need by burrowing his nose into Parker’s neck and snuffling. If Parker didn’t immediately throw back the covers and get up, Champ would woof until he did. So he got up. The dog used to bound downstairs in a manic rush and skid across the hardwood floor of the landing to the back door, but now he felt his way down slowly with his belly touching each stair, grunting with each step, and his big nose serving as a kind of wall bumper. Champ steered himself, Parker thought, via echo navigation. Like a bat. It was sad. Parker followed and yawned and cinched his robe tight and wondered how many more mornings there were left in his dog.
Parker glanced at his reflection in a mirror in the stairwell. Six-foot-two, steel-gray hair, cold blue eyes, and a jawline that was starting to sag into a dewlap. Parker hated the sight of the dewlap, and unconsciously raised his chin to flatten it. Something else: he looked tired. Worn and tired. He looked like someone’s old man. Appearing in court used him up these days. Win or lose, the trials just took his energy out of him and it took longer and longer to recharge. As Champ struggled ahead of him, he wondered if his dog remembered his youth.
He passed through the kitchen. On the counter was the bourbon bottle he had forgotten to cap the night before, and the coffeemaker he hadn’t filled or set. He looked out the window over the sink. Still dark, overcast, spitting snow, a sharp wind quivering the bare branches of the trees. The cloud cover was pulled down like a window blind in front of the distant mountains.
Parker waited for Champ to get his bearings and find the back door. He took a deep breath and reached for the door handle, preparing himself for a blast of icy wind in his face.
Clint and Juan stood flattened and hunched on either side of the back door of the lawyer’s house on the edge of town. They wore balaclavas and coats and gloves. Clint had his stained gray Stetson clamped on his head over the balaclava, even though Juan had told him he looked ridiculous.
They’d been there for an hour in the dark and cold and wind. They were used to conditions like this, even though Juan kept losing his focus, Clint thought. In the half-light of dawn, Clint could see Juan staring off into the backyard toward the mountains, squinting against the pinpricks of snow. As if pining for something, which was probably the warm weather of Chihuahua. Or a warm bed. More than once, Clint had to lean across the back porch and cuff Juan on the back of his skull and tell him to get his head in the game.
“What game?” Juan said. His accent was heaviest when he was cold, for some reason, and sounded like, Wha’ gaaaame?
Clint started to reach over and shut Juan up when a light clicked on inside the house. Clint hissed, “Here he comes. Get ready. Focus. Remember what we talked about.”
To prove that he heard Clint, Juan scrunched his eyes together and nodded.
Clint reached behind him and grasped the Colt .45 1911 ACP with his gloved right hand. He’d already racked in a round, so there was no need to work the slide. He cocked it and held it alongside his thigh.
Across the porch, Juan drew a .357 Magnum revolver from the belly pocket of the Carhartt hoodie he wore.
The back door opened and the large blocky head of a dog poked out looking straight ahead. The dog grunted as it stepped down onto the porch and waddled straightaway, although Juan had his pistol trained on the back of its head. It was Juan’s job to watch the dog and shoot it dead if necessary.
Clint reached up and grasped the outside door handle and jerked it back hard.
Paul Parker tumbled outside in a heap, robe flying, blue-white bare legs exposed. He scrambled over to his hands and knees in the snow-covered grass and said, “Jesus Christ!”
“No,” Clint said, aiming the pistol at a spot on Parker’s forehead. “Just us.”
“What do you want?”
“What’s coming to me,” Clint said. “What I deserve and you took away.”
A mix of recognition and horror passed over Parker’s face. Clint could see the fear in the lawyer’s eyes. It was a good look as far as Clint was concerned. Parker said, “Clint? Is that you?”
What could Clint want? Parker thought. There was little of significant value in the house. Not like Engler’s place out in the country, that book collection of western Americana. But Clint? He was a warped version of western Americana….
“Get up and shut the hell up,” Clint said, motioning with the Colt. “Let’s go in the house where it’s warm.”
Next to Parker, Champ squatted and his urine steamed in the grass.
“It don’ even know we’re here,” Juan said. “Some watchdog. I ought to put it out of its misery.” Meeserie.
“Please don’t,” Parker said, standing up. “He’s my bird dog and he’s been a great dog over the years. He doesn’t even know you’re here.” Clint noticed Parker had dried grass stuck to his bare knees.
“You don’t look like such a hotshot now without your lawyer suit,” Clint said.
“I hope you got some hot coffee, mister,” Juan said to Parker.
“I’ll make some.”
“Is your wife inside?” Clint asked.
“No.”
Clint grinned beneath his mask. “She left you, huh?”
“Nothing like that,” Parker lied. “She’s visiting her sister in Sheridan.”
“Anybody inside?”
“No.”
“Don’t be lying to me.”