In the Moon of Red Ponies bbh-4 Read online

  For no reason that made any sense a rough stock handler poked a battery-powered hotshot through the boards and jolted the horse’s forequarters with it. The horse went berserk. But Wyatt hollered, “Outside!” anyway, and he and Drunkard’s Dream exploded into the arena.

  First bounce out of the chute, he roweled the horse’s neck, his legs extended in front of him, his back almost touching the horse’s rump. Drunkard’s Dream corkscrewed, sunfished, and came totally off the ground, but Wyatt’s lock on the suitcase handle was so tight his small, muscular buttocks seemed stitched to the animal’s hide.

  “Wyatt Dixon, thirty-nine years young! Look at that cowboy ride, ladies and gentlemen!” the announcer yelled with genuine excitement and admiration.

  But in a blink it went south. Wyatt seemed to slip and lose balance on the horse’s back, as though the arena were tilting. Drunkard’s Dream raked him against the boards, and Wyatt and his rigging went over the side, under the horse’s hooves.

  The crowd was on its feet, horrified. They could see Wyatt through the horse’s legs, curled in a ball, his forearms raised defensively. They could even hear the uneven sound the horse’s hooves made as they trod over both the sod and Wyatt’s body.

  The clowns and a pickup rider were the first people to get to Wyatt. When they tried to lift him onto a stretcher, he pushed them away and rose to his feet, falling back against the boards for support. His face was dazed, filmed with dust, blood leaking from a cut in his scalp. He reached over, almost falling down again, picked up his hat, and slapped it clean against his leg.

  Regardless of his injury, Wyatt had ridden to the buzzer, and the judges gave him the highest score so far in the bareback competition. But Wyatt seemed to be completely indifferent to either the crowd’s applause or the points just given to him for his ride. He left the arena at the far end, where the rough stock were kept, then circled back under the stands.

  I walked to the concourse, where I could see the unlighted area behind the concession stands and under the seats. The man who had used the hotshot on Wyatt’s horse was eating a chili dog out of a paper plate, his face bent close to his food. He was a tall man with a pot stomach, narrow shoulders, and flaccid arms. He was a rough stock handler, not a rider, a man who would always be a candle moth and never a player. When he looked up from his food, his face turned gray.

  “The cinch busted. It didn’t have nothing to do with the hotshot, Wyatt,” I heard him say.

  Wyatt’s back was turned to me, so I could not see his face or hear his words. But when he spoke, the handler nodded his head up and down, then shook it from side to side. His chili dog slid off his plate onto the ground. People were starting to gather now. An older man stepped forward and patted Wyatt on the shoulder, then I saw Wyatt look away at the people passing by the concession stands, as though he were leaving one reality and entering another. In profile his face and exposed eye possessed the same flat, bloodless and brutal luminosity as a passing shark’s.

  Then he simply walked away, his mouth down-hooked, his shoulders sloped forward, a rivulet of blood glued to the side of his eye and down his cheek, like paint on an Indian warrior.

  I was sure he had not seen me. I drove back to his house by the Blackfoot River and left the following note in his mailbox:

  You think a jailhouse jerk-off like you is going to sell information about us to a defense attorney? That cut cinch was just a warning. Take it to heart, sperm breath.

  He called the house Saturday morning. “I just received a communication that’s a test for my thinking powers, Brother Holland,” he said.

  “You need to take my number out of your Rolodex,” I said.

  “Got the shit kicked out of me under a horse last night. This morning I find this note in my mailbox, accusing me of trying to sell information about certain parties to a defense lawyer. You been telling people I done that?”

  “I sure did. To anybody who’d listen.”

  “I am very disappointed to learn that. I thought we was operating on a basis of lawyer-client confidentiality.”

  “I want you to hear this, Dixon-”

  “Brother Holland, I know you wasn’t raised up on a pig farm. It’s impolite to call folks by their last names. You done sicced some bad people on me, sir. That means you owe me.”

  I hung up, but I knew he’d taken the hook. He called back fifteen seconds later. “I think somebody put acid on my cinch so it looked like it busted from dry rot. Last night I was fixing to rip the arms off the wrong man. Glad I have calmed down and got my Christian attitudes back on the front burner,” he said.

  “Leave me out of your life.”

  “No-siree-bobtail, we’re in this together. Remember, I have already given your name as my reference with President Bush. That means both you and me are in the service of the red, white, and blue. I ’spect I’m gonna be making some home calls on a few folks. But whatever I do, I’ll keep you updated as my counselor. Have you been to Brother Sneed’s church up at Arlee? I think you would find it an uplifting experience.”

  “Have a great weekend, Wyatt,” I said, and eased the receiver into the phone cradle.

  The kitchen was full of sunlight, the hills a soft green from the spring melt. Temple stood in the doorway, staring at me in disbelief.

  “You’re trying to manipulate a lunatic like Wyatt Dixon?” she said.

  “Got any other solutions?” I replied.

  She started to speak, to fling a rejoinder at me. Then she gave it up and shook her head. I put my arms around her and pulled her close against me, my face buried in her hair, and could take no pleasure in either her verbal defeat or my having just stepped into the moral basement that constituted the world of Wyatt Dixon.

  It was the weekend and Darrel McComb was off the clock, but he could not get Amber Finley off his mind, nor the whole business involving the Indians and what he had come to believe was some form of intelligence operation. What had Rocky Harrigan always told him about being a player? Kick ass, take names, and don’t look back. But kick ass.

  Saturday afternoon he showered, shined his shoes, put on a Hawaiian shirt, what Rocky used to call a “goon” shirt, and knocked on the Finleys’ door. When she opened it she looked absolutely stunning, in a purple dress printed with green flowers, with big red beads around her throat and straw sandals on her feet. In the rush of cool air out into the sunlight he could smell her perfume and the odor of her shampoo. It was obvious she had been on her way out. “This is an official visit,” he said.

  “Then I’d be more comfortable if somebody was accompanying you,” she replied.

  “We don’t have a lot of budget for weekend overtime,” he said, half smiling.

  She stepped aside to let him in. “Get it over with, whatever it is,” she said.

  The living room was furnished with green velvet drapes and massive, dark furniture, but the morose effect was attenuated by the flow of light through the French doors that opened onto the backyard and creek. As his eyes adjusted, he realized the glass tabletops, the pale marble in the mantelpiece, and the big mirror above it gave contrasts to the room that were a mark of taste and planning inconceivable in the homes of most people he knew. He waited for her to ask him to sit down. But she didn’t. He removed a notebook from his shirt pocket and sat on the couch, anyway, folding back pages and clicking his ballpoint to give the impression he was all business and at the same time controlling the situation, not letting her use social protocol to achieve the upper hand.

  “You knew Lester Antelope?” he said.

  “He worked for Johnny sometimes. I knew him around. Why?”

  “He was murdered.”

  “I know that. Why don’t you find the people who did it?”

  She was standing by the mantel, one forearm propped on the corner. Darrel smiled at her. “Believe it or not, that’s the purpose of my visit. I think Antelope was mixed up with the burglary of that research lab down in Stevensville. I suspect it had something to do with ecoterroris
m. But we’re pretty sure four Indians did the job.” He paused a moment to give emphasis to the rest of his statement. “A white woman was with them. Maybe somebody who just got caught up in things.”

  She didn’t blink. Her eyes stayed riveted on his, the most radiant blue eyes he had ever seen. “You said, ‘ We’re pretty sure.’ The Missoula Sheriff’s Department is investigating crimes in Ravalli County?”

  He’d slipped and she’d caught it. “I’m getting a crick in my neck looking up at you. Could you sit down?” he said.

  “There’s no ‘we,’ is there?” she said.

  He tried to look bored. “It’s a cooperative effort. In this instance, a burglary and a homicide are linked together in two jurisdictions. Who do you think that woman was?”

  “Snow White, with four of the dwarfs. Get a life, Darrel.”

  He grinned at her humor and wrote in his notebook. He was on top of it now-generous, confident enough to be indulgent. When they cracked wise, they had unknowingly admitted they were amateurs and probably guilty as well. In the old days, mainline hard cases took the beating. Today, the pros asked for an attorney and became deaf-mutes.

  “About five years ago, I knew a gal from your background who went inside. Educated, smart, nice-looking, used to ski in Aspen and hang out in Malibu. Her daddy was a state senator, a big rancher, a wheeler and a dealer, with juice all the way to D.C. But the girl fell in love with a junkie who maxed out all her credit cards and made her drive the car whenever he turned over a liquor or convenience store.

  “One night the junkie had a fierce jones going and decided to hold up a store in a strip mall. He killed three people, including a twelve-year-old kid. Our girlfriend got raped by a male guard her first week inside and the next week by a couple of dykes. She never came out. She hung herself. Think I’m kidding? I’ll give you her name. You can check it out.”

  He had driven the barb in deep. Amber’s eyes were shimmering, her throat spotted with color. He felt paternal and wanted to stand up and touch her cheek and hair, to reassure her things were not out of control yet, that he would be there as her friend. His thoughts, although not deliberately erotic, caused a thickening in his throat.

  But he saw the flicker of weakness and humiliation leave her eyes and her jawbone flex, her posture straighten as she removed her hand from the mantelpiece.

  “Do anything you goddamn feel like, but in the meantime take yourself, your horny attitudes, and your hair tonic or cologne or whatever that stink is out of my house. If you come back again without a warrant, my attorney will pull the nails out of your shoes.”

  He rose from the couch, clicked his ballpoint pen, and stuck it in his pocket. His face burned, then his embarrassment turned to anger and he had to bite down on his lip so he would not say the words he was thinking. He walked to the door and opened it, the sunlight blinding his eyes. When he looked back at her, her arms were folded on her breasts, one knuckle poised on her lips while she watched him. She had not only bested him again but insulted him physically. A bilious fluid rose in his throat.

  His desire for vindication, even revenge, should have made him willing to pull out all the stops. But as he looked at the composure in her face, the paleness on the tops of her breasts, her cocked hip, her refusal to be bested by him, only one thought coursed through his mind: What an incredible woman.

  Why couldn’t she accept his feelings for what they were?

  Darrel and Greta Lundstrum had made a date that evening. Before he left his apartment on the river, he made an entry in the computer file he was now keeping on the case of Johnny American Horse and the individuals who threaded their way in and out of it. The entry read:

  Greta Lundstrum-smart, confrontational, I suspect territorial as hell, maybe a sexual adventurer. Would she get in the sack with a guy like Wyatt Dixon just for fun? Or is she a player? Why was she at the house of a U.S. senator? An easterner out here among the cowboys just for kicks? No way.

  As he drove down to Stevensville to pick her up, he tried to convince himself that his motivations were professional in nature. But his unrequited obsession over Amber Finley was taking its toll. Night and day he felt a vague sense of sexual need that left him not only uncomfortable but irritable and discontent, almost hostile, as though he were less in the eyes of others, an inept, clumsy man who smelled of locker rooms and had to wear his military history like an invisible uniform to know who he was.

  Greta Lundstrum lived in a white bungalow with blue shutters, a solitary spruce tree planted on each side of the small porch. In the late afternoon light the yard, the spruce trees, and the house looked like a demonstration home removed from a 1940s subdivision development. She opened the door and came outside without inviting him in, dressed in a black skirt and a white blouse, a gold chain around her throat. A shiny black purse hung on her arm.

  “Am I late?” he asked, looking at his watch.

  “I made reservations at the Depot for six-thirty,” she replied, walking ahead of him.

  “I didn’t know we were going to the Depot,” he said.

  “You don’t like eating there?”

  “No, it’s fine,” he said.

  “Good. That’s where I usually eat when I’m in Missoula,” she said. She opened the car door for herself and got inside, her purse on her lap, waiting for him to start the engine.

  The restaurant’s main dining area and the bar across the foyer were crowded. Outside, on the terrace, a jazz combo played under a striped canopy, the sun a soft orange ball above the hills behind the railroad tracks.

  “I’m glad you got reservations,” Darrel said.

  “You have to. On Saturday night university types take over everything,” she said.

  “It’s that kind of town, all right,” he said.

  She ordered wine and he a glass of seltzer with a slice of lime.

  “You don’t drink?” she said.

  “Not too often. But I can if I want to,” he replied.

  “When do you want to?” she said, and smiled when she said it.

  “When I feel like it. I just never had the taste for it.”

  “Give me the sirloin, well done, sour cream and chives on the baked potato. No butter,” she told the waiter.

  “Yeah, same for me,” Darrel said.

  During dinner he realized she spoke to no one at the other tables, although her eyes seemed to take note, without personal interest, of everyone in the room. She had firm arms, square shoulders, a small cleft in her chin, and medium-size hands with clipped, pink nails. She ate with a good appetite and midway through the meal ordered another glass of wine. “Sure you won’t join me?” she said.

  “Why not?” he said, nodding to the waiter.

  Later, she had Bavarian cake for dessert, and when the waiter brought coffee, she looked sated, happy, her face a bit flushed. She didn’t order anything else to drink and he knew she wasn’t a real boozer. “I always like the food here,” she said.

  “I’ve been looking into that guy Dixon’s background. You know, the rodeo guy?” he said casually.

  She picked up her spoon from her coffee saucer and looked at it and put it back down. “I think I already told you I strayed into a dalliance with Wyatt. It was my fault, not his. But I’m not really interested in hearing any more about him,” she said.

  “The Feds say he writes letters to the President. He’s a definite head case.”

  He looked out the window, waiting for her reaction. “Is this why you asked me out?” she said.

  “I shouldn’t have brought this guy up. Cops have a hard time getting off the clock. That’s why they hang out together. Lot of times in late night bars. I’m glad you wanted to go to dinner tonight.”

  She let her eyes rove around the dining room, her thoughts veiled. “Ever been married?” she asked.

  “For a little while. I was in the Army, moving around from place to place.”

  “You seem like a frank man. What do you think of me?”

  “You’
re a classy lady. I got a feeling we’re a lot alike,” Darrel said.

  “Who knows?” she said.

  “Want to take a walk down by the river? There’s a concert in the park tonight. Actually, my apartment is across the river from the park. Sometimes I listen to the music on my balcony,” he said.

  “You saying you want to go to the concert or to your apartment?”

  “Whatever,” he replied.

  She rested her chin on her fist and looked directly into his face again. “You go to Vegas or Reno very much?” she said.

  “Yeah, how’d you know?”

  “Because I go there, too. Know why?” she said.

  “ ’Cause you never know what’s going to happen next. Twenty-four hours a day, you can have any kind of adventure you want,” he replied.

  She kept her eyes on his and kissed the air with her lips.

  A few minutes later, he and Greta were sitting on a grass embankment by the river and listening to a band pound out “The Eight-Thirty Blues.” The park was crowded with college kids, young couples with children, Frisbee throwers, skateboarders, hobos who slept in the willows along the riverbank, and punked-out street people who dealt drugs in the shadows by the public restrooms and looked as if they had been shot out of a cannon.

  But Darrel had little interest in street dealers or the strips of maroon cloud on the mountains in the west or the yellow light that filled the sky or the breeze that blew off the water and smelled of fern and wet stone. Instead, his entire attentions were now focused on two people dancing on the clipped lawn in front of the bandstand-Amber Finley and Johnny American Horse.

  Amber wore a knee-length black spaghetti-strap dress and Mexican cowboy boots, and danced with her fists held in the air, swinging her hips from side to side, kicking one booted foot when she made a turn, totally indifferent to the impression she made on anyone else. By contrast, Johnny American Horse looked like a post, his face shaded by a light-colored Stetson, his skin dark, his black jeans and tight-fitting silver shirt stretched to splitting on the leanness of his body.