Now they hardly come back to do the maintenance on their gizmos. I studied their cameras with ours. Mapped them on a topo map, the routes they walk, where they stop. Fourteen grease pencil X’s, and I drew a route to whisk me out of Dodge without waking the sheriff.

  Then the local news lady did a special report. Inform the citizens what their masters were doing to protect them from the nutjob from North Cackalackee. Said they deployed infrared and heat sensing cameras.

  I come up with a plan for that, too.

  Two months later, they return for another report. The hottie FBI gal that was always yammering about Baer Creighton being ten on the list... The bigshots assigned her back to the Salt Lake, where she came from. Hired a new spokes-jackass, and the gist of his nonsense is Baer Creighton probably isn’t in Flagstaff. So they’re waiting for new leads. You got information, please call.

  Truth is I can bust out the second I want.

  But what for? It’s bad here, girls gibbering, cooking and cleaning and learning true American history when I teach them. But out there I’d have snow and—well damn anyway, these girls ain’t so bad I want to leave, so much as complain.

  Until I wake with Tat bopping squiddles.

  Sometimes I dwell on all my evil. Try and count the men. See their death faces. If I can’t do it awake, I can with the dreams—the corpses in trees.

  Shudder at what torment I’m due from the Almighty.

  “This ain’t right. You’re a pretty gal, and if the situation was different it’d be different. But things is rarely what they ain’t. And if I was a better man I’d not let you ride me like that. So. How about you go back to bed. This can’t happen again.”

  I stand. Wonder how she got my shorts off.

  “Where my shorts?”

  She stands beside the bed. Stoops, stands, and hurls them at me.

  The LED lights show her face. Cheeks soft and brown but streaked in tears.

  “Aw, hell, Tat. You’re pretty.”

  She shakes her head. Confounded. Leaves the room and slams the door. Good. Now she woke Marisol.

  “Ahhh piss. Grow up.”

  Pull on my shorts. Pants and shirt. Grab a jacket—this concrete cave’s always a little too chilly and damp for right living. Go to the main room and sit. Could make coffee, but what for? Like I want to be awake?

  There’s a show comes on the television late at night. Hard to sleep, knowing Stinky Joe’s out there alone, and I left him. We’re responsible to look after ourselves. World’s pretty hard-set on that rule. So Joe ran off when I was laid low by the man trap, and it’s his fault. Animal made a choice.

  But when the lonely gets to us, instead of being responsible for ourselves we pair up and make a pact. Stinky Joe taking off kind of stings. Fred never left. Maybe we were better matched.

  A show comes on the television late at night when I’d rather watch TV than cut my veins, so I turn it on and flip. But soon as the picture comes in, I switch the sound to nothing. Watch the man in his robe with the purple stripe, the way he grabs the lectern and stares dead in the camera. Sharp eyes and bold.

  I behold the Almighty’s man on earth, and for all his square shoulder certainty, I can see the red in his eyes right through the God damn screen.

  Chapter 16

  From the dark ahead arrived the yipyipyip of coyote.

  Joe paused. Cocked his ear.

  Coyotes were small. Joe was not large, but as their measure, the animals were mostly fur. He outweighed them but knew from his limited experience in the fight circle that weight only meant so much. Animals had wiles, did unpredictable things. A small dog with surprise and wit could flip you.

  Wild animals had greater wiles.

  These cousins worked together, as dogs who find one another agreeable sometimes join to pursue common interests. But Joe also observed them alone, ears high, stalking a rabbit or rodent with no one to share.

  As with humans, in groups they were more prone to belligerence.

  So far, Joe had contented himself to watch from a distance, and avoid their odor where he found it. The forest was large, and his journey eastward toward the mecca of human scent, Flagstaff, had many approaches.

  But tonight, twice attacked by man and having nonetheless feasted on rich human food, Joe opened toward adventure.

  Abundance.

  Would he find common purpose with the coyote?

  One, in particular, emitted an inviting fragrance. Female and young and frolicking fun. After filling his belly and napping, he yearned for company. Sniffing. Commiserating. Playing.

  But there was also danger.

  The unknown.

  This yipyipyip came from a small pack. Joe caught their scent as the breeze shifted, and when he imagined them, they were not surprised to see him. The wind kept no secrets.

  He could go elsewhere, but before when he’d found his first comfortable and safe hideaway, deep in the warm earth, it stank of coyote. This pack had several new ones among their number.

  They had a den.

  Joe tromped. A mile from the neon food place and its flashing strobes, he wound between trees. Followed gullies until the scent of coyote thickened. He tingled. Sniffed the base of a tree. The territory marking was pungent and recent.

  Yipyipyip!

  They advanced.

  Joe stood, nose high. He looked into the darkness. A ghost veered and bolted toward him like lightning.

  They chose attack.

  He braced, ready to feint at the last second and throw the animal.

  Low in his register Joe growled. His muscles trembled. But before the first arrived, another, unseen and unheard, exploded upon him from the rear. Teeth sunk into his haunch, deep in the muscle but above the tendon. Joe whirled to face the stealth attacker and the one from the front flew at him in a silent arcing leap. While he was half spun to meet his rearward assailant, the other collided into him, ripped into his shoulder. Joe flopped to his back, and they closed. One at his leg and the other his throat.

  But Joe was strong, and his viciousness matched their savagery. On his back, he bounced and cast his jaws at the frontal attacker—a male—who withdrew and lunged again at another angle. The second attacker—female—bit again, this time higher on the Joe’s thigh. She slashed outward, tearing apart muscle.

  Joe snipped and missed.

  He snarled.

  They yipped.

  Joe kicked. His rear legs shoved away the female and propelled him within closer reach of the male’s underside. Again Joe lunged—from his back—and this time caught a full hold on the male coyote’s throat.

  The female slashed his back legs, but as Joe wriggled and shimmied her teeth failed to penetrate.

  Joe clamped his fangs, but the coyote’s fur was thick. He ratcheted deeper, tiny short release-pulses that settled the other’s neck farther into the vice.

  But the female at his legs slashed again, and something tore that sent panic through him. Joe released the male just as he tasted blood.

  Joe flipped to his feet and shuttled back five steps. His rear leg faltered. There was no backing out of this fight. No springing the fence and running. As with the man in the trailer and the other at the concrete wall, fleeing could not save him. His wiles would not postpone death.

  Only butchery, the nexus where his willingness to destroy life met his waning capacity, offered hope.

  He eased backward. Each step brought his male and female attackers closer in his perspective. He addressed them both with the same low-headed stare and growl.

  Beyond these two glowed the eyes of another coyote, almost full sized, but patient. She was a helper, still learning the ropes, waiting to join battle when needed.

  Beside her gleamed the eyes of three more pups.

  One licked its jowl.

  Chapter 17

  Lester Toungate called Lucky into the cab and climbed beside him. He reloaded his .357, and put a handful of shells from the box in his left pocket. Then drove deeper into the intermittent scrub trees, following a path that meandered to Rogers Lake.

  Though he stored a point nosed shovel in the bed of the truck he didn’t feel like digging a hole deep enough for two bodies. Certainly not deep enough for Clyde’s truck. A hundred yards from road 2310, hidden from all but airplane, he killed the engine. Rubbed behind Lucky’s ears, then along the dog’s jaw. Lester looked at his hand.

  The old dog had been coughing blood. But not now.

  He reached past Lucky and unrolled the window to the bottom. Dog could get out if he wanted.

  Lester was all about letting others make decisions.

  From the back of the king cab under the seat, he grabbed a signal flare and from the other side, so the two would never mingle, a can of WD-40.

  Lester locked the truck. Circled back to the open window. “I’ll be a while. It’s bedtime.”

  Lucky whined. Lester walked.

  Lester approached Clyde Munsinger’s truck from behind, .357 in his right hand. He carried the flare in his pocket and the WD-40 in his left. The air was chilly, but only seemed colder than usual because Lester hadn’t been out at midnight all winter. He had other people for that.

  Most of that.

  Clyde’s engine ran, and though Lester had first thought the boy wrecked into a ditch, he’d parked on the side of the road.

  Lester paused. Clyde wasn’t necessarily dead, or so mortally wounded he lost control of the vehicle.

  Easy and slow, he raised his pistol as he neared the passenger door. The headlights’ glow only made the dark interior all the more impenetrable. Attuned to any sound, he eased his hand to the door. A voice came to him from far off, like it was only in his mind. Lester canted his head.

  He’d been listening for the voice for forty years. Craving it. Provoking it. But nothing.

  Maybe killing Paul did the trick. What was more biblical than a father killing a son?

  “That you?”

  Nothing. Lester aimed his head skyward.

  “I said is that you?”

  Lester waited. Remembered the radio.

  He pulled the door handle with his WD-40 hand and studied the scene. The boy was dead, bled out all over everything, body slumped to the driver’s door. His eyes probed the cab roof. Lester drew the door open all the way.

  The radio was still on.

  Anyone who turns to the Lord can be saved by the Lord. It doesn’t matter what you do! You can’t do anything! Remember the thief on the cross next…

  Lester threw the passenger floor mat to the ground outside, and grabbed the dead boy by the hair. Slipped. Drug him by his shirt collar over the seat and pushed him into the footwell. Exactly where a tragic waste of DNA like Clyde Munsinger ought to take his final ride.

  He slammed the door, heard the crunch of bone. Opened it and shoved Clyde’s hand back inside.

  Lester picked up the floor mat from the dirt. Circled. At the driver side, he opened the door.

  All he did was let his soul cry out—Lord! I’m not holy. I need you to be holy for me. I need you to carry the load I can’t carry.

  Blood pooled on the driver side mat. Lester flipped it upside down and placed it on the seat. Then put the mat from the passenger side on the seatback.

  Friend, if you’re that thief on the cross, Jesus Christ has a message for you. I said friend, if you’re that prostitute standing bare toed in the dirt, Jesus Christ has a message—

  Lester hit the knob.

  He grabbed the wheel and pulled himself into the cab. Checked his mirrors. Looked ahead, back, and engaged the truck’s transmission. Three point turned and drove.

  A minute later, he eased alongside Paul’s corpse. He again three-pointed to align his son with the passenger door.

  Outside he opened the door and with the light from the vehicle observed his dead son.

  Lester removed his jacket and placed it on the bed rail. Stooped and snaked his arms under Paul’s armpits, then interlocked hands at his chest. He lifted with his legs until standing. His muscles strained. Pressure built in his head. He backed to the truck, twisted, and heaved. Paul slumped, but Lester fell forward with him and his upper half landed on the truck seat. Lester shifted to his legs—smelled his son’s evacuated bowels—and jerked the rest of him on top of Clyde.

  Lester kicked some dirt over the blood on the road, but figured hell, the most anybody would think is an animal got hit by a car and wandered off. Or a poacher loaded a pronghorn there. Wasn’t worth the effort.

  Back inside the truck, he shifted to drive. As he cut the wheel the headlights crossed a set of eyes staring bold from the scrub. He parked a minute. Rolled down the window.

  “You wanna get in the truck?”

  The eyes blinked.

  Lester exited. Opened the tailgate and Lucky bounded. His back legs missed and Lester scrambled to him. Lifted. He closed the gate and Lucky stationed himself forward, where the wind would be less.

  Lester rubbed his dog’s ears. “You’re gonna be working all night and then some. Up to you.”

  He drove.

  It got a little hairy closer to Flagstaff, up 231 and weaving his way onto 40. But the bodies were low and the dark pervasive. Even with the full moon rising, none of the rare vehicles knew they were passing a truck with a killer and two corpses.

  That was something fun to muse about: what people didn’t know. Like when he touched a lady cashier’s hand at the grocery store, to get his card back. She gave a tingle, like a spark of soul going from him to her, or the other way around. Probably the other way around. She didn’t know how many throats those hands had throttled. How many triggers they’d pulled. The things she didn’t know. Maybe he took a little of her too, just with the touch.

  Onto Interstate 40 toward Williams. That was a spooky place lately. Suits everywhere for months, looking for the man from North Carolina. Kind of exciting to haul two bodies right through the thick of them. After Williams, Lester exited on 89 toward Prescott, again feeling that butt-scrunching tickle of fear while driving through town with corpses in the truck.

  The delight of being around dead people—didn’t matter if he killed them or someone else—never grew old. He’d gotten over being an outlaw from man’s laws long ago. That was a thrill back when stealing cookies made him quake.

  Something happened in his forties. Before, he’d fret about offending the rules of man, as if they meant something. After forty, Lester knew the kind of men who became legislators, and quality of their minds. Their souls. Made it hard to care about breaking their laws.

  Nowadays, Lester’s only outlaw thrill came from violating the laws of God. The so-called God. Violating the universal rules everyone thought came from a supreme law giver.

  Making dead men was a thrill. The pastor said God owned everything, and Lester thought of killing men like breaking into a rich man’s house and smashing the jewels.

  Of course, the thing God loved more than his animals and people was his rules. So killing Paul, his son—that had to break a dozen rules. Like boiling a goat in the milk of its mother, Old Testament stuff, sure to provoke divine rage.

  Killing his son felt satisfyingly provocative.

  The feeling ... how would he describe it? Looking at the black sky, listening for a voice that never came down from above, so much he doubted it existed—yet everything in him said it did, or should—ah, hell, what nonsense you think, driving two hours with corpses.

  He knew what he was doing: jabbing a stick at the Creator, trying to provoke him out of his cage.

  That’s why killing men—and women—was such a thrill.

  All these years and no response.

  He pretended where he needed to pretend. Smiled and volunteered at church. He lived as ostentatious a lie as was possible, taunting a lightning strike five times a day, minimum. Blasphemed, murdered, and still ...

  No voice.

  Should have brought coffee.

  At Prescott he headed out on 10. Turned here and there, cut across the plain. Ninety degree turn into the woods, out of the woods. When the road was near impassible, he turned left to a doubletrack. The path was a couple of ruts over a rocky meadow with trees vying to make it forest. For a mile neither won nor lost.

  The circuitous route led to the center of the eleven mile loop called Sycamore Rim Trail. Then crossed the thin-wooded plain to Sycamore Canyon. Road intersected trail about fifteen feet from the edge. Trees climbed the canyon. From the air, the green rendered its depth invisible. But the drop at the edge made a man feel small. The cliff opened to a massive expanse of open air and, a couple hundred feet below, the forested canyon floor. Backpackers loved this section of the trail, where they camped beside the cliff.

  Lester slowed on the approach, watched for anything reflective, such as a tent or gear, at the campsite off to the right.

  He pulled the truck to the edge, engaged park, and turned off the headlights.

  Opened the door and mused for a moment.

  Sycamore Canyon was a superb place to hide dead men, in Lester’s schooled estimation. People didn’t go to the bottom. Well—guides sometimes led elk hunters down, where the story went, herds had never seen anything but the canyon floor. But regular folks had no idea how to get there. While it was possible someone would stumble along and find a truck run over the cliff, the chance was remote. With the bottom-land covered in trees, spotting the vehicle from above seemed unlikely.

  Back in the day, he’d have spent the night shoveling earth in the middle of the woods, holes three feet deep. But the nice thing about age—he didn’t get his drawers in a scrunch over every perceived risk. With age came discernment. He knew which risks were real—such as Clyde’s threat to expose him—and were less so—the random passer by discovering bodies at the bottom of a canyon no one ever went to.

  It was good being old and wise. Or rather, if he had to be old, best to be grateful for what the age purchased.

 

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