It is cowardly to run, though, particularly from the likes of them down in the mud caves. We never done it when we marched alongside Granny Lee and I'll be damned if I'll do it now.
These are prideful thoughts, all. God forgive me for them. I feel desolate and lost and would ride into the worst storm on earth for just a drop of rain.
I didn't hear from Mary Beth again that day. That night I dreamed of a picnic ground filled with children. A green river curled through cottonwoods behind them, and a rainbow arched through the sky over their heads. In their midst was a goat-footed satyr, his vascular arms as white as milk, a clutch of balloons strung from one fist. At first I couldn't see his face, then he rotated his head toward me, his mouth grinning, the scab on his lip as shiny as plastic. The children ran toward the balloons and swirled about his thighs like disembodied figures in a maelstrom.
chapter twenty-six
In the morning I drove to Bunny Vogel's house. His father came out on the porch, barefoot and without a shirt. He was an inept tank of a man, whose doughlike hand dwarfed his cigarette.
'You the lawyer been coming around?' he said.
'That's right.'
'He went swimming. At the beach, up the river,' he said. 'You going up there?'
'I expect.'
'Tell him he went off without cleaning the grease trap. Now there's some black gunk overflowing out of the sink. Whole house smells like an elephant backed up and farted in it.'
I drove to the small stretch of sandy beach built by the county at the curve of the river. Bunny's maroon '55 Chevy was parked back in the trees, the waxed finish and green-tinted windows sprinkled with pine needles. A heavyset Mexican girl in a black bathing suit sat at a picnic table, watching Bunny do push-ups, his toes on the table, his arms propped on a bench. He wore only a pair of lavender running shorts, and his triceps and back muscles ridged like rolls of metal washers.
When he saw me, his face reddened, and he sat on the bench and dusted the sand off his feet and began fitting on his flip-flops. His long, bronze-colored hair hung down over his disfigured jawline.
'Your name keeps coming up in my trial preparation,' I said.
'I ain't interested,' he said.
I looked at the girl and waited for him to introduce me. When he didn't, I realized the redness in his face was not because I had caught him impressing a girl with his strength.
'I'm Billy Bob Holland. How do you do?' I said to her.
'It's nice to meet you,' she said. A gold tooth shone in the back of her mouth.
'Yeah, excuse me, this is Naomi. We was taking a swim,' he said, and his hand gestured at nothing, as though he needed to offer an explanation.
'So that's what I'm gonna do,' she said, and picked up her towel.
'You ain't got to go, Naomi,' Bunny said.
She smiled and walked into the water, the backs of her thighs wrinkling below the rim of her bathing suit. She leaned over and cupped water on her shoulders and spread it on her arms. Bunny watched her, his jaws slack, his eyes trying to take him out into the sunlight, away from the conversation he was about to have.
'I'm calling you as a witness at Lucas's trial,' I said.
'Oh man, don't tell me that.'
'You'll have a lot of company-Darl Vanzandt, Virgil Morales, a biker girl named Jamie Lake, an elderly black man who saw Roseanne Hazlitt slap you.'
'Morales? That pepper bel… that kid from the Purple Hearts? What's he got to do with this?'
'Why'd Roseanne hit you? Why'd Morales call you a pimp, Bunny?'
Bunny put the tips of his fingers on his temples.
'You don't know what you're doing. You're setting my life on fire, Mr Holland.'
'Your life? How about the girl who's in the cemetery? How about Lucas Smothers's life?'
Above his left nipple was the tattoo of a small heart.
'I didn't want none of this to happen. People don't plan for stuff like this to happen,' he said.
'Emma Vanzandt called me a fool yesterday. When I asked her why, she used your name. Like you were a key I didn't know how to fit on the ring.'
'Emma done that?' He twisted around on the bench and stared at me, his eyes burning. 'That bitch done that?'
'That doesn't sound like you, Bunny.'
'Yeah, what does? Human dildo?'
He waited for me to comprehend his meaning. I kept my expression flat.
'Rich woman catches her husband milking through the fence, how does she stick it to him? She gets a young guy to put the wood to her.'
'You and Emma?'
'It was a one-time deal. She drove a hundred miles to a motel that was between two oil rigs. The walls was vibrating off the foundation. I think she was whacked out on speed. She wanted to call him up on the phone during a certain moment. I had to talk her out of it.'
He stared out at the river and at the Mexican girl whose body was bladed with the sun's reflection off the water. After a while he said, 'She's a nice girl. Naomi, I mean. She don't know about none of this. She thinks I'm hot shit 'cause I played football at A amp;M.'
'Maybe you're a better guy than you think,' I said.
'No, I know what I am. I blame my trouble on the Vanzandts, but they knew the kind of person they was looking for.'
'You're still a young man. You haven't done anything that can't be undone.' When he didn't answer, I said, 'Have you?'
He looked down at the tops of his feet. His fingers were pressed into his bronze hair like white snakes. When I walked to the car I realized I had forgotten to deliver his father's message, but I felt Bunny didn't need another reminder that day of who or what he was.
I almost didn't recognize her when she got out of a taxi cab in my drive at noon the same day. She wore a powder-blue suit, heels, a white blouse, and a beige shoulder bag. But for some reason, in my mind's eye, I still saw the tall, naturally elegant woman in tan uniform and campaign hat. I opened the side door and stepped out under the porte cochere.
'Wow,' I said.
'Wow, yourself.'
'You sure look different.'
'That's the welcome?'
'Come in.' I opened the screen.
She hesitated. 'I don't want to interrupt your day.'
We seemed to be looking at each other like people who might have just met at a bus stop.
'I don't know what to say, Mary Beth. I got one phone message. My only source of information about you has been Brian Wilcox.'
'Brian?'
'He got a warrant and tossed my house.'
She looked away, her face full of thought.
'I'm not supposed to be here. My people are cutting a deal with the new sheriff,' she said.
'Your people?'
'Yes.'
The wind blew the curls on the back of her neck. I could hear the tin roof on the barn pinging with heat, like wires breaking.
'The locals are trying to jam you up on the shooting?' I said.
'It's their out. I handed it to them on a shovel.'
'Sammy Mace was a cop killer. He got what he had coming,' I said.
'Can we go inside, Billy Bob? We were in Denver this morning. I overdressed.'
She sat down at the kitchen table. I poured her a glass of iced tea. I ran cold water over my hands and dried them, not knowing why I did. Outside, the barn roof shimmered like a heliograph under the sun.
'My office is taking the weight for me. I screwed up, but they're taking the weight, anyway,' she said.
'A stand-up bunch. We're talking about the DEA?' I said.
Her back straightened under her coat. Her hand was crimped on a paper napkin, her gaze pointed out the window.
'I thought coming here was the right thing to do. But I'm all out of words, Billy Bob.'