“So you know where we’re going,” Lyle said.
“The Angler Place,” Parker said.
“That’s right. And do you know what we’re going to do there?”
After a long pause, Parker said, “No, Lyle, I don’t.”
“I think you do.”
“Really, I …”
“Shut up,” Lyle said to Parker. To Juan, he said, “There’s a gate up ahead. When you stop at it I’ll get Paul here to come and help me open it. You drive through and we’ll close it behind us. If you see him try anything hinky, do the same thing to him you did to that dog.”
“Champ,” Parker said woodenly.
“Ho-kay,” Lyle said.
Juan Martinez was a mystery to Parker. He’d never seen nor heard of him before that morning. Martinez was stocky and solid with thick blue/black hair and he wore a wispy gunfighter’s mustache that made his face look unclean. He had piercing black eyes that revealed nothing. He was younger than Lyle, and obviously deferred to him. The two men seemed comfortable with each other and their easy camaraderie suggested long days and nights in each other’s company. Juan seemed to Parker to be a blunt object; simple, hard, without remorse.
Lyle Peebles was dark and of medium height and build and he appeared older than his 57 years, Parker thought. Lyle had a hard narrow pinched face, leathery dark skin that looked permanently sun and wind-burned, the spackled sunken cheeks of a drinker, and a thin white scar that practically halved his face from his upper lip to his scalp. He had eyes that were both sorrowful and imperious at the same time, and teeth stained by nicotine that were long and narrow like horse’s teeth. His voice was deep with a hint of country twang and the corners of his mouth pulled up when he spoke but it wasn’t a smile. He had a certain kind of coiled menace about him, Parker thought. Lyle was the kind of man one shied away from if he was coming down the sidewalk or standing in the aisle of a hardware store because there was a dark instability about him that suggested he might start shouting or lashing out or complaining and not stop until security was called. He was a man who acted and dressed like a cowpoke but he had grievances inside him that burned hot.
Parker had hoped that when the trial was over he’d never see Lyle Peebles again for the rest of his life.
Parker stood aside with his bare hands jammed into the pockets of his coat. He felt the wind bite his bare ankles above his slippers and burn his neck and face with cold. He knew Juan was watching him closely so he tried not to make any suspicious moves or reveal what he was thinking.
He had no weapons except for his hands and fists and the ball of keys he’d been ordered to bring along. He’d never been in a fist-fight in his life, but he could fit the keys between his fingers and start swinging.
He looked around him without moving his head much. The prairie spread out in all directions. They were far enough away from town there were no other vehicles to be seen anywhere, no buildings or power lines.
“Look at that,” Lyle said, nodding toward the north and west. Parker turned to see lead-colored clouds rolling straight at them, pushing gauzy walls of snow.
“Hell of a storm coming,” Lyle said.
“Maybe we should turn back?” Parker offered.
Lyle snorted with derision.
Parker thought about simply breaking and running, but there was nowhere to run.
It was a standard barbed-wire ranch gate, stiff from disuse. Wire loops from the ancient fence post secured the top and bottom of the gate rail. A heavy chain and padlock mottled with rust stretched between the two. “You got the keys,” Lyle said, gesturing with his Colt.
Parker dug the key ring out of his pocket and bent over the old lock. He wasn’t sure which key fit it, or whether the rusty hasp would unsnap. While he struggled with the lock, a beach-ball-sized tumbleweed was dislodged from a sagebrush by the wind and it hit him in the back of his thighs, making him jump. Lyle laughed.
Finally, he found the right key and felt the mechanism inside give. Parker jerked hard on the lock and the chain dropped away on both sides.
“Stand aside,” Lyle said, and shot him a warning look before he put his pistol in his pocket and leaned against the gate. The way to open these tight old ranch gates was to brace oneself on the gate side, thread one’s arms through the strands until the shoulder was against the gate rail and reach out to the solid post and pull. The move left Lyle vulnerable.
Parker thought if he was prepared to do something and fight back, this was the moment. He could attack Lyle before Juan could get out of the pickup. He felt his chest tighten and his toes curl and grip within his slippers.
Lyle struggled with it. “Don’t just stand there,” red-faced Lyle said to Parker through gritted teeth, “Help me get this goddamned thing open.”
Parker leaned forward on the balls of his feet. He considered hurtling himself like a missile toward Lyle, then slashing at the man’s face and eyes with the keys. He could tear Lyle’s gun away, shoot Lyle, and then use it on Juan. That’s what a man of action would do. That’s what someone in a movie or on television. would do.
Instead, the lawyer bent over so he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Lyle and his added bulk against the gatepost was enough that Lyle could reach up and pop the wire over the top and open it.
Back inside the pickup, they drove into the maw of the storm. It had enveloped them so quickly it was astonishing. Pellets of snow rained across the hood of the pickup and bounced against the cracked windshield. The heater blew hot air that smelled like radiator fluid inside the cab. Parker’s teeth finally stopped chattering but his stomach ached from fear and his hands and feet were cold and stiff.
Juan leaned forward and squinted over the wheel, as if it would help him see better.
“This is the kind of stuff we live with every day,” Lyle said to Parker. “Me and Juan are out in this shit day after day. We don’t sit in plush offices taking calls and sending bills. This is the way it is out here.”
Parker nodded, not sure what to say.
“The road forks,” Juan said to Lyle in the backseat, “Which way do we go?”
“Left,” Lyle said.
“Are you sure?”
“Goddamit, Juan, how many years did I spend out here on these roads?”
Juan shrugged and eased the pickup to the left. They couldn’t see more than fifty feet in any direction. The wind swirled the heavy snow and it buffeted the left side of the pickup truck, rocking the vehicle on its springs when it gusted.
Parker said, “When this is over and you’ve got whatever it is you want, what then?”
Lyle said, “I’m still weighing that one, counselor. But for now just let me concentrate on getting to the house.”
“It would he helpful to know what you’ve got in mind,” Parker said, clearing his throat. Trying to sound conversational. “I mean, since I’m playing a role in this I can be of better service if I know your intentions.”
Lyle backhanded the lawyer with his free hand, hitting him hard on the ear. Parker winced.
“Just shut up until we get there,” Lyle said. “I heard enough talking from you in that courtroom to last the rest of my pea-pickin’ life. So just shut up or I’ll put a bullet into the back of your head.”
Juan appeared to grimace, but Parker determined it was a bitter kind of smile.
Lyle said to Parker, “You got the keys to that secret room old Angler has, right? The one he never let anybody into? The one with the books?”
“How far?” Juan asked. They were traveling less than five miles an hour. The snow was so thick, Parker thought, it was like being inside a cloud. Tall sagebrush just a few feet from the road on either side looked like gray commas. Beyond the brush, everything was two-tone white and light blue.