Or it could be they’d decided to take a chance and flown right into that advancing blizzard. Not much chance of coming through that in one piece—but it did offer perfect concealment for an airplane, if you could keep it flying.…
Too many ifs, too many maybes. There was nothing for it but to wait, chained to the end of their prime umbilical, the radio-microphone cord.
The phone rang and Buck Stevens jerked. Cunningham picked up the receiver and grunted, listened, grunted again, and hung up. “They’ve got the phone lines fixed out east. Still working on the other one.”
It was a small blessing. Watchman said, “Mind if I use it to call Flag?”
“Official call?”
“Personal. I’ll pay the charges.”
“Help ’self.” Cunningham got up and made his way around the desk. He moved with a heavy deliberation in his tread. Watchman walked past Buck Stevens, who had the look of a potentially enraged Brahma bull, and took Cunningham’s place in the swivel chair. He picked up the phone and listened for a dial tone and when he had one he put his brown finger in the dial holes and rang the number.
“Mogollon Gift Shop, may I help you?”
Watchman’s face changed with disappointment. “Hello, Phyllis, it’s Sam.”
The woman’s voice turned chilly. “Lisa’s not here right now.”
He’d known that already. If Lisa had been there she’d have answered the phone herself. Her sister-in-law only filled in now and then at the shop. “She be back soon?”
“Well she went up the street to buy a sweater. I’m minding the store for her. I don’t know how long she’ll be.” The voice was cool with habitual disapproval.
Watchman said, “Tell her I probably won’t make it back to Flag tonight. We’ve had a little ruction up here.…”
“I just heard about the robbery. On the radio.”
He didn’t want to talk about that. Not with her. “I’ll probably get in tomorrow sometime.”
“I’ll tell Lisa you called.” There was a beat of silence and then Phyllis said politely, “Be careful, Sam,” and hung up. Phyllis was always polite and rarely said what she meant: I hope you get your red hide in a wringer. It was going to be an interesting clan to marry into.
It didn’t matter. He could see Lisa clearly, her movements and poses and faces; he could hear the cadences of her voice and feel the warmth of their deep silences together, filled with confidences.
He put his hand in his pocket and closed the little velvet ring case in his fist.
Buck Stevens was writing the past hour up in his daybook. He was filling a lot of paper. In this business it was getting so you even had to make out reports on the reports you’d made out. Abruptly Stevens snapped the book shut and began to prowl again. “God damn it.”
“Take it easy now,” Jace Cunningham said. “Gentle down.” It didn’t matter to Cunningham; he had all the patience in the world and the first thing he’d done was see to it that everybody realized it wasn’t his fault the bank had been robbed. Cunningham was going along with middle-aged caution, piling up the years toward his pension and a little ticktack house in a retirement community down in southern Arizona.
They heard the helicopter coming and Watchman said, “You suppose they know where to land that thing?”
“All them Kanab pilots know the drill,” Cunningham said, reaching for his hat. “May as well get on up there.”
2
The FBI man emerged from the bubble canopy and ducked to walk under the decelerating blades. A good deal of light had drained out of the sky and a chilly wind blew across the bald hilltop; only midafternoon, but electric lights were already coming on at the smelter on the hillside and in the town below them. Buck Stevens had his hands rammed in his pockets and was stamping from foot to foot. He said out of the side of his mouth, “Look out now for that masked man. He looks like he carries silver bullets.”
“Dry up,” Watchman said.
The FBI man had a sleek tawny handsomeness, somewhat dated, as if he required a slick part in the center of his hair and a cutaway coat to be in his element. In fact he was packaged in the Bureau’s regulation gray suit, handkerchief in breast pocket, white shirt and subdued necktie. His shoes were absolutely brand new: stepping out of the helicopter he had revealed shiny tan leather soles, hardly scratched.
You could tell one by looking at him, always. The Bureau prescribed their standards of dress and stamped them like print-outs from a computer. Hair short, but not crew cut. Clean-shaven, short sideburns, exactly a quarter inch of white shirt cuff showing below the jacket sleeve. Side-vented jacket to allow quick access to the high-belted .38 in its stubby canted holster.
He had a rigid coin-slot mouth in repose but when he smiled he showed a double row of white teeth; the Bureau took them out of universities—all accountants and lawyers—and taught them to “look and act like gentlemen.” This one looked young and vinegary, as if he was up to date in his field: confident, almost jaunty.
“I’m Paul Vickers. Special Agent.” He had his I.D. wallet open in his left hand.
“Sam Watchman.”
Vickers’ handshake was perfunctory; perhaps he disliked being touched.
“This is Jace Cunningham, Chief Constable here.”
Cunningham said, “Mighty nice to meet you.”
Watchman turned. “And Trooper Stevens. My partner.”
“Is he?” Vickers asked, and shook hands with Stevens. “That’s fine—that’s fine.” He turned, brisk, putting the wallet in his pocket and rubbing his hands together rapidly. “That your car over there? Maybe we can get inside out of this wind and then you can bring me up to date.”
Walking to the car Jace Cunningham said, “We wasn’t sure if you’d want to check out the bank first or go on out to where they took off from in their airplane.”
They climbed in and the four doors chunked shut. Stevens started the car and put it in low, crunching slowly down the steep gravel trail. The Special Agent asked a few questions to get things started. Watchman had not looked forward to a long-winded rehash of events but Vickers’ questions were compelling and logical; he knew his job. He listened expressionlessly, skeptically, with stony unimpressed eyes. It seemed to disconcert Cunningham: the Chief Constable enjoyed exposition and kept beginning his pronouncements with the words, “Well, sir, I’ll tell you,” but Vickers kept cutting him off and hurrying him up and Cunningham muttered, “Yes, sir, uh-huh,” to everything Vickers said. Finally Vickers turned to Watchman and got the story from him. By the time they reached the main street the high spots had been covered and Vickers said, “Let’s skip the bank for the moment. The important thing is to try and nail the fugitives before they’ve had time to go to ground. Where’s your communications center?”
“That’s over to my office,” Cunningham said.
Stevens turned the corner. Vickers said, “It’s important that we get these fugitives and get them fast. In this kind of case you’ve got to do that—give the public an object lesson in quick justice, remind them that crime doesn’t pay.”