Chapter 19
“HE’S GONE,” PATRICK SAID. He’d come forward in the backseat with his hands cuffed behind him and his ear to the phone. Now he fell away, leaning his weight to the rear seat and watching the road ahead.
Driscoll brought the phone back and stared at the screen. The whole call had taken less than a minute. “The man who called from Bobby’s phone?” Driscoll asked.
“He’s one of them, the more dangerous of the two. He’s one of the men who came into Bobby’s house a few nights ago.”
Driscoll couldn’t decide how to go on. He had Patrick now. It didn’t seem like any of this should be happening. “They didn’t want you?” Driscoll asked.
He saw Patrick thinking it over. “They don’t need me anymore,” he said.
Driscoll looked up at the rearview. “What do you mean by that?”
“I thought if I called you it would all go away,” Patrick said. “I thought they’d give up on me, or they’d come for me. I didn’t think they’d have Bobby or Sheri. I never thought it would happen like this. I mean I knew it was a possibility but I just didn’t—I couldn’t…”
“As a former lawman, you of all people have to understand why I’m taking you in.”
Patrick shook his head. He was looking out the window. He wouldn’t look at Driscoll. “You’ve waited a long time for this,” Patrick said. “And you’re going to take me in for a stolen car?”
“It is what it is.”
“That drug money,” Patrick said. “I stole it. I’m telling you right now. I’m confessing it to you. You want that, don’t you? You want to be right after all these years.”
Driscoll had him in the rearview. “Don’t bullshit me.”
“I’m not. I’ll show you where it is. Everyone will know it was you who figured it out. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Driscoll looked up at the mirror again. Patrick was waiting on him. Driscoll thought about the years he’d wanted only this, about the years he’d spent avoiding his family, sacrificing relationships with his wife and daughter so that he could put himself in this moment. And then he thought about what it would mean when there were no more excuses—when one day he might finally go home and sit at the table with his family and have a dinner. And he wondered if he was too late or if maybe there was still time.
“What’s it going to be?” Patrick said.
THE DOOR TO the woodstove was open partially and Morgan sat with his back to it, his legs up on another chair and an old blanket stretched from his lap to his feet. He was faced toward the door, and out the window, he’d watched the sun descend and then thirty minutes later the light completely go out of the sky. Now only the reflection of the kerosene lamp on the table could be seen in the glass, suspended there in the darkness of the window, and his own shadowed ghost on the periphery.
The books he’d received in the mail were stacked close at hand on the table and he looked at them from time to time but didn’t move from his seat. Again, he thought of the woman and then just as quickly pushed the thought away.
On the floor lay a tin plate with what remained of his meal—taken early in the day, almost as soon as he’d come through the door. Just a bit of fry bread with some cooked meat and some tomatoes he’d grown and then dried over the past summer. He was looking at this, thinking how he needed to get up and wash the plate, when he saw the small pink nose pop from beneath the counter on which he cooked.
He’d seen the mouse before. The sound of it there behind the counter, trying for whatever crumb he’d dropped. And now he sat as still and quiet as he could, watching first the nose appear and then the head. The mouse as big as his thumb and colored brown as the winter fields.
It came out from under the counter and then stood, sniffing the air. The small whiskers twitching and the little claws clutched in front of its chest like a dog watching a ball raised high overhead.
For a time the two of them sat there, the mouse on its haunches and Morgan in his chair. Then as if Morgan was not there at all the mouse moved in a straight line for the plate. The miniature body low as it came across the floor and the black eyes focused solely on the leftover crumbs of Morgan’s meal.
Morgan didn’t stir and he watched the mouse come up short, testing the air again, and then, satisfied, move the remaining foot toward the plate. It sat there on the tin for a minute, holding one of the larger crumbs between its paws, working the bread down like a man eating corn off the cob.
It finished the crumb and moved on to the next. The mouse close enough that Morgan could hear its claws skittering across the tin. He watched and waited. There was no rush and he didn’t want to scare the mouse away.
The animal ate a third crumb and then went sniffing around the edges of the plate. Finding one it came up on its back legs again and stood gnawing at it. Morgan didn’t move, but he saw the ears of the animal turn up. The mouse gone rigid for a moment, standing there, nose poised in the air and ears flaring one way and then another. The tin was the only thing to sound as the mouse flitted back across the floor and disappeared behind the counter. Crumbs left uneaten on the plate and Morgan looking now toward his own reflection in the window glass.
Chapter 20
THE KILLERS HAD PARKED the patrol car just beyond the ridge and they went on foot to the summit, looking down on the small cabin. Bean carried the Walther in one hand and Drake’s service weapon in the other. John Wesley carried the shotgun they’d taken from Drake’s cruiser a couple days before. They stood watching the smoke feed up into the air in a blue moonlit plume. Nothing else to see at the base of the slope except the shift of the cottonwoods in the wind.
They stood without speaking and studied the terrain. When they were done they went together down the slope and separated as they came upon the light spilling from within the cabin onto the grasslands.
Chapter 21
THE DOOR SWUNG OPEN on its hinges with such force that it bounced back almost completely, leaving a sliver of the night visible beyond and the bulk of John Wesley standing there. Without moving from his seat, Morgan raised the shotgun from beneath the blanket and emptied one barrel into the wood frame of the door, catching John Wesley in the left arm. Splinters of wood all across the floor and the big man taking a step back with the deer shot in his flesh. A look on his face that Morgan could only guess was complete surprise.
John Wesley faltered a bit and then came forward. With his good arm he pushed the door open and stood looking in on Morgan. Morgan’s feet now planted on the floor, the woodstove behind him, and the old bird gun still in his hands. The bore smoking slightly and the blanket fallen to the floor.
John Wesley looked to the window over Morgan’s shoulder and in the same moment Morgan saw a piece of his firewood come through the window. Glass all over the floor and the stove wood rolling to a stop, Bean just beyond clearing the remaining glass from the frame with his pistol.
When Morgan turned back to the door John Wesley was raising his shotgun. Morgan pulled the trigger and the second shell of deer shot went full into the big man’s body, laying him out on the floor.
Morgan was running before he knew it.
Chapter 22
BEAN WAS HALFWAY THROUGH the window when Morgan took off. All he’d wanted was a chance to talk with Morgan. He didn’t want to kill the man, at least not until he’d gotten the money.