''We're gonna do it,'' LaChaise said. He had a half-glass of bourbon in his hand. ''We've been talking for years. Talk talk talk. Now with Candy and Georgie shot to pieces, we're gonna do it.''
''Gonna be the end of us,'' Martin said. His beard was coppery red in the lamplight.
''Could be,'' LaChaise agreed. He scratched his own beard, nipped at the bourbon. ''Do you care?''
Martin worked for another minute, then said, ''Nah. I'm getting crowded. I'm ready.''
''You could go up north, up in the Yukon.''
''Been there,'' Martin said. ''The goddamn Canadians is a bunch of Communists.
Even Alaska's better.''
''Mexico…''
''I'm a goddamn American.''
LaChaise nodded and said, ''How about you, Ansel?'' Butters said, ''I just want to get it over with.''
''Well, we got to take our time, figure this out…''
''I mean, everything over with,'' Butters said. ''I can take my time with this .''
LaChaise nodded again. ''It's the end for me, for sure. But I swear to God, I'm taking a bunch of these sonsofbitches with me.''
Martin looked at him uncertainly, then nodded, and looked away. They worked together, comfortable but intent, like they did in hunting camps, thinking about it all, drinking a little, letting the feeling of the hunt flow through them, the camaraderie as they got the gear ready.
They checked the actions on their weapons for the twentieth time, loading and unloading the pistols, dry-firing at the TV; the good smell of Hoppe's solvent and gun oil, the talk of old times and old rides and the people they remembered, lots of them dead, now.
''If I lived,'' LaChaise continued, ''I'd do nothing but sit in cells for the rest of my life anyhow. Besides…''
''Besides what?'' Martin asked, looking up.
''Ah, nothin','' LaChaise said, but he thought, Mexico. He'd always planned to go, and hadn't ever been.
''It cranks me up, thinking about it,'' Butters said. His face was flushed with alcohol.
SANDY HAD BLOWN UP WHEN SHE'D COME BACK FROM her ride, and Elmore had told her about the truck. She jumped in her van and went after them, but they were gone.
She gotto the St. Croix, realized the futility of the chase, slowed, turned around and went back.
''What were you thinking about?'' she shouted at Elmore. ''You shoulda swallowed the keys.''
That night, Elmore was in the kitchen making a pot of Rice-a-Roni with venison chunks, and she could smell the chemical odor of the stuff as she sat in front of the TV. She heard the rattling of the dishes, and finally, Elmore stood in the hallway behind her. She pretended to watch the sports.
He said, ''We oughta talk to the cops.''
''What?'' She pushed herself out of her chair. She hadn't expected this.
Elmore's voice rose to a nervous warble: ''If we stick with this, only two things can happen. We get killed, or we go to jail for murder. That's it: them two things.''
''Too late,'' she said. ''We gotta sit tight.''
Tears came to his eyes, and one dribbled down a cheek, and Sandy suddenly didn't know what to do. She'd seen Elmore frightened, she'd seen him cower, she'd seen him avoid any serious responsibility, but she'd never seen him weep. ''Are you okay?''
He turned his head toward her, the tears still running down her cheeks: ''How'd this happen?'' he said.
She'd thought about that: ''My sister,'' she said. ''The whole of this is because of Candy. And because of your dad's trailer. It's because of nothing that means anything…''
''We've got to go to the police.''
''But what do we tell them? And why would they believe us?''
''Maybe they won't,'' he rasped. ''But you saw all those guns and all that other shit that Martin had. How're they going to Mexico with all that shit? How are they gonna get across the border with it? And if they do get across, what arethey going to use for money? They ain't going to Mexico. They're gonna pull some crazy stunt.''
''No-no,'' she said, shaking her head. ''They're out of here. Dick LaChaise is nobody's fool.''
''Dick LaChaise is fuckin' nuts,'' Elmore said. ''You want to know what's gonna happen? We got two or three more days, and then we'll be dead or in jail. Two or three more days, Sandy. No more horses, no more trail rides, no more going up to the store or running down to the Cities. We're going to jail. Forever.''
They stared at each other for a moment, then she said, almost whispering, ''But we can't get out. If we talked to the cops, what would we give them? We don't even know where Dick's at. And there're Seed guys all over the place-look what happened when that guy was going to testify against Candy. He got killed.''
''Maybe old John Shanks could tell us something,'' Elmore said. John Shanks was a criminal attorney who'd handled Candy's assault case. ''See if he can cut us a deal.''
''I don't know, El,'' Sandy said, shaking her head. ''This thing is all out of control. If they hadn't stayed in the trailer…''
''We can clean up the trailer.''
''Sure, but if we turn against them, they'll drag us in. How'd you like to be in the same prison with Butters and Martin?''
Elmore swallowed. He was not a brave man. ''We gotta do something.''
''I'm gonna walk down the driveway,'' Sandy said. ''I'll figure something out.''
SANDY PUT ON HER PARKA AND PACS, AND HER GLOVES, and stepped outside. The night was brutally cold and slapped at her skin like nettles; the wind was enough to snatch herbreath away. She crunched down the frozen snow in the thin blue illumination of the yard light, thinking about it, worrying it. If she could only keep things under control. If only Dick would disappear. If only Elmore would hold on…
Elmore.
Sandy had never really loved Elmore, though she'd once been very fond of him; and still felt the fondness at times. But more often, she suffered with the fact that Elmore clearly loved her, and she could hardly bear to be around him.
Sandy had grown up with horses, though she'd never owned one until she was on her own. Her father, a country mailman, had always wanted to ride the range-and so they rode out of the county stables on weekends, almost every weekend from the time she was three until she was eighteen, three seasons of the year. Candy hadn't cared for it, and quit when she was in junior high; Sandy had never quit.
Never would. She loved horses more than her father loved riding them. Walking down the drive, she could smell the sweet odor of the barn, manure and straw, though it was more than a quarter-mile away… She could never leave that; never risk it.
She'd gone to high school with Elmore, but never dated him. After graduation, she'd left for Eau Claire to study nursing, and two years later, came back to
Turtle Lake, took a job with a local nursing home and started saving for the horse farm. When her parents died in a car accident-killed by a drunk-her half of the money had bought four hundred acres east of town.
Elmore had been working as a security guard in the Cities, and started hanging around. Sandy, lonely, had let him hang around. Made the mistake of letting him work around the ranch: he wasn't the brightest man, or the hardest worker, but she needed all the help she could get, working nights at thenursing home, days at the ranch. Made the mistake of sleeping with him, the second man she'd slept with.
Then Elmore had fallen off a stairwell and wrenched his back: the payoff, twenty-two thousand dollars, would buy some stock and a used Ford tractor. And there wasn't anybody else around. And she was fond of the man.
Sandy often walked down the drive when life got a little too unhappy, when
Elmore got to be too much of a burden. The ranch, she'd thought, was the only thing she wanted in life, and she'd do anything to get it. When she'd gotten it- and when the breeding business actually started to pay off- she found that she needed something else. Somebody else. Even if it was just somebody to talk to as an equal, who'd understand the business, feel the way she did about horses.