Jack Cooley was one of the first ones to come out of the arrival door and start walking toward us. He was an inch taller than I was and broad in the shoulders. He wore an old army jacket and jeans and work boots. The kid went right over to him and hugged him and Jack hugged him back.
“Peeler,” Jack said. “Fucking little Peeler. Jesus Christ.” He hugged the kid again.
Pop went over and shook hands with Jack and hugged him with one arm. He introduced me. “This is Ed Snider, he’s renting Grandpa’s house while he does some contract logging over on the edge of old Freleigh’s property. He drove us today.”
Jack Cooley looked me up and down. “Thanks,” he said. He motioned at Pop and the kid. “These are nice people to be nice to.”
“Glad you’re out,” I said.
“You’re never out after that long,” Jack answered. “The cell just gets a little bigger.” He looked around at the vending machines and pay phones by the door. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get up in those mountains. I’ve been dreaming about them for ten years. Are they still there?”
“Nothing’s changed,” Pop said, “Nothing’s changed.”
The kid stopped to take a piss before we got in the truck and when he came out, he had another can of soda with him. He shook it before he got in my truck. He cracked the can open and sprayed Jack with the soda and Jack was laughing and shaking his head soaking wet. “I’ll clean it,” the kid said. “Pop told me we shouldn’t use champagne, so I used soda.”
“Peeler,” Jack said, “you should never sleep too heavy.” He was laughing as he said it.
I drove the Cooley family back to the tip of the Idaho Panhandle. By the time we got home, it was snowing lightly and the three of them walked up the hill to their house while I reloaded my woodstove for the night.
The next morning I had been up for a while when Jack Cooley came down for a cup of coffee. He was still wearing the old army jacket.
“How’re you doing?” I asked.
“Fine,” he said. “Same as always.”
“How was it inside?”
“Brutal,” he said and left it at that.
“Where’d you do most of your time?”
He sipped his coffee. “Kentucky. Pennsylvania.”
He was right across the table from me, so I had to ask. “Pop said you might come out and go after some people.”
Jack shook his head. He rubbed his chin. “I’m not doing anything to anybody up here, not a thing. I’m not involved in anything other than my own life.”
“Do they know that?” I asked.
He put his coffee down. “Everything with you is a question,” he said. “Who is they?”
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” I said.
“The only people here are you and me, Pop, and Peeler. Is that right?”
“Hey,” I said, “I misspoke myself.”
“I’m not moving off this mountain until yesterday is dead, do you get my meaning?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“I’m not hiding up here,” he said. “I’m out.”
“I believe you,” I said.
“You ever see a nest of snakes in the woods? Sometimes they’ll be in a rotted tree trunk or out in a field?”
I nodded.
“Crawling all knotted up with each other, biting each other, this one eating the tail of that one that’s eating the head of another, sliding all around each other, so you can’t tell which one is which one. Some poor people think that’s life.” He reached down and brought his coffee up, took a swallow. He was looking at the mountains. He set his coffee on the table and started for the door. “Solitary never bothered me,” he said. “It was being in population that I didn’t care for. Too many snakes.” He went out and I watched him walk back up the hill through the ankle-deep snow.
The next day I drove to Spokane alone. George Beck’s lawyer met me downtown and we talked near the water, in the park.
“What did you find out?” he asked.
“Nothing. Jack Cooley isn’t doing anything in any organization, as far as I can tell yet.” We walked along a side street and pretended to look at the shops.
“This isn’t what we agreed on, this isn’t going to help George. You’ve got to dig around and find something.”
“These people don’t trust me,” I said. “And they don’t talk much under the best of circumstances. Jack’s still wearing his prison laundry army coat, for God’s sake.”
“Fine,” he said. “Tomorrow, George is going to begin talking about Tim Shipman and you and that Larson girl and you can deal with the fallout from that on your own.” He started to walk away. “The gun won’t help you. We’re going forward.”
“That’s no good,” I said. “I need more time.”
“Two days,” he said. “And here.” He handed me a pad and pen. “Draw me a map of where the Cooleys are, so if it comes to it, the sheriffs can get a decent address for the warrant.”
I drew the map as best I could and if someone was really bent on finding it, they’d find it. I handed the pad back to him.
“That will buy you two days with me, but after that, George talks and signs statements and testifies and your name is on everything.”
When I got home, there was a sandwich on my kitchen table and a small stick with a smiley face on it. As I went to put wood in the stove, I realized that several of the logs carried messages. Peeler, on each one of them. Peeler.
The next morning Cannon was scratching at my door and I came out. Something was in the road, about fifty yards from my house. I thought it was Jack, facedown in the snow. I recognized the army jacket. Cannon started back toward his house and when I looked up, Pop and Jack were running down the road toward me.
“They shot Peeler,” Pop yelled to no one.
“I didn’t hear a shot,” I said.
“Nobody heard it,” said Jack.
When we got close I could see a faint spray of blood around Peeler’s head. I threw up into the snow. Not at any time had shooting the kid been discussed. Beck’s people would push until something gave. Either me or Jack Cooley. I threw up again.
“Why the fuck did they shoot Peeler?” Jack asked the sky.
I realized Peeler had Jack’s coat on.
“He drew the fire,” Pop said. “He walked around in it the other morning. I thought maybe you had some cigarettes in there and he was trying out smoking.”
When we got close, we could see Peeler was still breathing, even though there was blood coming out of his nose.
“Peeler?”
His mouth opened and his voice, scratchy and cracked, came out. “Pop,” the kid groaned. “It hurts.”
Jack rolled him over, pulled back the coat. He was wearing the Kevlar vest, my bulletproof. He’d been hit, twice, body shots. He was hurt, but he was alive, Jack carried him up to the house.
“What can I do?” I said.
“Keep an eye out,” Pop said.
I took George Beck’s pistol out of the truck, grabbed some shells Pop had given me when I first got there, and went walking. I went into the woods, to try to see if I could spot anyone.
Down the hill a ways, on the other side of the Cooleys’ house, was a small family cemetery. I stopped for a minute. Pop had told me who was in there, where his family tree had branched. Outside the cemetery, I noticed a pick and a shovel. Jack must have been down there. It looked like he was getting ready to dig a new grave. Peeler had carved some sticks and one was in the shape of a cross. The stick read GEORGE BECK, SENT TO HELL BY THE COOLEYS.