Fourth of July Creek (43 page)

That next morning, Ruffin’s gone and Stacks goes to work. He gets after the deadfall, but it’s wet through and some of it downright mucky inside, all the rain they’ve been having. For about a day and a half, he’s clearing out the useless wet wood and then he starts the standing tamarack. He’s cutting rounds when he feels someone near. Pearl’s old lady yelling at him from ten feet away. He kills the chain saw.

Who said you could cut down our trees?

She’s holding one cowboy boot that came off in the meadow and is shaking the mud out of it.

Ruffin leased it from Jeremiah.

Cutting down our trees isn’t part of the lease.

That’s not what he said. I was sitting right here with your husband when he and Bob were talking—

When you two were feeding him beer, you mean.

She yanks her boot back on, stomps her foot into it.

Look, Bob said for me to do it to pay my rent. He comes back and sees I haven’t done it. . . .

She’s already turned around and started back up to the house. Pinkerton has no idea what that means, should he stop or not. She just goes.

It’s about suppertime anyway. He eats a can of chili and observes the children running around the house and then going in for dinner. There’s good couple hours of light left. He figures he’ll get after it again. The tree is already down. Might as well cut the rounds. Maybe talk to her tomorrow. Maybe see about finding Ruffin and squaring all this with him. Hell, the Pearls can have the firewood for their winter. It’s just one log.

So he’s got a barrowful of rounds and is dumping them on the high ground near the trailer for splitting. Something claps him on the eardrum real good. Sarah Pearl’s open palm. She swings again. He catches her arm and she flings the other one, and he pushes her over a round into a spot of muck, and then she’s up again, and he’s saying he’s sorry, he didn’t mean to push her, and he’s trying to stammer out an explanation—

Stars. Tears of light.

He’s tumbled against the trailer, sliding along the siding. Everything keeling. He rights himself as the trailer window just over his head shatters. Something rattles around the countertops inside. He looks up as something nails him in the shoulder. It was the boy, throwing rocks. The eldest. Jacob. The other boy trudging with difficulty through the meadow, and Sarah Pearl, she ain’t calling off her son, and Pinkerton doesn’t know what to say or do. And does she know this. Does she know he won’t hurt the boy.

Of course she doesn’t. Or the bitch is crazy, doesn’t care what happens to her kids.

He doesn’t hear what he says until he sees Sarah and the boys hear him, their mouths and eyes gape wide:
I’m going in my trailer for my goddamn gun.

Sarah Pearl runs for the house like he’d drawn down on them already. He isn’t even sure if his pistol is in the trailer or down at the drive in his truck with half of his other things, but she tears off through the meadow with her boys like he’s firing at them.

He should go. This very moment.

Stacks would go.

But Pinkerton, he’s jammed up. He feels like he must stay, must wait until Pearl gets back, and make everything okay. Fuck the case. If he just sticks out this rough patch, he can make it square with Pearl.

Pinkerton steps inside the trailer. He’s in there a minute, then a while, then it’s sunset, then it’s dark and there are no lights on at the house. Now leaving seems impossible. Fact is, he’s afraid to go outside. If he’s honest with himself. Are they watching him. Is she watching him. Are they outside right now. He can’t hear a thing. Just the owl and the stream and the sighing trees. The moths kissing the screen. He locks the door and closes the curtains. Finds his pistol in his bag and beds down with it. He’ll go in the morning.

He can hear the boy—somehow the footfall sounds like a boy coming through the grass and nettles at the backside of the trailer. Pinkerton moves just as the glass crashes and he’s crouched behind the counter as it rains down. He fires out the window, up into the sky from his position on the floor in the glass. There’s a moment in the wake of the shot where all he hears is the ring and the fade of it. There’s a stone on the floor. One of the kids is throwing rocks. Again.

He yells that he doesn’t want any trouble, that he’ll leave in the morning.

The metal teapot caroms off the stove to the floor and pisses the carpet. The report of the gun that Sarah or one of the children shoots echoes off the mountains. Kids playing little Indians on the high ground. He thinks of carbines and face paint and warbonnets.

Another bullet hole appears in the wall near the ceiling. He can see a single night star just off center in it.

Another.

They are shooting at the trailer.

They are going to kill him.

He grabs the jacklight off the counter and flips it on. He leaps out the front door and holding it level with his pistol, sweeps the nearby area for anyone and then around the meadow. Nobody. He fires in the air and throws the light as hard as he can in the direction opposite the one he’s running—to the truck—as gunfire erupts from the house. He dives in and starts the pickup and bounds across the meadow in pitch-black. Trees rear up and he hits the brakes and then pulls on the lights and turns and guns the engine spitting mud. He still gets turned around and nearly high-centered on the zigzag out but then, his heart racing, he finally bounds through the brush onto the dirt road.

Pinkerton touched crumbs of piecrust onto his finger and licked them off and burped silently into his fist. It was night now and had taken him an hour to eat the slice of pie and tell the story.

“Was anybody hurt?”

“Hurt? No. I didn’t fire
at
anyone. I just wanted to get out of there.”

“So you’re sure none of the kids or their mother was hurt?”

“No. Of course not. I was trying to
avoid
anyone getting hurt. That’s why we arrested everybody. Ruffin was bound to go up and catch hell for what happened with me—”

“Waitaminute. You
arrested
everyone?”

“Pearl and his wife, yes.” Pinkerton looked at his hands a moment. “I was still thinking that if they just gave us something, just a name, I could make it all go away.”

“When? Wait. How?”

“Took a few weeks, but they eventually came down the mountain to get supplies.”

“And?”

“A couple agents pretended to be broke down on the side of the road when Pearl and his wife were driving into town together.”

“Were you there?”

“In Spokane for the meeting with the US attorney, yes.”

Pete shook his head and scoffed.

“This explains a lot.”

“About?”

“About why Pearl is so paranoid.”

Pinkerton sighed. He leaned forward and spoke low.

“Look, the shotguns were small fry. The FBI had never even heard of him. And we all at the ATF knew the only thing he’d possibly be good for was getting us near some real bad guys.”

“After everything that happened, you really thought he’d just turn informant?”

“When we got them to Spokane, we laid out the charges and what they could do to make them go away.” Pinkerton palmed the table, as though he were spreading relevant documents for Pete to see. “Most people take the deal. But they wouldn’t play ball. They posted bail and blew off their lawyer and their court date. They didn’t understand what a big deal this
wasn’t
, how easy it would’ve been—”

“So why not leave them alone?”

“Are you deaf? These are
federal
charges. The US Marshals are serving the bench warrant. And it’s not like Pearl is standing down. Right after this, he sent a letter threatening the president. A month before the president was
shot
. And dozens more threatening letters. Governors. The Fed chairman. The chief justice of the Supreme Court. Ranting about currency, and then these coins start showing up? Shit, Snow. You got the Secret Service involved now, as agents of the Treasury
and
as security for the president. Even if he wanted to, Pearl can’t get off the radar.”

Pinkerton tore his napkin in half, seemed amused that he’d done so, and set it on his plate.

“He doesn’t want to get off the radar, does he?” Pinkerton asked.

Pete rubbed his eyes, then laid them dully on Pinkerton.

“You could help bring him in,” Pinkerton said.

“Pearl doesn’t trust me.”

“He gave you all those coins. To distribute, right? He trusts you that much.”

“He sees my
instrumentality
, he says.”

“Did you take him to Reno?”

“No.”

“Did you see him in Indiana?”

“I was looking for my daughter there. And in Reno too.”

“
Your
daughter.”

“Yes, she ran away. The coins were just . . . there in my car. I dropped some in the machines for the hell of it. Or I don’t know why.”

“Can someone verify you were looking for her there?”

“Lovejoy. Washoe County Department of Family Services. Jenny, I think.”

Pinkerton got out a pen and wrote the name down on half of his napkin.

“Okay, I’ll check it out.”

“You can do whatever the fuck you want. This has shit to do with me.”

“But you see what’s coming, right? You see how bad this can all turn out.”

“Yes.”

“How are Pearl’s kids?”

“I’ve only been with the middle boy. Benjamin. I haven’t even seen the wife or the other children,” Pete said.

“You haven’t?” Pinkerton asked.

“No.”

“You don’t know where they are?”

“Pearl says they’re away. Alive. Somewhere else.”

“That’s weird.”

“Why?”

“You don’t think it’s weird?”

“Is there a single thing that’s
normal
about this? Pearl already thinks the whole government is one huge conspiracy to fuck him over. And how’s that
not
what we’re doing right now? You want me to help you and the US Marshals and Secret Service? Christ, can we really call him paranoid at this point?”

Pete put on his coat.

“He’s around the fucking bend,” Pinkerton said. “Hiding up in those mountains—”

“Who wouldn’t be? You put him up to committing a federal crime? You pretend to be his friend and then you arrest him and threaten him with prison if he doesn’t inform on guys he doesn’t even know?”

Pete slid out of his chair and stood. Pinkerton grabbed Pete’s forearm.

“Look, I’ll be the first to admit that this has gotten out of hand. I’m trying to avoid trouble—”

Pete pulled his arm away.

“My whole job is about helping people avoid trouble. That’s what I was trying to do today. Keep somebody out of trouble. And after what’s happened to me, it’s pretty easy to see Pearl’s side of things.” Pete zipped his jacket. “So here’s a novel fucking idea:
drop it.
Leave him the hell alone.”

“Impossible. Where do you think you’re going?”

Pete threw wide his arms, and Pinkerton looked around the restaurant at the people who had ceased eating, who were now watching the two of them.

“If you’re gonna arrest me and charge me with something, then let’s go back to that little makeshift jail of yours and I’ll wait for my lawyer. In fact, I can’t wait to get in front of a Rimrock County jury.”

Pinkerton laced his fingers together, sniffed, and glared at the table.

“I’m gonna take your posture as a sign that I’m free to go,” Pete said.

Then Pete announced to the room that the man sitting there was an ATF agent named Jim Pinkerton who had agreed to let him go. Pete said he just wanted to have witnesses that he wasn’t being charged with anything.

When he got outside it was full dark and he was a few moments in the parking lot looking for a car that was probably still in front of Debbie’s house in Tenmile if it hadn’t been towed to God knows where.

And Katie. God knows where too.

How did they get by?

They bummed rides to places where they stayed. They bunked with a guy named Ira in Tacoma who tried to feel Rose up and she let him because she’d had a lot to drink, but then didn’t let him when she was tired and crawled into the blankets next to Pomeroy and Yolanda. When it didn’t rain, they slept in a tent that Pomeroy kept in another bus station locker with his outdoor gear.

Did it always rain?

Yes.

How much did they get by on?

Nickels a day. Potatoes they cooked over small fires in Viretta Park that they were careful could not be seen from the street. They got by by being on the move at dusk and tucking into some spot or other that Pomeroy knew about, someplace where he had secreted a blanket and some cans in a plastic sack. A condemned apartment in Medina, a bridge in Clyde Hill, an overpass on Mercer Island. They got by on Pike Street simply sitting in front of a hat.

Dine-and-dashing. They took turns: Yo would eat and then break for it and, if necessary, Pomeroy would obstruct the cashier charging out after her.

Yo’s got short legs, but she’s quick as duck shit
, Pomeroy said.