Way Down on the High Lonely (21 page)

There was another door in the back and it opened to a smaller room with a desk, a couple of chairs, and a safe.

That’s more like it, Graham thought. He knelt down beside the combination lock and got to work.

“Why did he call you a traitor?” Karen asked Neal as she placed a cold washcloth on his eye.

“I dunno. He was drunk.”

“He wasn’t that drunk. And why did that one with the beard ask you whose side you were on? And how do you know those guys, anyway?”

Neal took the washcloth from her and held it himself. “Jesus! Are you sure you don’t want to shine a bright lamp in my eyes? Beat me with a rubber hose?”

“Maybe.”

“Lay off.” Because I’m in a tough position here, Karen. By the strict rules of the game I should have let Cal do a number on Steve back there, but something in me couldn’t let that happen. So I stepped in and committed a cardinal sin—I compromised my cover. And I have to figure out how to put that back together again. Then those assholes had to open their big dumb mouths and undermine me on the other side.

“Just tell me the truth,” Karen said.

Which is just the thing I can’t do. To tell you drags you into it, puts us both at risk. “Shit, Karen, they live next door.”

“Two miles next door.”

“It’s still the next door,” Neal said grumpily.

She had made up another ice pack and held it to the lump on his head as she sat down next to him on the sofa.

“Are you hanging out with those guys?”

Never deny what can’t hurt you, Neal thought. There’s nothing worse than getting caught in a lie you don’t have to tell. Save your lies for the important stuff.

“We’ve had a couple of drinks together,” he said. After knocking over a whorehouse or two.

“Hmm,” she said.

“Did you learn that from Peggy?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Bad company.”

You bet. “Anyway,” he said, “they probably won’t be too friendly after tonight.” Which is something of a problem, actually.

“Don’t bet on it,” Karen said. “Out here, little brawls like that don’t get in the way of being men together. Just a little bloodier-than-usual male bonding. You know, shake hands and laugh it off. ‘Boy, you really hit me a good one there, har-har-har.’ That sort of thing.”

“You sound pissed off.”

“I guess I’m just jealous. I want you to do your heavy-duty bonding with me,” she said. She reached down to his lap by way of illustration.

Neal groaned. “Karen, not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment, but my eye hurts like crazy, my head is throbbing, and my ribs feel like someone took a hammer to them.”

She kept stroking him and said, “Aw, the poor baby. You know, if you’re going to be a rootin’-tootin’, two-fisted drinkin’, barroom-brawlin’ cowboy, you’ll have to learn to climb back in the saddle after you’ve been thrown.”

“Really?”

His voice was strangely high-pitched.

“Mm-hmm,” she said, unbuckling his belt. “Hurt or not, you have responsibilities.”

“Responsibilities?” he asked over the metallic zing of the zipper.

“To me.”

“To you.” He ran a hand through that beautiful hair and touched her neck.

She looked up at him and asked, “How are those ribs now?”

“I don’t feel a thing.”

“Yes you do,” she said, softly laughing.

“Yes, I do.”

And he did. He felt wonderful and guilty at the same time, because he knew that a relationship is based on trust and honesty, and he could never give either.

Jory Hansen was thinking about a woman too, as he guided Cocoa up the slope of the spur. He was thinking about Shelly Mills, how he had left her on the couch in her living room, about her disheveled hair and clothes, and about how it was he who had put a stop to it with the feeble excuse that her parents could walk in any second.

She had wanted to do it, too. She had told him straight out, and he had been shocked and thrilled, but there was something that stopped him. He wanted to tell himself that it was his morals, his concern for her, his fear that she would hate him later when she was more in control, but all of that would be lies.

Truth was, he knew, that he had something laying heavy on him. Something terrible. Something that he had to hide but couldn’t hide from God, from Yahweh.

He knew it was this secret that stopped him. Stopped him even though he loved Shelly, even though she was so beautiful, even though he wanted to spend his life with her.

There wouldn’t be much of a life now. Not with the secret, not with the End Time coming.

But only Yahweh knew when that would be. Yahweh and maybe the old Indian.

The old Indian knew these things. It was the old Indian who had shown him the paintings in the cave, told him what they were and what they meant. Told him how they showed the beginning and the end.

Which is why Jory had done what he had done. Why he had the secret. Why, as he picked his way along the snowy ridge toward the cave, he prayed that he was right. Or that Yahweh would forgive him if he was wrong.

Then he could hear the Indian singing softly. A song older than sin.

Jory got down and slipped the pack off the horse’s rump. He asked Yahweh to forgive him for stealing the meat and canned food. He slipped the strap of the pack over his shoulder and hefted the bundle of firewood. Then he started up for the cave.

To see once more the end and the beginning.

Graham opened the file on the desk, pulled the gooseneck lamp over it, and photographed the file. He took special care to focus on the picture stapled to the top right corner of the first page.

The picture of Cody McCall.

Peggy could tell that her daughter had been crying. Not that she had ever been very good at hiding her feelings, but now her eyes were red and puffy.

“What happened to Dad?” Shelly asked as Steve snuck upstairs with the briefest of greetings.

“Feeling his age,” Peggy answered. “Acting like a colt because he feels like an old horse.”

“Huh?”

“He got into a fight in a bar.”

“Daddy?” Shelly asked. “Is he okay?”

“He’ll feel worse tomorrow. Now, what’s going on with you?”

Shelly turned away and went to sit down on the window box. She stared out in the darkness toward the mountains. “Nothing,” she said.

Peggy sat down beside her and stroked her hair. “Why don’t I believe that?”

“Because it’s not true.”

Peggy put her arm around her daughter and held her quietly.

After awhile Shelly said, “I wanted to make love to him tonight.”

Peggy felt a shot of fear go through her, but she suppressed it. She made her voice as calm as possible when she asked, “Did you?”

“No.”

Thank you, God, Peggy thought.

“But only because he didn’t want to,” Shelly said. “I don’t know whether to feel humiliated, or guilty, or relieved …”

“I’m relieved,” Peggy said, and they both laughed a little. “Why didn’t he want to?” Because there’s no teenage boy I’ve ever known who didn’t want to.

“He was afraid you’d walk in on us.”

“Well, that’s silly. You can only hear the truck coming for half a mile.”

“I know.”

“He was probably scared, honey.”

“So was I.”

“Me too. Mostly because one of these nights it will happen. You’re warm and smart and loving …”

“Pretty?”

“Beautiful. But don’t be in too much of a hurry, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And be careful.”

“Mom!”

“Well, I already have at least one more baby around here than I can handle. Speaking of which …” She rolled her eyes up toward the bedroom.

Shelly hugged her long and hard and then said, “Go see Daddy. Tell him I hope he won.”

Steve was in the upstairs bathroom, looking into the mirror and steeling himself to apply peroxide to the cut over his eye.

“Give me that,” Peggy said. She took the bottle and dabbed a corner of the washcloth with the disinfectant. “Tell me something. Did you pick that fight with that asshole?”

“I suppose I did.”

“You shouldn’t drink at all, you know that.”

“I know.”

She dabbed at the wound. Steve hissed.

“Oh, don’t look so hangdog,” Peggy said. “You didn’t do so badly.”

He walked into the bedroom and plopped down on the bed.

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately,” he said.

She joined him on the bed. “About what?”

“About just who the hell I am.” He smiled sheepishly. “A little late for a mid-life crisis, isn’t it?”

“Just about on time, I’d say. But is this one of those mid-life crisis deals where you leave me for a twenty-year-old cocktail waitress who really understands you?”

He reached for her and pulled her in. “You don’t get that lucky.”

“Good. Because you can be whoever you want, just as long as you’re my husband.”

He kissed her with his split lip and winced. But it didn’t stop him.

Bob Hansen put down his Bible and turned out the light. Sleep didn’t come easily. It hadn’t come easy since … he pushed that out of his mind. There was no use dwelling on it. Yahweh demanded a lot of his chosen people, and the End Time was coming soon. Bob Hansen was sure of that, just as sure as he was that he was Yahweh’s strong arm in the chosen land. Reverend Carter himself had anointed him, and Yahweh’s strong arm needed to get things cleaned up in the valley before the manchild came and the End Time started.

I can’t hide this much longer, he thought, not with the compound getting bigger and more men coming in all the time. Soon we’ll be using this as a base for operations against ZOG, and soon after that we’ll be defending it in the End Time, and I’d better be sure that the base is secure. Steve Mills will have to be with us or against us.

But he’ll be with us. Steve is a good white man with his head screwed on straight. All he needs is a little education. Then the whole valley will be the haven Yahweh meant it to be.

But sleep still wouldn’t come.

Karen lay in bed watching Neal’s troubled sleep and wondering just who this man was, this man whom she was in love with. What was he really doing in Austin? His story about a casual friendship with Hansen’s boys was bullshit—the Neal she thought she knew couldn’t be friends with that trash. What was he hiding? Should she dump him now, before he broke her heart? What snakes twisting in his head gave him such terrible dreams?

In Neal’s nightmare he was chasing the coyote across the sagebrush. The coyote had something in its mouth. Something golden. Neal chased it and chased it until he got close, until the coyote turned around and grinned, and Neal saw that the golden object in its mouth was the blond hair on the head of Cody McCall.

He didn’t let himself sleep after that until the sun came up.

8

T
he next afternoon Neal hiked over to Hansen’s house and knocked on the front door. He was surprised when Hansen answered it himself.

“You have nerve, Neal. I will give you that.”

“May I come in?”

Hansen stepped out of the doorway and ushered him in.

For a large house, it was remarkably simple. The rooms were all rectangles. The walls were eggshell white with western paintings hanging on them. The floors were wide-plank hardwood with bright Indian rugs.

“Come into my office,” Hansen said.

Neal followed him into a small room with a plain wooden desk, a swivel chair, and a straight-back cane chair. He gestured for Neal to take the cane chair as he sat in the upholstered swivel. Neal figured that this positioning was used to intimidate employees, let ’em know who was the boss, as if there were any question.

“What was last night all about?” Hansen asked.

“It was about keeping Cal out of prison.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know Cal. He would’ve killed Mills. Then where would he be? More important, where would
we
be? If Cal had any brains he’d be thanking me for jumping him.”

“You’re a smart man, Neal.”

If I were smart I wouldn’t be here.

Hansen continued, “But I don’t know how committed you really are.”

“I’m committed, Mr. Hansen,” Neal answered. Or should be, anyway.

Hansen tapped a pencil on his desk as he looked Neal over. Then he said, “It’s a dilemma for me, Neal, it is. Because I was about to make you a full member of our brotherhood. We were even planning the swearing-in ceremony.”

Great. Terrific. Good job, Neal. Screw everything up in a barroom brawl.

Neal looked him square in the eye. White man to white man. “There’s nothing I want in the whole world more than to be a member of the brotherhood, sir.”

Hansen nodded. “That’s fine, Neal. Because we need you. We need your skills.”

Damn right you do. You couldn’t knock off a gumball machine without me telling you how.

“We’re going to rob an armored car,” Hansen said.

Or an armored car.

“A sympathizer in Los Angeles has ‘tipped us off to this opportunity, so it will be an ‘inside job,’” Hansen said, his eye twinkling as he trotted out his criminal jargon. “An armored car company services the little banks and the mines around here. It’s making a big run in two weeks. I was hoping you could organize the hijacking.”

Neal whistled. “An armored car is a lot tougher animal than a pimp or a card game or a pickpocket, sir. I don’t know if we’re ready for it.” He sat quietly for a few moments, thinking it over. “How much money are we talking?” he asked.

Hansen’s eyes widened. He leaned forward in his chair and carefully pronounced, “Two to three hundred thousand dollars.”

“Two hundred large,” Neal said. “That’s a lot of money.”

Hansen sat back again. “I can’t begin to think what getting that money would do for the cause,” he said.

“Getting it and getting away with it are two different things.”

“That’s why we need you, Neal.”

Well, come and get me, Bob. Neal stood up and offered his hand. “I’d be real honored to help, Mr. Hansen. I want to fight for my race.”

Hansen stood up and took his hand. “I’m so glad to hear you say that, son. And after this mission is over, you’ll become a brother. I promise.”