(2008) Down Where My Love Lives (43 page)

I shook his hand. "Thanks, Dr. Frank. We appreciate you. We'll keep you posted." When I turned and walked down the hall, the sweat cascaded down my back.

EVERY MORNING WHEN MY GRANDFATHER WOKE, he'd sit on the edge of the bed and run yesterday's sock between his toes like a shoe shine. Once his toes were clean, he'd walk to the window and look out across the fields. Then he'd walk to his dresser, pick up his pocket watch, and wind it. He'd wind it slowly, adding tension to the spring with every turn, always stopping just one turn shy of too much. That was the trick. Too much and it would lock up, seizing internally, and that meant a trip to the watchmaker, but after years of practice, Papa had the feel for just right.

Maggie and I walked out of the doctor's office, underneath the magnifying glass and across the parking lot. Her face shining like a glow plug and her feet barely touching the ground, she bounced as she walked. Except for the long hair, she reminded me of Julie Andrews dancing atop the mountain at the start of The Sound of Music. And when she pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes and smiled at me, she looked like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. I opened the van door and she climbed in, bouncing up and down on the springy seat like a puppy in the window of a pet store. Only then did she remind me of Papa's watch spring. Problem was, I didn't know where she stood in relation to too much.

Maggs put her feet on the dash, tucked her knees tight into her chest, smiled, and began pointing her finger. That meant we were going in search of something to eat. When we got there, her stop-sign hand would let me know.

Her finger led us to the drive-through window at Dairy Queen, where I ordered two large vanilla cones dipped in chocolate. Maggie wanted hers covered in sprinkles, so I passed it back through the window and shrugged, and the guy doused it with rainbow sprinkles.

Licking circles around our cones, we rolled down the windows and headed toward home. Maggie finished her ice cream before I'd eaten half of mine. She took a deep breath and slid her sunglasses up over her head, pulling her hair back behind her ears. "I think we can let the cat out of the bag now."

"You sure?"

She patted her stomach. "Well, pretty soon it's going to become obvious."

"Okay."

"Ooooh," she said, sitting up quickly and pointing at the grocery store, "pull in here."

I did as directed and parked in the fire lane while Maggie ran in, smirking. Minutes later, she ran out laughing, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. That's my Maggie, just cracking herself up.

"What's so funny?"

She pulled out a notepad, wrote "Guess what?" on the top piece of paper, and then pulled a baby bottle from her bag. She unscrewed the nipple, slid the note inside the clear plastic bottle, and screwed the nipple back on. She held it up, triumphant. "The message in the bottle."

I looked at the bag. "How many of those you get?"

She shook the bag and what must have been a dozen bottles. "Enough."

First, we pulled into Bryce's and parked at the gate. If he was around, we knew he'd want to know. Besides, Maggie really wanted to tell him. She grabbed a bottle and held my hand, and we tiptoed up the drive. The woods were quiet, and it was cooler beneath the tall canopy of oak arms that had overgrown the cracked drive up the hill to Bryce's compound. Where the limbs shadowed us from above, the roots had broken the asphalt and turned most of the hardtop into what looked like a road map of the United States.

When we cleared the trees, Maggie took in a deep breath and said, "Holy smokes! You weren't kidding. What happened?"

I shrugged. "No idea."

We searched the grounds, even the obstacle course, but found no fresh evidence of Bryce. Maggie looked around, shaded her eyes, and pointed atop the second screen. "You ever see that before?"

I looked up, and my eyes widened. The second screen had been rebuilt, larger than an IMAX screen-probably seventy feet tall. Erected across the top was, for lack of a better term, a crow's nest. Fed by a ladder and a metal walkway, it looked large enough for one man, and because of its position atop the hill on Bryce's property, it would give anyone up there a rather advantageous view of Digger.

I shook my head and shrugged. I didn't know much about military tactics or training, but judging from the level platform, and the length of it, the ladder leading up the side, and the idea that high ground is best, I started putting two and two together. Given Bryce's history, or what little I knew of it and the mystery that surrounded it, compounded with the stories I'd heard from Amos that rose out of his SWAT sniper training, I started to wonder. But I said nothing to Maggie.

Thinking he'd return to his trailer sooner or later, we left the bottle hanging from a string on the front door. We walked back down the hill, underneath the tentacled arms of the oaks and beneath the shade of the canopy. While our feet crunched dried acorns, I had a strange feeling that just because we hadn't seen Bryce didn't mean he hadn't seen us. This wasn't something I knew but rather something I felt-kind of like static electricity.

One question kept popping up across the backs of my eyelids: Why? I had now been here twice and was pretty sure Bryce knew about both trips, but he hadn't showed. Granted, Bryce had never been a very social person. He prized his own company, avoided most other human beings on the planet, and had no real friends to speak of. But for some reason, all that had changed when it came to Maggie and me. Especially Maggie. In fact, he'd made efforts to see us when he didn't have to. All that, coupled with the sight of Bryce's compound, put a wrinkle in the center of my forehead that Maggie would have seen had she not been working on her note to Amos and Amanda.

We headed toward home and pulled into their drive, and my giddy wife hopped out and dropped a bottle in the Carters' mailbox. She climbed back in, propped her feet up, and kicked the dashboard.

"What'd the note say?"

She smiled and leaned her head back. "Dylan's got a secret."

AT 11:00 PM I HEARD A FAINT TAP ON OUR BEDROOM window. When Amos is your neighbor, you learn to live with these things.

I looked out the window and saw him motioning me toward the front porch. Given Maggs's little gift we left in the mailbox, I'd been expecting a visit. I covered Maggie, who had been asleep since a little after nine, and stepped into my jeans. Blue hopped off the end of the bed and followed silently behind.

When I slid open the door, Amos was sitting on the porch railing, looking out over the corn. He didn't look at me, and when Blue brushed up alongside the railing, he didn't seem to notice. From the side, his face looked thin, and his eyes were sunk back in his head. He pointed at the cotton. "It's pretty in the moonlight."

I nodded and moved around the side where the moon lit the sweat on Amos's face and shone off the badge that hung on a chain around his neck. He looked tired. His waist was hung with all sorts of police paraphernalia: a SureFire flashlight, black, nonreflective; handcuffs; a retractable baton; his Kimber in .45 auto; several clips; and a few other odds and ends that I couldn't place.

I spoke softly. "You been up awhile?"

He nodded. "Couple of days."

"You want to talk about it?"

Amos shook his head. I walked inside, grabbed two cups and the pitcher of sweet tea out of the fridge, and returned to the porch. Pouring a glass, I handed it to him and sat on the railing next to him. Blue hopped up on the swing and pointed his nose at us.

"Thanks." Amos wiped his face with the fat of his palm and looked up at the ten trillion stars looking down on us. Then he looked at me. "You still got Papa's Model 12?"

I nodded.

"You remember how to ... ?"

Amos trailed off, and I nodded again.

"You might think about ... keeping it handy."

Papa's Model 12 was a pump-action Winchester twelve-gauge with a thirty-inch barrel and a full choke. The longer barrel and full choke gave it a tighter pattern at longer distances-good for shooting geese, turkey, or deer. According to Amos, it was reliable and gained in popularity with inner-city gangsters in the 1940s and 1950s. Starting in the '60s, law enforcement adopted it to clear houses and hallways, and in Vietnam, marines and Rangers alike used it in the tunnel networks.

What had started out as a hunting shotgun evolved rapidly into a rather potent self-defense weapon. The only difference between theirs and mine was that most of them had cut twelve inches off the barrel so the pattern spread more quickly. The sound of the pump action sliding a round into the chamber is definitely distinct. If you were breaking into a house and heard that sound somewhere in the darkness around you, it'd get you to thinking.

I looked at him. "Ebony, feels like there's a whole lot you're not telling me."

He nodded and glanced over his shoulder to where Maggie lay sleeping. "You two got enough to worry about right now." He stood, lifted his belt, and pulled his car keys from his pocket. `Just keep it close. You hear me?"

"I heard you the first time, but that doesn't mean I understand you."

He looked off across the pasture. "The sound alone might do you as much good as the business end of it." He grabbed his bag and started down the steps. Then he stopped, shook his head, and reached into the bag. He pulled out a small gift tied with a bow and set it on the railing. "Got this for you." He feigned a smile. "It'll come in handy."

He looked at his house across the street. "'Manda'll be over tomorrow with something for Maggie. She's over there now, dreaming up something."

Amos walked down the drive and across the street into his yard. I watched him dodge the toys and then disappear through the front door. His status among local and federal law enforcement had increased a lot in the last two years, and his broad shoulders carried a lot more than just the shirt on his back. And I loved him for it.

AMOS AND I WERE NINE, AND IT WAS SUMMER BREAK. We were dressed up like cowboys, walking through Dodge City while keeping our eyes on Boot Hill.

Marshal Amos had seen the bad guys run behind the general store, which looked a lot like our barn, so he told his faithful companion, Texas Ranger Dylan, and we slipped around back and ducked into Papa's soybeans. If we could corner them in the barn, they'd have to jump from the hayloft and we'd get them in the air on the way down. It was the fourth time this week they'd chosen that escape route.

Sure enough, they had climbed the ladder inside the barn and were already taking shots at us. That meant we had to face them. Man-to-man. Amos and I straightened the bandannas around our necks to keep the dust out, checked the caps on our pistols, and loosed the holster fob. We licked the sights on our carbines, and then we walked out of the shoulder-high plants, challenging all comers. We sprinted around the barn, dove into the sawdust, rolled, shuffled behind the Evinrude motor clamped to the motor mount, and aimed at the sun just cracking through the slats in the hayloft.

I looked at Amos, he nodded, and we came out blazing. Like Wyatt Earp at the OK Corral, and John Wayne in True Grit, we bit down on our bandannas like halter reins and started slinging lead. We worked the levers on our faithful Model 94 Winchesters and popped as many caps as our fingers would let us. When they were empty, we threw down our carbines, pulled both six-shooters, and kept pouring the lead at them. When the remaining two finally leaped from the loft, Marshal Amos squeezed off a fantastic shot behind his back, leaving him out of ammo and me to deal with the worst of the outlaw gang alone.