Bitterroot (5 page)

“Yes.”

“The people who did it were never caught. That’s what’s hardest to live with. The only consolation I have is that Isaac, that’s my son, was shot before the car was burned. At least that’s what the coroner said. But sometimes coroners lie to protect the family.”

I picked up my hat off the back of a chair and turned it in my hands. I didn’t want to look at her eyes.

“There’s a rodeo this evening in Stevensville. I’d sure like to take you,” I said.

THE SUN was setting beyond the Bitterroot Mountains when we walked up into the wood stands that overlooked the arena. The air was cool and smelled like hot dogs and desiccated manure and pitch-forked hay. The summer light had climbed high into the sky, and in the distance I could see the humped, purple shapes of the Sapphire Mountains and the shine of the Bitterroot River meandering through cotton-woods whose leaves were fluttering like thousands of green butterflies in the breeze.

“People say you come to Montana once and you never leave. Not unless something is wrong with you,” Cleo said.

“It’s special, all right,” I said. But my attention had shifted away from the softness of the evening to a young woman down by the bucking chutes. She wore suede boots and bleached jeans with a concho belt outside the loops and a T-shirt and a straw cowboy hat that was coned up on the sides; she propped one boot on a white slat fence and watched three wranglers run a bull into the back of a chute.

“You recognize that gal down there?” I said.

“No,” Cleo said.

“The biker girl from the bar in Lincoln. She tried to warn us about Doc. She thought he was going to get hurt.”

“The one who got in the cashier’s face?” Cleo said.

“She said the biker’s whole name to me—Lamar Ellison. Like she wanted to make sure I’d remember it and tell somebody else.”

“I’d like to forget those people,” Cleo said.

“She made me for a cop. Two kinds of people can do that. Jailwise hard cases and other cops.”

“Who cares what a person like that does?” she said.

I didn’t pursue it.

The girl was joined at the fence by two men in scalped haircuts. They could have been bikers or paratroopers on furlough, but in all likelihood they were simply brain-dead misogynists who daily had to convince themselves of their gender.

A third man, with white hair and a trimmed white beard, joined them. He smoked a corncob pipe and stood very stiffly while he talked to the others, never quite looking at them, his gaze wandering around the arena and the stands, as though the environment around him was subject to his approval.

“I’ve seen that guy’s picture,” I said.

“That’s Carl Hinkel. He’s head of the militia movement here. They have a way of showing up in small towns that can’t afford a police force,” she said.

A rider climbed down on top of a bull in a bucking chute, working his gloved hand under the bull rope. The bull was rearing its head, blowing mucus, hooking its horns against wood, while the rider tied down his hand with what rodeo people call a suicide wrap. He straightened slightly, humped his shoulders, and clamped his legs tightly into the bull’s ribs.

“Outside!” he hollered, his right hand in the air.

The gate to the chute flew open, and the bull exploded into the arena, a cowbell clanging on its neck, its body twisting, hooves slashing at the air, barely missing the two rodeo clowns who stood by the chute behind a rubber barrel.

The bull came down hard on its forequarters, jarring the rider’s tailbone, then twisted in mid-stride and reared its head into the rider’s face. The rider bounced once on the bull’s back, one leg stabbing at the air for balance. Then he was over the side.

Except his gloved hand was caught under the bull rope, the arm bent backward, the rider’s body flopping against the bull like a cloth doll’s.

A brown balloon of dust rose from the arena as the bull spun in a circle, whipping the rider into the dirt, stomping him under its hooves, trying to hook the rider with one horn.

One of the clowns, a man wearing polka-dot pants, a striped cowboy shirt, firehouse suspenders, football cleats, and an orange fright wig and bowler hat, got in the bull’s face, hitting its nose with his hat, actually stiff-arming it up the snout, directing its rage at himself while the other clown jerked loose the flank strap and dragged the rider free of the bull’s hooves.

The crowd had risen to their feet, first in horror, then in relief and admiration as they witnessed the bravery of the clowns and the rescue of the rider.

For some reason the scene in the arena seemed to freeze, as in a photograph, but with a wrong detail, one that was out of sync, a flaw in what should have been a tribute to what is best in us. The bull was gone now, through a gate at the far end of the arena. The paramedics were working the rider onto a stretcher. He lifted his hand to the crowd and grinned weakly, his face streaked with dust and blood. The clown who had freed the rider’s trapped hand from under the bull rope picked up the rider’s hat and carried it over to his stretcher.

But the man who had behaved most bravely, the clown in the orange wig, never looked at the downed rider. Instead, he fitted the stub of a narrow cigar between his teeth and lighted it and looked up at the stands, smoking, his greasepaint grin like a fool’s at a funeral.

He climbed over the slat fence by the bucking chutes, dropped to the ground, and accepted a can of soda from the militia leader, the white-bearded man named Carl Hinkel. He drank until the can was empty,  his  Adam’s  apple  working  steadily,  and crunched the can in his palm and tossed it into a trash barrel. Then he studied the crowd again, and I would have sworn his eyes settled on me.

He walked to the bottom of the stairs that led to our seats, his cleats clicking on the concrete, and pointed into the stands, as though recognizing an old friend.

“Billy Bob?” Cleo said.

“Yes?”

“I think that man’s trying to get our attention.”

“I don’t know any rodeo clowns.”

She looked down at the program in her hand. When she glanced up again, her hand touched the top of my wrist.

“He’s coming up here. Billy Bob, look at his eyes,” she said, staring straight ahead.

They were recessed and wide-set, filled with an irreverent, invasive light.

He walked up the stairs two steps at a time, his legs lifting him effortlessly. He stopped at our row and pulled off his fright wig and held it on his heart.

“Why, howdy do, Mr. Holland. Bet you don’t know who I am,” he said.

“No, I don’t,” I said.

“Wyatt Dixon. Lately of Fort Davis, Texas. Before that, of Huntsville, Texas,” he said, and extended his hand. The wind blew against his back, and I could smell a hot, dry odor like male sweat that has been ironed into a shirt.

I took his hand. It was as rough as a rooster’s leg, scaled along the edges, the lines in his palm seamed with dirt.

“You know me from somewhere, Mr. Dixon?” I asked.

  “Not me. My sister did, though. Katie Jo Winset was her married name. You call her to mind?”

“I sure do.”

“She’d be flattered. Except she’s in the graveyard.”

“Same one her child’s buried in? The one she smothered?” I asked.

He set one cleated foot on the concrete step above him and leaned one arm down on his knee, so that his face was next to Cleo’s, his breath touching her skin.

“God bless this country. God bless this fine-looking woman here. Womanhood is the Lord’s most special creation. It’s an honor to be here to entertain y’all,” he said.

“Thanks for dropping by, Mr. Dixon. Stay in touch,” I said.

“Oh, I will. Yes-sirree-bobtail. You’ll know when it’s my ring, too.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” I said, and winked at him.

But he didn’t ruffle. His lantern jaw seemed to be hooked forward, his eyes holding on mine. Then he jogged down the stairs, his arms cocked at his sides, his football cleats clattering on the concrete, his whipcord body jiggling.

He stopped at the bottom of the stands and counted out several dollar bills to an Indian hot-dog vendor and pointed up at us. The vendor, who was overweight and wore a large white box on a strap around his neck, began laboring up the stairs toward us.

“I can’t believe I just listened to that conversation,” Cleo said.

The vendor stopped at the end of the row and handed us two fat hog dogs wrapped in napkins, dripping with chili and melted cheese. Wyatt Dixon was watching us from the top of a bucking chute. I stood up so he could see me clearly and pointed to the hot dog in my left hand and made an “A-okay” sign of approval with my thumb and forefinger.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” Cleo said.

“Grin at the bad guys and never let them know what you’re thinking. It drives them crazy,” I said.

“What if they’re already crazy?” she said.

Chapter

5

I CALLED the sheriff in Missoula early next morning, then drove in to meet him at his office. When I entered the office, he was standing at his window, looking out at the street, dressed in a blue, long-sleeve shirt, charcoal-black striped trousers, and a wide leather belt. I realized he was even a bigger man than I’d thought. His arms were propped against the sides of the window, and his back and head blocked out the view of the street entirely.

“I checked on that gal, Dixon’s sister, what’s-her-name, Katie Jo Winset. Evidently she was a professional snitch. She died of a heart attack while being taken from the woman’s prison to a trial in Houston,” he said. “Why would her brother want to put it on you?”

“She killed her own child. I got her to plead out. Part of the deal was she had to snitch off some bikers who were muleing dope up from Piedras Negras. If I remember right, one of the mules took Wyatt Dixon down with him. I just didn’t remember Dixon’s name.”

“If Dixon cared about his sister, he should be grateful to you. In Texas she could have gotten the needle,” the sheriff said.

When I didn’t reply, he said, “She might have skated if she hadn’t pled out?”

“I wanted her to fire me and go to trial. She killed two of her other children and buried them in Mexico. Truth be known, I wanted her to hang herself,” I said.

The sheriff sat down behind his desk. He wore a black string necktie and there were scars on the backs of his hands. He saw me looking at them.

“I used to drive a log truck. I had a boomer chain snap down on me once,” he said. “Mr. Holland, I can’t say I’m glad to see you here. I’ve got enough problems without you people bringing your own up from Texas. This biker, Lamar Ellison, the one your friend Dr. Voss remodeled up at Lincoln? He’s been in Deer Lodge and Quentin, both. Your friend’s mistake is he didn’t kill Lamar when he had the chance.”

“Lamar’s going to be back around?”

“Don’t expect to see him soon at First Assembly.”

“Do y’all have a narcotics officer working inside his gang? An Indian girl with blond streaks in her hair?” I said.

“You got some nerve, don’t you?”

“I thought I’d ask. Thanks for your time,” I said.

“Don’t thank me. I wish you’d go home.”

I left his office and walked out of the courthouse toward my truck. It was windy, and the sky was blue, and above the university I could see an enormous smooth-sided mountain, with a white “M” on it and pine trees in the saddles and lupine growing in grass that was just turning green.

I heard heavy steps behind me, then a big hand reached out and encircled my upper arm.

“I get short with people. It’s just my nature,” the sheriff said. “This is a good town, by God. But there’s people here with fingers in lots of pies. Dr. Voss hangs with some of those Earth First fanatics and he’s gonna get hisself hurt. The same can happen to you, son.”

“I appreciate it, Sheriff.”

“No, you’re a hardhead. Talk with a man name of Xavier Girard. At least if you get broadsided by a train, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“The novelist? His wife’s an actress?”

“Maybe it’s different where you come from, but most people’s public roles hereabouts are pure bullshit. That don’t exclude me,” he replied.

THE SHERIFF told me that by noon I could probably find Xavier Girard, unless the Apocalypse was in progress, at a low-rent bar down by the old train depot. The last I had read of his escapades was about two years ago in
People
magazine. A photo showed him being escorted out of a Santa Barbara nightclub by two uniformed policemen, the tangled pieces of a broken chair draped over his head and shoulders, a maniacal grin on his bloodied face.

The cutline, as I recall it, had stated something like: “Famed Crime Novelist Takes on Crowd That Boos His Poetry Reading.”

I walked into the bar, a long, high-ceilinged place with brick walls, and saw him eating at a table by himself in back. His girth and beard and thick, unbrushed hair and big head made me think of a cinnamon bear. His hands even looked like paws. The bar was full of derelicts, Indians, a few college kids, and a group who looked like they had just bought their Western fashions in the shopping malls of Santa Fe. Xavier Girard watched me approach him as he upended a mug of beer.

“Mr. Girard, my name’s Billy Bob Holland. I’m an attorney from Deaf Smith, Texas. The sheriff said I should talk to you,” I said.

“Oh yeah? About what?” he said.

“About Tobin Voss.” I pulled out a chair from the table and sat down.

He picked up his paper napkin and looked at it and dropped it. “Why don’t you just plunk yourself down without being invited?” he said.

“I need some help, sir. If I’ve intruded, I’ll leave.”

“You that private detective my film agent hired?”

“Pardon?”

“Got some ID?”

“Are you serious?” I asked.

He thought about it and let his eyes rove over my face.

“I guess that Southern-fried accent didn’t come out of Laurel Canyon,” he said. “Tobin Voss is on the right side, but he’s busting up the wrong people. Over-the-hill meth heads aren’t the problem in Montana.” Then he raised his voice and looked in the direction of the group dressed in stylized western clothes. “California douche bags buying up the state with their credit cards are a different matter.”