Champagne for Buzzards (23 page)

And so began our first party at Riverwood.

Lou came back into the kitchen. “There's a man out there asking for you. Better hurry, people are getting pretty worked up. You could see he was someone official the moment he got out of the car. They won't let him near the house.”

I dried my hands as I went.

On the steps to the porch, Jack stopped me and said, “How do we know he isn't with the sheriff's department?”

I looked at the man in a suit. He looked quite calm despite the fact that he was surrounded by people who were clearly angry. “Are you with the sheriff's department?” I asked.

“No. I'm Ian Welbee from the Department of Immigration. Detective Styles sent me.”

“Thank God,” I said. “The cavalry has arrived.” A cheer went up.

“Come on up,” I told him.

“Wait,” Jack said. “Don't you think we should know what's going to happen to Ramiro first?”

I wanted to kick him. I just wanted someone else to be responsible. But all around us people started to worry out loud that Ramiro would be sent back to Guatemala. There were offers to sponsor him, to give him a job and all sorts of things in between.

I was betting, on sober reflection in the morning that they'd all have second thoughts, enthusiasm giving away to caution. Tomorrow they'd be worrying about this stranger they were taking into their lives. Or maybe I was just being cynical but I've seen too many morning-after recaps not to know how these things happen, although Ramiro's rescue was bound to have a better outcome than most bursts of enthusiasm fueled by food and booze. Hopefully together we could make it happen without any one of us risking all.

“Let's just tell Agent Welbee what went on and take it from there,” I said.

While Ramiro slept overhead with Tully standing guard, Marley and Miguel sat down with agent Welbee in the dining room and told him the story from start to finish.

I added what I'd learned from April. “I think when the gates are closed they have their captives on the property. She said Lucan only worked when the gates were closed. April said she didn't know what was happening but I think she knows more than she told me.”

I turned over April's telephone number. “The Breslau place is surrounded by eight-foot chain-link and guarded by dogs. You'll need company when you go in.”

“Oh, don't you worry about that, we'll go prepared.”

“And they're armed. Everyone on those ATVs had a rifle. I don't know how many men will be at Oxbow but there will be at least three, Harland Breslau, Orlin Breslau and Boomer. He's the one you really have to watch. There won't be any reasoning with him.”

He nodded. “I'll keep that in mind.” He didn't seem too impressed with the idea of Boomer.

“Are you going to tell the sheriff you have Ramiro?”

“No,” Agent Welbee said. “I think your plan of leaving in a group is a good one.”

“What about the sheriff's deputy when you take Ramiro out? He's been stopping us every time we go out. If you tell him you're an immigration officer he'll repeat it to the sheriff and the Breslaus will be warned.”

He grinned at me. “Hey, we're just a couple of guys leaving a party.”

“Okay, and Ramiro?”

“Just one of the guys. They haven't been flashing around a picture of him, have they?”

“No. I doubt they have one.”

“Then they won't recognize him with clean clothes. He can pretend to nap like he's had a little too much to drink.”

“You better make sure you explain all this to Ramiro so he doesn't panic.”

He gave me a look that said he wasn't really interested in advice from me. Funny, I get that look a lot.

Ramiro didn't get much rest. Welbee woke him and he got to tell his story all over again and then Agent Welbee took Ramiro away, probably to be held in another jail. His freedom had been an illusion but at least he would be better treated and he would be safe. Lots of people from the party would be checking in on him and offering their support. It was the best we could do. The convoy idea everyone supported earlier was put into effect. A line of vehicles went out the drive with Welbee and Ramiro in the fourth car.

Those of us remaining at the house were pretty subdued, talking in soft tones and whispers, waiting and expecting a bomb to go off or shots to ring out.

A comfort level had been removed with the people who'd left. The few people remaining grew restless, uneasy in the night that seemed darker outside the circle of Japanese lanterns and fairy lights. We'd all come too close to evil to feel safe anymore.

My cell rang and everyone went silent.

“It was a non-event,” Agent Welbee told me. “We told the deputy the party was over and he just moved out of the way and let us all out.”

“Do you think he had any idea what was going on?”

“No way of knowing, but he knew a no-win situation when he saw it.”

The half-dozen people remaining were in a hurry to be gone now and they drove out the lane together, calling when they had cleared Independence to tell us they were all right, wanting to reassure not only us but also themselves that they were out of the danger zone.

But we weren't. That small fact was becoming clearer and clearer with each car that left.

As the last of the taillights disappeared, I said to Tully, “Maybe we should go into Jacaranda for a few days.” “Who will look after the horses?” he asked.

I heaved a sigh. “Let's discuss it in the morning,” I said. “Truthfully, I'm too whacked to even think about driving anywhere tonight.”

“Me too,” Tully agreed. “Just don't have the energy I once had.” His eyes were dark and sunken.

“Go to bed. No need to roam the corridors tonight, we know now there's no one out there in the dark, creeping up on us.”

“We know that, do we?”

I shivered. “Go to bed anyway. Tomorrow we'll decide what to do.”

He tipped up a long neck and drained it. He set the empty bottle on the porch railing saying, “That's the best idea I've heard all day.”

“Sleep in the bunkhouse so no one disturbs you.”

“Nope, I'll stick to the house. The Breslaus don't know their problem has moved on.”

“I'm trying not to think about that, just telling myself it's over.”

“They have to know from the sheriff that there was a load of people here tonight, that might keep them away. Then again—” he hesitated, staring off into the darkness as if he might be able to see what dangers hid there.

Overhead the Japanese lanterns swayed and shone brightly. Their gaiety didn't stop the fear Tully's words delivered.

“It isn't over, is it?” I asked.

“Not by a long shot. This has gotten real personal. I don't think there's much reasoning left with Boomer. He's just plain crazy. It's about more than Ramiro now and even Jacaranda might not be safe. He's going to come after you and when he does I'm going to be here.”

Tears stung my eyes. I put a hand up to wipe them as the lights of a car swept across the clearing of the yard, too late for someone coming to our aid. Was it the final unknown danger we'd been dreading? Tully and I looked at each other. I reached out a hand for Tully, wanting the comfort of touching him.

“I'll get the rifle,” Tully said.

“Wait.” I knew the car. I flew down the steps to grab the edge of the car door as it opened.

Clay rose from inside the car and took me in his arms. “You all right?” he asked, into my hair. “I am now you're here.”

I bent back in his arms and took stock. Clay's obsidian eyes were tired, but they crinkled into a smile. It was those eyes that first attracted me to him. Hard and unyielding and giving away nothing, those eyes watched me pulling pints and delivering drinks a long time before Clay acted. Lean and darkly handsome, he was wearing a dress shirt with the tie undone and no suit jacket. He looked perfect to me. “Man, you scared us,” he said softly.

Brian rose out of the passenger seat of the car and looked over its roof at me. “What in hell is going on?” he demanded.

It took a while to explain.

It was one in the morning. Brian was asleep in the den off the kitchen, Zig had gone to the bunkhouse and Marley had dragged herself upstairs.

Tully announced, “I'm off to bed,” and made for the hall. At the door he turned back to look at Clay. “When you gonna make me a grandpa, boy?”

“I'm working on it, sir.”

“Well, work a little harder,” Tully ordered. “C'mon Dog, you better sleep with me tonight.” Dog clicked down the hall behind Tully and followed him up the stairs.

With a lift of his shoulder and a smile Clay said, “Well, you heard the man.”

I laughed. “It's going to take more than an order from Tully Jenkins to make that happen.”

Later, Dog sounded the alarm, telling us the situation was even worse than we knew.

Fighting to come awake, I asked, “What?”

Out in the dark, Dog's bark was a crazed and vicious sound. A gun exploded. Someone yelled.

I jerked upright, my heart pounding while Clay bolted out of bed.

A second gunshot, louder and heavier, answered the first.

“What's happening?” I asked. I reached for the light.

“Don't,” Clay said. “Don't turn on the light.” I lowered my hand, looking to the window. We hadn't pulled the drapes. The light would make us targets, backlit and vulnerable. “Oh.” I pulled the tangled sheet across my chest, crippled with panic and fear while Clay's shadowy image pulled on clothes.

“Tully?” I asked. “Was that Tully yelling?” Clay was at the closet, taking down the wooden box that contained his handgun.

Outside, Uncle Ziggy or Brian, I couldn't tell which, shouted, “Tully, Tully. Where the hell are you, Tully?”

“He must be outside,” I said. “Oh, Clay, what's happened to him?” It was a stupid question. How could he know any more than I did?

He searched the back of a drawer for the box that contained the shells. “Stay here.” There was the click of the safety being released and Clay was gone.

“It's my dad,” I told the empty room. “Someone shot my dad.”

I picked up the phone and dialed 911. It was Sheriff Hozen's men who would come with the ambulance, might even be his men out there in the dark, but dialing the emergency number was all I could do.

A calm woman's voice asked me questions, while I searched the floor for my jeans. The night had not ended tidily. Clothes had been discarded in frantic haste. My foot hit rough denim. I pulled on the jeans, phone cradled in my shoulder, and searched for my tee-shirt. In the moonlight I could see Clay's white shirt puddled on the floor. I picked it up.

“I have to go,” I told the woman and dropped the phone. In the hall the red transom over the front door blocked the light of the moon. Carefully, feeling for each step in the dark, I slid along the banister and down the stairs. Scrambled voices came from the back of the house.

The shotgun, where was the shotgun? Hadn't Ziggy left it upstairs in the junk room? I hesitated, about to go back up the stairs to get it. But it wouldn't be there now. Uncle Ziggy would have it with him.

“What's wrong? What's going on?” Marley asked from the top of the stairs. Her white nightshirt hovered there like a ghost in the dark.

“I don't know what's happening. Don't turn on the lights. It will…” I couldn't tell her that it would make us targets. “I'll come back and tell you what's happening as soon as I know.”

“No,” she said. Her night shirt bobbed down the stairs. Beside me at the newel post she said, “They don't know Ramiro's gone, do they?”

“No.”

She turned slightly away from me and then moved in close. “The front door's open,” she whispered. “I can feel the air.”

“It's okay. Clay must have gone out that way.” But had he? The two of us stood there, barely daring to breathe, straining to hear, to pick up wisps of data from the very air around us. There was only silence, no smell, no sound and no awareness of anyone else. Night settled down. No voices called, no dog howled. The old house creaked and groaned, easing its warped bones back down.

The two of us were alone in the dark house, unarmed and with someone laying siege to Riverwood. Had I done the right thing in calling more of them in?

Marley's breath was warm on the side of my face when she whispered, “I'm going to close that door.”

“Why?”

She didn't answer, just tiptoed softly towards the front door. I took a deep breath, exhaled and started boldly for the kitchen.

As I passed the powder room under the stairs an arm snaked out and captured me. “I told you I was coming for you, bitch.”