Dead Man’s Fancy (8 page)

“Saddle sore?”

He looked at the ground, a field of scarlet paintbrush, their stalks broken by a high altitude hailstorm. “Before we hike down there,” he said. “I'd appreciate you telling me what the hell that was all about?”

“Bucky?” She chewed on her lip. “That was about getting him to admit to something I had no evidence to accuse him of.”

She twirled her Resistol on her forefinger and resettled it on her head. “We did find an arrow, but it had an aluminum shaft; it wasn't Bucky's. But I had a good idea he'd stuck that bull. Everybody on the staff said he made the morning's schedule so he could hunt till ten a.m. or so. One of the ranch hands told me about the arrows with his initials. I confirmed it when we went into the barn. My hunch is Bucky found the elk the day after he wounded it; maybe he heard wolves on the kill. Then he set the trap and that kid stepped onto it by accident when he was looking for the Martinelli woman.”

“Isn't it illegal to trap wolves?”

“No. But the trapping season starts December one, so it's out of season.”

“What good would setting a trap do? The pack had already ruined the meat.”

“Ranchers like Bucky hate wolves as much as they hate Democrats. Just the opportunity to kill one would be reason enough, take my word for it.”

With the snow melted, the only lingering evidence of the tragedy was the smell. Blood that has seeped into the earth has a dark, organic scent that works on an atavistic level, causing the small hairs to stand up on the forearms.

Stranahan flared his nostrils. “Glad I'm not an undertaker,” he said.

His eyes had been immediately drawn to a raw wound in the earth, twin furrows about five feet long. They would have been covered by snow when Little Feather examined the ground.

“If I hadn't been trapped in that cellar, I wouldn't know what made that,” he said.

Martha grunted. “It looks like the work of a mountain vole to me.”

“I don't think so.”

“Are you going to tell me or do I have to ask? I'd remind you I'm the sheriff.” Her mood had improved. An hour on a horse always improved her mood.

“It's the drag chain on the trap. The hooks on the end dig in when the animal tries to drag away the trap. You can see in some places it digs in more? That's where the wolf would have jerked the chain.”

“But we're not talking about a wolf. We're talking about a human being. The wrangler could just reach down and lift the chain.”

“No, it was dark. For a second he wouldn't know what happened. His instinct would be to lunge away. He'd be dragging the chain. This is where the elk was, right? Where the earth is stained darker.”

Ettinger nodded.

“So let's reconstruct. Grady Cole's horse bucks when it smells the blood. He bails, stumbles into the opening here, sees the dead elk. He's advancing toward it.” Stranahan clapped his hands. “He lunges forward, dragging the trap. Trips over the elk. Impales himself. You said just falling onto the antlers wouldn't have driven the tine all the way through . . .”

“Our CSI's not in the habit of making mistakes.”

“So do you think when Bucky went out looking for Martinelli, he found the kid caught in the trap and pushed him onto the antlers? What had the kid ever done to him?”

Ettinger took off her riding gloves and tucked them into a back pocket. “Bucky stands to become co-owner of the largest ranch in the Madison Valley. If it came to light that he'd set a trap for a wolf out of season and caught one of his own employees, he might not get that
A
on the branding iron, especially if the kid brought charges. And there's something I haven't told you. Evelyn Culpepper's an animal lover. She supported wolf reintroduction, contributes to environmental causes, she's a heavy hitter in the movement. She's even funding a scat analyst who's doing his thesis on predator-prey relationships, hoping to prove that wolves aren't the big livestock killers they're made out to be. Her engagement to Bucky's hard to fathom, with the two of them being at opposite ends of the politics. I don't think it would take much bad behavior on his part to tip the apple cart.”

“And you see him killing someone over this?”

She shrugged. “I've seen people kill people over fifty pounds of venison, who put his tag on a dead deer first.”

“So, Martinelli, you think she arrives at the scene before Cole is killed, or after?”

“She was in the basin first, so before makes more sense. But if she was hobbling or disoriented, you could make a case for after, too.” Ettinger looked at her watch. “Let's go see your buddy Meslik. You say he's been avoiding you?”

“No, I said I hadn't been able to get ahold of him 'til this morning. He told me he was going to hang with the boys at the Liars and Fly Tiers clubhouse. They made him an honorary member. He's stepping up in the world.”

“Right. More likely he's bringing them down to his level.”

F
or the third week of September it was an unusual sight—three bare-chested men gathered on the porch of a remodeled homestead cabin, sitting on folding chairs around a card table littered with feathers. Sam Meslik and Kenneth Winston, a hairstylist from Biloxi, Mississippi, whose card read Hot Hands, were bent over portable fly-tying vises. Patrick Willoughby, the president of the Liars and Fly Tiers, stood to peer over Sam's shoulder and offer instruction. As Meslik worked his fingers, the fly rod in the grip of the Mickey Mouse tattooed on his massive left biceps waved back and forth, while the rainbow trout hooked to Mickey's fly appeared to leap and fall back. Sam glanced up as Stranahan and Ettinger drove up. He grinned, showing the grooves in his teeth.

Willoughby, whose thick-lensed glasses gave him the visage of an owl, shook hands with the newcomers.

“Sam's trying to convince us that the mind breathes when the skin is exposed to the sun. But if I'd known we would be hosting a woman,” he offered a kindly smile to Ettinger, “I would have had the decorum to wear a shirt. I do hope you're planning to stay for dinner.”

Ettinger began to protest.

“No, we simply won't hear of it. The nylgai loin Kenneth has defrosted is quite ample to feed the five of us, and a short trip to the wine cellar will satisfy our need of libations. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to make myself more presentable.”

“How does he do that?” Martha said as Willoughby left.

Stranahan smiled. “One of the members told me he was a hostage negotiator for three presidential administrations. He still has his hand in as a terrorist profiler, something of that nature, it's all a bit mysterious. But he's very good about getting people to agree with him.”

“Since when do we have a wine cellar?” Winston posed the question as he rose from his chair. “I guess Patrick must mean that cardboard box in the hall closet. Sean, you haven't introduced our guest.” He offered his slim brown hand to Ettinger. The diamond stud in his earlobe caught the light as he bowed and kissed Ettinger's hand. She blushed.

Sean said, “I didn't think you were coming back this fall.”

“I didn't, either. But when Patrick called last week to say he was swinging through, I decided to join him. With Polly's passing, he's about the best friend I have. Plus I can bluff him out of one of his divided-wings Hendricksons any time I draw a bad hand.”

“I've told you we play poker for flies instead of money,” Stranahan said.

Ettinger mm-hmmed.

“Why don't you join us tonight?” It was Sam, his eyes still trained on his vise. The fly he was palmering with grizzly hackle was the size of a mosquito.

“I don't tie flies,” Martha said.

“I'll stake you some of mine. When you run out, you can put your duds into the pot. I've always wondered if you're as much of a man underneath your khakis as you act on the outside.”

“Keep wondering, Meslik. And cover up. You look like a wolf with a bad case of mange.”

Ettinger's radio crackled. She excused herself and walked a few yards away.

“Yeah, Jason, what is it?” She listened, bringing her fingers up to worry the soft skin under the corner of her jaw. “Tell her as soon as possible.” Then: “You're right, she's going to be tired. How about we meet at nine?” She holstered the radio and crooked a finger at Stranahan.

“The sister will be pulling in around midnight. We're going to meet with her tomorrow morning. What I'll do is make a call to have a neighbor look in on my animals and then book us a couple motel rooms in Ennis. There's no sense driving back to Bridger just to turn right back around.”

“I can stay here at the clubhouse,” Sean said.

She nodded. “Look,” she kept her voice low, “I want to talk to Meslik, but I want him to want to talk to me. I think he's holding back, but if he drinks enough wine, he'll come around. I'll adjust my attitude, become Martha from Portland. Somebody who waters plants and talks about her feelings. I don't know. Something.”

Stranahan's expression was skeptical.

“I'm just telling you this so you'll understand if I start acting a little, say, chummy.”

“Sure, if that's the way you want to play it. He
is
my best friend. If he's hiding something, it will come out sooner or later.”

“We don't have time for later.”

“Then let's drink some wine.”

—

B
y the time they'd pulled half a dozen corks and polished off the loin of Indian antelope, Meslik and Ettinger were nearly as close as the two fingers they held together for comparison. The “attitude adjustment” amounted to a simple kissing up on Martha's part, apologizing for any bad feelings she might have engendered when she'd questioned Sam at his shop, and Sam being a pushover for the attentions of an attractive woman, especially one who wore a gun. His acerbic comments to the contrary, the tension between the two had dissolved noticeably when, several hands into the game, Sam called Ettinger's bet with a Sex Dungeon, a monstrous double-hooked streamer fly created by Kelly Galloup, then raised her by adding a bottle of Fly-Agra Dry Fly Floatant to the pot.

“Wait a gol-darned minute,” Martha said, and turned the bottle over to read the label warning: “If your fly stays up for more than four hours, consult your local fly shop.”

“I suppose you spray it directly on your pecker when the fishing gets a little slow,” she mused.

“Depends on the woman in the bow of the boat,” Sam said. “If it was you, I think I could risk leaving it at home.”

“
Humpff
.” Ettinger called and won the hand.

But it was the gun that cemented their relationship. Holding a ten-high garbage hand, Martha made a show of unholstering her Glock, which she was packing instead of her customary .357. She checked the empty chamber and slapped the handle butt to extract the stacked magazine. Then she casually placed the piece on the table.

“I'm in,” she said. “Anybody want to fold?” She picked up the semi-auto and itched behind her ear with the front sight. “Sam?”

Sam peered at his cards and tossed them facedown onto the table. “I don't know whether you're bluffing me or not, but you sure know how to give a man a hard-on. I'm drilling a hole into the bottom of this table right now.”

“I'm going to imagine I didn't hear that,” Martha said.

Another glass of wine and they were comparing the forefingers. Martha shook her head.

“How the hell do you tie size 20 flies with those . . . zucchinis?”

Sam ran his tongue over his lips.

“No, don't tell me,” Martha said.

“If you were to let my zucchini—”

Ettinger put her fingers in her ears and started to hum.

Sam turned his hands palms up.

Martha lowered hers.

“Truce?” Sam said.

“Truce.”

They reached across the table to shake hands. Then Sam stood up with a screeching of his chair and came around the table and put an arm around her, not the Mickey Mouse arm but the one with a tattoo of Sylvester the Cat eyeing a brown trout in a goldfish bowl. He bent down to kiss her cheek. “You're such a MILF, you know that. And to think I used to take you for a bitch.”

Martha felt heat in her cheeks. “And to think,” she mimicked Sam's voice, “I just thought you were an asshole.”

From there the night deteriorated steadily in Martha's favor. By the time Stranahan rose from the table to follow Willoughby and Kenneth Winston into the bunkhouse, Sam's eyes were at half mast. The dead soldiers on the table stood at nine.

Ettinger studied the fly she'd won from Stranahan in the last hand. It was a steelhead pattern with a dubbed red body, a turn of Gadwall at the collar and an overwing of black magpie, with jungle cock nails on the cheeks and golden pheasant crest for the tail. She thought it quite handsome, which made her reflect on its maker's dark good looks. She shook her head at her momentary lapse into melancholy.

“Sam, what does Stranny call this fly?”

Sam opened his eyes and peered. “Hell if I know. But you won it. That gives you the right to name it.”

“Is that a tradition?”

“Club policy.”

“Really?”

“No, I just made it up.” He touched his glass to hers. “From now on I think I'll call you ‘the woman.'”

“Like Sherlock Holmes called Irene Adler? I didn't know you read.”

“I saw the movie.”

Martha held the fly in the palm of her hand. They studied it seriously, Martha two sheets to Sam's three to the wind.

“Nicki had hair that color,” Sam said seriously. “A little more red in it.”

She made a silent “hmm,” pursing her mouth. “Then I'll call it Dead Man's Fancy.” She nodded. “We need to talk about her. Okay if we take this round to the porch?”

“Sure. But you know what I always say, a man remembers better with his shirt off.” He gave her an appraising glance. “So does ‘the woman.'” He wasn't as drunk as she'd thought he was.

You sly bastard
, she thought. But she'd already brought a hand up to finger the second button of her khaki shirt. She unbuttoned it and drew her middle fingernail down her cleavage to the third button.

“Don't you wish?” she said.