Death on the Greasy Grass (29 page)

C
HAPTER
39

Manny eased the door open and stepped down to the ground, using the fuselage of the Cessna to shield himself while he worked the cramps out of his legs. He was grateful for the thick clouds that had moved in and covered what small moonlight there might have been. He stood alone in total blackness, like the times he sat in an
initipi
, all light in the sweat lodge blocked.

He peered over the cowl and spotted the yard light a quarter mile away. He could just make out Wilson's ranch house under the glow of the halogen light like a lighthouse beacon waiting to guide him.

Wilson's shepherd barked at something, and Manny hoped Wilson would remember to put the dog in the garage. Given Manny's track record with animals, he didn't want another trip to the ER messing with the rest of his vacation. If he ever got another vacation.

He started across the empty cornfield, the yard light guiding him. He tripped on stubs of cornstalks and fell, his hands cut by last year's crop. He tasted blood on his hand and he rubbed it onto his trousers before he continued plodding toward the light.

Manny arrived at the house and crouched just out of the yard light's periphery while he caught his breath. The wind had picked up, bringing the odor of the horse barn, as well as the barking of Wilson's dog inside the garage. Harvey's truck sat in front of the bunkhouse, but the other trucks he'd seen in the field lighting the way for the landing were gone. Manny mentally ran scenarios through his head, the least attractive one that Harvey was working with Degas. After what Reuben did to the big man, Manny didn't relish having to deal with Wilson's foreman any more than he did Degas.

And maybe with Wilson. He had agreed a little too readily when Manny suggested he fly both of them to Pine Ridge whenever Degas called. A little too readily to set up a meeting. If Wilson was as wary of Degas as he made out, setting him up was a risky move. Unless Manny was the one being set up.

Manny breathed deeply, his lungs hurting, not only from the effort of walking the cornfield, but from something he recognized: fear. He had scoured the area as he approached the house and could see no sign of Reuben. He was about to go into a house alone, about to put his life in Wilson's hands, about to trust a man that had little honor in his family dating back all the way to Conte Eagle Bull. He was about to confront Carson Degas alone. Manny had felt the gut-wrenching fear before, so he was no stranger to it. If he could manage his fear and turn it into controlled anger, he might get through this alive.

Manny shuddered while he unsnapped the restraining strap on his holster. Just what he knew about Carson Degas would fit in a thimble. Manny knew Degas had been dishonorably discharged from the army for black marketing arms and ammunition in Iraq. He knew the man had disappeared into Folsom prison for a manslaughter conviction in Barstow, resurfacing twelve years later. A man with Degas's record didn't stay out of the spotlight for long, and Manny guessed those twelve lost years were spent honing his skills in Folsom. Manny found it hard to swallow that Wilson was so into rehabbing bad men that he had hired Degas knowing his record.

That Degas was the point man for the recent rise in methamphetamine on Crow Agency was undisputable. But had he seized the opportunity to make a bundle more on the journal, blackmailing both Chenoa and Wilson? Wilson said Degas was loyal, but loyalty only went so far to someone as ruthless as Degas. And he would be smart enough to know that both wanted the journal contents silenced.

Manny skirted the yard light and slipped around the corner of the house. He stood, listening to people talking inside, but he couldn't make out who they were or what they said. He tried the screen door. As Wilson promised, it was unlocked, and Manny opened it slowly, rusty hinges loud in the still night air. Manny froze, certain those inside had heard the noise. But the talking continued, and Manny opened the door the rest of the way and gingerly closed it behind him, buttonhooking around it and flattening himself against the wall of the mudroom.

He chanced a look around the corner of the wall to the top of the stairs. A hall closet stood at the top and to one side of the stairway where Wilson had drawn it on Manny's notepad. He hugged the wall while he inched his way up, careful to avoid pictures hanging on it.

When he reached the closet door, he strained to hear what the voices said several rooms over. He caught people arguing about a horse trade with the Star Dancers, and about delivering some shipment to Crow Agency. Just as Manny turned to the closet door, something cold and hard pressed against the base of his neck.

“Don't turn around.” A man with a nasally voice kept the gun barrel against his neck while his other hand reached around and lifted Manny's Glock from the holster. Quick, like he'd done it a time or two.

“Now get in the living room.” The man laughed as he shoved Manny down the hall. “Funny place where you'll die—living room.”

Manny cursed himself for trusting Wilson, but only for a moment. The man kicked Manny's legs, and he fell to the floor beside an overstuffed chair where Wilson slumped, handcuffed to the chair's arms. A trickle of blood started at the back of Wilson's head and followed his shoulder line down to the front of his white shirt.

“Is he dead?” Manny asked.

“Not yet,” the tall man said. He wiped fresh blood onto his jeans. “He'll come around in a minute. Sit there on the couch.”

Manny studied the long, angular nose, the hard cheekbones cloaked in a gauze bandage taped from his jaw to the top of his head, from where Willie had hit Degas on the way down, the close-set eyes that darted around the room, taking in everything in a glance, like a wolf looking for prey. And this man was the predator. “Carson Degas I'll wager.”

“They do hire sharp agents nowadays.”

“You look just like you do in the video at the sergeant's tent.”

Degas stepped closer. “What do you have on that?”

Manny shrugged. “Enough.”

Degas flicked out a slap that landed flush on Manny's face, knocking him to the floor. Degas drew his gun back to hit him, but paused as he nodded to his bandaged shoulder.

Manny used the arm of the couch to pull himself from the floor, his face stinging as if he'd been kicked by a cow. Even without the six-inch revolver, Degas was intimidating. As Reuben had described, Degas stood several inches shorter than Reuben, and was thinner, but with every cord of the man's muscle devoted to keeping him alive, and keeping others from talking about what they knew. And constant survival, which he had done by the looks of him. A scar ran from his jawline down to his collarbone, crude stitches having once closed the angry wound. One earlobe had been lopped off, and an old bullet wound to his forearm added to his sinister look. As Degas thrust the gun in his face, Manny noticed Degas was missing one finger, and he regretted it wasn't his trigger finger. “What did you do to Wilson?”

“Love tap.”

“No loyalty to your boss.”

“My loyalty ended when he flew you here tonight.”

“How'd you find out? Did Wilson tell you?”

“I told him.” Cubby Iron Cloud emerged from a side room carrying a .45 automatic by the side of his leg. “My good wife called and said Wilson was flying you here to put the grab on Carson, and she needed me at the ranch. I told her I was in Chamberlain at a horse sale and couldn't get back until tomorrow.”

“You lied.”

Cubby laughed and pointed at Wilson with his gun barrel. “Trade one sin for another. Which is worse—lying or adultery?”

If Manny could keep them talking, maybe he could work out a plan. He scanned the room looking for an escape route. Wilson slumped in his chair blocked the main door, and Cubby stood between the living room and mudroom. And a door out of the house. Cubby stood just out of reach of a gun grab, and Manny prayed he'd get close enough for one. “Chenoa tells you when to come and go, doesn't she?”

Cubby's face flushed. “Chenoa and me got an understanding. I look the other way when she beds fools like Wilson, and she lets me come and go as I please.”

“But every now and then she needs you around? Does having a has-been rodeo champion around make her feel special?”

“I went out a champion.”

Manny forced a laugh, careful not to fixate on Cubby's gun pointed at his chest. “It's hard to make a comeback when you haven't been anywhere. Way I heard it, you fell on your fat ass once the competition level got higher.”

Cubby stepped close and cocked his gun arm back, but Degas's hand shot out and grabbed Cubby's arm. “Don't be a fool. The son of a bitch is just goading you. You can have at him once he tells us what he knows.”

Cubby pointed the muzzle at Manny's chest. “I ought to . . .”

“Just watch him while I clean this blood off me.” Degas nodded to an occasional chair beside Wilson's that faced the couch. “And keep back. He wants you to get close enough to grab your gun.”

Degas disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door just as Wilson's head rose slowly and he shook it. Blood droplets fell to the floor from the gaping cut on his jaw and head. He strained to focus with his one good eye, the other closed and swollen shut.

Manny nodded to Wilson. “You do this?”

Cubby shook his head. “I'm not into the killing part, if that's what you mean. Carson did that. But just when it was necessary.”

“You free us now,” Manny whispered, watching the bathroom door, “and you'll get a fair trial. Testify against . . .”

“Bullshit,” Cubby spit out. “Put my fate in the hands of a jury? You know that all a jury decides is which side has the best attorney.”

“You'll fry along with Degas for murder.”

Cubby dropped the gun a little. “Harlan was necessary.”

“And the man he killed in Sam's house before torching it? It wasn't Sam, so who was it?”

Cubby shrugged. “Ask Degas. All's I'm saying is that was an accident. Degas thought it was Sam when he went in there.”

Wilson spit a piece of a bloody tooth. It hit the arm of his chair and bounced under the couch. “I could have told you Sam wouldn't kill easy. Drunk or not.”

“My guess is, the little bastard's hiding out under a bridge on Crow Agency.” Cubby took a step closer to Wilson, and Manny measured the distance to Cubby. “Or he could be dead. I got some feelers out in case someone runs into him. Alive or dead. We can't take the chance that the journal will get into the wrong hands.”

Wilson shook his head. Blood flipped onto the beige carpeting. “You think whatever the journal revealed about me—and about Chenoa's side of your family—justified killing Harlan? And whoever was in Sam's house?”

“And don't forget Itchy.” Manny started to stand, but Cubby's finger whitened on the trigger and Manny sat back down. “Your own brother.” Manny shook his head. “You pop him in the back of the head for the journal?”

Cubby's mouth turned down for a brief moment. “Now that was unfortunate. We gave Itchy a chance to say where the Star Dancer journal was. I recognized his hen scratching on that crude blackmail note he slipped into the ranch mailbox, and thought there was a chance he might just have it. All he'd say was that Sam had it.”

“But Degas didn't believe him?”

Cubby nodded. “Not for a second. And he killed Itchy. Would have gotten you and Stumper, too, if you had been a mite slower.”

“So that was Degas in that old barn?”

Cubby shrugged. “Who else? Rumor has it that you got spirits watching over you. Not that they'll help you any this time.”

“All that killing for a damned journal?” Wilson struggled against the handcuffs, but he remained shackled to the chair arm.

“It wasn't the journal, now was it?” Manny said. “What it contained was just an afterthought. My guess is that Degas didn't set Harlan up because he'd read it.”

“Got things figured out, don't cha?” Degas emerged from the bathroom wiping his hands with a hand towel bearing the Eagle Bull logo. Blood had crusted under his nails from where he'd worked Wilson over, but he made no attempt to clean them. “I guess that's what federal agents do, figure things out. Not that it'll help you any.”

“Can't we just get rid of them now?” Cubby said, pacing the floor in front of where Manny and Wilson were seated. “They know too much already.”

Degas went to the window and looked out. “Pete and RePete are just now fixing to head for Hot Springs. Soon as they're gone, we'll march them out into the south pasture and be rid of them.”

“Harvey?” Cubby asked.

Degas shrugged. “He got drunk on my beer earlier today and is sleeping it off. He won't hear a thing.”

“But why Harlan?” Wilson spit more blood onto the carpet, his handcuffs rattling against the chair.

“Harlan found out about your drug dealing on Crow Agency, didn't he?” Manny said. “That's why you needed him dead. Itchy said Harlan kept notes inside the journal.”