No Man's Dog (7 page)

Joe wasn’t having it. As a concerned neighbor, not a tenant, he felt compelled to insist on the primacy of security. All this agriculture and husbandry had given him a headache. At his old place, down on the Ruby, some sixty miles south, he had owned a hundred
acres or so of a mountain, with his land backing onto thousands of acres of national forest and BLM land. He still owned this property, but for complicated reasons he had no intention of living on it. A rancher owned all the land between him and the highway. That rancher had left him alone, tended the fences, and took good care of the cattle, providing a de facto barrier between Joe and the outside world. This was a different situation. Frank was not a rancher. Joe explained this to him, patiently.

“I’m thinking of going into it more,” Frank said. “Fedima’s right, it’s time I gave up this marijuana stuff. We got a kid now. It’s not good. That was okay when I was batching it, you know? The kid’ll be going to school before you know it. What’s he gonna do, tell the teacher his daddy’s a dope dealer? Nah, Fedima’s right. We could put in a couple hundred acres of good hay, timothy, maybe. We’d have enough to sell, even.”

Joe listened, dispiritedly. Frank was into a rave about the irrigation system he’d build. That appealed to him, Joe knew. Just the idea of building a new, elaborate irrigation system was enough to excite Frank. Joe had let it ride, but now he thought he’d do something about it.

A couple of days after Caspar’s visit and Joe’s call to the Colonel, Tucker had called back. “I think I found something, about the guys who were supposed to be interested in you,” he said.

“Who are they?” Joe asked.

The Colonel told him about a bombing in Detroit. Joe hadn’t heard anything about it. He never followed the news. Tucker said it was believed at first to have been the work of Arab terrorists. But now the feeling was that it was another, unrelated group. “Anyway, your name came up,” the Colonel said.

Joe was shocked. “Me? I’m no bomber. What’s this?”

“Did you sell any explosives, any arms, in the last couple of years?”

“No,” Joe said.

“Think, Joe. Your house down in the Ruby. It blew up. How did that happen?”

“That’s my business,” Joe said. He had rigged the house when he’d built it. It was rigged to be totally destroyed in case he was raided. He had wanted no telltale evidence left behind in the event that he had to leave in a hurry. The system was rigged to involve a large propane tank. The house would burn to fine ashes and it would seem to be simply a propane explosion, not so unusual in rural Montana. And, as it happened, he’d had to trigger the system. Echeverria had been all but killed in that blast.

Joe’s recent visitor, Caspar, of course, had mentioned Echeverria as one of the names of the men involved in the search for him. Echeverria had actually escaped from that inferno, though badly burned. Joe had been employed by the Colonel to finish the job, months later. So Echeverria was dead, but he would have friends.

“So now you’re telling me that Echeverria’s pals are involved in bombing, in Detroit?” Joe said. “They’ve gone into the terrorist business?”

“Not exactly,” the Colonel said. “It’s complicated. We should talk, but not on the phone. I think it’s the lead you wanted.”

Joe agreed to meet. They didn’t make a date. Both men were too careful for that. Joe would call him in a few days, from some unspecified location, and set a rendezvous.

Joe told Helen he had to go and meet Colonel Tucker. The way he explained it, this would close out their contact with the Colonel and his group, the Lucani. Neither of them wanted anything further to do with these rogue agents. They were too unstable, and too likely to both betray and be betrayed. But it had to be resolved. He might be gone for a week or so. He was sorry he had to leave her with so much work. Helen didn’t mind. It was what mainly
occupied her, working on the place. She wanted to get the house ready so her mother could visit for Christmas.

“Don’t get into trouble with Anders,” Joe said, joking.

Helen bridled. “You must be kidding. He’s over forty.”

“He’s got the hots for you,” Joe said. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you in the hot springs. But I’m not worried about him. It’s you. You might get lonely.”

They sparred over that for a while, but as always it ended in wrestling and then making love. An hour later, having packed up the Durango, Joe was driving out, already engaged in road thoughts. He had taken everything he needed to take. He was glad that he and Helen had parted as they had. If he never came back, well, at least they’d had that.

He believed that he was making a clean break. He had regrets, but basically he felt all right. He’d gotten too into this straight life, he knew. The visit from Caspar had been the jolt he’d needed. He’d gotten so complacent with domestic concerns that he’d forgotten who he was. He was crazy about Helen, but he’d have had to leave her eventually anyway, he supposed. Even if they’d grown old together, he thought, one of them would die. And there had been the nagging feeling about the Colonel and the Lucani. That relationship wouldn’t have gone on much longer, he was sure. Well, now he’d take of that, too, after he dealt with this problem with Echeverria’s men. And Fedima.

It was the irritation with Fedima that had precipitated all this, he saw. Those damned cows. What to do about Fedima? This woman had a different agenda. This kind of thing would only go on, build to greater and greater issues. Next, she’d feel lonely. She would start thinking about the value of this hidden paradise, the money it would bring if they sold some river frontage for vacation homes. The lovely neighbors they would have.

It was inevitable: paradise was threatened. Joe had no long-range plans. He hadn’t considered this, but if asked he would have supposed that very likely he would eventually live somewhere else. But that was some purely putative future. For now, he could be satisfied that he’d left a safe, beautiful place, a hole-in-the-wall, for Helen.

It was odd, he thought, but he had never considered the consequences of Frank marrying Fedima, having a family. A family! He was sure, now that he thought of it, that Fedima was bound to have many more kids, dozens. Good god! She had to be stopped.

He drove slowly over the ridge and saw Fedima outside the house. She was hanging clothes on the line. She wore a housedress with a floral print and a babushka. When she saw the Durango, she waved to him. Joe pulled into the drive and sat in the car, waiting. He reached down between the front seats to make sure his automatic was handy. He swiftly racked a shell into the chamber as she walked down the drive, barefoot. He settled the .38 into the crevice between the seat and the center console.

Joe looked around. Was this the last time he’d see this country? It was very beautiful, the long, sweeping meadows rising to the ridge, and far beyond them the dark crags of the continental divide.

Fedima looked rather fetching, a slim, dark beauty in her early twenties, with large dark eyes. The light was behind her as she approached and Joe realized that she was clearly wearing nothing more than the housedress. She smiled as she came up to the Durango. Joe did not get out. He liked her, almost against his will. A pretty girl can do that to a man.

She leaned with both hands on the door, her fingers curled over the window opening, peering in. She saw his bags. “Joe, where you going?”

“Ah, business,” Joe said. “Where’s the baby?”

“He is taking a nap,” she said, glancing back at the house. “Frank is fishing, again.”

“Where?” Joe said. It occurred to him that he would have to kill Frank, too. Frank would never harm a soul, intentionally, but he could tell investigators far too much about Joe. He felt a bitter regret—it was Fedima’s fault. But what about the baby? Joe hadn’t considered that. He dismissed the thought; it wouldn’t be necessary to kill the baby. Perhaps Helen would take the baby. But he realized, almost in the act of thinking it, that Helen would never get that baby. Some state agency or, perhaps, one of Frank’s relatives, in Butte.

“Up that way, I think,” Fedima said, stepping back from the car and waving a bare arm over toward the river. The gesture exposed her to the backlight of the sun, the thin cotton of the dress not much more than a chiffon veil. Joe could see the shadow of her pubic hair, the actual shape and thrust of those youthful breasts, the dark nipples. Then she leaned close again. “He won’t be back for hours.” Her voice was husky.

Joe stared at her. Was she coming on to him? She was leaning on the door of the car, her face very near. He could feel her breath. A mere nod would bring their lips into contact. Her smile was tentative, almost mocking, and it made his blood quicken. He couldn’t help but notice that the buttons of her dress were undone, revealing a deep cleavage.

Joe looked away from her close face, out the windshield. It was one of those splendid Montana fall days, a deep blue sky without a cloud. The wind drifted quietly across the hills, stirring the grass gently, lifting the sheets on the line languorously. They’d be dry in minutes in this air.

He thought, Why not? He visualized the quiet midmorning house, the baby asleep, the usual drowsy heaviness of the marijuana plants and the flowers on the air. He imagined unbuttoning that
dress, her warm tanned skin, her breath hot and fast, the wet tongue. She would be supple to his touch, silky dry here, then gluily moist there . . .

But he had just made love to Helen. The idea vanished, replaced by annoyance. He let his hand slip to the crevice, feeling the cool metal of the automatic.

Then she said, “Joe, you are not angry with me? About the dogs? You must understand how a mother feels. I am scared of every little thing. I have been thinking, we need to be good neighbors. I don’t want this feeling I have, that we are not easy. Is it the cows?”

She stepped back, her hands on her hips. She looked very sensible, thoughtful.

“Perhaps you are right about the cows,” she conceded. “I am thinking . . . you are upset about the fence. Security is important. I feel that also. You can imagine, after what I went through, in Kosovo. We could fence the cows, away someplace, over the ridge. A double fence. There is so much room. What do you think?”

“Over the ridge?” Joe said.

“You know, the far meadow,” she said. She pointed up beyond the house. Joe was bemused by the all-but-perfect outline of her left breast, full and rounded. Helen was a woman with the breasts of a boy, a feature that had a kind of negative attraction for Joe. He hadn’t really contemplated a full figure in some time.

“Would there be enough grazing?” he managed to ask.

“Oh, yes, very much grass, I think,” she said. “And, now I think . . . we do not need so many cows. A few beefs . . . is it ‘beefs’? That don’t sound izzack. And a couple of milking cows. I miss the milking cows, when they come home in the evening . . .
ding, ding
. . . the bells, when they walk. When I was a little girl, my father sends me to bring home the cows to milk. I am a farm girl, you see? I do not, I cannot forget it. Everything else . . . they are all gone now, but perhaps I can hear the ding, ding of the milking cows again.”

She smiled and stood, hands on hips, legs spread, and bare feet planted on the solid earth. She looked around, her eyes taking in the distance.

“Is so beautiful here,” she said. “So peaceful. That I like very much. That is the most important thing. I think you agree, Joe? We must first be sure of that.”

Joe’s hand crept back into his lap.

“But I would like a few chickens,” she said. “Maybe the chickens will be enough—no sheep, or goats. We will keep them in the barn. Enough so that we can have fresh eggs. There will be enough eggs for you, Joe. And Helen.”

“If you have chickens,” Joe said, “you must be careful of the hawks.” He nodded toward the large red-tailed hawk that was soaring beyond the ridge. “And there are bobcats, too. I’ve heard them. Frank should build a regular coop.”

“A coop? A house for chickens? Yes, maybe.” Fedima shrugged. “But you cannot protect every chicken,” she said. “My father said that. The fox used to come and take a chicken, sometimes. He would not shoot the fox.”

“No? Why not?”

Fedima shrugged. “The fox was too beautiful, I think. A wild thing. But my father says only,’The fox has to live. I have many chickens. If the fox will not be greedy, I am not greedy.’”

“A few chickens would be all right,” Joe said. “Yes, that would work, I think.”

She stood back, smiling frankly, pleased to have solved an annoying problem. But then she frowned. “Joe, you will not be gone long?”

“Not too long, I hope,” Joe said. “Why?”

“I wanted to speak with you. About that woman. Frank showed me a picture of her, that Paul had sketched. I have seen her before, in Tsamet.”

She was speaking of Jamala Sanders, an agent of the Colonel’s, who had turned out to be a double agent. Frank’s cousin Paul had met her in Kosovo and sketched her. He had also met Bazok, which was how tragedy had come from the Balkans to Montana. Bazok and Jamala were both dead and, tragically, so was Paul. But in their wake had come Fedima, looking for Paul but finding Frank.

“I understood that Paul had seen her there,” Joe said. “Tsamet must be just a small town.”

“But I saw her with a man,” Fedima said. “They were in a car. Later, I saw this man in America, when I was living in the house in Brooklyn. He came to the house where I was staying. I thought I should tell you. Frank says that you and the Colonel would want to know this.”

“I suppose it would interest the Colonel,” Joe said. “Who was he?”

“The people I stay with, they did not trust him, but they had to . . .” She hesitated, searching for a word. “They must tolerate him. He is important man in Kosovo, with the KLA.”

“The KLA? The Kosovo Liberation Army? Was he a Kosovar?”

“Oh, no. He was an Arab. Muhammad al-Huq. In Tsamet, he also came to my father’s house, to talk to my father and some of the other farmers. He was Saudi, they said.”

Joe had nothing to say about it. He supposed the Colonel would be interested. He promised Fedima he would mention it to him the next time they spoke.