Gundown (16 page)

Chloe dashed out and nagged at her to read the books “Uncle Noah” had lent them. Jewel snapped, “Leave me alone!” When Chloe wilted, Jewel’s guilt made her feel even worse.

Then Earl arrived home, whistling, for God’s sake. When his smile bounced off her gloom, he took a long look at her, then hurried into the house and came back with a goblet of red wine. Chloe trailed him, a book wrapped in her arms.

Jewel accepted the wine, but with a scowl, not meeting his gaze.

Earl scooped up Chloe and carried her upside down and giggling into the house. He bellowed, “Franklin!”

Franklin’s voice came. “What you got there, Earl? It’s upside down and making strange noises.”

“I hereby appoint you Chief Story Reader and Distractor. I’ve got dinner to do.”

More giggles came when Franklin said, “Yes, sir. But it isn’t going to be easy, reading upside down.”

A grin tried to make an appearance on Jewel’s face, but she batted it away with bad mood.

Classical music started up, sending soft strains of violins through the window behind her.

Thanks to the wine and music, she had mellowed some by the time Earl reappeared and set up TV trays, complete with cloth napkins and floral place mats.

“Is Madam enjoying her evening on the veranda?” His smile was so appealing that she almost said yes. She sipped her wine instead and looked away. Damn it, people should leave foul moods alone. She wasn’t done with hers yet.

Minutes later, he reappeared with dishes of a tasty stir-fried something. The warm smell of it roused hunger in her. He refilled her wine, and Franklin came out with Chloe on his shoulders. When Franklin set her on a chair in front of a TV tray, Earl handed her a glass of sparkling cider in a wineglass.

Eyes wide, Chloe looked at Jewel and said, “I can have wine, too, Mommy?”

That did it. She smiled and said, “You can have some of that special ‘wine.’ Be sure to say thank you to Earl.”

Chloe said thank you and sipped. “It tickles!”

Franklin and Earl chuckled and settled into seats, Earl parking himself on the porch swing next to Jewel. Like an oddly crafted family, the four of them dined to the music as they watched the sunset color the world rosy.

By the end of supper, Jewel’s mood had done a one-eighty. She’d never heard much classical music, but she loved the way it soared and, though it had no drums, stirred powerful rhythms within her. Soon Earl had the stereo cranked up, and she and Chloe danced in the front yard to Mozart and the applause of their audience of two.

She insisted on doing the dishes and felt better for it. At the end of the evening, after putting a tired and happy Chloe to bed, she and Earl sat in the porch swing to enjoy a glass of wine. Franklin plopped into a chair and popped a beer.

She shivered in the cool night air, and Earl put an arm around her shoulders. She liked his warmth.

Earl said, “So you’re working for Noah Stone, the Alliance’s grand high Pooh-Bah.”

She laughed at the title. “Not exactly, and I don’t really have the job yet. It’s in their legal office, I think, something about advocacy.”

“But you’ll be there, at the headquarters?”

“Yeah.”

Earl gazed out at the gathering darkness. “I’d sure like to meet up with Mr. Stone.”

“Maybe you can at this newcomers meeting he wants me to come to. It’s at the park Thursday night.”

His voice sharpened. “The park? Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll take you.”

“Okay.” She looked to Franklin. “Franklin?”

“Naw, I’m already an Ally. But I’ll sit on Chloe for you.”

She smiled at Earl. “It’s a date.”

Earl turned a thoughtful face toward town and said, “Yeah. It’s a date.”

• • •

His PTSD hit him like a tsunami when Jewel and her daughter left him. After a drive back from the Alliance headquarters that he didn’t remember and a dinner he hadn’t tasted, Hank entered the bathroom in his hotel room. He splashed cold water on his face, hoping to wash away the cotton that had blanketed his mind since she picked up her daughter and his tears poured.

What was wrong with him? He could recall only a rush of panic when the woman raised the child high in the air. He wished he’d found a marijuana store. And a bottle of whiskey. Tomorrow.

He studied his eyes in the mirror. They were tired and sad.

Hank thought of Chloe’s little hand in his, so remarkably tiny, as fragile as a glass figurine, yet warm and soft. He hadn’t felt the warmth of friendly flesh since—he couldn’t remember when.

He missed that touch.

There was no one to give it to him.

It was harder than usual to go to sleep.

The bullet hits the woman in the side. The force of it staggers her. Her eyes straight at his, she throws the screaming child over the edge of the roof.

Hank pulls the trigger again.

Again the woman staggers. Then she dives off the flat rooftop after the little girl, her muffled laughter falling away.

He runs to the—

The night was deep when his cry shocked him from sleep and convulsed him upright. His chest heaved, but his mind was blank. A breeze from his window brushed his face. Something on his face was cool. He touched under his eyes, and his finger came away wet.

Deeper and Deeper

Troubled by the previous day’s fugue, Hank sought relief in work. He spent the morning at the library, researching the Alliance and its role in Oregon. In the afternoon, he strolled around the town, visiting art galleries and reading the menus posted on the windows of a host of nice-looking restaurants.

A stop by a local marijuana shop gave him what he needed to ease the triggers that let his PTSD loose. By evening he felt his mind was working as sharply as ever.

That night, he went to the ballet, but not for the dancing. In anticipation of Noah Stone appearing at the Alliance newcomers meeting the next evening, Hank wanted to check out the park, and the
Daily Tidings
had said a dance school was putting on a free performance there as a fund-raiser.

A band shell, its stage no more than a ground-level concrete slab, sat at the bottom of a grassy slope below a street that curved through Lithia Park. On the far side of the street, more lawn slanted upward through a grove of trees laid out in orderly rows.

Behind the band shell, Ashland Creek burbled down from the mountains and through a wooded area that offered picnicking, hiking, and a wide trail where families strolled and joggers puffed.

As time for the ballet performance drew near, couples and families spread blankets on the lawn before the band shell, the first row as close as ten feet in front of the stage area. From there, an attack on Noah could be swift and deadly.

People opened picnic baskets and munched meals. By the time the ballet master strode onto the stage to introduce the program, the audience had filled the lawn, humming with conversation punctuated with laughter, tolerant of children racing between blankets and leaping over outstretched legs.

The PA system blared classical music, and the ballet troupe’s dancing had bucolic charm. To Hank’s eye, a few of the ballerinas were a little beefier than acceptable in big-city circles, but a couple of beauties showed real grace. Children in the audience imitated the dancers’ movements on tippy-toe.

Satisfied that he knew how to handle Stone’s arrival the next night, Hank turned to leave, but then he glimpsed a pair of eyes on the far side of the audience focused on him instead of on the dancers. He stopped but didn’t turn that way, instead gazing out at the crowd, keeping the watcher in his peripheral vision.

It was a dark-haired woman in jeans and a T-shirt, and she was definitely watching him. He flicked his gaze to her, and her eyes flinched away. He edged up the slope and around the audience to come down behind her. As he neared her position, she received a call on her cell phone. She nodded and spoke a few words, ended her call, stood, stretched, and strolled away from the lawn.

Her face nagged at him. He’d seen it before. Something wasn’t right about this. He followed.

She ambled up a path that led through trees and bushes. He trailed her as she passed a stone building shrouded with greenery—it housed restrooms. She turned at a corner ahead and disappeared from sight. He glanced back. No one could see him from the lawn, and he rushed to close on her.

When he rounded the corner, she was waiting, facing him. She’d known he was coming. And that meant—

Two big hands grabbed Hank’s wrists from behind and yanked his arms painfully back, a foot swept his feet out from under him, and he crashed, his face in the dirt.

He twisted and saw the woman whip a pair of handcuffs from her jacket pocket. When she got close, he kicked, catching her in the stomach. She stumbled back against a wall.

A fist clubbed his head in just the right spot with just the right force. Things went dim, and he didn’t feel like doing anything anymore. He was aware of hands lifting him to his feet and his wrists being cuffed behind his back. They helped him to an isolated picnic table screened by bushes.

When his head had cleared, Hank studied them. A black man who looked like he could be a pro linebacker and the woman sat across from him, calm and relaxed, their hands at ease on the table, although a stopper sat within easy reach of the man’s right hand. Each wore a ring made up of bands of pinks, tans, and browns.

Hank’s wallet lay open in front of the man, his driver’s license and retired officer ID cards on the table. So was his Oath Keepers card. And his .45.

Hank said, “Well?”

The woman said, “I’m Sally Arnold, and this’s Joe Donovan. We’re Department of Justice.” She took a slim wallet from her pocket and showed him an ID.

Joe tapped the .45 and frowned. “You’ve been frequenting a man who sells illegal guns.”

Hank flashed back to the blond who’d been walking a dog in front of Hatch’s house, and glanced at Sally. Her blond wig gone, her lean face intense now, she wasn’t the pleasant neighbor she’d been posing as. “The pretty neighbor.”

She smiled. “Yeah. We’ve been staking out Rick Hatch, who not only deals guns but is a member of a particularly wacky militia bunch. We like to see who comes to visit him.”

Joe said, “Gives us all kinds of leads into lowlifes around town.” He studied Hank and then fingered his ID cards. “You don’t appear to be a lowlife.”

Hank shook his head. “I’m not.”

Donovan spun the .45. “You weren’t visiting Hatch to pick up this illegal cannon?”

“I have a job to do that requires a weapon.”

Sally glanced at Joe, and then said to Hank, “And that job is?
”

“Security for Noah Stone.”

Sally raised her eyebrows. “We haven’t seen you around before.”

Donovan added, “ID says Chicago.”

Hank relaxed. These weren’t local cops; maybe he was okay. “Where we met up.”

Sally’s eyes widened. “The attack?”

Hank nodded.

Donovan frowned at Hank. “You the one who stopped a bullet for Stone?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re helping him with security?”

“I think I can make him safer.” Except from Hank Soldado.

Donovan smiled. “Well, why are you sitting there wearing bracelets?”

Hank grinned. “You don’t think they’re ‘me’?”

Sally hurried to unlock the cuffs; Hank stretched cramped muscles. “Nice work, the way you caught me.”

Donovan pushed Hank’s ID and gun back to him. “I think we were lucky.”

Sally leaned forward, taut with intensity. “How long you been here?”

“Just a couple days.”

“Wait till you’ve spent some time. They’re really on to something.” She smiled. “I’m moving my folks out from Ohio.”

“The prosperity thing?”

Donovan smiled. “Damn right. And we’re gonna help it get better.”

Sally took up the story. “We’re working with local cops, helping clean up the place.”

Donovan smiled. “Though business is gettin’ a little slow.”

The crime business sure wasn’t taking it easy where Hank lived. “Slow?”

Donovan nodded. “Real crooks, the ones who make a living out of it, are clearing out. I think it’s the stoppers.” He tapped the little gun. “Here, if somebody with a stopper catches somebody doing wrong, the bad guy knows he’s likely to be hit with nap and wake up lookin’ into a cop’s baby blues. Anyplace else, even if a cop comes along, a perp with a gun has a chance to take him out, grab a hostage, do something to get away. But not with nap, tangle, and whack.”

“Stoppers work that well?”

Sally nodded and picked up the stopper. “I was in a liquor store on a busy night when this guy tried to stick it up. The second he pulled out his piece, whap, a shopper hit him with nap. The robber made the mistake of takin’ a shot at the dude, and half the people in the store whipped out stoppers and gave him a nap shower plus wads of tangle. The nap overdose killed him.”

“Yeah, but nap isn’t instantaneous, is it?”

“Less than a minute.”

“So he could have done more damage?”

Donovan said, “Here’s the damage—he didn’t rob or kill, and the next day two more shady types headed south for California.”

Hank let that sink in. “You mind if I go now?”