Blood Land (15 page)

“So that’s when you loaded up for bear and drove to your pa’s ranch?” Sheriff Pruett said.

“No. I drank several more shots first.”

“But you never did see who it was.”

“Saw the gun. You think I don’t know my old man’s pistola?”

“You don’t know it was him. Could’ve been someone else took Rory’s gun. Could’ve been a close match. You didn’t see
anything
?”

“I smelt him,” Ty said flatly. “I’d know that stink water anywhere.”

Pruett looked at Hanson, who shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Legally? Probably not enough for a warrant. Not with the booze involved.”

Ty turned and lay down on the cot.

“Bullet went straight through the drywall,” he said. “Probably stuck in the wood beyond.”

Pruett turned and walked down the corridor, J.W. Hanson close behind.

“I’m coming with you,” Hanson said.

The old Suburban bounced and rattled its way down the washed out road to Ty McIntyre’s place.

“With a slug,” Hanson said, “and Ty’s testimony, we should be able to get a warrant for Rory’s property.”

Pruett grunted. He didn’t like where this thing was headed. Ty had already confessed, or at least had tried to plead guilty. And now he said he remembered doing it. No matter what they found, Bethy was still dead.

He wanted a drink.

Bad.

They arrived at Ty’s house. A few stray cats scattered, but there were no other signs of life. The ranch house was more of a cabin, with dilapidated, uneven logs and large, incongruous patches of mud holding the thing together.

“Ty said he was sitting here, in this recliner,” Pruett said. “And that the shooter came from behind, over there.”

He pointed to a back hallway. Hanson went down the short corridor and called out: “There’s a back entrance. In the laundry.”

Pruett quickly figured the bullet’s trajectory and looked over to the void, peeling wall. There were no pictures or other ornaments to distract the eye, so the hole stood out amongst the curling paint, bug smears, and tobacco grime.

The sheriff used his buck knife to cut a square access hole and pointed to his toolbox.

“Hand me that flashlight,” he said to Hanson.

It took him a few minutes, but Pruett found the crushed slug—its widened butt protruding from the rotting wood behind the drywall. He carefully dug it from the pliable wood and deposited it in an evidence bag.

“Let’s go hassle a judge.”

Bridger Butler signed the search warrant for the Rory McIntyre ranch in the small office of the Wagon Wheel Inn, where he was lodged.

“A bit irregular for the sitting judge to issue a warrant regarding his own case,” said Butler. “But this is Wyoming. You aren’t going to get another judge to do one over the phone, now are you?”

Pruett called in all of his deputies. “We’re looking for Rory’s .32,” Pruett said. “Plus any pairs of tan work gloves we see. Ty said Rory was wearing them.”

They took the Suburban, since it could carry the lot of them. Hanson came, too, against the sheriff’s better sense.

“What the hell you and the cavalry doin’ here,” Rory said when he answered the door. “It’s supper time.”

“Warrant to search the premises,” Pruett told him and handed him the paper.

The deputies did not wait to be invited in, pushing past the old rancher.

“Ma’am,” said Canter to Honey McIntyre, who was standing next to a small Lucite table with a nice pork chop dinner getting cold in the middle of it.

“You want to save us some time, Rory? Tell us where you keep your Colt .32?” Pruett said.

“It’s in the holster, hanging on the bed post. Where it always is. You fuckin’ need me to draw you a map?”

“Got it,” said Mel Munney a few moments later.

“Where you keep your work gloves?” the sheriff said.

“Christ Jesus,” Rory said. “What the hell is this about, Pruett?”

“Where are they, Rory?”

“Where you think my gloves is? Outside, with the tractor. I was fixin’ fence. You seen it with your own eyes.”

Pruett motioned to Baptiste. “You got more than one pair, Rory?”

“No I don’t. I wear through one, I get another. What else?”

“You need to come with us,” Pruett said. “There are questions need answering.”

“What questions?” Rory said, low and cold.

“Let’s go,” Pruett said.

Rory sat in the station break room, drinking lukewarm coffee, then Pruett sat came in and told him what they knew.

“Never went to Ty’s place,” Rory said. “Haven’t been out there in two, maybe three years.”

“Your gloves have powder residue on them, Rory. Means you were wearing them when you shot your pistol, just like Ty remembers.”

“Ha, that’ll be the day. That drunk don’t remember where his own pecker’s at most the time.”

“You want to explain the residue?”

“I’ve shot that gun a hundred times with my gloves on. Gets cold around here, ‘case you ain’t noticed.”

“What were you shooting at most recently?” Pruett said.

“Sage hens.”

“You get any?”

“Nope.”

“Bad shot?”

“What?”

“You’re a bad shot. I mean, missed the sage hens, Ty’s still alive. Poor shot, I guess is the correct vernacular.”

“Screw you.”

Pruett slid his chair closer to the table and leaned in. “I want to talk about your coat and hat again,” the sheriff said.

“First it’s gloves. Now it’s my hat. You want I should show you my undergarments, too?”

“I just can’t see Bethy going for your coat when her own was right there,” Pruett said. “And the hat? No way.”

“I told you how it went down.”

“Well that’s not how Honey remembers it.”

Rory looked cockeyed for the first time during the interview. “What did that woman tell you?”

“She says you jumped right up and offered ‘em to her.”

“So what? So I don’t remember every fuckin’ detail.”

Something in Rory’s countenance changed then, when Honey was mentioned. He looked both befuddled and downright fearful.

“Maybe you figured it was Ty. Maybe you figured you didn’t want to get your own ass shot off. Maybe you figured if he thought he shot you, he wouldn’t keep comin’ like a loaded freight train.”

Rory seemed to be considering this. Then his face went blank. “You chargin’ me with something, Wyatt Earp?”

“Not yet,” Pruett said, backing away from the table again. “Zach Canter is driving the gun down to the FBI crime lab in Rock Springs as we speak. We’ll have the results back in a day or two. Don’t stray far from town.”

“Never do.”

“Once there was a friend of mine

Who died a thousand deaths

His life was filled with parasites

And countless idle threats.”

Neil Young,

Barstool Blues

SHELLY DELGADO’S body was still in Scoot Alvord’s morgue. The bullet the coroner dug from the back of her spine was also a .32 and Pruett sent it to Rock Springs with Rory McIntyre’s gun and the other slug.

For the first time in his career, Pruett did not know what to do next. The way this thing was playing out, Rory tried to kill Ty—an act that would have incited any man to consider the option of killing him before a second effort succeeded.

At least in Wind River.

Pruett reached into the lower drawer in his desk and pulled out the bottle of Rebel Yell. He wondered whether Ty had even pulled the trigger. The accused said he only went there to fire off a warning shot or two.

The sheriff downed a mouthful of booze.

None of this meant Ty was innocent of the crime. He pled guilty.

After another guzzle, the razor edges on the questions tumbling in his mind softened some. Cut him less.

He missed Bethy. Needed her back. Either that or he needed something to fill the yearning in his soul. The emptiness would never be assuaged. But the yearning could.

Pruett picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hello?”

“Jesse?”

“Yes, uh, James?”

“It’s been a long time, Jess.”

“You’re drinking again,” Jesse Claremont said.

“I’m doing what needs to be done.”

“Does ‘getting things done’ include calling me for the first time in what, ten years?”

“Twelve.”

“I’m hanging up, James.”

“Wait,” Pruett said. “Hear me out.”

Silence. Then: “Not here, not on the phone…”

“Let me come over.”

It didn’t take much talking when he got there. Pruett knew it wouldn’t. He did not consider himself a manipulator, but he knew what Jesse Claremont wanted. She’d always wanted him back. And though he loved Bethy with everything he was, Pruett could not deny the instinct inside him that was roused every time he ran into Jesse on the street, or in the store, or at the post office.

He never went back on his promise to Bethy. Not after she took him back. And he knew to do anything now with Jesse would feel like a betrayal—a dishonoring of his memory for his dead wife. But the booze had other ideas. The booze wanted Jesse, and so Pruett wanted her, too.

They didn’t embrace but rather fell together. Jesse’s sobriety was still intact but Pruett had drunk enough for the two of them.

People want to believe in the good that exists within them. Many do what is expected of them, day upon day, until one of two things happens: they fail or they die young, before they can fail. It’s not a pretty truth, but, as imperfect beings, humankind was destined to miss the mark. At least occasionally.

Pruett knew he needed to stop drinking. He knew he never should have given in to the ghosts of his heart. But he
did
give in. And though such reason offered no tangible comfort, the old man decided, for tonight, it would do.

The next morning, Sheriff Pruett rose before the sun and made a quiet exit. The guilt chewed on the frayed edges of his conscience. He needed to talk to someone. His sponsor moved away from Wind River a little more than a year ago. He didn’t want to confide in anyone else local. Word moved too fast.

So he waited outside Hanson’s hotel room until he saw Wendy leave for her morning run.

“Sheriff Pruett,” Hanson said, standing in the door with his robe neatly tied.

“Join me for coffee,” Pruett said. “Preferably before my daughter gets back.”

“Five minutes.”

They drove to the Wrangler. Pruett ordered black coffee. Hanson wanted cream.

“You much of a drinker?” Pruett asked.

“You know I enjoy the occasional whiskey.”

“What I mean, you ever had issue with it?”

“I suppose,” Hanson said, rubbing day-old whiskers. “Never anything that consumed me.”

“Well I’ve been consumed,” Pruett said. “More than a time or two.”

“Off the wagon, then.”

“Way off. Left the road, the map. Uncharted trails.”

“I can’t help but expect, with all that’s gone on, Sheriff, that such a relapse is more than understandable.”

“You remember the woman I told you about?”

“Yes.”

“I went to her last night. First time in a dozen years.”

“A man needs what he needs, Sheriff. You are alone now. I know that’s not how you want to see it, but whether it’s been a month, a year, or a lifetime, you are alone.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“It’s supposed to make you feel un-obliged.”

“What I feel is guilty.”

“Jane Austen said:
Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery
.”

“I figured out that there are different kinds of love. I wasn’t always kind to Jesse. It was a different relationship than what I had with…with…”

“Let go of the guilt, Sheriff.”

“That it?”

“You need to stop drinking, too.”

Pruett stared at the gun. There was only one bullet. The same bullet he’d kept in there since Bethy died. There wasn’t anything noble or righteous or symbolic, unless it was representative of the way everything inside him seemed to be quitting.

No one can say for sure what cowardice lurks beneath the veneer of a brave exterior. Not until the first mortar hits; not until the brick fortress of our personal solitude begins to crumble.

If a person is lucky, they find another soul to accompany them on their journey. And if they are blessed, two souls become one. As all clouds are lined with silver, however, so do they all have the potential to grow pregnant with storm. Having a soul mate is indeed a wondrous thing, but when that soul is torn away, the remaining wound of separation can often never heal.

Pruett had jumped headlong down the mountainside, wishing only for a cliff off which to plummet.

Now it was time. Time to decide. Drink another glass and eat a bullet, or cast off his demons and find a way back to himself. Twelve steps had nothing on Sheriff James Pruett’s
own
list.

The sheriff picked up the glass of orange whiskey. The aroma climbed to his nostrils like a wily beast, scampering up a twisted vine.

Comfort. The promise of anesthetic for the anguish in his heart.

Numbness at last.

But there was no such truth. No one could simply assuage the pain with a sedative, because you couldn’t stay sedated indefinitely.

Unless…

Pruett picked up the revolver. The cool blue metal felt as if it might invade his system. Death seemed a frigid option. The only relief being the return to oblivion.

He laid the pistol on the thick, scarred surface of the worktable. He picked up the bottle, carried it to the utility sink, and poured the liquid evil down the drain.

When he walked from the shed, his courage came with him.

“Who is it?” Beulah Jorgensen asked through the closed office door.

“James Pruett,” the sheriff said, opening the door slowly.

She was already waving him off. “We’ve got nothing to talk about, Sheriff.”

“Oh, we do, Ma’am. You just don’t understand it yet.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Pruett sat down and drilled his gaze into her dead eyes. He wanted to hate her for being a part of what killed his girl, but in her face the sheriff saw a sad, lost woman who had sold her integrity for a splash of refreshment.

As sharp as Beulah was in a court of law, this lumbering old maid would never have guessed the terrible machinations her greed could set into motion.

Pruett leaned in. “I know about the payoffs.”

Jorgensen choked on her own saliva. “Wh-what? I don’t have a notion what you are talking about, Pruett.”

“
Sheriff
Pruett. This is official business, Beulah. This is the moment of reckoning. You either talk to me or we take this straight down to Judge Butler, and then you get thrown in the poke.”

The Town Attorney said nothing. Silence was her acquiescence.

“Shelly Delgado is in the morgue. Have you taken the time to try and figure the angle on that one?”

“Shelly’s murder will be investigated in due time. This office is a little rattled right now, Sheriff.”

“She’s dead because she helped me dig into your relationship with Rory McIntyre.”

“I truly have no idea…”

“Shut up,” Pruett snapped. “You listen to what I am saying. I’d like to give you credit for being a smart cookie, Beulah, but I fear you’re just another pretender. Built yourself up on the backs of the good folk; clawed and scraped those who did wrong by you all those years ago. But it doesn’t make you successful—it only makes you a taker.”

“I don’t have to listen to this bullshit.”

“Yes, Beulah, you
do
. You got my wife killed, you got your own attorney murdered, and you’ve spent the past month trying to put a noose around Ty McIntyre’s neck when you knew all along what set his actions into motion.”

“Just what do you think you know, Sheriff Pruett?”

“I know you took the money. I know that you and Rory McIntyre have been fucking each other for years. That a good enough jumping off place for you?”

Beulah Jorgensen looked like she just swallowed a small rodent.

“What I can’t figure just yet,” Pruett said, “is whether or not you tipped off Rory about Shelly Delgado. You must have, because I can’t see anyone else knowing what’s what in that regard.”

“I was never party to any killing,” Beulah said, her bravado all but permanently deflated. “I was never party to any of
that
.”

“The ballistics came back. Same gun that was used in the attempt on Ty’s life killed Shelly Delgado.”

“Jesus.”

“Who did you
think
did it, Beulah? How many murders does it take to bring you into the game?”

“Rory’s not capable…he’s a good man. Hard. But a good man.”

“How that old cowpoke is in the sack’s got
nothin
’ to do with who he is. He’s a 
scorpion
, Ma’am, and you set him loose on all of us.”