Dark Paradise (71 page)

hadn't cared so much about losing that job when Mr. Bryce had hired him

fresh out of the penitentiary. Mr. Bryce paid real good and there wasn't

that much work to be done on his place, which allowed a man that

all-important latitude. Orvis had thought himself pretty smart at the

time. Just out of the can and getting hired on at the biggest spread for

miles around to do hardly anything for twice what he would have earned

elsewhere. That had to make him pretty darn smart, didn't it?

But things were turning sour on him. Bryce's people treated him like he

was dog shit on a stick. The ranchers and hands around New Eden all

hated Evan Bryce and extended that dislike freely to the people who

worked for him. And there were jobs here he didn't much like doing.

Jobs that made him feel a little sick at his stomach sometimes.

The hunting dogs were part of his job - feeding them, keeping them fit,

seeing to them on the hunt. Seemed simple enough, but he'd found out

quick that Bryce and his snooty friends weren't sportsmen and the

animals they hunted were never in season in Montana. Lions and leopards

and all kinds of exotic creatures he'd never seen anywhere but on "Wild

Kingdom."

Bryce bought them from some shady middleman who bought them as excess

zoo stock. They were trucked in onto Bryce's land by back roads in the

dead of night and were sometimes kept for days in cages not much bigger

than they were. The animals were never given much of a chance in the

hunt. Often times they were drugged and could barely make it out of the

cage before the dogs were on them or one of Bryce's guests shot them in

order to have them stuffed and stuck in their dens, where they could lie

to their friends about the dangerous safari they went on and how they

risked their lives and all in order to kill this tiger or panther or

whatever.

Orvis told himself it didn't matter, that the animals were no different

from livestock and a man had the right to do as he pleased with his

livestock. But he couldn't seem to make that excuse sit very well in his

belly when he watched those people laugh and smile after they'd shot

some poor drugged animal or when they made him do the dressing out.

More and more he caught himself thinking about what J.D. had said to him

that day at the Stars and Bars.

There's more important things in this world than money, Orvis.

Hate to see you come to this, Orvis. He was feeling a little sad

himself.

He didn't like Bryce's people. He especially didn't like Mr. Bryce's

cousin, who looked like a female impersonator. Because he occasionally

liked to steal a peek through windows, he'd seen her do some things that

just plain turned his stomach. Sex with other women. Sex with two or

three men at once. Unnatural things. It had made him ashamed to see it.

She had done some twisted things with Kendall Morton too. He knew,

'cause Morton had told him, snickering the whole time. Orvis couldn't

imagine any woman with Morton. The smell alone should have drove them

off. But he didn't doubt that it was true. Miz Russell had come asking

for Morton to do this job, but he had gone to the Hell and Gone last

night and had yet to return.

And so Miz Russell had told Orvis to truck a pair of dogs up to a

hunting shack northwest of the Five-Mile creek and leave them, and she'd

paid him a hundred dollars cash money to keep his mouth shut about it.

He was supposed to get lost and come back in the morning and never say

boo to anybody - especially Bryce. She'd see he was fired if he screwed

up, and if he didn't have a job, he'd lose his parole. She told him she

had arranged a little hunt for herself and she didn't want anybody

horning in.

Orvis had followed orders. What was it to him if Sharon Russell wanted

to go hunting on her own?
 
If they were all lucky, maybe she would be

eaten by a grizzly.

But he had a feeling she wasn't alone. Just to remind himself why he

didn't like her, he parked the truck out of sight on the old logging

trail and looped back around through the trees to take a quick gander in

the back window of the cabin.

The dogs, a pair of big African something-or-others, barked at him, but

they were chained to a tree and they never quit barking anyway, so it

was hardly an alarm.

Orvis was unconcerned with getting caught as he sidled up to the window.

Sure enough, she was with a woman. He had a bad angle on the bed, and

the window was so dirty, it was like looking through a glass of milk,

but he could tell a few things without any trouble - they were both stark

naked and the other one was tied to the bed. Damned queer. Sick stuff,

really, he thought, somehow managing to detach his conscience from his

body as arousal stirred his pecker like a swizzle stick in his

Wranglers. He could make out black hair and dark skin on the woman

Sharon was doing things to. He couldn't see her face, but the only woman

around Bryce's crowd lately who fit that description was Sam Rafferty,

Will's wife.

Now Orvis sat in his pickup, wondering what to do.

He had a pretty good idea Will didn't know his wife had gone lesbo on

him. But then, he couldn't quite accept that image himself. Sam was a

nice girl. Orvis knew all the Neill kids, and aside from Ryder, who was

mean and drunk much of the time, they were all real nice. He couldn't

figure out what Sam was doing hanging around with Bryce's people to

begin with. He sure couldn't picture her taking up with the dragon lady.

The ropes bothered him, though he knew there were folks who went for

that kind of thing. He rubbed his scrubby little chin and sucked on his

crooked teeth. His ferret's face screwed up into a look of supreme

concentration, and he bounced on the seat of the truck as though he had

to pee. He didn't want to do the wrong thing. He didn't want to go to

Will Rafferty and tell him his wife was getting naked with another woman

and get himself punched in the mouth for no reason. On the other hand,

if there was something kinky going on here . . .

Sad to see you come to this, Orvis . . .

The dilemma wrestled around inside him like a pair of wildcats in a

cotton sack. He started the truck and put it in gear and let it start

rolling down the grade.

Sure wished he automatically knew the right thing to do, like J.D.

always did.

Damned sorry he usually did the wrong thing . . .

Not that it was his fault.

"And so I said to Harry Rex why would I want her?
 
She's got so many

wrinkles, she's gotta screw her hat on to go to church." Tucker shook

his head in disgust, leaned to the left in his saddle, and spit a stream

of tobacco juice that sent a marmot scuttling for cover. "Well, Harry Rex,

he just laughs like the big old jackass he is. I swear, he's about as

useless as a dog barking at a knothole. If brains were ink, he couldn't dot an I."

J.D. let the old man ramble on, tuning himself out of the conversation.

Tucker and Harry Rex Monroe of Monroe's Feed and Read had been buddies

since God was a child. They bickered and goaded each other like a pair

of old hens. He could remember when he was a kid, Tucker and Harry Rex

and their ongoing competitions Of thumb wrestling, wrist wrestling, arm

wrestling, tobacco spitting, watermelon-seed spitting, cherry-pit

spitting. They went from one challenge to the next, neither willing to

let the other have the final victory or the final word. The prattle was

familiar and unimportant. J.D.'s thoughts were elsewhere.

Down the hill, to be precise. On Marilee. She had certainly told him

what-for. Twice. At least. He felt like a bull that had to get knocked

on the head over and over before he took the hint to quit pushing on the

fence. For so long now his focus had been on the ranch. The ranch was

everything. The ranch took everything - his energy, his money, his heart,

his soul, his integrity. He didn't like thinking about what he had

become in the guise of knighthood to the Stars and Bars. A martyr. A

hypocrite. A mercenary. A liar. He had spent years creating the image of

the noble rancher only to find out there was nothing behind it but fear.

Fear of losing the ranch. Fear of letting anyone too close. Fear of losing

himself. The irony was that there wasn't that much to lose; he'd given

it all away . . . to the ranch.

Christ, he hated irony.

He rode alongside Tucker, amazed that the old man could ramble on about

nothing at all, as if he didn't have a clue that the world was coming

unglued around him.

He was amazed that there weren't visible signs - the sky ripping open like

a blue silk sheet, the earth cracking and separating as the various

factions warring over it tore it apart. It all looked perfectly

ordinary. The grass was green. The air smelled sweet with the promise of

rain. The ranch buildings in the distance looked as they had always looked,

aging but neat, one or two in need of paint. In the pasture they rode

through, calves bucked and chased each other. Most of the cows were

lying down - another sign of the coming rain. Normal sights. He thought of

what Chaske had said to him about owning the land, and knew that if the

Raffertys ceased to exist tomorrow, the land would still be here.

Ownership wasn't the important thing. Stewardship was. Tradition was. He

had pared down his life to the point that tradition was just about all

he had, and it could be lost in a heartbeat, in the time it took a

banker to sign a note.

His heart felt like a lead ball in his chest.

"J.D.?" Tucker leaned ahead in his saddle, stretching his back, frowning

at J.D. The chaw of tobacco looked like he had a golf ball in his cheek.

"You use them things on the side of your head for anything but hanging

your sunglasses on?"

J.D. shook himself out his ponderings and scowled to cover his

embarrassment. "What?"

"I asked, had you figured out the water yet. If we're moving the herd

next week, who's gonna change the water?"

The way of ranching. In the spring and summer everything needed doing at

once. During the long, cold winter was hardly anything to do at all. It

was time to start tilling the dirt for the hay. The system on the Stars

and Bars an old one of ditches and dams that cost nothing but required

almost constant manpower as someone had to periodically move the dams to

make certain all the land would be irrigated. With Will gone, they had

postponed driving the herd up to the high pastures, and now the move

would conflict with the irrigation. With the two jobs happening

simultaneously, they were essentially short two hands on a ranch that

ran with a skeleton crew as it was.

"I'll see if I can get Lyle's boys to help move the cattle. You'll have

to see to the water. I can't trust some kid to that job."

Which was true enough. The job, while boring as hell, required

experience. It was also far less physically taxing than driving a herd

of cattle up the side of a mountain.

Tucker digested this with a nod. He spat and kept his gaze forward,

trying too hard to be nonchalant.

"'Course, if Will comes back-"

"I don't see that happening, Tuck."

"Well, I dunno. If that ain't my old truck parked up in the yard, then

I'll be giving some poor fool my condolences for having one just like

it."

J.D.'s gaze sharpened. The truck was unmistakable, a hulking, inelegant

block of rusted metal. Someone sat on the tailgate, throwing a Frisbee

for Zip. The dog blasted off the ground, did a graceful half-turn in

midair, and came down with the brilliant yellow disk in his mouth.

Normal sights. As if nothing were wrong. As if his brother weren't an

alcoholic who went around picking fights with billionaire land barons.

As if the rift between the two of them weren't as wide as the Royal

Gorge.

"Now, go easy on the boy, J.D.," Tucker began.

J.D. nudged his horse into a lope and left the old man behind.

Zip played keep-away with the Frisbee, trotting toward Will, then

ducking away when he reached for the toy. There was a certain sadistic

gleam in the dog's blue eye that made Will think he knew perfectly well

the pain it caused him to bend over and reach.
 
His ribs ached as though

he had been crushed between a pair of runaway trains, and when he bent

over, his broken nose throbbed like a beating heart.

Each pain was brilliantly clear and separate from the next, dulled by

neither drugs nor drink. The colossal stupidity of what he'd done at

Bryce's had struck full-force sometime after Marilee had left him and

Doc Larimer had yanked his nose straight and wound twenty yards of tape

around his ribs tight enough to keep his lungs from expanding. He had

limped out of the emergency room to find Tucker's truck waiting for him

in the parking lot.

Sent down by Bryce, no doubt. He wouldn't have wanted the brute

cluttering up his driveway and ruining the presentation of Mercedes and

Jaguars. It was a wonder he hadn't just run it off a cliff.

His temper still simmering, Will climbed behind the wheel with every

intention of going straight to the Hell and Gone to throw a little fuel

on the fire. But as he drove through town, he caught himself turning

down Jackson and parking in front of that empty little sorrylooking

house he had once shared with his wife.

Ex-wife. Ex-wife. Ex-wife.

It squatted there on the corner of a yard that was weedy in patches and

bare in others, where the dog had done his business. The place looked

forlorn and abandoned. Mrs. Atkinson next door came out onto her porch

with her hands on her bony hips and stared at him as he made his way up

the walk. He gave her a wave. She scowled at him and went back into her

house.

You've sunk pretty low when the folks in this neighborhood turn their

nose up at you, Willie-boy.

He let himself in and wandered aimlessly around the living room and

kitchen, then into the bedroom he hadn't seen in weeks. The bed was

made, the cheap blue chenille spread tucked neatly beneath the pillows.

Sam was a good housekeeper, even though she'd never had much of a house

to keep. Nor had she ever asked for one. He knew she dreamed of a nicer

place, a place with shrubs flowers in the yard and a kitchen big enough

that you didn't have to go into the next room to change your mind. But

she had never asked him for that. She had never asked him for fine

clothes or expensive jewelry or a fancy car.

She had never asked him for anything but that he love her.

One thing to do and you managed to screw that up, didn't you,

Willie-boy?

He stood in front of her dresser and ran his fingertips over the

collection of dime-store necklaces and drugstore cosmetics and recalled

the look on her face when he said he'd never wanted a wife.

You sorry son of a bitch, Willie-boy. Stood right there and broke her

heart in front of God and all the millionaires. Way to go, slick.

He looked up at the reflection in the old mirror that needed resilvering

and saw a pretty poor excuse for a man. Excommunicated by his family. A

lost cause to his friends. Just a beat-up, boozed-up cowboy who had

thrown away the one good thing in his life.

You wanted your freedom. You got it now, Willie-boy.

But it didn't feel like freedom. It felt like exile. And he ached from

the loss of those things he had never wanted.

The ranch. The wife.

He sat on the bed and cried like a baby, his head booming, his face

feeling as if someone had stuck it full of thumbtacks, his cracked ribs

stabbing like a rack of knives with every ragged breath. The sun set and

the moon rose and he sat there, alone, listening to the distant sounds

of traffic and screen doors slamming and Rascal whining at the back

door. Samantha did not come home.

No one came to rescue, redeem, or reconcile. Marilee's parting shot was

like a sliver beneath his skin: grow up.

He straightened now, ignoring Zip as he pranced by with the Frisbee in

his mouth. J.D.'s big sorrel had dropped down into a jog. His brother's

face was inscrutable beneath the brim of his hat, but he stepped down

off the horse as he drew near the truck and Will took that as a good

sign. A gesture, a courtesy. Better than a kick in the teeth.

J.D. looked at Will's battered face and pained stance and choked back

the automatic diatribe. Too many bitter words had already been spoken

between them. This was no time for accusations. He was as guilty as

Will, just for a different set of sins.

"You look a little worse for wear," he said, pulling off his hat and

wiping the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt.

Will cocked his head and tried, to grin, but it held little of the usual

mischief and a lot of pain. "Got my clock cleaned by a city boy. It was

a sorry sight to see."

"I should think so." He sat himself down on the tailgate of Tucker's old

truck, his reins dangling down between his knees. Sarge leaned down and

rubbed his nose against a foreleg, then promptly fell into a light doze.

"Looks like you'll live to fight again."

"I'll live," Will said, sitting down gingerly on the other end of the

tailgate. Zip came with the Frisbee and presented it with much ceremony,

placing it in the dirt and looking up with contrition and hopefulness

that went unrewarded. "Don't guess I'll fight that fight again. I pretty

well blew it."

"Samantha?"

"If she comes back to me, it'll only be to serve me with papers or to

stick a knife in my chest. Can't say that I'd blame her either way."

J.D. made no comment. He looked up at the house where they had been boys

together and tried to imagine strangers living in it. The idea cut as

sharp as glass.

"What about you and Marilee?" Will asked.

He moved his big shoulders, trying to shrug off the question and his

brother's scrutiny. "That's not gonna work out."

"Because you're a stubborn son of a bitch?"

"Partly."

Will sighed and picked at a scab of rust on the tailgate.

"That's a poor excuse for losing something good. I otta know."

J.D. said nothing. He thought Will was hardly the man to give advice on

the subject, but he wouldn't say so. He didn't kick a man while he was

down. Besides, if he cared to look, there was probably too much truth in

his brother's words, and it was just better to let this thing between

him and Marilee die a natural death. In a week or two she would be back

in California. Life would go on.

"I figured I could sign over my share of the ranch to you," Will said.

"Keep it out of divorce court. I'll sell it to you outright if you want

to make it permanent. We'll have to get a lawyer, I suppose. Man can't

take a crap in this country without needing to have a lawyer look at

it."

J.D. said nothing. This was what he had always wanted, wasn't it?
 
To

have the ranch to himself. He was the one who lived for it. He was the

one who loved it.

Sitting beside a brother he claimed he'd never wanted, that sounded

pretty damn sick. He braced his hands on his knees as if to balance

himself against the shifting of his world beneath him.

"What are you gonna do?
 
Rodeo?" He heard himself ask the question and

almost looked around to see if someone else had joined the conversation.

From the corner of his eye he could see Tucker, fifty yards away,

climbing down off his chestnut by the end of the barn.

"Naw. There's not much of a living in it unless you're a star. I'm not

good enough to be a star," Will said flatly and without self-pity.

"It's time to quit playing around."

He looked at J.D. sideways and flashed the grin, weary and worn around

the edges. "Never thought you'd hear me say that, did you?"

He sighed and marveled at the crispness of the pain that skated along

the nerve endings in his back and shoulders. "I thought I'd go up to

Kalispell and get a job. Got a buddy up there getting rich selling

powerboats to movie stars on Flathead Lake. I figure if I kiss enough

celebrity ass, I could make back that sixty-five hundred I owe at Little

Purgatory in no time."

J.D. gave him a wry took. "You don't know spit about powerboats."

He grinned again, flashing his dimple. "Since when have I let my general

ignorance stop me from doing anything?
 
Besides, I could sell cow pies

at a bake sale and have 'em coming back for more."

J.D.'s smile cracked into a chuckle, and he shook his head. "Pretty sure

of yourself."

All the guile went out of Will's face, leaving him looking naked and

vulnerable and young. "No. Not at all. But it's time to grow up. It's

past time."

They sat in silence for moment, neither of them able to put feelings

into words. J.D. felt the weight of regret on his shoulders like a pair

of hands pressing down, cornessing the emotions into hard knots inside

him. Regrets for a brotherhood that had been tainted even before

Will's birth. Regrets for the wedge their parents drove between them for

their own selfish reasons. Regrets for not seeing the worth of what they

might have had before it was too late. He thought of his priorities and

he knew this might be the last chance he had to change one. Kalispell

was a long way from the Stars and Bars.

He looked across the way at the mountains, black and big-shouldered

beneath the clouds. A red-tailed hawk held its position high in the air,

as if it were pinned against the slate-gray sky. He thought of the song

Marilee had sung while he stood in the shadows of her porch, about pride

and tradition and clinging to old ways, desperation and loss and

unfulfilled dreams. And he could hear the faint echo of boys, laughter,

could almost see the ghosts of their boyhood running through the high

grass and scarlet Indian paintbrush. Not all the memories were bad ones.

"You've got a place here if you want," he said quietly. "Some things

would have to change, but our being brothers isn't one of them."

Will nodded slowly. He studied the backs of his skinned knuckles with

uncommon interest. "Maybe after a while," he said, his voice a little

thick, a little rusty. "I think it's best if I leave here for a time.

You know, stand on my own two feet. See who I am without you to lean on

or knuckle under."

The silence descended again and they sat there, absorbing it and feeling

the paths of their lives branching off, knowing that this moment was

significant, a turning point, a crossroads, but having neither the words

or the desire to call attention to it. It wasn't their way.

"If you can wait a day or two, I'll help move the herd up." Will

offered.

"That'd be fine," J.D. murmured, his eyes on the beatup Chevy pickup that

had just broken through the trees and was rumbling up the drive, engine

pinging, gears grinding, Orvis Slokum at the wheel.

She could hear the dogs baying in the distance. Thunder rumbled farther

back, just clearing the mountains to the west and rolling over the Eden

valley, a warning that was coming too late.

Samantha thought she should have seen a sign, a clue, some foreshadowing

of this, even though a more logical part of her brain knew no normal

person could have imagined the kind of madness that infected Sharon

Russell. She still blamed herself for being naive and stupid.

But that was pointless and she had no time to waste.