Junkyard Dogs (6 page)

“Well, get the paperwork from Geo, and we’ll . . .”

I was interrupted by a series of shouts coming from the direction of the scales. I turned in time to see the scarecrow figure of Geo Stewart with the .22 rifle held at port arms standing on the scales in front of Ozzie Jr.’s truck. The developer gunned the engine on the vehicle to impress his intentions upon the dump man, even going so far as to lurch the one-ton forward so that the chrome grille guard was almost touching him. Butch and Sundance were leaping in the air in an attempt to gain enough purchase to burst through the office Plexiglas.

I held up a finger to the Basquo. “Just a second—I’ll be back in a minute.” I hustled across the broken ground, raised a hand, and shouted. “Hold on, hold on!”

I guess they couldn’t hear me—or maybe it was that they just didn’t want to—but Geo didn’t retreat, and I could see his mouth moving in response to what looked like Ozzie’s spitting tirade. I was about thirty yards away when the truck lurched again, and the junkman was thrown backward.

Geo hit the railroad-tie ramp with a liquid thump, and his head cracked against the hard surface of the creosote-soaked wood, the rifle falling to the side with the
ch-kow
sound that indicated it had gone off. At its discharge, the truck stopped but, as near as I could tell, it was still in gear.

“Put that thing in park!”

I scrambled forward—Dog was beside me now and was barking. I could see where the round had glanced off the windshield, cracking the glass and shearing a deep groove through the trim and the front of the cab.

I placed a hand on the elevated sill of the driver’s window, reached in through the narrow opening, turned off the motor, and snatched the keys from the ignition. “Are you two all right?”

Ozzie didn’t move, but his mother, pale and breathless, replied, “We’re fine, but what about George?”

I slipped from the door and moved to the front of the truck where Geo was stretching his neck to one side as he lay there on the ramp. He was feeling the back of his head. I kneeled down and supported him, and his hat fell back, exposing the waxy, pure white skin where the sun had never touched him. “Are you okay?”

He closed his eyes and then stretched them open, alternately flexing his jaw.

“Geo, are you all right?”

“Whoo-eeha.” He moved his mouth, with the fog from his breath condensing in the frigid air, and then drew a hand up to swipe the saliva from the corner of his mouth before it froze. “I didn’t shoot nobody, did I?”

I smiled down at him. “Just the truck, but I think it’ll make it.” We both chuckled. Dog was standing by the scales and barking at the wolf mutts that were now taking turns jumping against the window. I did a little barking of my own. “Enough!” He quieted down, and my eyes drifted past to Saizarbitoria, who stood with the cooler and evidence kit at his feet where he’d dropped them.

His sidearm was drawn and, even from this distance, I could see his hands shaking. I watched him until he became aware of me; he half-turned, lowering the Beretta.

Betty Dobbs was out of the truck and now crouched beside the shaken junkman, who looked up at her and smiled brilliantly from beneath the dirt and whiskers. “Are you all right? I didn’t shoot you, did I?”

She laughed and shook her head at him.

I cleared my throat and started to stand. “Betty, could you keep an eye on him for just a second?” She smoothed his hair back, and I figured George was in better hands. “I’ll be right back.”

As I stood, I became aware that Ozzie Dobbs Jr. had tried to open his truck door, but that the railing on the scale had him penned. “Did you see that? That crazy son of a bitch tried to shoot us!” He was still spitting, and his Chiclet teeth showed in a thin-lipped grimace.

Remembering Dobbs’s keys were still in my palm, I stuffed them into my pocket and held a hand out to silence him. “Stay where you are.”

He looked around, unable to see Betty or Geo at the front of the truck. “Where’s my mother?!”

“She’s taking care of the man you just tried to run over.”

I turned my back to him and approached my deputy, all the while attempting to get a handle on the surge of adrenaline that continued to bottle-rocket through my veins. The Basquo hadn’t moved and was still turned a quarter away from me with the pistol at the side of his leg, his upper lip trapped between his teeth.

“You all right?”

He didn’t say anything.

“Are you all right?”

He strained to speak. “Yeah.”

I looked back to make sure I was the only one who had witnessed him drawing his weapon. I turned to Sancho and gestured gently toward the semiautomatic. “You wanna holster that thing?”

“Yeah . . . yeah.”

As he secured the Beretta, I turned and saw the strangest thing I’d seen all day, and I’d seen a lot of strangeness up to this point. George Stewart and my ninth-grade English/civics teacher were entwined in a passionate kiss.

“Other than his long johns, how is he?”

Isaac blinked behind his thick glasses. “He bruised a few ribs and cracked the back of his head; personal hygiene notwithstanding, he’s in remarkable shape for a man his age.”

“He’s had a rough day.”

“It says a lot for hard work in the fresh air.”

“I’m not so sure that would strictly define the environs of the dump.”

“Municipal Solid Waste Facility.” Evidently Geo had educated the Doc, too. “To each man, his own paradise.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, since we’re on a subject literati—have you seen the moving finger writes and having writ?”

“I have.”

The Basquo was talking to Janine at the end of the hallway, so Isaac leaned in closer and, speaking sotto voce, looked up at me. “Walter, you know as well as I do that that thumb is probably the result of some local cowboy having dallied up a little too quick at one of this weekend’s team ropings.”

“In February?”

He adjusted his glasses. “Have you forgotten how many indoor arenas we have in the surrounding area?”

I studied my boots and went to one of my recorded responses. “Well, we’re checking all the leads.”

He made an exasperated sound in the back of his mouth. “It was in a cooler with crushed beer cans and melted ice from the IGA.”

“Maybe it hitchhiked there.” I got a smile out of him with that one. “I don’t think we’re being overly zealous in treating this as a possible missing person—or part of a missing person.”

“Walter, this was some roper squeezing his finger off, putting it in the cooler for safekeeping, and then getting so drunk that he either passed out or simply forgot about it. He’s probably woken up this morning and realized he’s missing a digit.”

“Thumb.”

The intensity in his deep-set eyes increased. “And will probably be in here later to consolidate the damage.” He paused and took a breath. “Now, do you want to tell me what sort of criminal conspiracy this is in which you are attempting to involve me?”

I glanced back toward the front desk, pushed off the wall, and draped an arm around Doc Bloomfield’s narrow shoulders to steer him toward a little more privacy. “You’ve been working with the Basquo on his recovery since the knifing?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“How’s he doing?”

The Doc paused. “In what spirit is this question asked?”

“How about physical.”

We’d walked to the end of the hall and were now confronted with the set of double-swinging doors that led to the ICU. I stopped and retrieved the majority of my arm but left a hand on the Doc’s shoulder.

“The initial damage was the penetrating wound six inches to the right of the midline with an extending incision and hemorrhagic effect that included the left perinephric fat and the kidney itself. The organ suffered a ninety-five percent loss in its filtering abilities and was removed, but the other kidney will most likely continue to operate at peak efficiency especially because the young man is in inordinately fine physical condition.”

“Yep, but how’s he doing?”

Isaac propped an elbow on his arm and cupped his chin in his hand. “Well, there was some additional infection that seems to have affected the left oblique muscles, but other than that, he’s fine.” I nodded but didn’t say anything. “But that’s not really the part of him you’re worried about, is it?”

“Not really.”

“He’s exhibiting some psychological neurosis?”

“I don’t know if I’d call it neurosis.”

A smile softened his face. “What would you call it then?”

“Back in the day, Lucian used to refer to it as bullet fever.”

He exhaled a gentle laugh at the thought of my old boss, who had been the previous sheriff of Absaroka County. “And what, exactly, are the symptoms of bullet fever?”

“Numerous—the first being a strong urge to find something else to do for a living, preferably in an occupation where people aren’t trying to slice you, dice you, and julienne fry you.”

“Sounds sensible.”

“Nobody ever said it was a sane line of work, Doc.” I sighed. “He’s a good kid, tough and brave as a summer day—I just think this is the first time he’s ever gotten a good look into the abyss, and he’s maybe brought a little of it back with him.”

“It sounds as if this condition might be familiar to you.”

I nodded and smiled. “Yep, I had a little dose or two.”

The Doc shook his head, mildly scolding. “All right, what is it you’re planning to do?”

“Well, whether he stays or goes I want to make sure he knows he’s all right. In the long run it’s best for him to learn that he’s not bulletproof. I just want to remind him that he might be just a little bullet-resistant.”

“And how are you intending to do that?”

I took a deep breath and tipped my hat back. “Haven’t a clue, but I figure that if I keep him occupied with the thumb it’ll at least hold his interest until I come up with something.”

“Walter, I don’t need to remind you that you are not a professional in dealing with these types of things and that there are people who . . .”

“I know that.”

“Your friend, Dr. Morton, at the VA over in Sheridan?”

“Yep, but that would make it official, and I’m not sure Santiago would be willing to go for that.”

The Doc pulled at his nose, readjusted his glasses with a middle finger, and studied me for a long moment. “What do you want me to do?”

I shrugged. “Nothing illegal, but if you could feign a little ignorance about the nature of the evidence and possibly keep it quiet if anybody comes in with a telling injury . . .”

He pulled the all-knowing clipboard from his chest, flipped a page over, and read. “Mr. Felix Polk of Route 16, Rural Delivery Box 12, appeared here yesterday at approximately 11:22 a.m., wanting to know if anybody had shown up with the end of his thumb because he, and I quote, ‘Wanted to get it back and have it made into a key chain,’ unquote.”

I took a breath. “Well, this might end up being a little harder than I thought, but I’ll think of something.” I started to go but then remembered that I wanted to ask him about Mrs. Dobbs. “Hey, Doc, do you remember Betty Dobbs?”

He thought for only a second. “School nurse and teacher. Retired, isn’t she? Married well, as I recall, but he died two and a half years ago, I think.” He didn’t hesitate in adding, “Salt of the earth. Why?”

“Just curious.”

 

 

Ozzie Dobbs apparently wanted to press charges, but I thought that Geo didn’t, so I took the trail of least resistance and went to visit the junkman first. I knocked on the door of his room, but there was no response. I could hear the television, so I waited a second and then swung the door back. Geo was walking around in a hi-here’s-my-ass gown, barefoot, and looking for his clothes. He was still wearing his disreputable hat with the flaps sticking straight out at the sides, so it looked like Geo was clear for takeoff.

“Whatta ya think them nurses did with ma pants?”

Burned them, I thought, but I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. “I think you’re supposed to be in bed, Geo. They have to give you one more going-over before they’ll let you go; probably something to do with the insurance.”

The response was predictable.

“Gaddam insurance.” He stood there in the middle of the room with his fists on his hips. His tan, still holding through the winter, started just above his eyebrows and paused in a deep V at his throat along which there was a substantial scar that appeared to run from ear to ear. The tan then recommenced at his wrists and ventured to his fingertips. I guess they had cleaned him up, with or without his permission, because the rest of him looked like boiled chicken. “Somebody gotta feed Butch and Sundance.”

“What about Duane or Gina?”

His answer was accompanied with a vague gesture. “Went off to Sheridan to go to the show and visit friends.”

“How about Morris?”

“Drinks.”

I thought about how I was supposed to have met Vic an hour ago, and how my current popularity was plummeting along with the mercury. “Well then, I can take care of that.”

He studied me from the corner of his eye. “Got a bird.”

I walked over and lowered the volume on the television. “I can probably take care of that for you, too.” It was Natalie Wood and some guy I can’t remember singing in
West Side Story
. I thought it an odd choice for the junkman but pretty good programming since we were coming up on Valentine’s Day.

“Got nary a feather.”

I turned back to look at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“Lindy. Got nary a feather.”

“The bird?”

He nodded. “Plucks ’em all off in spite.”

“In spite of what?”

“Daughter-in-law run off; only one that could stand the bird.”

I thought about it. “Geo, didn’t your daughter-in-law leave a while back?”