Lone Heart Pass (24 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Thatcher
April 9

A
N
HOUR
AFTER
lunch on Friday, Thatcher decided he'd had enough of school for the week. Using his one crutch, he limped out of the back door of the school and walked over to the Evening Shadows Retirement Home.

Cap Fuller was working on his old boat of a car. “Hello, hero,” he said when Thatcher walked up.

It seemed as if the old guy was getting shorter every time Thatcher saw him, but he was always friendly. He'd even helped Thatcher get his Ford pickup running when one of his mother's common-law husbands left it parked in back of their cabin.

After that, Thatcher drove it, figuring he'd inherited it in the common-law divorce.

“Hello, Mr. Fuller. I was wondering if I could talk you into giving me a ride.” Thatcher guessed the old guy knew he'd return the favor when asked.

The senior citizen straightened. “I heard you got your own private deputy watching over you. Don't you want him to take you wherever you want to go?”

Thatcher shook his head. “Where I'm going, wouldn't be safe for him. I need a ride out to the Breaks, not Lone Heart Ranch where I've been staying lately. I don't think it would be healthy for a cruiser to turn into my old neighborhood.”

“I know that place. Used to go out there now and then.” Cap closed the hood of his car.

“I know. Folks still know your old car.” Thatcher smiled, knowing he'd just got a ride. “They remember how you helped your nephew out when he lived out there.”

Fuller nodded. “He wasn't a bad kid, just got mixed up now and then. I couldn't see myself letting him or his family go hungry.”

Thatcher knew Fuller's nephew had died in a car crash last year and the family he left moved into Crossroads. The old man was probably still helping them out.

Fuller opened his car door. “I'll take you over there, but you let someone know where you are.”

Thatcher pulled out his cell. “I will.” He tried Charley's cell but wasn't surprised there was no answer. When he'd left the ranch, Charley was hammering on the frame of what would be another six stalls added to the barn.

Just to keep his word, he dialed the sheriff's office and left Tim a message about where he was heading. Thatcher figured he'd be back before anyone picked up the messages.

Thatcher climbed into the passenger seat while Cap backed into the traffic—two cars—on Main Street. Both cars honked. Cap waved.

Thatcher appreciated the old man talking about cars on the way out to the Breaks.

Thatcher had talked about the shooting enough. Everyone in town seemed to want to hear all the details, just like every teacher he had kept asking him how he felt, as if it was part of roll call each period.

Fuller let him off just before the one-eleven turnoff, since—sure enough—Mr. Norton had left the truck there. That was close enough, Thatcher figured. Any further and the car might have gotten stuck in the mud.

After he got his truck started, he drove to his mother's cabin. It was pretty much the same as the way he left it, only the electricity was off. Thatcher thought his mother might have returned, but no such luck. Who knows—she might be gone for good this time.

He walked around, deciding there was not one thing he wanted to take with him except his .22 rifle. So he wrapped it in one of his snake-killing bags and left a note on his bedroom door telling her that the sheriff knew where he was. Then he walked away from where he'd lived all his life and didn't bother to take one last look.

He'd made up his mind that if Charley and Jubilee ever kicked him out, he wasn't coming back here.

It took him a while to get his old Ford started and driving a stick shift wasn't easy with a weak leg, but he managed. By the time the school bus passed Lone Heart Ranch, he was parking his truck out by the front gate.

He'd passed two highway patrol cars on the way and neither had stopped him.

Charley stepped out of the newly framed barn with a rifle cradled on his arm. “You brought your truck,” he said, stating the obvious. “Could have parked it a little closer.”

“Thought I'd enjoy the walk,” Thatcher answered. “I had to go get it before someone stole it.”

Charley looked doubtful but didn't insult his truck. “You feel like working?”

“You bet.” Thatcher had decided the ache in his leg was nothing compared to being bored. “How about we finish the chicken coop? I got a dozen chicks from an old neighbor of mine today.”

“What happened to the ones you picked up that day you found the sheriff? I thought Mr. Norton was going to bring them over.”

“Kristi took one look at them and adopted them. She asked me if she could have them and I couldn't tell her no. The old lady down the road from my mom had a dozen chickens. There's always chicks around her place. Half the time she doesn't even collect the eggs, much less worry about the chicks.”

Charley handed him a hammer. “We work until you get tired. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” Thatcher grinned. It felt good to be doing something. He'd slept through all his morning classes, so a little work wouldn't bother him.

Three hours later they finished the coop they'd been planning before the shooting interrupted their progress. It did indeed look like a castle, just as Lillie wanted.

Jubilee had picked up Lillie after school and they'd gone for ice cream together.

They showed up just before dark with supper in a bag. The little princess went crazy over the coop and the baby chicks. She insisted two of them wanted to come visit her room.

Thatcher's exhaustion vanished when he saw her joy. “I've missed you this week, Flower. It seems like all I've done is sleep, but from now on, I'm on the mend.”

“I missed you, too, That.” She wrapped her hand around two of his fingers and told him to come to supper as if she was still the princess doctor.

Halfway through the meal, Thatcher asked when Jubilee planned to move back into her house.

She glanced at Charley and said, “I plan to stay here until you're fully recovered.”

Charley kicked Thatcher under the card table and he said, “That could be a while, right, That?”

Thatcher nodded as he tried his best to look weak.

“Then I'll stay for a while,” she promised.

It didn't make much sense for them all to stay in a tiny house when a big one was close by, but Thatcher had figured out not much makes sense in the world.

Like why would Kristi like him when even he knew he wasn't worth much and her father kept calling him
son
as if he wouldn't mind having him in the family. Then there was Charley and Jubilee sleeping together with their clothes still on. Either that, or they dressed faster than lightning strikes when he called them during the night.

Also add that Lillie thought chickens should sleep in a castle.

So, why not stay in a tiny house, at least until the smell of diapers vanished from the big place?

The worst thing that didn't make sense was that all the lawmen around couldn't figure out who shot Sheriff Brigman.

Thatcher had heard Charley and Tim say they planned to do some poking around on their own and Thatcher decided he'd help. They seemed to think that locals would be more likely to talk to locals. Charley had helped the sheriff out a few times before and Tim was almost an investigator.

The next night, when everyone was asleep, Thatcher slipped out of Charley's house and walked, ignoring the pain in his leg, toward the main road without his crutch. The sky was alive with lightning and low rolling thunder coming from the west.

He'd left his old pickup parked just beyond the cattle guard. If he let the truck roll downhill for a few hundred yards, no one would hear the engine start or him driving away.

Twenty minutes later he was in the Breaks. Flicking off his lights, he drove the roads by moonlight and memory. When he reached the trees, he hid his truck and walked toward the barn where he knew the men would be gathering. Saturday night prayer meeting. Only he didn't go in or crawl under the back corner of the barn. He stood in the trees and watched until he saw the Dulapse brothers heading into the meeting. Then, he doubled back and drove far into the Breaks to their place.

The road was so full of holes he feared his engine might fall out, but Thatcher was on a mission. He had to find some clue that would help Tim O'Grady before the college boy and Charley decided to come out here.

Thatcher thought, with luck, that he might have half an hour to look around the Dulapses' place. The sheriff would probably call what he was doing breaking and entering, but the old door didn't have a lock so Thatcher decided he was just entering.

He flicked on a flashlight and stepped inside an old cabin he knew he'd never be invited into, or, on a normal day, want to go inside. The place was a dump. Worse than his mother's house ever was. Bear dens were cleaner and smelled better. The table in the center of the room looked to be the place where the brothers spent most of their time.

Trying not to move papers around too much, he started through the stacks. The Dulapse brothers had a map of the county marked off as though they were invaders trying to conquer one section at a time. Thatcher knew the land they'd already claimed; he'd hunted deer near the circle. He'd seen a small pot field out there where no roads cross. Word was the land was owned by an old hippy who came out with his wife fifty years ago. The story was that she left him after a year, but the man stayed because his best friend lived next to him with his wife and daughter.

If the Dulapse brothers were doing drugs, they might be dealing with the owner or his friend. Or—another idea hit Thatcher—maybe they killed the old guy and took over his fields. No one would know. All they'd have to do was get rid of the body. Bury it or leave it somewhere where no one would connect it with the Breaks.

Like maybe on a ledge in Ransom Canyon.

He circled the room with the flashlight. In one corner, a few feet behind the table, was a stack of burlap bags.

He sat down to rest his leg and began studying the lines of numbers that were scribbled on scraps of paper like the free flyers they stuff in bags at the grocery and dollar stores. One of the brothers must be keeping a record of what they were making in profit. Another list looked like supplies they'd need.

The Dulapse brothers could be at the meeting right now trying to take over the drug trade in this area. One on one, they wouldn't have a chance at Bull, but together they might take him down. Once the big man was shoved out of the way, or buried, no one else who lived out here would stand against the brothers. Those in the trade would follow along with whatever the brothers said. Those not in the trade would simply ignore anything they saw or heard. It had always been that way.

Thatcher listened to the thunder and thought it almost sounded like gunfire. He'd heard of bad things happening out here, but it was mostly just whispered. Everyone knew that if real trouble started, the law would move in and their life off the grid would be over.

He had to think. If they'd tried to get rid of the sheriff, Brigman must know something about what was going on here. He'd gotten too close.

An image of the locked drawer in the sheriff's office kept flashing in Thatcher's brain. The flyer found in the canyon right after they found the burlap body had been on Brigman's desk. The same kind of bag stacked in the brothers' cabin was used to wrap the body in the canyon. The shooting of the mustangs didn't seem to be related, but it did happen close to the Breaks turnoff. Maybe the brothers thought killing a few horses would frighten strangers off?

Only why ambush the sheriff on a back road? He wasn't knocking on doors out here. Someone had almost killed a lawman, but why?

All were pieces that had to fit together. But they didn't.

If the brothers were the ones who tried to kill Brigman, they'd also been the ones to shoot him, Thatcher, in the leg. Did they think he was working with the sheriff, or were they just trying to keep him from saving Brigman?

Whatever the truth was, Thatcher knew one thing for sure. This wasn't a good place for him to be right now. He was in the bear den and the time for hibernation was over.

His instincts were screaming at him to run. But somehow he had to have proof or no one would believe him. Just saying the brothers were bad wouldn't work. Everyone already knew that. If he didn't find something, Charley and Tim would probably decide to come out and they'd get themselves killed for sure.

Thatcher told himself he had to find clues. He didn't have many friends and couldn't lose either of them.

Facts kept circling in his mind. The horses. The dead body. The sheriff bleeding on the road. Maybe they weren't related. But, if they were, trouble would find him if he didn't figure it out.

He beamed his flashlight around the room once more. Two rifles rested just behind the door. Carefully, he ejected a bullet from each, then picked them up with a corner of one of the burlap bags. Maybe if he took these to Deputy Weathers, he could see if they matched the bullets used to shoot the sheriff.

He thought of taking more, but if the brothers noticed they'd know someone had invaded their house and go out hunting for the prowler. Thatcher, with his leg feeling on fire every time he put weight on it, might not make it back to the ranch before they caught him.

Just as he turned to leave, he heard footsteps coming up the gravel trail to the house.

Thatcher backed slowly away from the door as he turned off his flashlight. There weren't many places to hide in a one-room cabin. He crawled under the burlap bags behind the table and pulled out his phone.

The Dulapse brothers were close. He could hear them cussing.

Thatcher hit five on his phone and was relieved when Weathers answered on the first ring. The man must really not have a life other than being a cop.