Shots Fired (23 page)

“How were we supposed to know
that
?” she said, rolling her eyes.

“I told you,” Pendergast interjected,
“I ain't no farmer.”

•   •   •

A
NDER
E
STI'S BLUE HEELER
wouldn't let Joe get close enough to put a sheet over the body. He looked back at his pickup and Daisy, who watched him through the passenger window.

He wondered if Daisy would stand guard over his own body if it came to it. He thought maybe she would.

•   •   •

W
HEN
J
OE CAME BACK
to the pickup, the adrenaline rush that had enveloped him was fading into anger and melancholy. Pendergast looked up, his face a mask of pain and shock. Before he could speak, before he could beg Joe for a hit from his pipe, Joe said:

“That man you killed for nothing was one of the last of his kind. Those kind of men don't hardly exist anymore. As far as I know, he doesn't have a single family member to mourn him—just a few ranchers who won't be able to hire anyone to do what he did because no one will do it anymore. I didn't really know him and I don't know if anyone else did, either, except for his dog and his horse, and they aren't saying.”

Pendergast whispered, “I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.”

“Of course you don't,” Joe said. “You're too thick and stupid. Men like Ander keep this world running. You never worked an honest day in your life and all you've ever cared about is your
next high. You just take things, and you took that man's life. You murdered a man who did nothing but work. He never hurt a single soul. There is probably a lot more to him that I'll never know. But I won't get the chance to find out.”

Pendergast looked away. He said, “I don't have to listen to this shit.”

“No,” Joe said, “but if I somehow could trade his life for yours, I'd do it.”

As if choreographed, the still evening was broken by the chopping sound of the approaching helicopter and the grind of a sheriff's department SUV on the ridge above Indian Paintbrush Basin.

The sheep ignored the disruption. They'd long before bowed their heads to
eat.