Blue Heaven Part 6

"This isn't a problem," he said. "It's an opportunity."

"What?"

"See how his mind works?" Gonzalez said with admiration.

THEY WAITED until Marty cut Tom off. While Tom pleaded for a last drink, Gonzalez and Singer slipped outside.

Newkirk settled the tab at the bar while Tom stumbled from table to table on his way to the door.

When he got to the parking lot he saw Singer and Gonzo standing with Boyd in the light of the single pole light. Tom was leaning back against the UPS truck. He heard Gonzo say, "You sure you should be driving, mister?"

"I'm fine," Boyd slurred. "Besides, I ain't going home. I'm going to Monica's. We got some things to straighten out."

Newkirk approached them. He could see something square and long protruding from Gonzalez's back jeans pocket. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he recognized what it was from his days on the force. It was called a "Stun Monster," 650,000 volts. The department had banned them after some guy died, but that never mattered to Gonzo.

Boyd said, "It's nice of you fellows to help, but I gotta go. Where you guys from, anyway?"

"Guess," Singer said.

Boyd cracked a drunken smile. "I'd guess L.A. Like half the new f.u.c.kers up here."

"Right you are," Gonzalez said, stepping toward Boyd as if to a.s.sist him into the UPS truck. Newkirk saw the stun gun in Gonzalez's hand and caught a glint of the metal electrodes wink in the lamp's light. Gonzo plunged it into Boyd's neck, and the electricity arced and snapped like furious lightning. Boyd dropped like a sack of rocks half-in and half-out of his driver's door.

Boyd's muscles twitched violently as they pushed him all the way into the truck and dragged him between the rows of parcels in the back. Boyd's leg kicked out spasmodically, and his boot caught Newkirk on the shin, nearly dropping him. Newkirk could smell the awful stench of burnt flesh in the truck from Boyd's neck. The stun gun had short-circuited Boyd's neurotransmitters, so the UPS man had no control over his muscles and limbs. Or sphincter, which released.

"Strong motherf.u.c.ker," Gonzo grunted, rolling the body over and cuffing him. "Stinky, too."

"You drive," Singer said, handing Gonzo the keys to the UPS truck. "Follow me."

"Cool. I've always wanted to drive one of these things," Gonzo said.

In his white SUV, with the headlights of the UPS truck filling the rearview mirror, Singer turned to Newkirk, said, "This was a gift. Now we can control the situation."

Newkirk had no idea what he was talking about. He shoved his hands under his thighs so Singer couldn't see them shaking.

DAY TWO.

sat.u.r.day.

Sat.u.r.day, 8:45 A.M.

AFTER PULLING two calves during the night, feeding his cattle at 5:00 A.M., and a big breakfast of steak, eggs, and coffee, Jess Rawlins showered and put on a jacket and tie and his best gray Stetson Rancher and went out to start his pickup. The sky was clear of clouds, although mist from the rain the night before hugged the gra.s.s and sharpened the smell of alfalfa and cow manure from the hayfield. The clouds would move in again in the afternoon, he guessed. He carried a boot box full of doc.u.ments and put it on the pa.s.senger seat.

JIM HEARNE was waiting for him in the lobby wearing a sport jacket, tie, slacks, and boots. Jess still wasn't used to the new bank building even though it had been there for five years. The new building was impressive, with its big windows and modern furniture, but he preferred the old one, the elegant, cramped, two-story redbrick structure on Main, with its dark interior, muted lights, and hardwood floors. It had once been called the North Idaho Stockman's Bank. That was three name changes ago, before it became First Interstate and was now open on Sat.u.r.days. The Rawlins family had banked there since their initial homestead in 1933.

"Jim."

"Jess."

Jim Hearne was in his late forties, stocky, broad-faced, with thinning brown hair and sincere blue eyes. He had once been the exclusive agriculture loan officer, but his duties and t.i.tles had multiplied. A bareback rider who had qualified twice for the national finals, he still had a bow-legged hitch in his walk as he led Jess toward his office and shut the door behind them. The Rawlins Ranch had been his college rodeo sponsor.

Jess sat in one of the two chairs facing Hearne's desk and put his boot box of doc.u.ments in the other. He removed his hat and placed it crown down on the floor next to him. On Hearne's desk was a thick file bound by clips with a tab that read RAWLINS.

"Plenty of moisture lately," Hearne said, sitting down. "That's got to help." Despite the fact that he was now president of the bank, Hearne still handled his old customers personally, and lapsed easily into the old banter. Jess had known him for thirty years, had watched him grow up to become a community leader.

Jess nodded. They both knew why he was here and that Jess wasn't good at small talk.

"Jess, I'm just not sure where to start," Hearne said.

Jess owned and operated a three thousand-acre ranch, one thousand eight hundred acres of it outright and the other one thousand two hundred acres deeded from the forest service, state, and federal Bureau of Land Management. He ran 350 Herefords in a cow/calf operation and sometimes, when the gra.s.s was good like this year, took in fifty to one hundred feeder cattle on a lease. It was the second-largest private holding remaining in the county. Hearne knew the herd size, deed arrangements, and layout of the ranch from memory, and didn't need to open his file.

Jess nodded. "There's not much to say. I can't make my payments, and I don't see how that's going to change, Jim. I'm broke. I laid off Herbert Cooper yesterday."

Hearne looked at Jess impa.s.sively, but Jess thought he noticed a softening in Hearne's eyes as he spoke.

"Calving is going as well as it ever has," Jess said. "The alfalfa's doing great with this moisture. I've got several calls from folks wanting to pasture their cows on my open meadows. But even with that ..."

Hearne pursed his lips. Silence hung in the air.

"Everywhere you look," Hearne said, "people are eating beef. Everyone I know, practically, is on that low-carb meat diet. You'd think the prices would rise. That mad cow stuff out of Canada is a red herring."

Jess agreed. This was a never-ending conversation, one they had had before. Meat-processing conglomerates controlled prices and had long-term options on supply. Jess had agreed to those prices years in advance, before the increase in meat consumption, before costs skyrocketed.

"No one held a gun to my head to make me sign those futures contracts," Jess said. "I'm not here to whine."

"I know you're not."

"I'm not here to tell you everything's going to get better, either," Jess said. "It probably won't. But I do know I run a good outfit, and I don't waste your money or mine."

This was as close as Jess would come to asking for a favor, and it made him uncomfortable. He wouldn't have even made the statement if he wasn't still thinking of Herbert Cooper's packing up. He had made Hearne uncomfortable, too, Jess could tell.

"No one ever said that," Hearne said. "I sure as h.e.l.l didn't."

Jess nodded.

"It's just that the day of the pure cattle outfit in northern Idaho may have pa.s.sed us by," Hearne said, his face still flushing as he did so.

"I know."

"You're land-rich and cash-poor," Hearne said. "You've probably been following the price of real estate the last couple of years."

"Yup."

"Your place is worth millions, if developed properly," Hearne said morosely, delivering news neither one of them really wanted to hear but had to. "There are ways to get out from under this debt, Jess."

Jess sighed. His back was ramrod straight, but he felt like he was slumping. "I'm no developer."

"You don't have to be," Hearne said. "There are probably a half dozen developers right now who would work with you. I've gotten some calls on it, in fact."

It hurt Jess to know that others knew he was in trouble, that he was a soft target. "I've gotten some calls, too, and offers in the mail. I used to just throw 'em out without even opening them. But the Realtors are getting wise to it and sending 'em in unmarked envelopes. Karen even came out yesterday with her new husband."

"You could diversify," Hearne said. "Look at the Browns." The Brown Ranch was the other remaining family ranch in the area. "One son runs cattle and a meatpacking facility. The other son runs a gravel operation. The daughter operates a guest ranch on the property."

Jess snorted. "I had plans like that once," he said. "You know what happened."

Hearne sat back and sighed. He knew.

The silence groaned.

Hearne said, "None of us who grew up here wants to see you lose that ranch. I sure as h.e.l.l don't. I think if all of the old ranches are replaced by those five-acre ranchettes, like we're seeing now, the county just won't be the same. But I can't let sentiment run my bank. Those newcomers built this building, and they're sending my kids to college."

Jess wondered why Hearne felt it necessary to tell him that.

"Jess, is there any way you would consider selling some of it? Maybe half? That would buy you some time to figure out the rest and maybe save some of it."

Jess bristled. The thought of being the one to dissolve the operation was a bitter pill. He thought of his grandfather, his father, his mother. They had left him a legacy, and he had screwed it up. The ranch was all he had that defined him, or the Rawlins name. How could he get rid of half of it?

"I'm a rancher," Jess said. "I don't know anything else."

Hearne rubbed his face with his hands. Jess noticed that Hearne's hands were soft. They didn't used to be. He looked down at his own hands. They were brown, gnarled, and weathered.

"We've got to figure something out," Hearne said. "We can't extend any of the loans anymore. I've got directors and auditors who want to know what the h.e.l.l I'm doing with these bad loans."

"I'm sorry, Jim."

"Don't say that," Hearne said. "I can't stand for you to say that."

The intercom chirped, and Hearne leaned forward and picked up the headset. "I'm in a meeting, Joan."

Jess could hear Joan's m.u.f.fled voice. Whatever she said had enough import to keep Hearne on the line.

"Oh, I hate to hear that," Hearne said. "Of course they can put it up. Of course they can."

Hearne continued to listen, then glanced over Jess's shoulder into the lobby. "Yeah, I see him. He'll have to wait," and cradled the handset.

"Sorry," Hearne said, his face drained of color.

"No problem. What's the matter?"

"Do you know the Taylor family? Monica Taylor?"

"I've heard the name," Jess said, trying to think of the context.

"She's got two kids, a girl and a boy. Apparently, they're missing."

"Oh, no."

"Been gone since yesterday," Hearne said. "Some other women want to put a poster up of the missing kids in the lobby."

Jess shook his head. "They'll probably turn up."

"Things like this never used to happen," Hearne said. Then, remembering why they were there, the banker said, "Jess, give me a couple of weeks to come up with some options for you. You don't have to take any of them, of course. But we both know you're in default. If I can come up with something to get us out of this mess we're in, I will."

Jess sat back, overwhelmed. "You don't have to do that, Jim."

"I know I don't," Hearne said, deflecting the emotion. "But we've known each other for a long time. I don't want to see your ranch turned into more starter castles for California transplants, either. I want there to be a couple of ranches in this county, too."

Jess stood, clamped on his hat, and extended his hand to Hearne across the desk. "Jim, I..."

"Don't say it," Hearne interrupted. "It's good for business, is all. We'll give a lot more loans out to people to live in a place that has ranches, that isn't completely overdeveloped, is all."

Jess said nothing but wanted to embrace the banker who was lying to him.

AS HE OPENED the office door, Jess recognized Fiona Pritzle as one of the women putting up the posters in the lobby. Before he could slink away, she saw him and came rushing over.

"Jess," she said, trapping both of his hands in hers, standing too close, looking up into his eyes, "did you hear about the Taylor children?"

"Just did. It's terrible." Her hands were as dry as parchment.

"I was the one who gave them a ride along Sand Creek yesterday," she said, her eyes shining. "They were going fishing, and I dropped them off. But they didn't come home last night."

"They'll probably show today," he said.

"Oh, with that rushing creek, they could have been swept away and drowned!"

Jess would have had more sympathy for Fiona, but she seemed to be reveling in the fact that she was a major character in the drama and was playing it to the hilt.

"And who knows who could have taken them," she whispered. "There are a lot of people here now we don't know anything about. Who knows how many s.e.xual predators have moved up here?"

Jess winced. "Is there a search team?"

"Thank G.o.d, yes," she said. "The sheriff has his deputies out, and people are lining up to volunteer to look for them."

"That's good to hear," he said, gently breaking loose from her grip, at the same time wishing he had more confidence in the new sheriff, who seemed to Jess to be more of a public relations/chamber of commerce type than a lawman. As he thought this, Jess realized he had trapped Hearne in his office because Fiona had blocked him in the doorway.

"It is good," Fiona said. "I heard that a bunch of those retired police officers have volunteered to help the sheriff head up the investigation. They showed up this morning. Isn't that great?"

Jess nodded. "I suspect the new sheriff will welcome their help."

"It shows you that a lot of these newcomers have good hearts," she said. "And they have experience in these kinds of horrible crimes. It's the kind of thing they did all the time in L.A."

"Excuse me," Hearne said, sliding past Jess.