Damned If I Do Part 4

"You don't go up there anymore, eh?" I asked.

"n.o.body does, really," she said.

"Why's that?"

She shrugged.

A hand reached through the window and tapped the bell, then put a plate down. The waitress stepped over, grabbed it, and brought it to me. "You want ketchup or anything?"

"Tabasco?"

She gave it to me.

A couple of young men came in and sat at the opposite end of the counter. "Hey, Polly," one of them said.

"Hey, Dillard." She slid along the counter toward them.

She and the men ignored me while I ate and I liked that just fine. I finished, paid the tab, and left a generous tip, figuring I'd be eating there again.

Emma Bickers' house looked no more inviting than it had earlier. I walked the dirt path to the porch and before I could knock, two loud pops hurt my ears and I could feel the door move, though I wasn't touching it. I looked at the gla.s.s high on the door and saw the small holes. I ran back to my truck, keeping low, my heart skipping. I fumbled with my keys, finally got my engine going, and kicked up dust as I sped away. I don't like being shot at, always have a really bad reaction to it. I don't get scared as much as I get really mad. I stayed hunched in my seat until I was well on the main road again.

I parked in the same s.p.a.ce and burst into the sheriff's office. The sheriff was standing beside the deputy and they turned to observe me. I was fit to be tied. "That old lady is crazy as h.e.l.l and I want her arrested."

"What happened?" the sheriff asked.

"That nut shot at me. I hadn't even knocked on the door and she fired two shots."

"Slow down," the sheriff said. "Who are you and who shot at you?"

"This is the guy from Fish and Game I told you about," the deputy said.

"Mrs. Bickers shot at you?" the sheriff asked.

"I don't know for sure. I was on the other side of the door and when the shooting started I took off. I didn't see if anyone opened the door once I was running."

"Harvey, call over to that old biddy's house and find out what the h.e.l.l is going on," the sheriff said. Then to me, "Are you all right?"

"I'm not shot."

"Well, that's a good thing." He seemed even-tempered, but of course he hadn't been the target. He ran a hand through his graying hair and watched the deputy hang up the phone.

"No answer," Harvey said.

"Why don't you ride on out there and see what in h.e.l.l's the matter," the sheriff said to Harvey. "And take that gun away from her before she shoots somebody I give a d.a.m.n about."

"I'm going with him," I said.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Mr.-"

"Hawks," I said.

"Mr. Hawks. Let Harvey get things unraveled."

The sheriff was reasonable in his request, but I was hot. "Listen, all I want is this paper signed so I can do my d.a.m.n job."

"Let Harvey take the form and get it signed."

"No, I want to watch her sign it. I want her to see me watching her sign it. I'm going with Harvey."

The sheriff sighed. "I don't see why you don't trespa.s.s on her land and get it over with."

"With all due respect, sheriff, greetings around here are somewhat unpredictable and I would prefer to keep things as simple and clean as possible." I wasn't backing down.

"I see your point. Harvey, see to it that Mr. Hawks doesn't get killed."

"I'll do my best," Harvey said.

The sheriff looked out the window. "Wait a second. It's too dark to go messing around over there tonight. If she can't see you, Harvey, she might shoot again." The sheriff looked at me. "You gonna press charges?"

"Probably not. Not if she signs this form and not if I get to see her do it."

The sheriff glanced at Harvey and blew out a breath. "Harvey will pick you up in the morning from the motel across the street. How's that?"

I nodded.

The sheriff walked away, shaking his head, saying, "I hate this f.u.c.kin' job. I want to shoot every idiot who voted for me."

Harvey sat at his desk. "I guess I'll see you in the morning then."

I checked into the motel, which was like any motel anywhere, the same room, the same bed, the same synthetic blanket, the same television with cable, and the same fat clerk in slippers holding a scruffy cat with a terrier standing in the doorway behind him.

I threw myself onto the bed, switched on the television, and settled on CNN. I must have fallen asleep fairly quickly because I couldn't recall any of the so-called news when I was awakened by a crash. Then there was shouting. A man's voice, booming, not so much angry as frustrated.

"I'm telling you it's not my fault," the man said.

I couldn't hear the response.

"Her tire was flat and I offered to change it. When I turned around she had her shirt off."

There was another crash. Then a silence.

"I'm sorry if you think that, but I didn't have any interest in her," he said.

Silence.

"I did not know her!"

"That's not true!"

"Lord Christ, Muriel! Have you lost your mind! Now, honey, you put that down. Muriel!"

A door slammed. I went to the window and peeked out. A bearded man wearing jeans and no shirt was standing in the parking lot, under a bright lamp, looking at the door. His shoulders were fixed in a shrug. The woman was out of the room, too, her back to me, a parka covering what I took to be her naked body; an a.s.sumption I made observing her bare feet and legs. She was waving a large and nasty hunting knife.

"Now, Muriel!"

The woman said nothing. She stowed the knife under her arm to free her hands for signing something to the man, then pulled her hair away from her head and let it fall. I, of course, had no idea what she was saying, but the tone of her signing was clear.

"Quiet down, honey."

"That's just not true," he said. "Muriel, she's fat. For chrissakes, she was gigantic. And ugly. I was just changing her tire."

But apparently Muriel didn't think she was fat and ugly enough because she threw the knife at the man and marched into the room, slamming the door. The man picked up the blade, which had bounced to a stop well in front of him. He saw me watching and offered a half-smile as if embarra.s.sed.

I left the window and stepped into the shower.

Though I had studied water most of my adult life, I could never quite believe the fact that there is never really any new water. Water falls, drains, flows, evaporates, condenses, falls. The same water, different states. That thought can be unsettling, given what we do to water, what we rinse with it, what we put into it. The tailing ponds of the mine up on Blood Mountain were dug into rock, but still the water leeched into the ground, finding the tributaries, finding the creeks, rivers, reservoirs, pastures, spigots.

As I dried with a painfully thin towel I discovered I was again hungry, realized that I should have ordered the hotcakes after all because, though they might have been bad, I would at least still be full. It was not gnawing, belly-stinging hunger, but worse, it was boredom hunger, the kind of hunger that can make a thirty-eight-year-old man fat. But when you're bored in Dotson, Utah, with the Cartoon Network, Larry King, and the people in the next room, you either eat or drink. I decided to eat.

I went to the same restaurant with my heart set on hotcakes. The place was busier, as it was supper time. There were three men in the booth in the back. I again sat at the counter. Young Polly had been replaced by what she was bound to become, a forty-year-old, wasp-waisted woman made up to hide what years of wearing too much makeup had done.

"Coffee, hon?"

I looked into the tired eyes. The coffeepot was in her mitt and she was staring right through me, but the "hon" was sincere, however frequently used. I turned my cup over and said, "Please."

"Any idea yet?" she asked.

"I hear the hotcakes are pretty good. I'll have a short stack."

"Coming up."

I heard the bell on the door and felt a blast of chilly air and before I knew it, there was someone seated to the right of me at the counter. It was the bearded man from the parking lot. He had on a T-shirt now, but still no jacket.

"Cold as h.e.l.l out there," he said, slapping his arms and blowing into his hands. He had a tattoo on his arm of a moon smoking a cigar with the caption: Bad Moon Raising.

He caught me staring at his tattoo. I said, "Shouldn't that say-"

He stopped me. "I know, I know. p.i.s.sed me off when I found out." He studied his arm for a second. "My girlfriend, Muriel, told me. She laughed at me. You ever been laughed at by a deaf person? And then she called me a-" He made a sign over the countertop.

"What's that mean?"

"I can't say it, but it's offensive." He made the sign again.

"None of that language in here," the waitress said, coming at us with the coffee. "Turn your cup over, Tim. I ain't got all night."

Tim did as she asked and smiled at her while she poured. "Why don't you and me run away, Hortense?"

"So I can have that crazy girlfriend of yours track me down like an animal?" Hortense asked.

Tim shook his head.

"You live in the motel?" I asked.

"House burned down," Tim said and sipped his coffee. "Staying there until we can get back in." He called down to Hortense, "Tell Johnny to slap me on a grilled cheese."

"Grilled cheese!" Hortense called back into the kitchen.

"I heard the son of a b.i.t.c.h," Johnny said.

"Colorful place, eh?" Tim asked, offering his smile to me.

"Slightly."

"What are you doing here? Forest Service?"

I looked at him. "Why do you say that?"

The waitress brought my hotcakes and stepped away.

He looked me up and down. "Give me a break. Khakis, double-pocket shirt with the flaps, lace-up boots. Halfway-intelligent eyes. You're black."

"Lot of black guys in the Forest Service?" I asked.

"Don't know, but black people don't generally show up in Dotson." He put some sugar in his coffee.

"Anyway, I'm from Fish and Game," I said.

"Same difference." He grabbed a napkin from the dispenser and fiddled with it. "Sorry about all the commotion earlier. So, what are you doing here? Counting elk, deer? Redneck poachers?"

"Looking at water, that's all. I'm a hydrologist." I offered my hand. "My name is Robert Hawks."

"Tim Giddy, pleased to meet you."

"So, what do you do, Tim?"

"Everything. I chop wood, build sheds, drive heavy machinery. But there ain't no more heavy machines around here. No building."

"Why's that?"

"You ain't looked real close at your map. There is one road that leads into Dotson and it don't go nowhere else. It leads out of town for a few miles on the other side and turns into an old mining road. This town was built for the mine and the mine is dead." Tim's sandwich arrived and he took a quick bite, wiped his lips with his napkin, and talked while he got the food situated in his mouth. "We're a dead town, mister."

"Rest in peace," I said.