MacAvity's Pub

By Dan H. McLachlan

When war criminal, Rojas Franzani, finally comes out of Cambodia nearly forty years after he was listed MIA, he's determined to take care of unfinished business--a small notebook his commanding officer had confiscated in 1967. He has learned that his C.O., now in his late seventies, is back living on his isolated farm at the foot of Idaho's Bitterroot Mountains--and that his only neighbors are a few ranches, a small dying farm town, and a handful of Camas Indians. What could be easier?

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456612061

Book preview

MacAVITY’S PUB

A Mystery

by

Dan H. McLachlan

In the smoky mirror of fiction, this book reflects actual incidents that occurred forty years after the Vietnam War. Beyond that, it is a fabrication. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 Dan H. McLachlan

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced

or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical

means, including photocopying, recording or by any information

storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the

publisher, except where permitted by law.

cover by Linda Scott

author photo by Liela E.R. McLachlan

Published in book format by Aventine Press;

eBook format by http://eBookIt.com

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009934724

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-1206-1

Praise for

MacAvity’s Pub

McLachlan has skillfully created a set of characters to root for—a group of vets that are more capable in their 60s and 70s than people give them credit for. He’s also picked a good viewpoint from which to tell the story—that of Paul, the only non-vet in the bunch, whose inexperience allows him to look at the action with wonder and relate all the surprising details as his friends pull together with amazing efficiency. The author also has a wonderful eye for description. When his characters traverse the wilderness around their hometown, readers can see every tree and even smell the air. Every weapon the characters pick up has a unique quality and history

—Kirkus Discoveries

I love this book! It shows what a group of people old enough to be getting Social Security checks can do when faced with a series of mysterious assaults on their lives and property. Set in northern Idaho, up above the confluence of the Clearwater and the Snake Rivers, it accurately reflects the landscape and the life-ways of the inhabitants

—Howard McCord, Nominee for the 2002 National Book Award

MacAvity’s Pub is an adult romp, realistic fun with patriotic, down-home characters that make you smile and cheer through a plot full of waves; just when you think it’s over, it’s time for another ride. McLachlan, through his main character’s voice, makes every character come alive in their uniqueness and in their roles. His descriptions are sprinkled and not overdone, building pictures, still and moving, never dulling.

—Jennifer Garcia, Moscow, Idaho

What really sticks out about MacAvity’s Pub,is not so much the driving plot, but the opportunity to share the mind of a great northwest oral historian. You get a deep sense of histories of places and people in north Idaho, Washington and parts of Montana, of the tribes and people living there and the geographies of the lands.

—John Brunsfeld, Chubbs-Toga Band

I could not put this book down! Non-stop action, colorful characters, engaging descriptions of settings, even a little sexual tension: what more could you want in a book?

—Eric Nordquist, Pullman, Washington

This novel will wake you up to a rousing tale of intrigue, adventure, and a kick-ass good time as a bunch of over the hill gang men and women take on the forces of modern day corruption and crime. I highly recommend this novel not only as a great read, but also as a thought provoking consideration of our modern day crisis in values.

—Alan Swanson, Olympia, Washington

I really had a lot of things I needed to be doing...and I could not stop reading this darn book. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and now that I’m finished, I’m already missing the characters that were brought to life so well. I felt I knew them personally by the last chapter. I’m anxiously awaiting another book from this most descriptive, enjoyable author.

Dave Scott, Cashmere, Washington

Acknowledgments

The following people love challenges. They helped me with advice, information, stories, editing, and encouragement. They are Professor Howard McCord (ret.); Lieutenant Colonel Donald B. Kaag (ret.); Dr. Jay Hunter, M.D.; Mert Geltz; Randy and Dee Hall; Deputy Mike Neelon, Latah Sheriff’s Department; Corporal Scott Mkolajczyk, Latah County Sheriff’s Department; Detective Joshua Larson, Latah County Sheriff’s Department; Bill Thompson, Prosecuting Attorney, Latah County; Sharon Taylor-Hall; Bill Hall; Captain Danny Danielson, who also helped edit; Colonel Bud Hall (ret.); Lieutenant Commander Ed Morken; Ed Baldus; Linda Scott; and my son, Peter S. McLachlan.

I am particularly indebted to Liela Rotschy who gave valuable advice and editing, and to my wife, Edie, for her meticulous corrections and boundless optimism.

I am also grateful for the eBook editing and layout done by Mary Elizabeth and Melissa Levesque of eBookIt.

"So, whose idea was it to

mess with those old shits, anyway?"

—Jerry Hobbs-Smith, Camas Tribe

Chapter One

I worked the gears in Leap’s Western Star semi headed into town to dump grain at the elevators. The cab was hot, and I was bored with the hauling of wheat. I let my mind drift over the treetops winding down the banks of Ryback Creek, wishing I could pull over and nap in the shade.

A CB conversation started to squawk from the radio bolted under the dash. It was Smoke. He sounded excited about something. It sounded like he was out towards the breaks above the Clearwater River.

There was a four inch lip where the town’s pavement begins, and I jolted over it with the familiar whanging of haul gear that sounded like a drawer of scrap iron falling on concrete. I pulled over and turned up the volume to hear better.

The airways are usually pretty silent during harvest, the calls crisp. Voices low and calm. But not now.

No. I don’t see anyone now. Where’s Hammersmith? Get hold of him! Smoke said.

He’s walking over to his Gleaner now. Sounded like Mike, Hammersmith’s foreman.

Nearly thirty of us, scattered over the Bench busy at the harvest, remained silent, listening.

Can you get his attention, Mike?

Hang on.

A minute or two passed.

Finally, Hammersmith. Pick up!

Hammersmith came on loud and out of sorts. What?

I’m above your place. A beat up car is in front. I saw two guys go in, Smoke told him.

Hammersmith’s farm sat in a hollow above the breaks where our bench land dropped one-thousand, five-hundred feet down to the Clearwater.

"In where, Smoke? I’m busy here."

I saw two guys go into your house, Eric! Listen to me! They parked out front and went up and through your front door!

I could hear the static of the airways while Hammersmith considered this. Can you see if Ruthie’s home? he asked.

She took the car and left about two hours ago, Eric, when I was doing the ridge. She pulled by me.

Again things went silent. I pulled the brakes and waited.

Jables! You there? Hammersmith suddenly bellowed over the speaker.

Yup, Jables’ deep voice came back. It sounded like he was far out on the edge, over by his slopes at the foot of Cup Hand Ridge. His farm bordered Hammersmith’s.

Meet me at the house.

Gotcha.

I’m coming, Mike said.

Hammersmith barked, I know you are. Pick me up. Smoke came on again, I’m going to park the combine on your back road, Hammersmith. They won’t get by me.

You have your .243? Jables asked.

Smoke laughed. I could see him in my mind. He was always armed. He never removed his .243 from behind his truck seat, and he often packed a Kimber Ultra Carry .45. He had also been a Vietnam fighter pilot and was the only one I knew of who smoked long, thin cigars almost constantly, even while harvesting.

I’ll watch them through the scope, pardner, ‘till you get here.

No one spoke. I waited, and then finally decided to release the brakes and drive the short distance to the scales. Hammersmith came back on. He sounded closer in, and I could tell he was in his truck now by the high RPM’s whining in the background.

Anyone out near the exits? he asked, with a hitch in his voice as his truck took him over a water bar.

For the next few minutes we keyed in from all the edges of the fifteen by ten mile bench. Since I was at the elevators with about six other trucks, we were nearest the single north/south highway in Idaho, Highway 95, that was five miles due east of town. We told him. There are also three other exits from the Bench, two down narrow canyons to the river and one going north over Cup Hand Ridge and into the Bitterroots.

You folks bottle up the exits, Hammersmith said.

Hammersmith had been a naval commander during the Vietnam war. And it crossed my mind as I jacked my semi across the paved road out of town that these two guys in his house were certain to have stumbled on Hammersmith’s study by now. This dark, heavily draped room was where he kept his ribbons, his ship’s colors, his American flag, the photo of him standing beside Kennedy, and photos of his ship’s bridge, decks, turrets, crewmen, and friends. If I were these guys, I would run as fast as I could out of the house and the hell out of the state. It would have been like innocently looking into a closet and seeing a fifteen foot black mamba sleeping on a pile of laundry.

One by one over the next twenty minutes we let Hammersmith know we were in place.

And then we waited. We drank from our gallon jugs, took bites from sandwiches, and did what we old timers did best, enjoy the comfortable world of our thoughts.

My trailer holds sixty thousand pounds of wheat. It has two dumps and is about as long as can be possibly driven over the rolling dirt roads that twist among the dune-like hills of the Bench. On Hammersmith’s instructions, I had the trailer running along the one and one half lane road with the tractor cab jogged sideways on the asphalt. There were three turnouts across the four foot deep ditches that ran beside the road, and we had blocked those too with one truck from the Baldus and two from the Cricket farms.

I decided to get out of the cab, stretch my legs, and then take a bottle of Windex and a couple sections of paper towels and see if I could get the dust and chaff off the windows for a change.

The air was still, and the elevators had shut down their lifts while everyone waited. The silence was nice. Ryback, population one-hundred and seventy, simmered quietly under its canopy of elms, sycamores and locusts. We didn’t have the luxury of children’s voices squealing at their games—they had all grown up and moved away. Even the birds were silent in the intense heat. The dog days of August.

Suddenly Smoke’s garbled voice, shouted over the CB.

...taking off...st...

Three loud bangs thumped over the speakers.

Hammersmith keyed in, They’re coming your way Jake. Don with you?

He’s here, she said. We have the International just out of sight around the elbow.

You’d better stand off, Hammersmith told them. Smoke punched a couple .243 holes in their trunk and it’s leaking gas.

Got it. It was Don. He and Jake were the best married team on the bench, and the money rolled in for them.

Don came back on after a moment.

Hammersmith. Better call someone. The way we’re set up they’ll hit the semi before they know its on the bend.

I understood what he was saying. The grade down Rattlesnake was ten feet wide, steep, graveled, and hung five hundred feet above the creek. The canyon was no more than a notch narrow and deep as an ax blow. These two guys, if they went off the road, were in for a nasty flight.

We should wait, Jables came on with. They might stop and start running on foot. No need to bother anyone.

Magnet was the nearest town of any size, and was a forty minute drive away. Everyone knew what Jables was saying, but it didn’t really matter. No one could alter the fate these two had spun for themselves.

Now the CB started chattering like a swatted hive. Everyone in the fields had driven or climbed to the high points that looked over the entire Bench.

They’re still coming your way, Jake.

They’re moving hell bent for leather. Dust is rolling out behind them.

Sitting in my truck was like listening to old time adventure radio.

Holy shit! This BB Boyde, Leap’s grandson. They just went by below me sideways in the gravel! They must be going fucking eighty!

Language, BB, Leaps keyed.

He’s right! They’re rolling thunder, someone said.

I found myself holding my breath, sitting on the edge of the seat, my feet out the door on the high step listening.

Then, They’re over the rim and coming at you two. Hang tight! It was Huey, nicknamed for the Navy Huey helicopters he’d flown in Vietnam.

Don came on again. His voice was lower than usual and he spoke slowly and clearly.

Hammersmith, they went off the road. They took to the air to miss the truck.

We could hear a stuttering meowing in the background, like a small, wounded animal. For the life of me I couldn’t picture what it might be.

Finally Hammersmith asked carefully, They all right?

Not so much, Don said. They’re down in the creek. I’ll need some help plowing a firebreak on the east rim. The barley’s not in yet.

At that point Lonnie, a towering man who was our mayor and grower’s union manager cut in.

I’ll take it from here, men, he said. Thanks for everyone’s help. I suggest you either get back to work or help with the fire. He paused, measuring his words. No need to hang around and interfere with the sheriff’s business. I’ll make the calls.

Almost as soon as he signed off the town’s siren howled to life, and moments later the fire engine roared out of town, volunteers hanging off it like Keystone Cops. Paul. You there? Don radioed.

Surprised, I unclipped the mike from the dash.

I’m here, Don.

Lana at home?

Yes, she is.

I’m here, Don, Lana piped in from the house.

Could you come out to Rattlesnake for a bit, Lana?

Jake? Lana asked.

A little. Yes, Don said.

Chapter Two

Most people don’t understand how tedious working harvest is. It’s hot, dusty, tiring, repetitive, and boring.

We were running behind, however, so Leaps kept us at it the rest of the day rather than letting us on the fire line. I did find some solace, however, in listening to the action over the truck’s CB, visualizing everything as it played out.

By two that afternoon the heat was at its one-hundred plus worst, forty acres of Don’s barley had burned and more was getting away from him by the minute, Hammersmith had been robbed, two guys had burned to death at the bottom of Rattlesnake, and Jake, one of the toughest gals out there, was sitting on her ranch house porch with Lana sipping iced tea laced with rum. In short, it hadn’t been a good day for the town.

Smoke continued to shuffle back and forth in his bank-out wagon hauling grain back from Leap’s combines to my semi. I continued to listen to the airways, my CB turned up over the rumble of our diesels.

Ryback’s ambulance and fire truck were on the rim of the canyon. They had been joined by seven farms that showed up with their water trucks and their crews that arrived separately. The field hands came mounted on 4-wheelers and tore across the rolling fields from all directions at the sharp ends of dust clouds that streamed behind them. Their equipment racks bristled with shovels like lances held by mounted Sioux.

Overhead, the smoke towered like a nuclear cloud, dwarfing the scene and plunging everything into an orange and black darkness split by the flickering serpent of flame crawling through the barley.

By the time the three, big, off-road fire trucks made it down from Magnet, things were only beginning to get under control. Don had plowed a swath twenty feet wide as best he could around the rim, but still the barley burned, outrunning him. Rattlesnake was hopelessly ablaze in a firestorm that raced its length up to the shallow pinch where two water trucks had stopped to wait for it.

Watching all this from the grade, Charlie Rand, our sheriff, leaned against the door of his white Ford Expedition. He studied the roadbed and tumble marks the twisted car had made to where its blackened shell now lay on the scorched rocks far below.

Short, slender and powerful, Charlie had been raised with his three brothers and two sisters at the foot of the Bitterroots on his family’s three thousand acre homestead ranch. He had been a fine cowboy, a moderate rodeo roper, and had finally left his crowd of siblings to study law enforcement in Denver. After ten years, he grew tired of being shot at by deep-fried teens, and came back home to work his way up in the sheriff’s department.

As sheriff, Charlie could get out of his uniform. He said he never liked them. Felt more at home in his ranch duds, and now he stood with his weathered, gray felt Stetson pushed back on his thick, black hair. He wore faded Wranglers over the top of his boots, and had his badge hooked onto his belt next to his holstered Colt XSE .45 Commander.

Harvest fires are a common occurrence here on the Bench where it gets so hot and dry that simply spinning a combine wheel on the stubble could ignite one. And so the effectiveness and swiftness of the fire trucks was no surprise to anyone.

Within the half hour the top fires were out and Don was able to finish plowing the fire line. Then everyone walked to intercept Huey’s Dodge pickup that came bounding towards them through the grain.

In moments beer cans were tossed out and opened, and everyone stood and watched the canyon burn clean. They drank and wiped sweat from their soot blackened faces, and cheered as eleven deer, two of them bucks, escaped the flames and ran out across the fields towards Cup Hand Ridge.

Now the upper canyon was bare of brush, the ground smoking here and there, and below the burned-out car, three sets of firemen, four to a group, were lowering themselves into the canyon on two-inch hoses. Soon they reached bottom and began putting out flames that crawled down against the updrafts.

The difficulty for the men was the steepness of the gravel and talus on the sides below the road. Still, they made short work of stopping the flames’ march and hung on as the haul-backs assisted their returns. It was a slick operation, and the blackened fighters were greeted at Huey’s truck with opened beers and handshakes all around.

The last transmission I listened to before calling it a day was that Sherman Vics, the coroner, had arrived in his ugly brown Suburban. Soon he was bitching about having to be lowered to the wreck ahead of the body recovery guys from the ambulance. Apparently he felt they would accidentally kick a rock down and kill him. He was a little guy, but feisty, and he rarely allowed anyone to push him around without getting an ear full.

Only Charlie and one fire truck remained to set the ropes, and it sounded like Don and a few curious stragglers were standing around waiting to see what came out. I reasoned Don felt he had to stay, it being his land, even though he was worried about Jake. But Jake and Lana were probably into their third rums and were doing just fine.

At that point I swung around and parked the big rig on top where we had left off, set the brakes, and got out into a blessed breeze. As usual, Smoke had taken off for MacAvity’s Pub while I was making my last run. My guess was that nearly the entire Bench would be there ad hoc, and I headed in to take part.

Chapter Three

From the air Ryback looks looks like an oasis in the middle of the Sahara. Or better still, a small, tree choked island on a rolling sea. To its north, shaped like a bent finger pointing to the Bitterroots, Cup Hand Ridge lifts heavily from the surge, pines swaying on its summit. In the spring, the ocean swells are emerald green, spotted with patches of bright yellow canola fields that float randomly out from its slopes. Now, in August, the deeps have turned a dark gold, weighed down with grain.

The Camas Tribe, living down on the shores of the Clearwater, say if you want to know who you are, look around—what you see is yourself. I understand that. That’s how I feel.

I came into town and headed for my normal parking spot under an old locust across from MacAvity’s Pub. There must have been thirty trucks and a smattering of cars parked around the building, so I drove the four blocks home and walked back.

Ryback’s downtown is two streets wide and two blocks long. It sits at the bottom of a large city park that slopes up to the graveyard and Lutheran church. The church’s tall, white steeple looks down on us all.

One of the town’s streets holds the elevators, our Ryback Union Warehouse Company office, Black’s Welding, and the Warehouse-owned store. Parallel to this street is Main Street, lined by a seamless row of abandoned one story brick buildings that had once been stores, the city hall, library, and jail.

Butte MacAvity’s Pub rises two stories from the corner in a red brick tower of arched windows and intricate ledges. His grandfather, Coe MacAvity, had fled Scotland’s depression and built MacAvity’s Pub in 1886 from local clay he wagoned in and kilned against the slope. Butte’s father and then Butte himself, now seventy-eight, had kept it humming ever since.

Grandpa Coe, homesick for Scotland and single malt whiskey, designed the interior to resemble his favorite watering hole in Glasgow. Bar in front, four booths down one side, tables in the back, Coe’s living quarters above; this was as he remembered it. The finished structure, Coe’s Doom as nay-sayers called it back then, stood alone in the prairie like a lighthouse, and Ryback grew up around it.

Nothing about MacAvity’s has changed since. It is exactly the same now as then.

Butte reached for my bottle of Wiser’s Whiskey the moment I stepped in. The place was packed, and I had to crane my neck before I saw Hammersmith, Leaps, Smoke, and Huey sitting in a booth. The crowd had displaced them from their usual stools at the bar. Smoke practically ripped a chair out from under a field hand and slid it over, motioning me to sit down.

The elevator still open? Leaps asked.

I was the last, I think, I said. I turned to Hammersmith. Anything missing from the house?

Nothing touched I could tell, he said, probably for the tenth time. Well, except for in my study. They pushed a bunch of stuff around and been in my desk before they heard we were coming.

I raised my eyebrows.

Ruthie left the CB on in the kitchen, he explained. They musta heard Smoke talk about his .243. I think we would have got them, otherwise. I think Smoke wanted to sight-in before elk season. This drew a dry laugh from us.

Were they looking for something?

I don’t know for sure.

Butte placed my Wiser’s ditch down in front of me, and Hammersmith slid a pile of money towards him, but Butte ignored it and worked back through the crowd.

I watched him go and realized we all, everyone in the bar, looked like a gathering of rest home residents high on steroids and ready to raise hell. I don’t think a solitary person among us was under the age of fifty. And except for Smoke’s cigarillos, there wasn’t a cigarette in the place. Apparently all our smokers were dead now.

Huey was telling about his talk with the firemen.

No, he was saying. "There was only one body in the car. Just one."

Practically the whole crowd had one ear on our table and the place went silent.

But there were two! someone said. We all saw two, didn’t we?

Smoke tapped his ashes down the neck of an empty beer bottle. Yes, we did.

We sure did, indeed, Don said from the door.

We turned as he and Jake entered, followed by Lana and Charlie, the sheriff. Charlie had his hat off and wiped his forehead on his shirt sleeve.

Butte started pulling up glasses for them as they made their way though the throng over to our table.

Lana slid onto my knee and Charlie propped one arm on top of the booth behind Smoke, leaned over and shook a paper bag out onto the table. Hammersmith jerked his tall rum and soda out of harm’s way.

The crowd pushed forward to have a look.

There, among the sweat rings from our drinks, lay a charred Zippo lighter and an odd looking pistol with a long, cylindrical barrel.

The place was dead silent except for the sound of clothes rubbing as people shifted to see better.

This gun yours, Eric? Charlie said.

Charlie, I don’t even know what kind of gun that is, Hammersmith said.

All right. Charlie reached down and took up the lighter, I got through to Erickson, and he said he hasn’t taken up smoking, and he hasn’t been burglarized today or any other day.

Erickson was our area’s Game Warden.

"So, is this yours?" he asked. He placed the blackened metal lighter in Hammersmith’s hand.

Hammersmith turned the lighter over and rubbed his gnarled thumb over it to read something that was engraved on its face. He then turned it so the ceiling light could hit it. He squinted. And then, as if dark shadow had passed over his face, he looked around at all of us, pushed back his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. Then he placed the lighter delicately on the table and sat back in his booth, his head against the leather. He folded his weathered, arthritic hands neatly on top of one another and shut his eyes.

Charlie didn’t move a muscle.

Finally Smoke couldn’t stand it any more and reached out, shutting one of his eyes as he picked up the lighter and looked at the inscription. I leaned away from Lana so I could see too.

The engraving said Game Warden in an arch below the lid. And below that was an engraving of a speed boat with a large wheel house and gear fore and aft.

Holy shit, Smoke whispered, handing it off to Huey. Recognize that, pardner?

Huey took it from him and held it close to his round, Irish face.

This isn’t no game warden’s, Charlie, Huey told him.

That’s what I figured, Charlie took the lighter from him and dropped it back into the bag. He came around beside me, reached over and placed the pistol in as well.

He then turned, rolling the top of the bag shut, and said, Let’s go up into your kitchen, Butte.

I turned. MacAvity was standing inches from my back. He nodded, turned and headed to a stairway door at the back of the building. People smoothly made room for him.

Charlie turned to us. We’re going to go get some privacy. He looked at our little group, You here’ve seen it, so you’re a part of this. He motioned for Jake, who was standing with some of the other women at the corner of the bar, to join us, then glanced and nodded OK to Leaps, who opted out with a shake of his head and walked out.

Butte MacAvity lived by himself in the upstairs quarters. He never married, he was an excellent cook and did most the cooking for the pub’s counter meals. His quarters were tidy and rich in dark varnished wood, with walls overburdened by book shelves that lined every room save the kitchen. MacAvity lived quietly. He pretty much kept to himself and let rumors about him run their courses and fade away.

Smoke, Hammersmith and Huey knew their way around better than I, at least in the kitchen. In fact, Smoke went directly over to a cabinet, pulled it open, and took down a bottle of Laphroaig to refreshen his drink. Butte didn’t pay him any mind.

In the center of the large kitchen was a dark eight foot plank Scottish farm table. Charlie again reached into the bag and carefully placed the remnants of the pistol in the table’s center.

Butte pulled up two more chairs and motioned for us to be seated, but remained standing, himself. He took down a beautiful crystal two ounce tumbler and Smoke handed the scotch to him.

This what I think it is, Butte? Charlie asked, holding up the gun’s burned remains.

Absolutely, MacAvity said.

Could you tell us?

It’s called a hush puppy, he said.

Smoke, once our high school dare devil, smiled his thin smile, eyes keen like a border collie’s.

You know that too, Smoke? Charlie asked, turning to him.

Yup.

Then, You, too, Huey?

Yes sir.

Hammersmith? he said, looking at Hammersmith for the first time since we sat down. "You did know what this was, didn’t you?"

Hammersmith nodded, looking Charlie in the eye.

You four are all Navy, right? he asked, including Butte as he looked them over.

Yup, Smoke said, sipping from his drink.

Charlie considered this as we all waited.

Well then, with all due respect, let me ask you, Hammersmith, what the heck is this pistol—this ‘hush puppy’—all about?

Hammersmith pushed the long, cylindrical barrel of the automatic pistol around so that it was straight across in front of him. He refolded his hands on the edge of the table and leaned forward against them. It’s a silenced HiStandard HD Military Model .22LR. It was developed by the OSS.

Charlie nodded. How’d these guys in the car get it?

Hammersmith shook his head. I couldn’t tell you, he said. Some of them were smuggled home after Vietnam. Maybe it’s one of them.

Huey stretched his hand out and put it palm down on the table. Look, Hammersmith, it’s like...

I’ll tell it, Huey, Smoke said. Sit back and take a breath, OK?

Huey blinked twice, then nodded and leaned back in his chair, his eyes returning to the tabletop.

I glanced over at Lana. She looked interested, but like she felt we shouldn’t be here listening to this.

So? Charlie said, turning attention back to Smoke again.

MacAvity suddenly moved behind Smoke and put both his long-fingered hands on Smoke’s shoulders.

I’m Old Navy too, Charlie, Butte said. You know that. Both Hammersmith and I, we go way back—you understand?

He pointed to the pistol. That pistol and that lighter are connected, and unless those two boys are a hell of a lot older than Smoke told me they looked, then there’s no way in hell they could lay claim to those things as theirs. They had to get them from someone who was Special Ops in Vietnam.

I had to believe what he was saying because everyone in town knew he was a seven-gun-man, meaning he carried a different gun every day of the week. It was rumored he had a false wall in MacAvity’s Pub where he stored nearly a hundred rifles, machine guns and pistols.

It was Charlie’s turn to place his palm flat on the table in MacAvity’s direction. You said the lighter and the pistol are connected. You wanna explain?

Hammersmith said, The lighter belonged to someone who participated in the Mekong Delta’s ‘Game Warden’ operation, Charlie. The pistol was the tool the Studies and Observation Group, or SOG, guys used. It was used for assassinations behind enemy lines. The SEALs carried them from time to time too.

No one said anything for some time.

Then, finally, Charlie got to his feet. He heaved a sigh, squared his Stetson on his head and walked over to the back door leading from the kitchen down the rear of MacAvity’s Pub.

Well, folks, he said, deliberating. Thanks for your help. I don’t know what the hell happened today, but it wasn’t what I thought.

He put his hand on the door knob, looked at it a moment, then turned back to us. I think I’m going to need you gentlemen’s help on this one, he said flatly. Then he opened the door against the pink evening sky and clumped down the wood stairs and was gone.

Chapter Four

Lana and I walked home down the alley with the sunset in our faces. We walked slowly, lost in our own thoughts about the day’s events, holding hands as we often did.

Home, we dipped Mexican shredded pork out of the pressure cooker and slid it onto tortillas. We took them out onto the porch where it was growing cool and where a slight breeze was building. Lana went back in and brought out two glasses of shiraz, and we tucked in.

You know, Lana mused, Charley didn’t ask anything about the missing guy.

I nodded and took the last bite of my burrito, chewing thoughtfully.

That’s weird, isn’t it? I said. I haven’t given him much thought either. I mean, we see two guys go over a five hundred foot embankment, their car explodes into flames, one of them vanishes, and only a slight mention of that fact is made. Is Charlie losing it?

I didn’t see any of us pipe up either, Lana said.

How could we not have found him?

Maybe Don and Jake didn’t see him get thrown out. Maybe he got away down the canyon through the brush.

Smoke passed by in his black, modified GMC pickup and gave us a toot as he headed into the growing darkness out of town. After Smoke’s military career, he came home to live on his family’s homestead. But not enjoying farming, he leased the land to Cricket Farms. Always the fighter pilot and dare devil, Smoke’s truck had an engine in it that mere mortals feared. I’ve driven it.

I drove it one night when he was too drunk, and when we left MacAvity’s Pub for his ranch, he wanted me to Open it up,man!

So I did, as much as I felt was safe, and he said, No, you pussy! I said open this fucker up!

It was an eye bulging experience roaring down a narrow, paved road in the night with a drunk in the cab giving orders. The shaking dash registered one-hundred and twenty. I was so terrified I started to laugh and then howl with laughter, and Smoke did too. And after we reached his place alive, we sat in the truck under the ranch yard’s mercury lamp totally spent.

He staggered through the back door of his white, two story farm house, and I eased the truck around in front of the barn and headed home. Shortly my hands were shaking with spent adrenaline and I wasn’t laughing—not a bit.

Early the next morning Huey delivered him to my front steps to get his truck, and he was bright, showered, grinning and into his first cigarillo.

Fast? he asked.

So so, I said.

Yeah, right, he said, getting into his truck. You wash your shorts out yet?

When sitting on the porch with Lana I think about incidents like that night with Smoke. For that matter, I think about all of our pasts whenever time stands still for me long enough. I suppose all of us codgers here in Ryback do that now. Who knows?

Lana stood up, took my plate and went though the screen door into the kitchen. She returned with her glass refreshed and sat back down, putting her feet up on another folding chair.

I studied her, admiring her after all these years. Forty six years? Now how’d that happen?

She was looking out over the darkening fields, her face serene. Her hair was still a shiny buckskin that matched her slender arms and legs, and sitting there in her white tank top and faded jeans she looked about the same as she did when we were in high school together, when she was a sophomore and I was a senior. Smoke, Huey and I were classmates, and while they were at after school sports practice, Lana and I worked on the yearbook and the monthly school paper together. We were never apart after that year. And what a time we had!

You wanna meet me at MacAvity’s Pub tomorrow after we shut down? I asked her.

Not really, she said.

I nodded. I want to talk to MacAvity. I want to get his take on this ‘missing somebody.’

Not a bad idea. He always seems to know a bit more than all the rest of you put together.

Well...

You gotta admit.

I admit, I said. When a guy comes back from the service, walks into his father’s saloon and puts on a black flat brimmed Stetson, baggy white shirt with garters holding up the sleeves and braces holding up his pants, lets his hair and beard grow out as a model for Jerry Garcia to imitate, then puts a loaded .45 Colt Combat Commander down the back of his pants, I took a breath, he’s probably either crazy or he knows something the rest of us can only guess at.

Lana was staring at me. Do you rehearse this shit? She gave her short happy laugh. Go talk to him. Have a beer. His buddy Hammersmith will be there anyway, so maybe you three can solve the mystery tomorrow.

She put her hand on my knee and stood up. Finish your drink, sweetie. I’m going to my room and read in bed.

Eventually I gave up the porch after I had had two more glasses of wine and had lost the ability to cogitate with any rhyme or reason. I went in, latched the screen door, made it to my bedroom determined to make the last week of harvest as tolerable as possible. Peas and garbanzos. What a bunch of filthy, dusty, nasty things to have to breathe.

Chapter Five

I woke up in the dark just before dawn choking on smoke. I jumped to my feet, threw on my bedroom light, and ran into the living room, calling out to Lana as I passed her bedroom. I went through the living room to the kitchen and into the utility porch, snapping on lights as I went.

There was no smoke coming up the stairwell from the basement, so I turned to go back into the kitchen where Lana had appeared. She was pulling her light cotton robe tight across her front and was wide eyed and alert.

Where’s all this smoke coming from?

I don’t know, I said.

I went past her and back into the living room. No flames.

Look out the window, Paul, she called after me.

Between the huge grain elevators across the street, the security lights were dim in a tan fog of smoke.

I bet it’s the Tucannon fire, she said. The smoke’s from it.

I unlatched the screen door and stepped out onto the porch with her where the smoke seemed less dense than inside the house. The Tucannon River’s canyon fire had been burning wildly in the Blue Mountains for four days. Apparently a subtle flow of air was now carrying it towards us from the south, forty-five miles away. Like a billowing avalanche it was rolling up the Snake River gorge and over the lip of the grade onto the Bench. It flowed past the elevators towards us like a muddy stream wrapping around pilings.

It was 4:40.

I went back in and opened all the north windows and returned to the porch where we sat away from the smoke trapped inside. My room, particularly, was thick with it.

At 5:30 I phoned Leaps to confirm we were still working, and was on the road out of town by 6:00. At 6:19 the sun peeked over the horizon in a haunting ruby glow and materialized into an orange ball streaked with blood red bands and stripes. As it rose, the light increased until, by the time I reached the job site, the air was a dull tan, and the trucks and combines stood like copper cutouts on the rust colored ocean of stubble.

Mike was on the site. Mike was Hammersmith’s sole hired man. In the old tradition, Mike lived in one of the homestead houses and maintained the farm year round. During harvest he drove truck when Eric was on the combine, and if Eric was busy, Mike would harvest and drive too, not uncommon on the smaller places.

I pulled in, the last to arrive, and they were standing around in the smoke talking, acting like they weren’t waiting for me. As soon as I pulled to a stop, Smoke came over and opened my door. The others turned to their jobs of lubing the hundreds of points on the combines and dragging the compressor hose around blowing the chaff and dust out of the cabs and machinery.

Well, pardner, he said, Mike says they’re going to try to take prints inside Hammersmith’s study today. The Commander’s pretty upset.

I got out. He followed me over to my semi.

I’d be pissed too, I said.

Yeah, and they sliced one of his pictures before they ran. They cut through that picture he has on his desktop of him in full dress. Broke the glass out to do it.

Why the hell did they do that?

Smoke was playing with his Zippo, twirling it between his thumb and index finger. Makes you wonder who those two fucks were, doesn’t it?

No kidding!

He turned to go, but stopped.

You know Kimmy Musselshell’s place down at the mouth of Rattlesnake?

I nodded.

She phoned the tribal police last night just as it was getting dark whispering that a man was sneaking though her orchard all bloody and ragged.

She phoned Josiah?

And Oscar. So they phoned Charlie and they all met her at the stock gate in the middle of the damn night. Only thing they got out of the deal was a sample of blood off the top rail.

He paused. I guess they’ll have it analyzed or something.

I nodded.

Then Smoke winked, went over and climbed up into his rig’s cab.

We might have some fun yet, pardner! he yelled.

By noon the air was like thin milk and visibility was up to over a mile. But still my throat was sore and my eyes stung. I was glad to stop for lunch.

Smoke was sitting in the crushed stubble of our latest loading spot, leaning up against one of his combine’s $3,000 tires, eating lunch from his Playmate cooler.

I pulled up, set the brakes, cut the engine and went over to join him. I could hear Leaps’ combine working out of sight. Often he didn’t stop for lunch, so Smoke and I were the lunch bunch. The two others on our crew usually sat off by themselves in their pickups listening to Paul Harvey.

Smoke handed me a cookie as I sat down. I opened my thermos, poured a cup of tea, and dug into an egg salad sandwich Lana had put together for me.

We ate in silence, and shortly Smoke slid down