Coyote, page 14
By the time the beat-up van stopped alongside the Yellowstone River outside of Sidney, Bill was exhausted. Where the hell were the police? He couldn’t do their job for them. In the distance, across from the riverbank and through perfectly spaced evergreen trees, he saw lights glowing in a sprawling house set back from the road. There were several vehicles parked in the long tree-lined driveway.
For the next hour, he watched for Tom’s next move, but there was no sign of life in the van. Maybe Tom had pulled over to sleep. Staring into the darkness, waiting, Bill tried to stay awake. He rolled down his window to let in the cool night air. He must have dozed off because the roar of a large vehicle driving by woke him up. Cold, hungry, bladder bursting, Bill rubbed his eyes and looked for Tom’s van, but it was gone. Shoot!
Bill glanced down at his phone, just after three in the morning. He called Dial but got no answer. Not knowing what else to do, he got out of his truck, took a quick piss alongside the road, and hiked up the driveway to the big house, hoping by some miracle the path would lead him to Jesse. He breathed deeply and knocked on the door, then heard music coming from inside, the kind of stupid smooth jazz he associated with elevators—whoever was inside knew nothing about real jazz. When no one answered, he hovered his finger over the doorbell for a few seconds and then pressed it hard. An extraordinarily beautiful young woman answered the door, and he stumbled backward.
She regarded him with steely eyes, “Can I help you?”
“Sorry to bother you, miss. My name is William Silverton. I’m on the city council in Whitefish.” Why the hell did he always need to say that? “I’m working with authorities there to locate a man who came this way in a Dodge van. Have you seen him? Mid-twenties, longish brown hair, wearing a checkered flannel shirt, dirty jeans, and work boots?”
“Did you say Councilman Silverton? Come in and have a seat, Mr. Silverton. Can I offer you a drink?” the pretty young woman asked as she slung her ebony hair over one shoulder and gestured for him to enter the house. “My name’s Lolita. Lolita Durchenko.” She extended her pale hand, her long fingers tipped with scary-looking red nails. “Councilman Silverton from Whitefish. Are you by chance related to Cannon Silverton?”
Confused, Bill narrowed his eyes. “Do I know you? That’s my nickname from high school.”
“No, but you know my good friend Jessica James, also from Whitefish,” Lolita said. “It’s a small world, especially out here where there are so few people.”
Bill’s eye’s widened. “You know Jesse? Actually, that’s why I’m here. Do you know where she is? She may be in danger.”
“She’s asleep in the back room. Safe and sound, I assure you, Mr. Silverton.”
“Can I talk to her?”
“Go ahead. But she won’t be happy you’re waking her up before sunrise. That girl likes to sleep! I think she’s part lazy cat.” The skinny Russian gal pointed to a long hallway off the living room. “Don’t blame me if she throws something at you.”
Bill followed the hallway to the very end and rapped lightly on the door to the bedroom. When there was no answer, he knocked louder. His stomach plummeted. Now he knew why Tom Dalton drove all day to get here, somehow he’d known where to find Jesse. Bill pounded on the door and then tried to open it. It was locked. He felt a pang of relief. At least she’d had a good sense to lock herself in.
“What’s going on? She’s a sound sleeper, but your racket would wake the dead.” The Russian gal was on his heels.
Mind racing, he imagined Jesse lying dead on the other side of the bedroom door. Instinctively, he kicked at the door.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” The Russian gal stepped between him and the door. “Let’s not wreck the place, Councilman.” She pulled a tool from her inside her wide patent-leather belt and worked the lock on the door. Within a few seconds the door popped open.
Bill was stunned. Who was this crazy woman with the trick belt? He followed her into the room. Even in the faint twilight of morning, he could tell the bed was empty. Its flat silhouette seized his heart and squeezed. The curtains on the sliding door blew in the breeze, slapping back and forth through the gaping openness.
He dashed to the sliding door and gazed out into the expansive grounds behind the house. Darkness choked him. When the Russian gal flipped on the bedroom light, the dead certainty revealed an empty room, bed sheets strewn across the floor.
He flailed out into the twilight calling her name, “Jessseeeee, Jessseeeeee.” In his haste, he tripped over the threshold to the slider and stumbled into the yard. Panting, he scanned the grounds, but it was no use. She was gone.
Tom Dalton had gotten away, most likely with Jesse in tow. Numb on the outside, with sharp-toothed regret chewing at his guts, he held onto the doorjamb for support.
“Maybe she went for a midnight stroll. Or perhaps she sneaked off with that handsome David,” Lolita Durchenko said.
“Who? I don’t think so.” Bill said stunned. “I’m afraid she’s been kidnapped and I aim to get her back.”
“Kidnapped? Why would someone want to kidnap Jessica?”
“No time to explain. I’ve got to get back to Whitefish and find her.” Bill called Dial Davies and gave him the bad news. “Get some men out to the Dalton place. Now!” he barked into his phone.
“What’s going on?” Lolita Durchenko grabbed his arm. “I’m going with you.”
“It’s not safe, especially for a—”
“I’m a black belt in karate and could knock you across this yard. I can take care of myself. And, I’m not about to abandon my best friend.”
“Have it your way.” In a daze of guilt and remorse, Bill stumbled back through the hallway, a pinball bouncing from wall to wall. He leaned against a high-backed chair in the living room to steady himself, then made a beeline for the front door and slammed it on the way out. The Russian flung the door open and yelled after him, “I’ll follow you on my bike.” He ignored her and strode toward his pickup. Tom could be halfway across the state by now. He could have disposed of Jesse any place between Sidney and Cut Bank.
Chapter 26
The speed limit was eighty miles an hour along most of the Hi-Line section of Highway 2. Bill’s truck was shaking at ninety miles an hour, but he kept his foot on the pedal all the way to Shelby. Hours of speeding across the plains had made him delirious. His right Achilles tendon hurt from jamming his foot to the floor, and his hands ached from gripping the steering wheel. His neck was killing him from staring hard at the centerline, not to mention the stress.
He should have insisted Jesse go to the police back when he’d found her out by Specht Mill. If anything happened to her, it would be his fault. Guilt seized his throat, almost choking him.
Clutching the wheel with one hand, eyes still on the road, he reached across the seat for his cell phone. He glanced back up at the road, and then punched up Dial’s number again. No answer. For hours he tugged on the seatbelt where it pressed into his doughy gut. Finally, the mountains came into view on the horizon. A blazing orange halo hovered in the sky above the distant mountain range.
He was close to the Blackfeet Reservation. When he glanced in his rearview mirror, he saw the crazy Russian gal right behind him on her Harley. He’d been driving for five hours nonstop and she’d been on his tail the whole way.
Heading onward toward Whitefish, he came up over the Continental Divide at Marias Pass. The sun was blinding as it reflected off the obelisk, marking the highest point, and the wind howled down from the peaks.
His bladder was about to burst, so he swerved off the highway to a roadside outhouse. He would have just pissed out on the side of the road if that darned Russian gal hadn’t been following him.
He headed toward a statue of the engineer who charted the railroad pass, carved wearing a wind-worn parka and aviator hat. Behind it were two outhouses, men’s and women’s, both with stinky toilets, basically long shafts plunging into human refuse decomposing ten feet below. Harsh lye added by park rangers monthly devoured the foul sewer but not its stomach-turning stench.
He remembered a story he’d heard about a Flathead Indian on the lam from the law and hiding out amongst the Blackfeet. The engineer memorialized in the statue had bribed the Indian to lead him to the only natural pass through the mountains and then took all the credit. There were no statues of the Indian.
After pissing out buckets, Bill bounded out of the outhouse, waved to the Russian chick, jumped back into his truck, revved his engine, and took off.
Up ahead, the Snow Slip Inn came into view, and his stomach sank. Before The Accident, he’d thought Snow Slip was a charming refuge in the middle of nowhere, a cute log house with red trim and Christmas lights all year round.
Now it was a haunted shack relentlessly pursuing him. His skull was throbbing and he needed caffeine. Determined to face his demons, he swerved off the highway and into the gravel parking space in front of the Snow Slip. Rocks flew as he skidded to a stop. The Harley squealed in right behind him.
As he stumbled through the wobbly front door, he was transported back to the chaos of the restaurant during The Accident. To this day, he couldn’t believe he’d carried his teammates a quarter mile down the highway to the restaurant with a broken hip. All eleven years crashed down on him with an avalanche of memories.
The tiny bar and grill hadn’t changed, a deceptively innocent, inviting log cabin nestled in the mountains. Inside, tiny inlaid splotches of red in the scuffed gray-and-white linoleum became tokens of blood not easily washed from his memory.
The walls were adorned with the same vintage sled, antique skis, and old-fashioned ads for beer and whiskey. Even the old black cat sleeping next to the potbellied woodstove was the same. Time stood still for Snow Slip. Only Bill was different. Since The Accident, he’d wrapped his fragile heart in cotton lest it be broken again.
He was haunted by nightmares of all the ways his own daughters could be taken from him: accidents, pedophiles, diseases, poisons… The list was endless. On the outside, he’d kept his easy manner and quick smile, but on the inside his guts were still scorched and scarred from that horrible night.
As if it were yesterday, he recalled the image of Arnold Specht covered in blood, disappearing into the frosty night. When Bill joined the junior high school wrestling team, Arnold taught him how to use the snap from a double wrist tie-up to throw his opponent off balance.
He flushed thinking of all the times Arnold had pinned him down, staring hard into Bill’s eyes, both of them breathing fast, two warm bodies heaving together as one. The last time he’d seen Arnold was on the grisly night of The Accident, the night Arnold had sworn him to secrecy, then flung his silver watch across a snow berm and down the cliff below. In shock, he hadn’t asked what Arnold was doing, but he’d kept his secret to this day. Where had Arnold gone with shards of glass embedded in his face, crawling up the snow bank behind the blazing bus?
Bill tried to banish the haunting images of his old friend Arnold from his mind, but his hands were trembling as he paid for two coffees to-go. In the time it took for the same grumpy waitress from all those years ago to get his coffees, he’d relived the nightmare of that dreadful night. Luckily, she hadn’t recognized him.
“Why are we stopping at this dump?” the Russian gal asked as he passed her on his way out the door of the Snow Slip Inn.
“Exorcising ghosts.” He handed her a coffee.
“Be careful. Casting out your demons might exorcise what’s best in yourself,” she said as she grabbed the foam cup.
Without looking back, he got in his pickup and headed down the highway at top speed toward Hungry Horse and the Daltons’ lair, still over an hour away. That hour could mean the difference between life and death for sweet Jesse—if she was even there at all.
Chapter 27
Jessica had no idea why Tommy might be taking her back to the Dalton place in Hungry Horse. When she leaned her head against the window of his van and closed her eyes, the cool glass was soothing against her hot cheek.
“Go ahead and sleep. Don’t worry none. My lips are sealed. I won’t make another peep whiles you get some shut eye,” Tommy said, spitting into a Coke can.
Jessica’s eyes flew open. “Don’t worry none, my lips are sealed….” Now she recognized that voice she’d overheard at the mill. Tommy. It was Tommy. The man with the smoky voice had accused him of killing people. Her stomach churned like she’d eaten dirt as she realized Tommy might be responsible for the accidents at the mill. Tommy was a jackass, but she couldn’t believe he would kill someone. Could he?
“Tommy… Tom. You were there the day my cousin Mike died, right? Did you see anything unusual?”
Tommy turned toward her, his face pale. “I didn’t want to hurt Mike. I don’t want to hurt you neither. I’m sorry Jesse. I really am, but Mr. Knight—”
Her face burning, she interrupted Tommy. “Did you say Mr. Knight? He told you to do this to me? David Knight?” she asked, tears in her eyes. Without warning she had a desperate need to pee. She squirmed so much in her seat that the parka fell off her lap and onto the floor around her feet. She bent over to rake it back up over her nakedness.
“I only mean to kill them dirty Injuns who was takin’ our jobs. I never mean to kill good folk like you and Mike. She’s the one what wanted him dead coz he knowed her from before.”
“What? Who wanted him dead?”
But Tommy wasn’t listening. “We growed up together, you and me. I ain’t mean to kill Mike, only them Injuns.”
“You killed Indians?”
“I thought I was riggin’ the debarker to take out Little Bear and his long greasy braids and shit. It weren’t supposed to be Mike in there. I swear. I didn’t know he was in there. When she asked me to do it, I didn’t know it was Mike she wanted. I swear. And I feel mighty bad. You knows I’s still sweet on you, Jesse. You think you could care ’bout someone like me?” Tommy gawped at her with pleading eyes.
She shuddered so hard her head hit the window. “Why, Tommy? Why’d you do it?” A tear rolled down her cheek, and she wiped her runny nose on the twine holding her wrists together.
“Me and my brothers grew up without a daddy coz your damned daddy give them dirty Injuns a ride. Them Injuns killed my daddy and yours too.”
“What are you talking about?” She shook her head.
“That dirty squaw with the little papoosa.” He spit into his Coke can, then stared at her. “If he woulda minded his own business and not drove them across the pass…”
Jessica knew her dad had picked up hitchhikers the day of the accident, but she didn’t know they were Indians. Too busy mourning her dad, at ten years old, she’d never paid attention to his passengers.
“It’s not my dad’s fault and it’s not their fault,” she mumbled. “It was an accident. It’s not anybody’s fault.” She was trembling, trying not to sob.
Suddenly, she realized where he was taking her. Through her tears, she saw Specht Mill in the distance. Trembling, she thought of the debarking machine, and her captor’s intentions became clear.
Chapter 28
Jessica pleaded with Tommy to let her go. She promised not to say a word to a single soul. In tears, she even offered sexual favors. When that didn’t work, she tried another strategy.
“Tommy Dalton, what would your father think if he saw you now?” she asked, wiping her teary eyes on the sleeve of her pajama top. “Shame on you! Your dad was an honest man. He wanted more for you than…than…than...” She couldn’t say it, murder. Tommy hung his head and glanced over at her out of the corner of his eye. He’d stopped in front of the gate to Specht Mill.
“You don’t have to do this, you know. The accidents at the mill weren’t your fault.” She lied. “Everyone knows they were accidents. But this…this…” She took a deep breath. “Killing me here can’t pass for an accident. Think about it, Tommy. You’ll go to prison. Or, more likely, you’ll get the death penalty. Do you fancy the electric chair? Or maybe they’d hang you.” Her speech was having an effect on Tommy. He leaned his head against the steering wheel and gazed over at her with droopy sad eyes.
“Why do you have to be so pretty?”
Jessica was surprised by his question. She’d thought he was contemplating his neck in a noose.
“Let’s go, punkin,” he said, unlocking the van. “Don’t worry ’bout me. I ain’t gonna wear no Montana collar.” He ejected a stream of brown liquid onto the ground after he opened the driver’s side door.
“You’ll lose your job, everything you’ve worked for. Remember you told me you were going to make something of yourself, that you wouldn’t always be a mill worker? Now you’ll go to prison for life. Think about what you’re doing, Tom.”
“I used to be a lumberjack, but when I couldn’t cut it, they give me the axe!” Tommy started crowing again. Just then his cell phone rang. He stared at the screen and slid his finger across it. “Frank? What’s up? I’m kinda busy. Whaat? Hold tight. Don’t tell ’em nothin’. Is Jim there? Well, where is he?”
Jessica watched Tommy’s face go white and his jaw drop. She wondered what his older brother Frank was telling him. Whatever it was, Tommy was worried.
“Tell ’em I’s gone to Canada. They ain’t got no warrant. They ain’t got nothin’ on me. I ain’t done nothin’. No, I ain’t comin’ home. Just coz you’re older you ain’t the boss of me, Frank.” Tommy slammed his palm against the steering wheel.
“Never mind where I am. Get them dirty cops off our property. No, I swear Frank, I ain’t done nothin’.” Tommy tapped his phone off and swore under his breath. Red-faced, he sat staring out the front window of the van.
After several seconds, he made a phone call. “Jim, the cops is out at our place. Frank called. He’s hoppin’ mad. I’m at the mill. I got her. Where’re you?” Tommy slumped in his seat. “Ain’t that too close to town? No, don’t go home. Call you later.”
