“These are hard times now, Shelton. I’d appreciate it if you spared me your judgment.”
“There ain’t no reward for a dead baby, Clemens. She’s not a fugitive of the law. I’ll tell you what, though. Bring me back her dead body and I’ll give you a quarter, twenty-five whole cents, right before I shoot you through your skull.”
“You’d be a fool to talk to me like that a minute longer,” Clemens said.
“How’s that?”
“Because I know for a fact Krebs will try to pin this on you when it don’t stick to me. Conspiracy to murder, son. You put out the hit.”
“I didn’t put out any hit.”
“According to you, a convicted felon.”
“Krebs ain’t no choirboy.”
“No,” Clemens said. “But he didn’t beat a man near to death at the Paradise Junction neither. He’s not the one deals methamphetamines.”
“No,” Shelton said. “He deals cocaine.”
“Well, you know how it is in the media when it comes to meth. They’re biased on it.”
“We should figure a way to put this whole thing on Arrow. Fucking Arrow won’t mind.”
“Either way,” Clemens said. “I’m about the best friend you have in this world right now, Potter. You may want to consider them facts before you spout off next time.”
“You really think Wolfdog took the baby?”
“I don’t know. It was a terrible thought I had and I do believe it should be considered as a possibility.”
“We’ve got to keep looking.”
“I’m coming to the farmhouse first,” Clemens said. “We need to get a few things straight before I head back out. I need some reassurances. I have already called Rick and left him a message. He has yet to call me back.”
“That was a mistake,” Shelton said. “You should not have called Rick.”
“Well, I did.”
“He did not want to be bothered.”
“He will be glad to have been bothered when he finds out about Arrow and Portis Dale. I’m on my way over now. We’ll sit down in the warm and figure this through.”
“I told you I wasn’t home.”
“I’ll meet you there, then,” said Clemens.
Shelton hung up, then kissed Kayla’s forehead and flipped her back on her stomach. It was her natural position of rest.
Obviously he would not be waiting around to hold some powwow with Clemens. Shelton would go to his nearest trailer instead, to see if he couldn’t scrape together a little batch and get himself right.
To be perfectly honest, Shelton needed some meth. He had what they would refer to in the scientific community as a compulsion, though the word didn’t quite capture the feeling’s significance or strange, sudden power. The way it seemingly arose from nowhere, like a natural disaster or an apocalypse.
Uncle Rick called it jonesing. Well, Shelton was Mr. Jones, stumbling through the barrio. Earlier he was fine, but now he wasn’t. To everything there was a season, turn, turn, turn.
Yes, a trip to the trailer would be just the thing. He needed a quiet place to smoke and think through the lies he’d peddle to Uncle Rick before he started spitting them out all willy-nilly. Truth was, he was surprised he hadn’t thought to go to the trailer earlier. He blamed the nitrous, which he freely admitted could affect his decision making.
He saw the shotgun leaned in the corner and snagged it for the road. He had finished the pint in the truck and was relieved to find a half bottle of whiskey in the freezer. He grabbed a box of shotgun shells off the top of the fridge, stuffed them in his pocket, and walked back into the cold.
He started the Silverado, then sat inside the idling truck and consulted his whiskey bottle. Shelton enjoyed his nitrous, let there be no doubt, yet there were times you needed a touch of bourbon to go with it, to settle the nerves a little. Nitrous could be reasoned with, so long as you weren’t a habitual user. They called it hippie crack, but it could be managed if you knew what you were doing, like Shelton. He had a few slugs from the bottle, felt a blossom of warmth deep in his belly.
He couldn’t remember actually putting the truck in gear, but soon found himself driving down the road. He had already crossed Jackson Lake and made it a good ways down Grain and was now nearing the turn for the trailer. It was hard to see in the snow but luckily he trusted his abilities as a winter driver. He knew these hills, too, knew the two-tracks and the trails, the sudden breaks and switchbacks.
Something was bothering him, though, and it had to do with that Glock on the passenger seat. All of a sudden the Glock was making him uneasy. He couldn’t say why, but the weapon had crawled right beneath his skin.
Maybe it was because he’d almost killed Little Hector with it, or maybe it had to do with the laser sight and its space-age complexities. It seemed to Shelton that things were complicated enough. What he needed now was the shotgun he had racked behind him. What he needed now was the clear purpose of that long, cold barrel.