“Take us to Cox,” Dalton says.
“What? Hell. I was just settling in with a nice cup of tea and a novel. Was getting to the good part too, about some skinny kid, comes swaggering around, thinking he’s all grown up, gonna take on the big bad bully and show him what’s what.” He rubs his chin. “On second thought, I don’t need to read it. I know how it ends. The bully shows the boy he’s still just a swaggering kid, sends him crying back to Daddy. How is your daddy, anyway? He make you deputy yet?”
“He’s retired. I’m sheriff in Rockton.”
Cypher bursts out laughing. Then he looks at me. “Please tell me you’re the deputy. Because that’s the only thing that would make this story better.”
“I’m the detective.”
“Nope, I lied. That made it better. All right, kids, let me take you to ol’ Silas Cox.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
Dalton is fuming. As we tromp through the forest, he gives no outward sign of it, but I swear I smell smoke as Cypher strolls this way and that, saying, “Is he over…? No, wait, I think he’s … Or maybe…”
I roll my eyes at Dalton, trying to ease the tension. He keeps fuming.
In Rockton, people get the chance to reinvent themselves. Dalton has done that. He needed it. He was the boy from the forest, and while I know Cypher is exaggerating how primitive he’d been—Jacob is hardly a loincloth-clad Neanderthal—Cypher is actually being very clever in his insults. He’s not mocking the way Dalton had been, but the way Dalton might have felt.
No one in Rockton these days knew Dalton as a boy. Everyone from then is long gone and has done him the kindness of not passing on his story to newcomers. So for years, he has truly been Eric Dalton. A child born in Rockton, who grew up there. Even that is uncomfortable, knowing people see him as an anomaly—an “anthropological study” he calls it when he’s in a good mood, a “freak” when he’s not.
He has not been the boy from the forest in many years. With Cypher, he’s thrust into that past, reminded of a time when he probably did feel like Mowgli. It bothers him, and he fumes because it bothers him. He’s like any of us cast back into an uncomfortable childhood role, struggling to remind ourselves we aren’t that person anymore, aren’t that powerless anymore.
“You know what the problem is?” Cypher says. “Trees. The forest is full of them, and after a while, they all start to look alike. I know ol’ Silas is here somewhere, but damned if I can find him with all these trees.” He skirts past a spruce. “I have an idea. Why don’t you find him, boy? Your daddy used to say you were better than a hunting dog.”
“Silas isn’t here, is he?” I say.
“I said he was. That means he is. I am a man of my word. Didn’t your daddy used to say that, boy? Ty Cypher might be a crazy son of a bitch, but he’s as honest as old Abe Lincoln.”
“Really?” I say. “Okay, how about telling us why you were in Rockton in the first place?”
“Well, now, that’s a story. Something about a dog and a woman, and three men who didn’t take kindly to my treatment of either.”
I glance at Dalton, who only shakes his head as if he’s heard this before. “Okay, I’ll bite.” I say. “What did you do to the dog and the woman?”
“Not a damned thing, and that was the problem. See, these three men hired me to take care of a situation. That’s what I did for a living. Took care of situations.”
“With a gun, I presume?”
“Hell, no. That wouldn’t be sporting. I work with my hands. Old-fashioned physical labor. So I took this job, and they neglected to tell me that my targets were this woman and her dog. I said fuck no, and I warned the woman, who grabbed her dog and hauled ass. These three guys took exception to that so I hauled ass up here.”
“They came after you for warning her?”
“Well, not entirely. See the woman was married to one of the guys, and when I told her what was going on, she was awful grateful. And for some reason, this guy—who wanted his wife dead—didn’t like me messing around with her. So that’s why I was in Rockton. For screwing clients and screwing a woman. But I didn’t screw the dog. Just to be clear on that.”
“Uh-huh.”
“For all my faults, I am an honest man. If I say Silas Cox is here, he is. Less than fifty paces away, I reckon.”
“On the ground,” Dalton says.
“What?”
“I said get on the ground. Searching for Cox means putting my back to you. My father did say you never lie, but that doesn’t mean you’re honest. He made the mistake of presuming a man who speaks honestly acts the same. I remember what you did after they fired you.”
Cypher grins. “But I was honestly pissed off. And your daddy was honestly a sanctimonious ass. And honestly kind of stupid, not to have seen that one coming. But I’ll give you credit for being a smarter man than him.” He plunks himself on the snow-covered ground. “Good enough?”
“Is that how you used to leave suspects?” Dalton says.