“Sure—like Jean Mondale and Jacob?”
“I had nothing to do with that, you know that. She made her own decision. She knew the risks.”
“So do I. The world’s not safe out there. Not for us.” She pulls the pack of cigarettes from her pocket again and fumbles with it. Thinks better of it. Pockets it again. “I have nothing, Cal. No money. No prospects. No fucking clue even who I am. So where would we go? I thought coming here would be a fresh start, you know? But it’s not. It’s just a fucking hole you fall into and you can never climb back out again.”
“I can help you,” he says.
“How?”
“Money, for starters.”
She laughs a brittle laugh. “I used to think one of the only appealing things about this place is you don’t have to think about money. You really want to help me?”
“Of course.” Cooper strains to see her in the dark. He hears her strong voice wavering. There’s an unsteady twang in her voice now, a vibration, like the sound of struck steel.
“Then how about instead you start by telling me who the fuck I really am?”
“I don’t know that. But I can try to find out,” he says.
She turns toward him. They’re standing close now. She reaches out a hand in the dark for his face. Lets her palm rest on his cheek. It’s been a long time since they touched like this. Cooper wants to resist, but he doesn’t. It’s too dark by the fence for anyone to see them out here anyway. They can barely see each other.
“It’s funny, right?” she says. “We used to expend so much energy pretending we were someone—anyone—else. When all I really want to know is who I am.” She pulls her hand away. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s not your fault I’m here.”
“You’re not alone. We all have secrets,” Cooper says.
“Sure. But at least you know what your secrets are.”
“If I can tell you about your past, the circumstances that brought you here, would you consider leaving?”
“Can you do that?”
“I’m seeing Dr. Holliday tomorrow.”
“Really?” Fran’s surprised. It’s unusual for anyone to mention Dr. Holliday, let alone visit her. “Why?”
“She’s got access to all the files. It could be you’re an innocent, Fran. You could walk out of here tomorrow. And even if you’re not, at least you’ll know which direction to run.”
“I can’t.”
“Just consider what I’m saying. About leaving. A little money. A head start. You could do well, I know it.”
“I am—” She starts to say something else but the next words are swallowed by a sudden rising clamor. Barking, and then a heavy whoosh like a gas burner lighting, and then a scream.
A long, loud woman’s scream that keeps on screaming.
Cooper turns toward the sound of the ruckus. Fran says instinctively, plaintively, “Isaac,” then runs off, back toward her house. Cooper feels a sharp tug to follow her, but she’s already gone, and the scream is still screaming, so he raises his hand to get a sense against the fence of where in the darkness he is, then he starts to run toward the howling, his fingertips tracing the fence, toward the sound of the scream, a woman’s scream, and toward the barking, a clatter of discordant yelps that now swells in an unsettling way into a wail.
He runs faster.
Cooper follows the fence, stumbling; he hears the coydogs baying, their cries now disturbed and constant and piercing, an unholy choral howl. He rounds the corner to the block where Ginger Van Buren lives and runs across the scrubby grass and falters again in the dark, then rights himself, and as he stands straight he sees a brightness dancing in the middle of the street.
A flame like a bonfire, circling.
He sees Ginger out on her porch with her nightgown pulled around her, her mouth open and her shrieking face lit by the flames. Cooper reaches for his pistol. On the street, he sees now that several fires are moving as though synchronized, hemorrhaging dank black smoke into the sky, and the sounds of the coydogs keening unfurls like a hellish siren that rises and recedes in piercing waves. He watches as the bonfires move and dance until he understands what he’s seeing. Her coydogs are on fire. Two of them gallop down the gravel road like torches in the hands of a running mob. Two of them have fallen and are burning dead in the dark where they fell. The smell of hair and fat sizzling unfurls in an inky smoke. The stink of it chokes the air. Cooper gags and bends double, then straightens again and peers past the two felled beasts, toward the pair that are running in the street ablaze. Threatening the houses. He smells gasoline intermingled with the smell of burning fur. Cooper unholsters his pistol and his right shoulder barks as he raises the gun and he aims at a coydog and fires. The bullet kicks the gravel yards away. He fires again. Misses again even worse, a plume of dirt spouting harmlessly from the road. That’s two bullets wasted. He’s only got four left in the gun.
Then beyond the flames and black smoke and the ripples of heat in the road, Cooper sees a figure walking slowly toward him. A lithe form silhouetted in the shadow of the fire. The figure approaches, backlit, and reaches a hand out to Cooper. It’s Dick Dietrich, and he’s asking for the gun. He says warmly, as though in confidence, “Let me take a crack, Sheriff. Trust me. I’m a very good shot.”
Cooper stands a moment agape and confused by Dietrich’s sudden appearance, his outstretched hand, his calm request, which rattles in Cooper’s brain before it registers. He looks at Dietrich and then at the burning dogs loosed and howling in the street behind him. Then Cooper hands over his revolver.
Dietrich nods and seems to almost smile and takes the gun and turns. He raises the revolver smoothly and there’s a sharp report and a muzzle flash. The first burning coydog buckles. Now only one beast remains, circling in slow tortured rotations as though befuddled by its curious change in circumstance. A black smear inside a bright flame, like a matchhead at ignition. Other residents have gathered now and stand silent on their porches, clutching robes or simply watching.
Dietrich raises the pistol again. As calm and confident as a shepherd.
He sights the pistol and shoots again, his placid face lit by the fire.
The resonant clap shatters the stillness.
The last burning coydog falls in a crackling heap.
WEDNESDAY
13.