The Triggerman Dance

That's all I can leave you with, he thought: the name of the serpent in your paradise.

To this end he wrote her a short letter on his notepad, folded the sheet neatly and wrote her name on it. He set it on the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room, under the salt and pepper shakers, so it wouldn't blow off. There was little in it about himself or what he had done or why he had done it. Just what he had learned about Fargo since coming to Liberty Ridge.

In case Holt prevailed tomorrow—rather than Joshua—she might find it sometime when she was in the cabin, looking for some clue to where he had gone, wondering why he'd left so quickly. In that case, of course, she wouldn't believe his words anyway. Her father would be around to smooth comforting lies over the truth. And Lane would take the long trip, also, sometime in the near future, courtesy of the man he had loved, feared and betrayed. Just as well, John thought.

He went upstairs and lay down beside her. He wondered if there was any way she could forgive him for what was about to happen, and he knew there was not. He wondered where he would go tomorrow when it was over—back out to the desert, z motel, back to the Laguna Canyon house and the uneasy ghost of Rebecca. Maybe the ghost will be gone. Isn't that what this was all about?

He felt again that he was about to leave a place where he could do some good and go somewhere else, to a place he had never seen or no longer remembered, to a place not his, a place where time might or might not grant him the privilege of casting his own shadow.

CHAPTER 39

All Sundays should be so restful, all mornings so clear.

Vann Holt, in khaki pants and safari shirt, stood before one of the Africa dioramas in the trophy room. It was the scene where the bull elephant is caught mid-stride, his trunk raised and mouth open for a sonorous bellow that Holt remembered clearly from that hot April day on which he stood in the grass and let the big animal charge close—fifty yards, it was—before he squeezed the Weatherby .400 magnum load into the bull's forehead, and the elephant didn't even flinch. Holt remembered it all with precision: his methodical retracting of the bolt while the elephant came, the thunderous tremor of the earth under his boots, the way the bull lowered his blood-spattered head as he closed the distance, his big ears folded back and the knotty dome of his skull enlarging over the iron sights of the rifle, the second shot cracking through bone and brain, the stumble and graceful correction, the way one ear fanned out and the mouth dropped askew pouring blood and the tusks stayed aimed straight at him and the third shot that seemed to yank the animal's head forward and down into the grass through which it dozed toward him, rear end still high for just a moment before the whole magnificent creation grunted to a ground-shaking stop ten feet from the barrel of his upraised gun. Holt had urinated.

That was before Carolyn and Patrick, he thought, back when life left time for sport, excitement and challenge. A trophy from days of strength and happiness.

"I thought you'd be in here, Dad."

"Hi, honey."

Valerie slipped her arm around his back and laid her head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry I got so drunk last night."

"It was a night for high emotions."

"I've never felt so foolish, and so sad, and so proud of you. Ah, Dad, why didn't you tell me?"

He snugged his arm around hers. "I told you in plenty of time, hon. There was no profit in doing it sooner."

"Isn't there anything we can do?"

"We can do whatever we want."

"I mean about—"

"—I know. No. It just runs its course like anything else in nature."

"I knew that day would come. I just had it pegged for thirty years from now."

"What's important is to live with grace and dignity, and die that way too. What I don't want, dear girl, is a thousand long good-byes."

She shook her head against his chest and Holt could feel the warmth of her breath through his shirt. "I don't want that, either."

"Atta girl."

"I'll run the Ops when you . . . need me to."

"You've got lots to learn. And lots of time to learn it. I'm feeling good. We will have our hours and our days."

"I love you."

"I love you, Valerie."

She hugged him close then pulled herself away to stand before him, running her fingers down his clean-shaven cheek. Holt looked at the wet trails the tears had left on her face, the tangle of golden hair pinned atop her head with chopsticks, and the deep chocolate richness of her eyes—her mother's eyes. Her lips were tightly pursed but her chin quivered.

"We'll get there, Dad."

"I know we will, dear child. Hey, I'm entertaining some not-very-interesting people for lunch today, around noon. Laura and Thur said they'd like to have you over to their place. I told them you'd be there."

Valerie breathed in deeply, then let it out. Holt hadn't seen such sadness in her eyes since Pat and Mom.

"I was planning to take my lunch over to the island. Just me. I've got some thoughts I'd like to be alone with."