The Triggerman Dance

"Val could use some help with the dogs. Now that she's out of school it's dogs, dogs, dogs. Headed for vet school next fall, probably out of state. So ... well, anyway, she's still field-training her pups."

John sensed that there was something on Holt's mind left unsaid. He waited, but Holt was silent.

"Nice offer, Mr. Holt, but the paycheck calls."

"Lane talked to Bruno today. As of yesterday you didn't have any vacation time coming, but now you've got a paid week. Lane helped him see the value of your complete convalescence."

"You're bluffing now."

"I don't bluff. Bruno wants the story filed by tomorrow afternoon. Then you're free for a vacation. Don't tell me some R &c R on Liberty Ridge would pollute your sense of chivalry, young man."

"Well, it's tempting."

"Settled."

Holt extends his hand and John shakes it. His grip is strong, dry and warm. "I was surprised to learn you used to write for the Journal. But when Fargo mentioned it, I remembered your columns. Nice stuff. Very un-Journal."

"Thank you."

"Do you know Susan Baum?"

John feels his heart tighten, then speed up.

"Not well."

"In touch with her?"

"Not really."

"Could you be?"

"I hear she's kind of in hiding, since the shooting."

"That's what I've heard. Guess I would be, too."

When John finally returns to his lakeside cottage it is almost midnight. He can see his dogs on the porch, lying next to a chair in which a figure sits, rocking slowly. His heart shifts a little, and the ringing begins in his ears again. Somehow he can remember the smell of Valerie's perfume, a light, feminine scent that he was not even aware of registering.

"So, what did you say?" asks Fargo. "Going to stick around?"

John's heart tightens again and a cool sweat creeps over his scalp. The dogs knock against his legs. "I said I would."

"No big surprise."

"Thanks for the vacation time."

"That was easy."

John steps onto the porch and Lane Fargo stands. In the darkness they face each other.

"So, Valerie bought you some clothes today."

"I guess that's pretty obvious."

"Pretty obvious. You like a little dig now and then, don't you?"

"Hard to pass up, sometimes."

Fargo nods. "You're hard to figure."

"How so?"

"I really don't know yet—you're a puzzle."

"You might be overcomplicating me."

"But I might not be. There's two kinds of people in my world, John-Boy—people I trust and people I hate. On you, the jury's still out."

"Well, thanks for the status report."

"Sleep tight."

For the next three days John stayed on Liberty Ridge, the rewarded Samaritan, the model guest. He shot pistol and shotgun with Holt and Fargo. He enjoyed Holt's tales of African safaris. He endured Fargo's taunts and brooding stares as he outscored Fargo on the sporting clays course.

The three of them shot Holt Alley three times each, the best score going to Holt—32 proper kills, no innocents and a time of 3:25. John came in last with a 28 in 3:30. Walking away from the building there was a silence during which John knew both Holt and Fargo were wondering how a mediocre pistol shot like him had managed to clip a biker's shoulder without clipping the girl next to him.

"Tough course," he admitted.

John felt naked and exposed, like a hermit crab scuttling between shells. He tried to forget his purpose. During the hours he spent with Valerie in the meadow behind the Big House he almost managed to succeed. There, they drilled her dogs with dummies and live birds and lead lines while John's labradors sat enviously in the shade and watched. Boomer just howled sadly.

John went about the hours as if they were his own and he was an actual man doing actual things. The very forbiddenness of Valerie Holt made him all the more comfortable in her company. He enjoyed her talk, he admired her skills with the dogs. He was surprised by her easy intelligence and her sense of control. He silently noted her beauty and relished the covert glances he could steal. He was thankful for his sunglasses. Only once did she catch him, but she blushed deeply and looked away, catching her boot on a rock. She was so bold at times, he thought, and so timid at others, so graceful, then such a clod. He tried to remember back to being that young.

He recognized in himself the simple excitement of attraction. How long since he had felt that for Rebecca, and even then, how impacted and joyless.

For the rest of the afternoon he thought only of Rebecca and the commitment he had made to her, letting the dark aura of her memory enclose his waiting, cunning heart.

.

CHAPTER 19

The first light of the fifth day found John and his three dogs following the west shore of the lake. He carried a big cup of coffee in one hand and in the other a walking stick—a long piece of orangewood he'd found near his cottage. To any observer he would have looked like a man on a morning stroll and nothing more. John had temporarily convinced himself that this was all he was.