19.

"You might ought to pull over," Lloyd said.

"Why?"

A red light flashed in the mirror, then I heard the siren.

My impulse went to flight. "Let's make a run for it. I'll stop and wait for him to get out and walk up, then I'll peel out."

"Peel out?" Lloyd rubbed his leg and blinked, as if I might really go Bonnie and Clyde on him. "We aren't breaking any laws."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot." As I opened Moby d.i.c.k's door I glanced at the mess in the back end. It was hard to believe in that pile of trash and humans on the run we weren't breaking a law. "Pull your pants up."

"This is a legitimate procedure. I shall not be rushed."

Lloyd spoke up. "I've kicked around a lot of years, Shane, and I've found no matter how legitimate the procedure, it's always a mistake to show your d.i.c.k to a cop."

Conjecture leapt to mind as to how Lloyd came by this experience. Too much conjecture. Handling the Highway Patrol would be less complex. Police figures are easy to deal with-don't make eye contact, act dingy, dumb, and flirty, and tell them what they want to hear. In other words, fulfill their definition of feminine.

The patrolman-thirty, sungla.s.ses, nice a.s.s-stood off to the road side of his car, writing on a clipboard balanced against his belt buckle. Mick Jagger lips-I swear they were plump and red as whole pimientos glued to his teeth.

"You look like somebody," I said.

He opened his mouth and the sound came out Okie instead of English rock star. "You know that gentleman?" he asked.

Hugo Sr. sat in his Oldsmobile fifty yards up the road, staring off at the lime green wheat.

"I met him this morning. His estranged wife and children are in the ambulance." I couldn't come up with more explanation. I mean, I could have come up with more, but it was complicated and involved personal lives.

The patrolman didn't ask for explanation. "May I see your license, ma'am."

"Only if you call me Maurey. I'm not used to being called ma'am. Makes me nervous. What's your name?"

He didn't answer my question, but I spotted a silver name tag on his pocket flap that said Ben Lawson, OHP. Good western sheriff-type name, nothing English or prissy like Mick. He held out his hand. "License."

I dug in my back pocket. "The picture's not very good. My eyes came out red and the camera made me look ten pounds heavier than I was. I've heard they always do that."

The lips flexed. "Your license plate on the trailer is expired, ma'am."

Sure enough-1972. "It's my father's trailer. He got killed last fall. It was awful and I guess we haven't taken the trailer on the road since then. I'm truly sorry." I hate talking to sungla.s.ses. You can't tell if you're getting goodwill or contempt or what. All you can see is two versions of yourself playing the fool.

Ben Lawson compared the picture on the license to me. "Merle Pierce?"

"Maurey Talbot. Maurey's a nickname and I forgot to change the license after I got married. It didn't seem to matter, or maybe I knew the marriage wouldn't last. Little signs like that make you realize the deal was doomed from the start. Don't you think so?"

Ben Lawson stood close with his thumbs deep behind his belt buckle. "Get one thing straight, Mrs. Talbot. I'm not related to the f.a.ggot."

"You sure look like him."

"You are in no position to tell me I look like a f.a.ggot."

"I didn't say you look like a f.a.ggot. He nails more chicks than any two men in Oklahoma."

"You're in no position to make fun of Oklahoma, either." Ben Lawson walked along the trailer, inspecting scratches and rust spots. At the wheel well he stopped and took off his sungla.s.ses to stare at Moby d.i.c.k. Andrew waved from the rear window, but Ben Lawson didn't wave back.

He nodded at the trailer. "Hauling horses?"

Lloyd's door opened and Lloyd came hopping over the hitch, bony hand extended. "Hi, I'm Lloyd Carbonneau and I'm a recovering alcoholic. I own a salvage yard in Las Vegas, Nevada. The vehicle belongs to me, but I don't drive it." The hand not shaking with Ben Lawson offered Moby d.i.c.k's registration.

Ben Lawson sized up Lloyd from his sandals to the no shirt under the overalls, then he turned back to me. "What's in the trailer, ma'am?"

A horse lie would have led to proof of inoculation and interstate livestock permits. "Household goods. My friends are moving to North Carolina and I offered to drive them."

He put his sungla.s.ses back on his face, where they definitely doubled as a psychological prop. "Let's see."

"What?"

"Open the door, ma'am. I'd like to see the household goods."

"Wouldn't you rather look at my registration?" Lloyd said.

Thirty seconds of hemming and hawing later, Ben Lawson looked in at two battered suitcases, a tent, three bald tires and one rim, a dead battery, and one hundred cases of Coors. I hadn't actually seen our contraband yet. It was in boxed cases with the Coors logo, which I think was ripped off from the Coca-Cola logo, above the script thing about pure Rocky Mountain spring water. The cases were stacked four wide and five high. Quick math put them at five cases deep back in the double-wide horse trailer. Plenty of room for more. I wondered why we didn't buy more.

Ben Lawson said, "Some household, ma'am."

"That's not beer in the beer boxes. They packed those with books and dishes and stuff. Beer boxes stack nice," I said.

He stepped into the trailer to gently shake the top box of a stack. Gla.s.s clinked.

"Sounds like we broke Marcella's china," I said to Lloyd, who did nothing to back me up.

Sungla.s.ses and lips hovered over me from about eight feet in the air. "Let's go look in the vehicle."

As I followed him to the ambulance I once again reminded myself that a cute b.u.t.t does not a nice guy make. You always hope beautiful people will behave themselves accordingly, when, in fact, it may be the opposite. I haven't known enough nice guys to work out a pattern.

I said a little prayer to G.o.d to please make Shane hide his private parts. My prayer was answered and wasted at the same time. Sam Callahan says be careful what you pray for because G.o.d has a preset quota of granted wishes for each person and they shouldn't be wasted. It's like when you enter a contest you don't really care to win; you lower your odds in the contests that matter.

The very instant Ben Lawson pulled open Moby d.i.c.k's side door, a b.u.t.ter-knife-slicing-cardboard voice shrieked, "Arrest her quick. Use your gun and arrest her."

"Who, son?"

"That lady touched Uncle Shane's wienie."

Critter beamed like a sunflower. "Far out, it's Jumpin' Jack Flash. You're the spit-image of Mick Jagger. I mean, you two are twins."

Andrew yelled, "Shoot her with your gun!"

I viewed Critter through Ben Lawson's eyes-dirty bare feet, tapestry skirt, rag bikini over the pertest little b.r.e.a.s.t.s you ever saw. And that haircut. She cried out to be shot or f.u.c.ked, it would be a tough choice.

The babble continued: "I can tell you're death karma on women. My girlfriend Longina would suck you off on sight, man. One line from 'Satisfaction' and she'd drop to her knees and stick out her tongue."

I broke in before she got us all shot or f.u.c.ked. "Critter, he's kind of sensitive on that subject."

"Longina goes to Velma-Alma High. She's seen the Stones four times. Wrap your mind around that. She'd die to meet Mick, and stud, you're as close as anyone in Velma-Alma will ever come."

His hand went to the sungla.s.ses, but he changed his mind and left them on. "How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

Andrew stamped his foot. I couldn't believe it. n.o.body outside women in Russian novels and trained horses stamps their feet. "Arrest her and throw her in jail to rot, and arrest Uncle Shane, too. He beats me."

Shane's head b.u.mped up and down as he did the good-natured laugh deal. He was sitting on Critter's duffel bag, the perfect picture of a pervert. I'd have thrown the whole bunch of us in jail. Everyone had faces of atrocity, even Marcella and the baby.

"We're hoping Andrew grows up to write TV shows." Shane laughed. "Such an imagination." He held out his hands, which he'd twisted into gnarled, useless claws. "As you can see, I'm afflicted. My niece was helping me change my catheter, and little Andrew misinterpreted. Do you have any notion what it's like to wear a catheter?"

At niece, Andrew started to brat out, but Shane gave him a shut-up-or-die look and Andrew shut up.

My feeling is Ben didn't buy the gnarled hands or catheter rap, either one. He asked, "Are you sick?"

When Shane shifted off the duffel bag, part of the folded-up wheelchair came into view in the junk behind him. Ben said, "I didn't realize."

Shane stared glumly at the floor. "I lost my capacities fighting a forest fire in Montana. A deer had panicked and run into the fire and become trapped. I had to go in after it, otherwise I couldn't have lived with myself." He lifted his eyes to his twin reflection in Ben Lawson's face. "I saved the deer, but a falling tree severed my spinal column."

Marcella said, "I am a Christian, Officer."

This time when Ben Lawson took his sungla.s.ses off he folded them and slid them into his shirt pocket, right below the name tag. You could read his thoughts in his lips. Sympathy, cynicism, duty, resolution. He turned back to look at Lloyd standing next to me. "Are any felonies being committed here?"

"We're just simple travelers."

"You carrying any dope?"

"Would someone driving this getup and hauling all that beer risk carrying dope?"

Ben Lawson locked into Lloyd's eyes. His lips kind of quivered at the experience. I knew what he felt, I'd locked into Lloyd's eyes myself. That much sincerity makes a person weak in the stomach.

Finally the lips formed speech. "I've got real criminals to chase. A bunch of clowns smuggling Coors must be harmless enough."

"That's us," I said. "Harmless clowns."

He backed away from Moby d.i.c.k, feeling his pocket. "One thing. Disguise the d.a.m.n beer. You don't have a chance in h.e.l.l of making the East Coast without someone pulling you over. No use in being too stupid."

"We try not to be too stupid," Lloyd said.

Ben Lawson turned away and walked toward his patrol car. "Have a nice day, folks."

As I pulled Moby d.i.c.k onto the two lanes of asphalt, Shane went gleeful. "Banzai, motherf.u.c.ker, we showed him. It's all in the timing. I unveiled the chair at the perfect moment to maximize guilt."

"What's a motherf.u.c.ker?" Andrew demanded.

"You told me you lost your legs in a motorcycle wreck," Critter said.

"I rode my motorcycle into the fire to save the deer. Let me explain the details."

Hugo Jr. started crying, the de-whiskered kitten sneaked back onto my lap to nurse on my shirt b.u.t.tons. I drummed a finger rhythm on the steering wheel, considering what to name the precious half pint in the glove compartment.

Lloyd leaned back and smiled for the first time since I joined forces with the AA duo. "Oklahoma's pretty," he said. "I could get used to this."

20.

Comanches are one of the tribes Hank Elkrunner approves of. He has strict standards when it comes to authentic Native Americans. The best are the mountain tribes with four-pole foundation tipis-Blackfoot, Flathead, Nez Perce-although he looks at Crow as a short step from Communists. He says the Plains tribes-Sioux and Cheyenne-are overrated because of the Custer thing, and Apaches are the only southwest Indians worth dealing with.

"I dated a Hopi once," he said. "All she talked about was TV. She watched Truth or Consequences while I humped her."

Bottom of Hank's list of real Indians are the Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma, especially the Cherokee. "No better than white farmers," he said, which meant no better than anyone.

Comanche, Oklahoma, was a three-gas-station town with a Korean War air force fighter plane mounted on concrete in the city park. Critter had me turn right at this Humble station with old-fashioned pumps where you actually see the gasoline in a gla.s.s bubble on top. It was neat. Lloyd wanted me to stop so he could make the owner an offer.

A mile or so west of town we came to a peeling white-frame farmhouse with a full-length porch, two huge pecan trees in the yard, and a half dozen Volkswagen buses and bugs parked at random, like they'd been tossed by a tornado. Every one of the Volks was painted with garish designs and hippy code words-LSD, Peace, Speed Kills, Wow, Love, 13, Gatorade.

I'd seen hippy houses before. In Laramie we called them train stations-one bunch of people constantly coming and going, another bunch sitting there with nothing to do, and n.o.body cleans the bathroom.

It was late afternoon and hotter than a popcorn popper when Critter's arm came by my ear and she yelled, "There's Freedom."

I spotted right off which one of the seven or eight vagrant types was Freedom. He stood dead center on the porch, hands on his hips and what you would have to call a sneer on his face. "Why isn't Freedom's hair long like the others?" I asked.

"He hasn't been out of jail long enough to grow it out." Critter stuck her face out my window-which put her mouth at ear level-and shouted, "Freedom!"

A couple of longhairs stood up to watch me park next to one of the pecan trees. A tanned woman with no shirt on came out the door and sat on the steps, nursing a baby. A dog rolled onto his back with all four legs sticking straight up.

I said, "It's Tobacco Road."

"No, that's Zig Zag. He wants his belly rubbed, but don't touch him unless you don't mind fleas."

The dog looked the least flea-ridden of anyone in the yard. I'm not normally prejudiced against the counterculture, but there's freaks who have long hair and get high but otherwise think roughly along the same lines as the rest of us, then there's the other kind. These freaks were the other kind.

Before Moby d.i.c.k came to a complete stop the side door popped open, and with a squeal, Critter streaked across the dirt yard and up the steps where she latched on. Freedom draped his right arm over her shoulders. He didn't seem as happy to see Critter as she was to see him, because the expression on his face stayed the same. He didn't even look down at her, just stared over her shoulder in our direction.