BBH01 - Cimarron Rose by James Lee Burke Page B

horse.'
    'I was out a couple of nights. The other side of
them hills. There's all kind of lights in the clouds. You ever hear of
the Lubbock Lights, them UFOs that was photographed? There's something
weird going on hereabouts.'
    'I've rigged two shotguns on my property. I hope you
don't find one of them.'
    'You don't have no guns. I made a whole study of
you, Mr Holland. I can touch that boy and I touch you. It's a sweet
thought, but I ain't got the inclination right now.'
    'Jimmy Cole's dead, isn't he?' I said.
    He pulled a soot-blackened glove from his hand one
finger at a time.
    'Why would a person think that?' he asked.
    'You don't leave loose ends.'
    'If I was to come out to your place or that pup's
with a serious mind, y'all wouldn't have no doubt about who visited
you… You cain't do nothing about me, Mr Holland. Don't nobody
care what happens to crazy people. I know. I majored in crazy. I know
it inside and out.'
    'Crazy people?'
    'I heard the screw say it in the jail. You're queer
for a dead man. You're one seriously sick motherfucker and don't know
it.'
    He started laughing, hard, his flat chest shaking,
sweat rolling through the dirt rings on his neck, the wisps of red hair
on his scalp flecked with bits of black ash.
     
    I picked up Mary Beth Sweeney at her
apartment that
evening and we drove down the old two-lane toward the county line. She
wore a pale organdy dress and white pumps and earrings with blue stones
in them, and I could smell the baby powder she used to cover the
freckles on her shoulders and neck.
    Twice she glanced at the road behind us.
    'You having regrets?' I asked.
    Her eyes moved over my face.
    'I don't think your situation is compromised. The
sheriff's corrupt, but he's not Phi Beta Kappa material,' I said.
    'What are you talking about?'
    'I think you work for the G,' I said.
    'The G? Like the government?'
    'That's the way I'd read it.'
    'I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable about
this, Billy Bob.'
    She gazed out the side window so I couldn't see her
expression. We crossed the river and the planks on the bridge rattled
under my tires.
    'My great-grandfather's ranch ran for six miles
right along that bank,' I said. 'He used to trail two thousand head at
a time to the railhead in Kansas, then he gave up guns and whiskey and
became a saddle preacher. His only temptation in life after that was
the Rose of Cimarron.'
    'I'm sorry. I wasn't listening,' she said.
    'My great-grandpa… He was a gunfighter
turned preacher, but he had a love affair with an outlaw woman called
the Rose of Cimarron. She was a member of the Dalton-Doolin gang. He
wrote in his journal that his head got turned by the sweetest and most
dangerous woman in Oklahoma Territory.'
    'I'm afraid you've lost me,' she said.
    I tried to laugh. 'You're a fed. This county's got a
long history of political corruption, Mary Beth. There're some violent
people here.'
    'How about the prosecutor, Marvin Pomroy?'
    'He's an honest man. As far as I know, anyway. Are
you FBI?'
    'Can we forget this conversation?' she said.
    I didn't answer. We pulled into a Mexican restaurant
built of logs and scrolled with neon. I walked around to the passenger
side to open the door for her, but she was already standing outside.
     
    The hills to the west were rimmed with
a purple glow
when I drove her back home. During the evening I had managed to say
almost nothing that was not inept and awkward. I turned into her
apartment building and parked by the brick wall that bordered the
swimming pool.
    'Maybe I should say good night here,' I said.
    'No, come in for a drink.'
    'I've made you uneasy. I don't want to compound it.'
    'You're patronizing me… I don't understand
you, Billy Bob. You quit a career as a law officer and then as an
assistant US attorney to be a defense lawyer. You like putting dope
mules back on the street?'
    'I won't handle traffickers.'
    'Because you're a cop. You think like one.'
    I heard cars behind me on the road, the same
two-lane that