Blue Lonesome by Bill Pronzini Page A

Anna’s property.
    The fences and the buildings were all well made, had once been well cared for, but there were signs of recent erosion and neglect: sagging fence poles that needed replacing, a broken windmill blade, a cracked and tape-repaired house window. Reverend Hoxie: She and her son are alone out there now. Too large a place for the two of them to manage by themselves, really, but they can’t afford a full-time hired man anymore. He wondered if the former hired man, Jaime Orozco, had lived in the Airstream trailer. He couldn’t see any reason for its being here except as a kind of one-man bunkhouse.
    The Jeep was parked in front of the house. Messenger drew up alongside it. There was no one in sight, but he could hear a dog barking furiously inside the house. He started past the Jeep to the porch.
    “That’s far enough, mister. Hold it right there.”
    Male voice, young, and as hard as Dacy Burgess’s. Messenger stopped, turned slowly toward the sound of it. A gangly kid of fourteen or fifteen, sweat-stained cowboy hat shoved back on his head to reveal a mop of sun-bleached brown hair, had come out at the far corner. The rifle in his hands was similar to the one the woman had carried, and he held it with the same competence and authority. The sight of it and its aimed bore didn’t bother Messenger as much as it would have before the shooting at Anna’s ranch. He thought: Gun-happy people. Then he thought: No, that’s not fair. If I lived alone in a place like this, and had the recent history they’ve had, I’d be leery of strangers and keep a weapon handy, too.
    The kid said challengingly, “What’s the idea chasing after my ma?”
    “I wasn’t chasing her. Just followed her home, that’s all.”
    “What happened? What’d you do to her?”
    “Nothing. Didn’t she tell you about it?”
    “Didn’t tell me anything. Just drove in all lathered and went inside.” His mouth worked as if he were about to spit. Instead he said, as though explaining something, “She’s never lathered.”
    “I gave her some bad news.”
    “Yeah? What bad news?”
    “Lonnie,” Dacy Burgess said, “leave him be. I’ll handle this.”
    She had come out onto the porch, was standing there in that ramrod posture. Her hands were empty now. She’d shed the broad-brimmed Stetson too; her hair, short and windblown from the open Jeep, a thick lock jutting like a topknot, was the same sunbleached brown as her son’s.
    The boy, Lonnie, said, “Handle what? What’s going on?”
    “Your aunt Anna’s dead.”
    “What?” Nothing changed in his face. “When?”
    “Three weeks ago in San Francisco.”
    “So that’s it.” Then, flatly, “Well, good.”
    “Lonnie. She killed herself.”
    “Did she? Who’s this guy?”
    “Never mind that now. Go on back to your chores.”
    “You okay with him?”
    “Yes. Go on now, I mean it. We’ll talk later.”
    No argument from Lonnie. He lowered his rifle, slow-walked toward the barn without looking back.
    Messenger said, “He must really hate her.”
    “Well, he’s got cause. He loved his cousin.”
    “Tess.”
    “That’s right, Tess.”
    “Do you hate Anna, too? Even now?”
    “No. Maybe I should, but I don’t.” She ran a hand through her hair; the topknot bounced back up again. “I shouldn’t have run off on you that way.”
    “It’s all right. I understand.”
    “Do you?”
    “The news hit you pretty hard and you needed time to recover.” Time to cry a little, too: Her eyes looked red and a little puffy, even though she’d washed her face afterward. “You’ll want to hear the rest of it. That’s why I followed you.”
    “Might as well know. Come inside.”
    She led him into the house. On one side of a narrow hallway was the kitchen, on the other a living room with plain furniture, Indian rugs, books on homemade shelves; no television set, but a home computer on a desk. The computer seemed out of place, anachronistic in these surroundings, though of