The Ploughmen: A Novel by Kim Zupan

picked up a page of paper and held it away from himself and stared at it, scowling.
    “You know about Gload, then,” he said. “I mean you read his sheet and all that.”
    “I did some, since we brought him in. I didn’t spend a lot of time on it.”
    “You know there are cops in this town, hell, all over this state, that if they were to pull over John Gload by accident would just about piss their pants? I mean old-time bulls, old-time tough beat cops and sheriffs, sonsofbitches who have seen it all.”
    Millimaki said, “Officer Dobek did seem a little on edge.”
    The sheriff smiled grimly. “Not having been there, I can only guess that’s a decided understatement.”
    “But I did hear that about Gload from somewhere, yes, sir.” He thought about the old man stiffly astride his chair in the cell and his slow careful trudging along the icy walks, as though afraid in falling he would shatter like crockery. “It’s hard to believe now.”
    “Don’t be fooled by that smile, Val, or him being an old man. You’ve seen those hands. He could squeeze juice out of a stove log.”
    “Yes, sir. That’s true.”
    “Take his sheet home and look over it. Study it. Hell, it might help you get to sleep, though it’s more likely to make you lock all the doors and sit up with your gun in your lap. I think we might finally have him on this thing, but there are a lot of unanswered questions floating around with Gload’s name hanging off of them.”
    He shuffled more papers, patted his pockets again front and rear. “Anyway, the shitty thing is this, Val. I’m keeping you on nights. For one thing that old man has a hard-on about Wexler but also he seems to like you. I don’t know what it says about you and maybe I don’t want to know. He hates cops. Just hates cops like all get-out. But he talks to you. If you could just keep your ears open or maybe even steer him around to talking about some of the shit you’ll read on his sheet.” As he spoke the sheriff was variously leaning back and hunching forward in an effort to read the print on the files and forms fanned across his desk. He said finally, “Well. It’s a long shot. We might be able to clear up some of these things that have been left unfinished since he showed up in this country. And that was a hell of a long time ago.”
    “All right.”
    The sheriff eyed Millimaki. “What the hell is it about you, anyway, and that old killer?”
    Millimaki thought for a minute. His head felt fat and his stomach rolled dangerously and his eyes burned. “We talk about farming.”
    The sheriff stared at him. “Farming.”
    “Other stuff. But farming, yes, sir.”
    “Well, I’ll be damned.” He waved Millimaki away and began running his hands beneath the papers on his desktop, feeling his pockets. “Would you please for the love of Christ ask Raylene when you go out if she’s seen my glasses anywhere?”
    “Do they look anything at all like the ones you have on your head, sir?”
    “Oh, for Christ sake.” He reached and took them down and glared at them maliciously and then as if addressing them he said, “Lest you think me a fool or a liar, Deputy, I’m one of them who wouldn’t ever want to run into John Gload with no bars in front of him.”
    “I wasn’t thinking anything.”
    They were half-glasses and seemed indeed to not fit the sheriff’s handsome face and he set them with distaste on his nose. Over these he looked at Millimaki for a long second. “I don’t believe for one minute that you’re ever not thinking, Deputy.” He opened his drawer again and began to set things in order. “Come and see me next week if I forget to send for you. And disregard that it’s eight-thirty in the morning and try a glass of beer when you get home. Used to work for me and near as I can tell I never turned out to be a juicer.”
    When he came out into the outer room a large woman with voluminous red hair set atop her head with two sticks looked up from her desk. She