“Jiminy, look at that house!” Buster said. The sheriff was still silent. “I guess you’re pretty disserpointed with me right now, ain’tcha?”
“Buster…” The sheriff began to say something, but stopped when he noticed two of his deputies eavesdropping.
“Don’t you have something to investigate?” the sheriff barked. They snorted insolently and sauntered away.
“What’s there to investigate? The house jes’…done fell down,” Buster said nervously. The sheriff sighed like the last of the air from a flat tire.
“Buster, I’m gonna have to ask you a few questions.”
Buster scraped the helix of his right ear with his little finger and scrutinized what had accumulated under his fingernail.
“Shoot.”
“Where’s the mister?”
“Uh, ain’t he with you?”
“No, he is not.”
“Maybe he drove hisself away.”
“His car’s still here.”
“It is?”
“It is.”
The sheriff studied Buster’s face as it momentarily clouded with that new piece of information.
“Is he in that house somewhere?”
“Ah don’t rightly think so. Ah b’lieve he left the house.”
“You’d tell me if anything had happened to Mr. Mallomar…”
“Ah know what yor thinkin’, Sheriff. All’s ah can tell you is he was fine last time ah seen him.”
“And when was that?”
“Las’ night.”
“Last night. He came home last night and you were here in the house with his missus?” Buster squirmed at the implication.
“Well, sir. Ah were in the house tryin’ to get them cattle out.” This, to Buster, was the big news of the evening—that a herd of cattle had actually been inside a house. “Did y’all see ’em?”
“Musta been ’bout fifty head in there,” one of the rescue men answered convivially, but slunk away when the sheriff glowered at him.
One of the deputies emerged from the house, wiggle-waggling something above his head.
“Mr. Mallomar’s wallet!”
The rescue workers were now watching the sheriff’s reactions. As far as they were concerned, there was enough evidence to hang the foreman.
“Do you know why Mr. Mallomar would leave the house without his wallet or his car?” Buster scratched his head, cogitating on that.
“It’s a booger, Sheriff.”
“Yes, it certainly is a booger.”
The sheriff led Buster further away from the others.
“Remember what we always said about lying?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Were you having sexual relations with Mrs. Mallomar?”
Even Buster, who had never read a newspaper in his life, knew how much trouble a former president of the United States had gotten into with this question, and how better off the president would have been by just telling the truth. But now, when it came time to his turn at bat, he, also, looked for the same nuance of language to hide behind. Unfortunately, he lacked the language skills to pull it off.
“Ah ain’t at liberty to say,” he offered weakly.
“Why not?”
Another man came through the doorway holding a rope that had been fashioned into a noose. Once again, the sheriff turned to Buster.
“What’s this?”
Buster looked at it every which way—as if seeing a rope for the first time in his life.
“Lord, if ah know. It’s got kinda a loop on the end of it.”
“It’s called a noose!” Buster flinched. “Why would they have a noose just laying around the house?”
Buster took a deep breath.
“Ah ain’t at liberty to say.”
“You ain’t at liberty to say? Where’d you get this kind of talk?”
“That’s what Mr. Mallomar used to say when he dint wanna tell somebody somethin’,” Buster said glumly.
“Used to say?”
“Says. That’s what he says all the time and ah guess ah took it up.”
“I’m sure Mr. Mallomar is gratified with the results of his mentorship. That is, if he’s not laying dead under that heap of a house over there.” The men were all waiting for this conversation to conclude in the only way it could.
“Buster, I got no choice but to take you in.”
“Aw, but Sheriff, ah ain’t killed nobody…”
“That’s what he always says,” someone muttered.
“Turn around. I’ll have to cuff you.” Buster almost burst out in tears, but complied docilely. As the sheriff escorted him to the back of his cruiser, Buster called out to the diggers.
“Hey, fellers, keep an eye out for my ro-day-oh buckle, will ya?”
Sheriff Dudival pushed his head down to fold him into the back seat.
“Buster, that’s the least of your damn problems.”
b
Down at booking, the corrections officers gave Buster a more thorough pat down. Then they fingerprinted him, photographed him, and collected his personal effects. He surrendered a bag of Bugler with some rolling papers, the keys to his Chevy Apache truck, his lucky Ute arrowhead, and his Colorado State Fair wallet with four dollars in it. The corrections officer looked up and smirked when he found a dried buttercup pressed between his social security card and an unpaid parking ticket. He was told to unstring the shoelaces from his manure-covered White’s Packers so they couldn’t be used to commit suicide. They took his hat. They gave him an orange county uniform and a towel, and then led him to lockup.
Someone, probably the sheriff, had sent down orders that Buster be put in the “suicide watch” cell. It was brightly lit with a big porthole-like window that faced the correction officer’s desk so he could keep a constant eye on him. Buster sat on his bunk and looked around his new digs. The toilet was a one-piece stainless steel job, as was the sink. There was no mirror and, worse, no window. Was it possible for someone who had spent his entire life outside to survive the rest of it inside? He could already feel his strength ebbing. He would surely die if he couldn’t be out under the sky. That is, if they didn’t execute him first.
Buster sighed and looked at his hands. They were as big as Rawlins baseball gloves and just as broken in. What made him think he could make his way in the world with his brain instead of these? Probably Mr. Mallomar. He was always overvaluing, pumping things up. Maybe his friends had been right when they’d told him not to get mixed up with people like the Mallomars. There was going to be plenty of time for regret. He wasn’t going anywhere. In his mind, he began to flip through the stupid events leading up to this—as if they were the embarrassing red-eyed snapshots the sober person always takes of the drunks at a party.
Dudival stormed past Janet Poult, his secretary, who’d already heard what had happened at the Mallomar ranch on the police scanner, and slammed his office door behind him without even a “howdy-do.”
He