Light of the World (Dave Robicheaux 20)

“He didn’t say. I remember Rhonda asking him. He said his church was the big one that didn’t have a name.”

“Which means he probably got his ordination off the Internet. What’d he look like?”

“His hair was kind of blond, like he’d been out in the sun a lot. He was clean-looking. He said he’d lost his daughter.”

“You got his name and tag number inside?”

“He paid cash, so I didn’t bother with the tag. I remember his name, though. I’d never heard it before. Reverend Geta Noonen. I said that was quite a name. He said, ‘You can’t ever tell who’s going to wander in from the storm.’ ”

“Remember what he was driving?”

“A gray SUV. Maybe a Blazer. It had some rust on one side. Who is he?”

Wyatt looked at the fire burning on the mountainside and the ash that floated like black thread out of the sky. “Maybe he’s just another rounder scamming a dollar or two out of ignorant people,” he replied. “Or maybe he’s just a guy that likes to get into a young girl’s panties.”

“I don’t like the way you talk.”

“Did you smell a peculiar odor in the room he slept in?” Wyatt asked.

The owner bit down on his lower lip.

“You think that fire up on the hillside is hot?” Wyatt said. “If you see that guy again, ask him what ‘hot’ is.”

THE CHANGING OF the seasons in Louisiana—the changes taking place in the earth, if you wish—were predictable and followed the rules of cause and effect, regardless if the results were good or bad. Hurricanes brought floods; tornadoes destroyed towns; and tidal waves destroyed seawalls. The footprint of the Industrial Age was there in the form of canals that channeled millions of gallons of saline into freshwater marsh and poisoned the root system that bound the wetlands together.

Montana was different. Friday evening at sunset, I sat on the deck with Albert and Molly and Alafair and watched dry lightning strike in three places on a distant ridge. In under fifteen minutes, I saw three narrow columns of black smoke rising from the woods, straight up into a windless pink-tinted sky. The spring had been long and cold, with more than average rainfall, and snow was packed deep inside the trees on the peaks of the Bitterroots. How could a green forest, one damp with snowmelt, be set ablaze so easily?

“Because we’ve been in a drought since 1990,” Albert said. He was drinking Scotch and soda, more of it than he should. “Because insects kill more trees than wildfires do. The drought arrives first, then the pine beetles. Dry lightning provides the ignition. There’re places over in Idaho that look like they were sprayed with Agent Orange.”

“I think I’ll take a walk. How about you?” I said to Molly and Alafair.

“Maybe Albert might like to go,” Molly said.

“Dave thinks I rain on parades,” Albert said.

“He does not,” Molly said.

“Go on. I’m going to fix another drink,” he said.

We walked down the long drive and under the arch onto the road. The temperature was dropping, the sun’s afterglow fading beyond the mountains.

“Why didn’t you invite Albert to come along?” Molly asked.

“He’s in one of his moods. I didn’t want to get into an argument with him.”

“This is the third anniversary of his wife’s death.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“He told me this afternoon.”

“I’ll go back.”

“No, he’ll be all right. Don’t let him think we feel sorry for him.”

“No, I was wrong. I’m not going to drop it,” I said.

I walked back up the driveway. The valley was almost completely dark. I could hear the chain tinkling on the gate and the horses nickering and bolting in the north pasture. The wind had come up and was blowing in the cottonwoods by the creek bed, but I couldn’t smell smoke or detect any other cause that might agitate the horses.