Light of the World (Dave Robicheaux 20)

“He called up and invited you to his barbecue?”

“Not quite.”

“Will Miss Piss Pot of 1981 be there?”

“You’re talking about Felicity Louviere? I didn’t know y’all had met.”

“I haven’t. I saw her downtown. Gretchen pointed her out. She carries her nose in the air, literally. She looks like an actress trying to impersonate a world-class bitch.”

“How about it on the language?”

“Yeah, I’d like to go to the barbecue. Quit protecting Felicity Louviere. She’s an opportunistic bitch, and you know it.”

After Alafair ate, she went back upstairs to revise a scene she had written in the middle of the night. There was a haze on the south pasture, as though it were powdered with green pollen; a fawn and its mother were licking a salt block by the water tank. I went into the backyard and looked for the tracks in the flower bed outside the bathroom window. They were still there, deep and sharply defined, even though the sprinklers were on. In the daylight I could also see where several branches had been broken on the lilac bushes, at a height much greater than that of a wolf or a coyote. How could a large, heavy, four-footed creature leave only two impressions in the bed? And what had broken the lilac branches?

I wished I had dropped the wolf in the north pasture when I had the opportunity, permit or not.

Alafair came back downstairs dressed in jeans, alpine hiking shoes with big lugs, and a blue denim shirt with white piping and, embroidered on the back, a huge silver American eagle clutching a clawful of arrows. “Are you sure you want to go out there, Dave?”

“It’s Saturday. God is in His heaven, and all is right with the world,” I said.

“I’m sorry I called the Louviere woman names,” she said.

“Maybe she deserves them,” I replied. “Come on. What can go wrong at a barbecue on a fine day like this?”

LOVE YOUNGER’S RANCH was located twenty miles west on the two-lane highway that gradually ascended over Lolo Pass into the Idaho wilderness. The countryside was riparian and lush and green from the spring rains, the leaves of the cottonwoods along Lolo Creek flickering in the breeze, the lilacs and wild roses blooming, the wheel lines filling the air with an iridescent mist. There were Angus and longhorns and Holsteins belly-deep in the grass down by the creek, and horse farms with Morgans and Thoroughbreds and Appaloosas and Foxtrotters outside breeding barns you expect to see in Kentucky but not in the West. It was one of those rare places that commercialization and urban sprawl had skipped over, and I wondered how many of Younger’s guests—who drove modest vehicles, the bumpers glued with patriotic stickers—believed that they could ever own a ranch in a setting like this; or did they concede that they would always be visitors? I wondered if this was their notion of the American Dream. Or were they like the many who wanted only to touch the hem of a powerful man’s garment, to not only be healed but to elude mortality?

Their cars and trucks were lined up at the entrance for a half mile, all with their turn signals blinking in unison. The arch over the drive was made of historical branding irons and great links of iron chain welded together, all of it supported by two columns of white stones. There was no admission price for the barbecue, no proof of invitation required, except an indication that everyone entering the ranch was of one mind and believed the hallowed spirit of the minutemen dwelled in their midst. The guests of Love Younger came in large numbers, trusting and glad of heart, their children riding in the beds of pickup trucks, all of them filled with joy and expectation as they entered an environment that seemed an extension of a magical kingdom.

Large-bodied men wearing western clothes and Stetsons and sunglasses and boots looked in each car entering the property, but only to welcome the drivers and passengers and point out the best parking spots. There was no need for a martial or police presence on Love Younger’s ranch. A country band was playing on a stage carpentered out of newly milled pine; children rocketed into the air inside the bouncy houses; the smell of drawn beer and barbecued chicken and sliced sirloin and roaste

d pig was mouthwatering. Could any event be grander or more American than a visit to the ranch of an egalitarian billionaire, a patriarch who was of them and for them and who, with a wave of his hand, could wipe away their doubts and fears?

Pennants and flags of every kind flew from tent poles all over a pasture that had been cleaned of animal droppings. The ambience could be compared with the celebratory nature of a medieval fair. It needed only jugglers and flutists and jesters in sock caps and bells and pointy shoes. The elements in the Everyman plays and the caricatures in the tarot deck were everywhere. Death had lost its sting and been driven from the field, and virtue and good deeds and courage and folk wisdom had triumphed over evil. Unfortunately, the medieval morality play required a villain. Who or what might fit the role?

“Check out the art on the T-shirts some of these guys are wearing,” Alafair said. “I think they’re ramping up for a firefight in the mall.”

“Lower your voice,” I said.

“They think we’re admiring them.”

“I mean it, Alf. Don’t get things started.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “Look out there on the road.”

Thirty-five years ago Clete Purcel had assigned himself the role of my guardian angel, and he wasn’t about to resign the job now. His hand-waxed vintage Caddy, the top down, was in the line of vehicles working its way under the arch.

“This is one Clete needs to stay out of,” I said.

“Don’t take your anxieties out on me, Dave.”

“How did he know we’d be here?”

“He called up to the house and asked what we were doing today. What should I have said?”

“Great. Keep him occupied. I’m going to find Love Younger.”

An oversize pickup truck, with smoked windows and huge cleated tires, pulled into a parking spot not far from where we were standing. “How do you like this guy’s bumper sticker?” Alafair said.