Light of the World (Dave Robicheaux 20)

Just before the clip ended, a hand placed a note in front of the lens. The note read, If they only knew.

“You’d better come in here and look at this, Clete,” Gretchen said. She replayed the video while he looked over her shoulder.

“Where’d you get this?” he said.

“From Asa Surrette.”

“Are you kidding?”

“He left it for me in a mine by the Idaho border. Do you recognize anybody on the screen?”

“No. Who are they?”

“His next victims. I called the FBI and the sheriff’s department in Mineral County. I suspect the feds will be out here soon. Give them the thumb drive and tell them to go fuck themselves.”

“Where are you going?”

“To find Wyatt Dixon,” she replied.

“What for?”

“I think Surrette is after him.”

“Why is Surrette interested in Dixon?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Nobody in his right mind would want Wyatt Dixon as an enemy.”

“Last night I bruised up Caspian Younger and Jack Boyd a little bit. I think Younger was setting me up.”

“This was over his wife?”

Clete ignored the question. “Boyd was carrying a drop,” he said. “There’s something else I should mention.”

“What?” she asked.

“Felicity and I might get married. One thing bothers me, though: Her husband says she got it on with the old man.”

“With Love Younger?”

“That’s what he said.”

“What did she say?”

“What she always says: Her husband is a liar. I believe her. I think.”

“Nobody can get in this much trouble,” she said.

“I was trying to be straight with you. I wanted to bust up Jack Boyd worse than I did. It wasn’t because he was out to clip me, either. He called you ‘butch’ up by the cave, and his friend Bill Pepper kidnapped and assaulted you. So I made sure he’ll be taking his nutrients through a straw for a while. If I see him again, I may finish the job.”

She opened a tin of Altoids and placed one on her tongue. “What am I going to do with you?” she said.

“Nothing. I’m your father. It’s the other way around. You need to understand that, Gretchen.”

“You’re an absolute mess,” she said. She stood up on her toes and kissed him on the forehead. “Don’t let the feds throw you a slider. They’d like to jam both of us.”

THE RODEO AND county fairgrounds were midway down in the Bitterroot Valley. All week an army of carnival people had been erecting the Ferris wheel, the Kamikaze, the Tilt-A-Whirl, the Zipper, the pirate ship, the fun house, the merry-go-round, planes that swung on cables, and a miniature train that ran on a looping track never over five feet from the ground. The sun was still high in the western sky when Wyatt returned from a concession trailer and sat down at a table under a cottonwood beside Bertha Phelps, a paper plate loaded with chili dogs in each hand. Indians wearing beaded costumes strung with feathers and tinkling with bells walked past them to a huge open-sided tent where the snake dance was about to begin. Wyatt popped open two cans of Pepsi and set them on the table.

“You know what rodeo people call Christmastime?” he asked.