“I’m sorry, I wanted to get it straight. Let’s take a ride.”
We drove in my pickup down the dirt road to the two-lane and turned east and followed the creek into Lolo, a small service town at the gateway to the Bitterroot Mountains. The sky was purple and flecked with snow, the neon lights glowing in front of the truck stop and adjacent casino. “The orange pickup. That’s his,” she said.
I started to wave down a Missoula County sheriff’s cruiser at the intersection, but I decided against it. So far we had nothing on Dixon. I rubbed the film off the rear window of the camper inset in his truck bed and peered inside. I could make out a lumpy duffel bag, a western saddle, a long-barrel lever-action rifle with an elevator sight, and a mud-caked truck tire and a jack. I didn’t see a bow. I looked through the passenger window with the same result.
The inside of the casino was dark and refrigerated and smelled of carpet cleaner and bathroom disinfectant. A man in a white straw cowboy hat was at the bar, drinking from a soda can and eating a sandwich. A piece of paper towel was tucked like a bib into his shirt collar. He watched us in the bar mirror as we approached him.
“My name is Dave Robicheaux,” I said. “This is my daughter Alafair. I’d like to have a word with you.”
He bit into his sandwich and chewed, one cheek tightening into a ball, leaning forward so no crumbs fell on the bar or on his shirt or jeans. His gaze shifted sideways. “You have the look of a law dog, sir,” he said.
“Have you been inside, Mr. Dixon?”
“Inside what?”
“A place where smart-asses have a way of ending up. I understand you’re a rodeo man.”
“What some call a rodeo clown. What we call bullfighters. At one time I shot mustangs for a dog-food company down on the border. I don’t do that no more.”
“Were you hunting about five miles up Highway 12?”
“No, sir, I was changing the tire on my truck.”
“You have any idea who might have shot an arrow at my daughter?”
“No, but I’m getting mighty tired of hearing about it.”
“Did you see anyone on that ridge besides my daughter?”
“No, I didn’t.” He put down his sandwich and removed his paper bib and wiped his mouth and fingers clean. He turned on the stool. All the color seemed to be leeched out of his eyes except for the pupils, which looked like the burnt tips of wood matches. “Watch this,” he said.
“Watch what?”
“This.” He sprinkled salt on the bar and balanced the shaker on its edge amid the granules so it leaned at an angle like the Tower of Pisa. “Bet neither one of y’all can do that.”
“Call 911,” I said to Alafair.
“Can I ask you a question?” he said.
“Go ahead.”
“Did somebody shoot you in the face?”
“Yeah, someone did. I was lucky. He was a bad guy, a degenerate and a sadist and a stone killer.”
“I bet you sent him straight to the injection table, didn’t you?” he said, his eyes bulging, his mouth dropping open in mock exaltation.
“No, it didn’t make the jail.”
His mouth opened even wider, as though he were unable to control his level of shock. “I am completely blown away. I have traveled this great nation from coast to coast and have stood in the arena among the great heroes of our time. I am awed and humbled to be in the presence of a lawman such as yourself. Even though I am only a simple rodeo cowboy, I stand and salute you, sir.”
He rose from the stool, puffing out his chest, his body rigid as though at attention, his stiffened right hand at the corner of his eyebrow. “God bless you, sir. Your kind makes me proud of the red, white, and blue, even though I am not worthy to stand in your shadow, in this lowly barroom on the backstreets of America, where men with broken hearts go and the scarlet waters flow. The likes of Colin Kelly and Audie Murphy didn’t have nothing on you, kind sir.”
People were staring at us, although he took no notice of them.
I said, “You called my daughter ‘girl’ and ‘sweet thing.’ You also made a veiled threat about seeing her down the track. Don’t ever come near us again, Mr. Dixon.”
His eyes wandered over my face. His mouth was down-h