"Son, there's three categories of stupid. 'Stupid,' 'stupider,' and 'stupidest.' But I think you're establishing new standards. Did the doctor have to use forceps on your head to get you out of the womb?"
"You'd love Texas, Sheriff."
"That's not a compliment, is it?"
"Search me," I said, and walked ba
ck to my truck.
Behind me, I heard his nylon line zing off the reel, his metal lure rattling through the shining air.
An hour later I answered the phone at Doc's house.
"I ain't ever seen a place this beautiful, Billy Bob. I cain't wait to hit the stream," the voice on the other end said.
"Lucas?"
"Yeah. We're at Rock Creek. We need directions out to Doc's place."
"We?"
"Temple and me. My drilling rig shut down. You said to come out if I could get some time off."
I tried to remember the conversation but could not. My innocent, wonderful, talented, and vulnerable son, why did you have to come here now?
"Temple's with you?" I said.
"Yeah, what's wrong?"
Temple Carrol was the private investigator I relied on in my law practice. But she was a lot more than that, and our relationship was one that neither of us had ever been able to define.
"I didn't tell her to come up here," I said.
"Since when do you have to tell her anything?"
My head was throbbing.
"Lucas-" I began.
"Maisey called her. So did Doc. He said Maisey's real messed up in the head. Who are these guys who raped her?"
"You stay out of this stuff, Lucas."
"I'm gonna put Temple on the phone. Thanks for the welcome to Montana," he said.
Chapter 11
Temple stood in the dusk by the side of the Ford Explorer she drove, her face obviously fatigued by the long drive from Deaf Smith and now my inept-ness in her presence. Temple had been a gunbull in Angola Prison in Louisiana, a patrolwoman in Dallas, and a sheriff's deputy in Fort Bend County in Southeast Texas. She had chestnut hair and dressed like a tomboy and had never lost the baby fat on her hips and arms. Her level of loyalty was ferocious. But so was her demand on the loyalty of others.
Lucas had already unloaded his things and was pegging up a tent among the trees by the river.
"Maisey and Doc didn't tell you I was coming up with Lucas?" she asked.
"No. But I'm glad you did," I said.
"I'm going to check into a motel in Missoula."
"There's room inside."