Bitterroot (Billy Bob Holland 3)

"I'm trying to figure out what your idea of a relationship is. I'm sure the problem is mine," Cleo's voice said.

"I'm sorry?"

"Just for a minute, can't you lose that obtuse attitude?"

"I haven't called you? That's what we're talking about?"

"What do you think?" she asked.

"I figured I'd struck out."

"Maybe you decided you'd just find another chickie and cut a new notch on your gun."

"I don't think that's a real good thing to say, Cleo."

"Then maybe we need to have a serious talk."

"What do you call this?" I said.

"Come to the house."

"I have an appointment at the sheriff's office."

"Screw your appointment," she said.

"I'm going to hang up now. Good-bye, Cleo."

I eased the receiver down in the cradle, my skin tingling, as though I had just walked through a cobweb.

Doc WAs BOARDING an Appaloosa and a thoroughbred for a neighbor. I went outside and propped my forearms across the top r

ail of the rick fence that enclosed the horse lot and began to shave an apple with my pocketknife. The barn was made of ancient logs that were soft with decay. Through the open back doors I saw both horses walk out of the pasture, through the cool darkness of the barn, their hooves powdering dust in the air, sawing their heads as they approached the fence.

I quartered the apple and fed pieces to each of them with the flat of my hand. Inside the barn, his pinstripe suit and ash-gray Stetson slatted with sunlight, I saw L.Q. Navarro perched atop a stall, idly spinning the rowel on a Mexican spur.

"You're getting sucked in, bud," he said.

"With Cleo?"

"I'm talking about these skinheads and bikers. Doc was trying to shut down that gold mine. Now he's charged with murder and you're rolling in the dirt with a collection of tattooed pissants whose mothers was probably knocked up by a spittoon."

"I didn't have much selection about it, L.Q."

"That's what we told each other when we was blowing feathers off them Mexican drug mules."

"Anything else you want to tell me?"

He flicked the rowel on the spur and lifted his eyes.

"I'd sure like a couple of ice-cold Carta Blancas," he said.

I WENT BACK up on the front porch, where Doc was trying to tie a blood knot in a tapered leader. But it was obvious he could not concentrate on the task at hand. He squinted at the tippets, missed threading a nylon tip through a loop, then gave it up and dropped the leader on top of a cloth creel by his foot.

"Can you show me all the information you have on that mining company?" I said.

"What for?"

"They have a vested interest in seeing you jammed up."