Bitterroot (Billy Bob Holland 3)

"I was baptized by immersion in a fundamentalist church when I was a child. I became a convert after the loss of a friend."

"You want to tell me what's bothering you?"

"I went to bed with a woman. It was a self-serving act, impulsive and badly thought out," I said.

"I'm getting the sense things didn't turn out as you planned."

"That's an understatement, sir."

"I'm not quite sure what we're owning up to here. You mean you acted lustfully or you feel you've used somebody, or you simply regret getting involved with the wrong person?"

"How about all of the above?"

"I see."

"I've done this previously. For reasons that mask a more grave sin in my past."

"I'm not sure I follow," he said.

In the silence I could hear the maple branches sweeping against the roof.

"I accidentally shot and killed my best friend. I did this while we were killing other men. His death is with me morning and night. His specter never leaves me," I said.

The face of the priest remained impassive, but he lowered his eyes so I could not see the sadness in them.

"Is there anything else you want to tell me?" he asked.

"No, sir."

He placed one hand on my shoulder. "You all right, partner?" he said.

"Right as rain," I said, hoping he would not hold my lie against me.

That afternoon a waxed black car drove through the field behind Doc's house and parked in front, the sunlight wobbling like a yellow flame on the tinted windows.

Amos Rackley, the ATF agent, got out of the passenger seat and knocked on the door with his fist, rattling a picture on the wall. He wore shades and a dark suit that seemed to contain and intensify the heat and energy in his body. His gum snapped in his mouth and his jawbone was slick with perspiration.

When I opened the door, he said, "It must be the genes."

"What?"

"Your family. Like a stopped-up commode that keeps overflowing on the floor. First I have trouble with you. Now your kid."

"What are you talking about?"

"We sent somebody to ring the doorbell at a certain Indian gal's house. Guess who answers the door?"

"Lucas?"

"Not wearing shirt or shoes. With long red scratches on his back. I'm surprised he took time to zip his fly."

"You guys should have had jobs at Salem in 1692. You would have fit right in," I said.

"You listen, you arrogant prick…"

But he was so angry he couldn't talk. He took the gum out of his mouth and stuck it on a post and opened a folder full of eight-by-ten photographs. They showed blood-streaked people being lifted from rubble, a woman crying with a dead child in her arms, a white police officer giving mouth-to-mouth to a black man on a stretcher.

"That's the Alfred P. Murrah Building, motherfucker," he said. "I'm betting my career this shit goes back to Hayden Lake, Idaho. But you and now your son have decided to factor yourself in, either because you've got cooze on the brain or you just can't stand to let things alone. So why don't we just walk out in the woods here, you and me, and see what develops? I can't tell you how much I'd enjoy that."