In the Moon of Red Ponies (Billy Bob Holland 4)

He blackened his face and hands with dirt, then reached inside his tote sack for a weapon. But his hand found only canned goods and broken glass. He dumped the sack’s contents on the ground. His knife and trade ax were gone.

A circle of flashlights shone in his face, then someone racked a shell into the chamber of a cut-down ten gauge. Johnny sat back against a tree, his bad arm in his lap. Red circles of light burned into his eyes and receded into his brain.

“Squeeze it off and be done with it,” he said.

“Are you kidding? Those shells are expensive. Hold up your wrist, Running Man Who Thinks with Forked Brain,” an FBI agent said.

The other agents laughed and lit cigarettes and talked about the National League pennant race. How about those Atlanta Braves?

IN THE PREDAWN DARKNESS, Amber thought she was having a dream about a violent wind, then she realized the sounds surrounding her were real. The house shook, the doors rattled against the locks, and a glass pitcher on a kitchen windowsill shattered in the sink. She looked out her bedroom window and saw lightning in the clouds, like streaks of gold inside pewter. The air was filled with pine needles blowing from the trees on the hillsides, then the front screen door sprung back on its hinges and snapped back into place as loudly as a pistol report.

She got up from her bed and began closing windows, sure that the rain everyone had prayed for was about to drench the countryside. When she entered the living room she saw a yellow glow flickering on the porch, like the flame given off by a guttering candle. Then the entire yard filled with a warm yellow radiance, burning away the shadows, reaching all the way back to the barn, carving the horses out of the darkness.

Amber pulled opened the door, thinking she was about to see her first instance of ball lightning. Instead, the yellow light constricted upon itself, forming an envelope around an Indian woman wearing a white buckskin dress fringed with purple glass beads that were shaped like teardrops. The wind ripped through the house, blowing pictures off the walls, spinning the Rolodex on the telephone stand.

“Who are you?” Amber asked.

The Indian woman didn’t answer. She pointed toward the south, in the direction of the Bitterroot Mountains.

“Please tell me who you are,” Amber repeated, stepping out on the porch. Her bare foot came down on a cold, sharp-edged object. She stepped backwards and looked down at Johnny’s trade ax and, next to it, his survival knife.

“Where did you get these? Why did you bring them here?” Amber asked.

The Indian woman’s shape broke into hundreds of fireflies and disappeared. When Amber went back in the house, one of the Rolodex cards had been torn from the spindle and lay on the floor. The names on it were those of William Robert and Temple Holland.

Chapter 19

THE NEXT DAY was Saturday. Johnny was in St. Pat’s Hospital, under arrest, his arm pumped full of antibiotics, but I was not allowed to see him, since I was no longer his attorney. Amber came out to the house that afternoon and told me of the Indian woman who supposedly had left Johnny’s survival knife and trade ax at her door. I tried to listen without letting my feelings show, but I could not help but believe her bizarre account hid an element in Johnny’s story she didn’t want to share.

“The Indian woman saved Johnny’s life. If he’d attacked the agents, they would have killed him,” she said. “Johnny thought she’d deserted him, that he’d lost his power.”

“I think somebody found Johnny’s weapons along his route, recognized them as his, and returned them to your house. I also think there’s something you’re not telling me.”

We were in the living room and through the front window I could see ash drifting in the sunlight. Amber walked in a circle, tapped her knuckles on the stonework in the fireplace, and stared at the hillside and the wind ruffling the trees. “I think Johnny might have thrown the Global Research stuff up there on the ridgeline someplace,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“He’s not sure where he threw it. He was almost delirious. It could be anywhere. What was he supposed to do, let the Feds nail him with it?”

“He hid materials from a burglary on our property?”

“He didn’t hide it, he just got rid of it. In the dark. He didn’t know where he was. Maybe it’s not on your property. Why don’t you worry about someone except yourself for a change?”

“I hate to say this, but I don’t think anyone, and I mean anyone, can afford knowing you and Johnny. I’d probably tell other people about this, but I think they’

d recommend I have a lobotomy.”

“He tried to protect you. That’s why he fired you and hired that piece of shit Brendan Merwood. That’s why he tried to get his bail transferred to those worthless tribal bondsmen.”

“I don’t care how you do it, but you get that stuff off our land.”

“I don’t know where it is or I would. So stick your self-righteous attitude up your ass, Billy Bob.”

She slammed out of the house. For the first time in my relationship with Amber, I felt a degree of sympathy for her father.

AN HOUR LATER Wyatt drove his skinned-up, slat-sided truck across the cattle guard and parked in front of the house, his arm cocked on the driver’s window, an empty horse trailer bouncing behind him. “Just dropped my Appaloosa off to get his teeth floated and thought I’d see what you was up to,” he said. “You seen all them FBI and ATF agents up on your ridge?”

“No,” I said, glancing involuntarily up the hill behind our house.