Relentless

A few years back Watchman had been a rookie himself, partnering in a cruiser with a veteran hairbags trooper named Custis, and when they had pulled over a stop-sign ru

“You crazy? I’ll handle it.” Custis had left him behind and gone over to talk to the man and Watchman had seen the money change hands. When Custis had returned he’d offered to split the money with Watchman. Watchman had refused, and Custis had said, “Gee, thanks, Sam, that’s white of you,” and launched into a hard-luck story about his wife and kids and how much he needed the money.

Now Fred Custis was a Captain in Phoenix and Sam Watchman was a line trooper overdue for promotion and assigned to the dullest hick bailiwick in the state, and there was a co

The rusty wreckage of a pickup truck came rattling up the road from the direction of San Miguel and the cowboy driver gave Watchman a cold look on his way past. Watchman wrote up the time and milepost location in his daybook and checked down the stolen-car list but the old Buick wasn’t on it. The car had local plates and he had a feeling he’d seen it, maybe parked up in Fredonia or Marble Canyon. He’d never seen the driver. The man was rawboned, dressed in khaki trousers and a thin windbreaker with sleeves six inches too short for him. He had a sardonic look and he wasn’t arguing, just standing there waiting for Stevens to finish writing up the ticket. Once the man turned his wrist over to look at his watch and Watchman saw a large pale weal of hairless flesh ru

Stevens tore out the ticket and handed it to the man, gave back the driver’s license and registration, and stepped back while the driver got into the Buick and drove away sedately.

When Stevens got into the cruiser he said, “He didn’t even bother with a preamble. Just asked me, ‘How much was I doing?’ I told him ninety-seven and he just shook his head and smiled with half his mouth. Oddball kind of character. He must’ve had something on his mind.”

“Any reason for the big hurry?”

“Said he had to get to the bank in San Miguel before closing time. Hell, he’s got three hours yet.” Stevens was writing up the tag. “Name of Baraclough. The car’s registered to somebody named Sweeney in Fredonia. Baraclough’s brother-in-law, he says.”

“You have any reason to disbelieve him?”

Stevens looked up. The pencil paused. “I guess not.”

“Only?”

“Only—I don’t know. You can lose a lot of money playing hunches.”

“You didn’t push it, then?”

“How could I?”

“Never mind, then. Let’s go on into town and eat.”

2

They drove into San Miguel past the strip signs: MODERN CABINS—EAT—BAR & GRILL—AIR CONDITIONED—SALES AND SERVICE—ALL CARDS HONORED—REASONABLE RATES. It was a company town and it was the only town of any size on the plateau. The interstate highways had bypassed the region and it was untouched by mushrooming population because few living things could survive in it: in winter the snow drifted deep and in summer the heat could reach 135 degrees, and so the twenty-five thousand square miles were mostly uninhabited except for ranches, filling stations, crossroad bars, campgrounds, and the town here that had grown up around the big open-pit diggings of the San Miguel Copper Company. Most of the surrounding land was Federal—Reservations, National Forests. For active men and women San Miguel was a dead dull town; the mine and smelter employed 12,400 workers and a good many of them spent their weekends in Las Vegas, which was one hundred fifty miles away but the nearest entertainment available to them.

The main street was nine blocks of parking meters and facelifted chain stores, a grain warehouse, used-car lots with flapping pe

Watchman parked in front of the Copper King Café and plugged a nickel into the meter. “I’ll meet you inside.” He walked on past Woolworth’s to the corner, turned by the bank entrance and went into Zane’s Jewelers next door. Behind the glass counter the old man looked up from his watch-repair bench, jeweler’s glass perched on top of his spectacles.

“So. You’ve come to ransom the ring? I thought it was about time.” The old man got it out of the safe and Watchman bent over the countertop on his elbows, laboriously scrawling out the check in his crabbed hand. When he looked up the old man had placed the pale blue velvety case by his elbow.

The old man picked up the check and examined it as if he suspected its worth; held it up against the light, flapped it back and forth and blew on it, although Watchman’s pen was a ballpoint.

Watchman popped the velvet lid open and the ring winked at him with all its facets.

“You gotch self a beauty there.”

“I guess so,” Watchman said. “It sure cost enough.”

“Hell, I give it to you cheap. Anybody else had to pay a hundred more. Some of us appreciate what you people do for us.” The old man said it accusingly. He filled out a receipt and pushed it across the counter.

Watchman gave it a wooden look. “At least us redskins only scalp enemies. You always skin your friends like this?”

The old man was hurt. “Sam—Sam!” He spread his hands wide in the Old World gesture of helplessness, head cocked to one side. “You can afford it, you’ve got a steady job.”

“Aeah. The pay’s bad, but the work’s terrible.” He snapped the little box shut and put it in his pocket. “Thanks.” And went outside with his hand in the pocket touching the velvet-covered hardness of the ring case. Going around the corner he was picturing Lisa, her lovely eyes, the surprise of delight that would shine in them; he almost crashed into old Jasper Simalie on the bank steps.

“Jesus, Tsosie, you want to look out where you are going.” Old Jasper was gri

“Yah’a’teh, Jasper?”

Jasper Simalie still had a full bush of hair, grayshot and thick but very short; he had a big round Navajo face, deep square brackets creasing it right down past the mouth into the big dependable jaw. He had put on a few pounds since they had measured him for his guard’s uniform and he was begi