The Threepersons Hunt

“A what?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Watchman said. “Kendrick paid out that money to your wife. Why Kendrick?”

Joe puzzled it out. “Well what Mr. Rand told me, you know, he said he couldn’t afford to get his own name mixed up in that. He said he had to fix it so we got the money through somebody that couldn’t be, like, co

“But why did Kendrick go along with it?”

“Well I guess Mr. Rand paid him, didn’t he?”

“What about Harlan Natagee? Where’d he fit in all this?”

“I don’t know nothing about that.” Joe’s ingenuous frown slipped into place.

Watchman switched back. “How did Rand explain to Kendrick the money he was paying you?”

“I don’t know that neither. I wasn’t there.”

“Didn’t Kendrick ever say anything to you about it?”

“No, man. That money didn’t start until I went in.”

“Then you don’t have any real way to prove the money came from Rand, do you.”

“Well look, he told me I’d get the money and then I got the money. You put that together for yourself.”

Watchman reached behind him and picked up the magnum rifle. It was heavy with a great carved wooden butt-stock. The thick telescope had black caps over both lenses. There was a little dust on the piece, clinging to the oil. Watchman said, “Who was this for, then? Rand or Harlan?”

Joe looked up and his eyes changed just a little. In that instant Watchman sensed weight behind him; the reflexes turned him around and Da

The hammers were cocked.

6.

It was a range at which two loads of 12-gauge buck would tear the head off your shoulders. Watchman froze.

Da

Watchman slowly laid the automatic pistol on the ground and pushed it away from him with his foot. Sanada said, “Drop that magnum too, man.”

Joe Threepersons said, “It ain’t loaded. He took the shells out of it.”

“Put it down anyway,” Sanada said and Watchman obeyed. Sanada came inside. “You shouldn’t leave that Volvo around like that where folks can spot it. I knowed you was here.”

Joe bent over. He stretched his hand to the rifle and dragged it to him and started picking up the cartridges. His movements destroyed most of the patterns of the sand-painting and Watchman became aware that Rufus Limita had stopped humming.

“We got him,” Sanada said. “Now what do we do with him?”

“Maybe just hang onto him while I get clear,” Joe said.

“Yeah. Then he goes and gets a warrant on all of us for obstructing justice and kidnapping a police officer. Sometimes you don’t think too straight, Joe.”

“What do you want to do then? Kill him? Man he ain’t done nothing to get killed for.” Joe glanced at Will Luxan and the old man said something in Apache and after that all of them talked in their own tongue. The sounds were familiar but the words meant nothing to Watchman. It was like a bad dream in which everything looked real and natural but nothing was comprehensible.

Watchman glanced at the pistol but Sanada’s shotgun never wavered. He couldn’t fight that kind of drop.

His mind worked quickly and clearly but his thoughts seemed to focus on irrelevant abstractions. Sanada had spotted the Volvo along the roadside. Had he got out of the Jeep wagon and sent the others on their way? Or were the others out there on the hillside watching? More likely they had gone on to work. But Sanada didn’t need any help, the shotgun was all the authority he needed.

The talk paused and Watchman cleared his throat. “Think about it, Joe. You could turn yourself in now and clear yourself. You’ll be a free man soon enough. Cut loose now and you’ll be a fugitive for whatever’s left of your life.”

The side of Sanada’s mouth curled up; no one made any other response but Will Luxan launched into a passionate speech in Apache; he addressed himself mainly to Rufus Limita but he kept glancing at Joe while he spoke.

Joe began to shake his head with resolute negation and before Luxan stopped talking Joe picked up the loaded magnum rifle and got his feet under him. Sweat broke out like gel on hot dynamite across his face; he stumbled but kept his feet and when Luxan stopped in mid-sentence Joe said something brief and decisive. Luxan did not speak again. Joe carried the rifle around behind Da

“No,” Watchman said. “I’ll find you again. It’s only a question of whether that happens before or after you get killed.”

“Ain’t nobody getting a chance to kill me,” Joe said. “But if they did it wouldn’t be no great loss to anybody.” Then he went out.

7.

No one spoke; no one moved. Watchman heard Joe’s feet crunch across the weedy yard and there was some crashing around, things being flung aside. Then there was the grind of a starter and the chug of a low-geared engine that could only be the Land Cruiser. Its tires crushed the ground for a while and diminished and finally the sound was absorbed by distance.

Watchman said, “How long do we sit here?”

“A while,” Da

“You were right about one thing. All three of you are up against pretty serious charges.”

“I guess sometimes you can’t go by that,” Sanada said ruefully. After that no one talked for quite a while.

Watchman looked at Rufus Limita’s granulated features and the medicine man returned his scrutiny without guile. The three of them sat cross-legged in a loose circle around Watchman; none of them seemed especially perturbed but that was the role they were playing—patience was one of the oldest traditions.

The time ticked by.

8.

They held him more than three hours. At the end of it Da

They dropped Watchman at the roadside by his Volvo. Sanada unloaded the pistol and gave it back to him. “You go

“Maybe.”

“Well when it comes to these two here, I’d kind of like for you to remember it wasn’t neither of them that held no gun on you.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

“You do that,” Sanada said. His gaze was intent but there was no heat in it. Luxan and Rufus Limita hadn’t got out of the car; they sat in the front seat watching through the windshield. Sanada eased the two shotgun hammers down to safety-cock and slid the gun into the car through the open back window. “I guess you’ll know where to find me. I ain’t going nowhere.”

He watched Sanada get into the car. It went away toward Whiteriver and he walked over to the Volvo.

The left rear tire was flat. There didn’t seem to be any puncture. They had opened the valve with a toothpick and let the air out of it. The spare in the trunk hadn’t been fooled with. This time they hadn’t meant to set him afoot, just delay him a little more. That other time he was pretty sure now that it had been Jimmy Oto who’d shot out the four tires of his HP cruiser. Jimmy had been sitting on the tailgate of his old grey pickup at the horse ranch, swigging beer, and Jimmy must have followed Watchman up to where Watchman cut the sign of Joe’s horses. That had been Jimmy’s style. Sanada was a little less crude than that.

He changed the tire and his clothes were drenched by the time he finished; July was getting vicious, even up here in the high hills.

He got the box of shells out of the glove compartment and filled the magazine of the pistol and snugged it back into the Myers holster; he had a look under the hood, even examined the tie-rods and brake hoses underneath but nothing had been tampered with. The shock absorber was broken at its upper end and that was why it set up such an infernal banging against the resonating metal of the car’s body.