Backtrack

Chapter 9

The high beams of Wayne Cutter’s patrol car played across the dusty white caliche as he turned off Green Branch Road five miles north of Weatherford.

A chocolate-brown wolf spider the size of his hand hustled across the two-track as if on an urgent mission, casting a long shadow in the headlights.

Cutter tapped his brakes and nudged the wheel to the left, avoiding the furry monster.

He’d done enough killing for the day.

He turned up the lane that led to the small red-brick house nestled on a low hill among a thicket of live oak trees.

Wheels grumbled over the cattle guard, crunched and popped on the gravel.

A dozen Black Angus cow-calf pairs stared at him in the gathering dusk.

His horse, a muscular claybank gelding, grazed on what was left of the pasture grass a dozen yards from the cattle, hardly glancing up. It knew his patrol car.

A flock of guinea hens squawked like rusty bedsprings from atop a nearby toolshed.

The speckled gray birds were better than any watchdog, with the added benefit of keeping ticks and snakes at bay.

Cutter rolled down the window a couple of inches and then killed the ignition.

The guineas fell silent as quickly as they’d erupted.

Cutter sat in the car for a long moment, listening to the chirp of insects and a distant whippoorwill through the oak trees.

The song likely came from a relative of the whippoorwill called a chuck-will’s-widow, but Lucy called them whippoorwills, so whippoorwills they became.

Too many hours bent over shoeing horses to help make ends meet—not to mention years of sleeping on the ground in Special Forces—made him want to groan when he finally opened the door and climbed out.

He fought the urge. His poor wife was going through hell with her cancer.

He could keep his puny aches and pains to himself.

Two cur dogs, one red and one yellow, scrambled to their feet and trotted to the edge of the wooden porch when he approached.

The red one growled. They figured out soon enough it was him and didn’t bark.

Lucy fed them, so he guessed they were here until they got a better offer.

Cutter didn’t mind the concept of dogs. He just didn’t have the time for one at the moment, let alone two bony refugees some idiot had dumped on the back roads.

The sound of Lucy’s violent coughing carried out through an open window.

Cutter wiped a tear from his eye with the heel of his hand and kicked off his boots, carrying them in.

He’d walked through hell today and didn’t want to drag any of it back to his wife.

Hand on the knob, he took a deep breath and did his best to paste on a smile before going inside.

“How’s my girl?”

His wife of over two decades sat at one end of their ancient sofa with an old popcorn tin of yarn on the cushion beside her. She wore a yellow cotton muumuu and thick socks. Chemotherapy had taken her golden hair, giving way to a terry-cloth turban, yellow to match her housedress.

Above her head on the wall was a framed needlepoint she’d done years before when their son, Bodie, was small. It paraphrased Michah 6:8—her credo, one of them, anyway.

Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.

She glanced up from her yarn. “Today was sure a scorcher. That old swamp cooler at the church is on its last legs. Pastor Tim got so worked up during his sermon, I thought he might die of heatstroke.”

“Hellfire in real time,” Cutter said.

In Texas, the weather and religion led many a conversation.

“He asked about you.”

“Nice of him,” Cutter said, leaving it at that. If you were explaining, you’d already lost the argument. He was way too tired to talk church.

Lucy looked at him for a long moment but didn’t press.

“You missed Wild Kingdom,” she said. “I left Columbo playing with the sound off for company. Couldn’t tell you who killed whom or why. Too much Sturm und Drang tonight for my blood.”

They’d lived in Germany for several years as young marrieds.

Cutter could still communicate in the language, but Lucy was a natural.

She read books in German and every so often sprinkled in some Deutsch when English “didn’t quite do.

” Literally storm and stress, Lucy certainly had more than her share of Sturm und Drang in her life.

“Anyway,” she said, “I’d rather read than waste my brain cells on television, but this chemo plays thunder with my eyesight. I have to be content with crocheting and listening to the susurration of leaves sliding off the roof.”

“Susurration?”

“Like a whisper,” she said.

“I’ll have to write that one down,” Cutter said, smiling at her newest ten-dollar word. He watched as pale fingers worked on her newest project, a pair of baby socks.

“You can see to crochet?”

She smiled, too frail to laugh like she once had. “I can do this with my eyes closed.”

Cutter switched off the television and gave the yarn a nod. “Blue,” he said. “Bodie must have called.”

She coughed again.

“Our son wouldn’t mind hearing from you,” she said.

Cutter looked at the half-finished baby bootie. “You’d think he and Ursula would have figured out what causes that by now.”

Lucy stifled a chuckle. “I know what you mean, and I don’t disagree … but you still need to call him.”

“You’re right, of course. Time just slips away. …”

“That it does, my dear,” she said. “What’s that my daddy used to say, Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.”

His heart fell. “Please don’t.”

She blew him a kiss. “Sorry. Anyway, Ursula had an ultrasound yesterday. Looks like we’re getting another grandson.”

“With any luck, he’ll take after his grandmother.”

“Or his grouchy grandpa.” Lucy went back to working on the booties. “I didn’t expect you until way late.”

He glanced at his wristwatch, a Vulcain Cricket she’d given him when they got married. “Eight thirty is way late.”

“I suppose you got your fugitive bad man.”

“Bad men,” Cutter said. “And sadly, they are still in the wind.”

“It’s not like you to give up on a hunt.” She took off her glasses and rubbed tired eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “I hope you didn’t come home just because you’re worried over me.”

Of course I’m worried over you, he thought. He said, “One of the armored car guards is still alive. It was a long surgery. Docs won’t let me talk to him until tomorrow. Not much else we can do tonight.”

Cutter resisted the urge to collapse into his chair. “Have you had anything to eat?”

Lucy nodded, engrossed in her yarn again. “I had a glass of corn bread and sweet milk.”

“Let me fix you some chicken and dumplings.”

“Sit down before you fall down,” Lucy said.

“I put on a pot of pinto beans this morning. I’ll get you a bowl.

” She tried to push herself to her feet but fell into a coughing fit that turned her face a deep red and caused the veins in the side of her neck to bulge.

Cutter crouched beside her, handing her a glass of Dr Pepper from the table beside the couch.

Her shoulders were so incredibly frail, she felt like she might blow away in a light breeze.

“I’m … f … fine.” She dabbed away the blood on her lips. “I do believe this illness robs a person of dignity long before it kills them.”

Cutter looked away toward the kitchen to hide his welling tears.

He had to do something, anything. Watching lung cancer eat his wife alive was like being tied to a chair while someone beat the hell out of her.

Lucy coughed again, quieter now, more subdued. “I suppose I’ll let you get your own beans.” She patted the couch. “Then come back and tell me about your day. I want to hear all of it.”

Cutter returned to the living room a moment later with corn bread and a glass of milk.

He’d taken off his gun belt and unbuttoned his shirt.

A steel chain around his neck carried his wedding ring and a silver medallion with the image of a compass rose.

Another gift from Lucy, the inscription on the back read: Watch your heading.

Lucy moved the popcorn tin of yarn to the floor and touched the cushion close to her. Her eyes narrowed when she saw the glass in his hand.

“You need a proper meal.”

“I like corn bread and milk just fine,” he said. “The beans will keep.”

He’d telephoned earlier from the Sheriff’s Office to let her know he was okay after the events on the highway. News traveled fast in a small town, and he didn’t want her to hear from someone else that he’d had to kill a man.

“Oh, my dear Grouchy Bear,” she whispered. She’d called him her Grouchy Bear since before they were married. “I hope you’re not too troubled by the shooting. Those ladies in that Pontiac are lucky you were there.”

“I’m fine,” he said, meaning it. Vince Millner wasn’t the first man he’d killed. Cutter doubted he’d be the last.

Lucy rested a hand on his thigh. “You know what my daddy said to me the night before you and I got married?”

Cutter had heard the story dozens of times over the years, but he smiled pensively and shook his head, as if it was all new to him. She enjoyed telling it so much.

“My daddy said, Lucy, dear, that Cutter boy is a peaceful gunman—and the world could use a few more of those. You know how Daddy liked to talk philosophy.” She stifled a cough, patting ashen lips with the crumpled tissue, and then curled up against his shoulder.

Cutter fished the last of the corn bread out of the glass with his spoon and then nestled deeper into the tired cushions. He’d wanted to buy her a new couch. Now there was no point. …

Lucy opened her eyes and looked sideways at him without raising her head.

“So,” she whispered. “Bad day.”

“Bad day to be an armored truck guard,” Cutter said. “And that’s a fact. The bastards shot them all in cold blood.”

Lucy closed her eyes again. “People,” she said, disgusted. “Why in God’s name …” She raised a hand as if to ward off what he was about to say. “I know, I know. You tell me over and over not to ask why.”

“I still ask why,” Cutter said. “I just don’t expect a good answer.”

“I suppose people have killed for far less than five million dollars in diamonds,” Lucy said, as if to herself.

Cutter gave a slow nod. “That kind of money would pay off your medical bills.”

“You chase outlaws,” Lucy scoffed. “It’s not in your nature to be one. Now, describe the scene for me.”

“Sweetie.” He sighed. “It was a bloody mess. I—”

Lucy’s eyes flicked open. “Humor me,” she said. “You know I enjoy putting on my detective hat.”

The truth was, talking through cases not only got Lucy’s mind off her illness, rehearsing everything out loud helped him square the timeline in his mind. Beyond that, his wife was incredibly smart. Often as not, she figured things out before he did.

“Bad deal all around,” Cutter said, remembering. “No witnesses except for the wounded guard.”

“Did they run the truck off the road?”

Cutter shook his head. “The driver must have been an inside man. From the looks of things, he just pulled over on the side of the Interstate.”

“And they gunned him down anyway?”

“Yep,” Cutter said.

“Pure evil …”

Cutter heaved an exhausted sigh. “Honestly, Luce, there’s not much else to tell.

Driver stops the truck. Bad guys pull up and shoot both the driver and the passenger, a local man named Foster.

Looks like Foster got off one round with his shotgun before he was gunned down and fell into the tall grass by a culvert that crosses under the Interstate.

Likely as not, the bad guys figured the shotgun blast to the chest did the trick.

Didn’t think to finish him off. They gassed the guard riding in the back and then gunned him down when he opened the doors. ”

“You’ll find the men who did this,” Lucy said. “You always do.”

“Five million in diamonds,” he whispered. “They’re in the wind.”

“So, what if they run?” Lucy gave a little shrug. “They’ll just be tired when you catch them.” She toyed with the compass rose medallion that lay against his chest. “Has the sheriff still got that boy following you around like a puppy? Lafayette something?”

“He does,” Cutter said. “Sadly.”

“It’ll do you both good.” She was quiet for a time, breathing softly, fragile and warm against him.

“I am worried about our little Ethan,” she said out of the blue.

“Not to mention this new baby brother. It makes me incredibly sad to say it, but I fear Bodie’s just not up to the task of fatherhood. ”

“Sweetheart,” Cutter said. “Bodie’s a grown man.”

“It’s unchristian, I know,” Lucy said. “But for the life of me, I cannot figure out what happened to that boy. He lets Ursula trample all over him. We could have helped if that woman hadn’t dragged him off to Florida.”

Cutter could do nothing but nod. Their son was a good kid, but he’d always been the sickly sort.

Cutter had imagined taking him camping, fishing, teaching him how to shoot and ride and even shoe horses, but Bodie had allergies and got a bilious stomach at the slightest hint of Sturm und Drang.

It wasn’t his fault. He seemed to have been born under an unlucky star.

Ursula was about as hardhearted a woman as Cutter had ever seen, but she was easy on the eyes.

Bodie, who’d never had anything close to a sweetheart in high school, fell for the flamboyant girl the moment she batted her eyes at him.

Cutter always assumed going out with Bodie was a drunken dare.

It was a hell of a thing to think about your own son, but if D Wayne Cutter was anything, he was a man who saw things as they were, not how he wished them to be.

Mostly.

Lucy snuggled in even tighter. “Wayne,” she said. “You have got to move to Florida.”

“We can’t move to Florida. Your doctors are here. My job is here.”

“You know what I’m trying to say. After—”

“After this investigation is over,” he said, though he knew exactly what she meant.

“After—”

He cut her off again. “Maybe this second baby will make Ursula settle down. And anyway, who’s to say I would even be able to get a job in Florida?

It takes a while to build up a clientele horse shoeing, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little long in the tooth to start over at some Podunk police department.

I doubt anyone would even look at my application. ”

Lucy shifted a little to glance up at him, blinking incredibly soft eyes. “A peaceful gunman like you,” she scoffed. “You’ll have no trouble getting another job.”

“I wish you wouldn’t—”

She stiffened and then sat up straight. Fierce, like the old days before she got sick. “D Wayne! Promise me you will look after those grandsons. Help Bodie teach them to be good men.”

“Of course I’ll look after the grandsons,” Cutter said. “I promise. Now, can we please talk about something else? I thought you wanted me to tell you more about this case.”

“You’d rather talk about bloody murder?”

Cutter closed his eyes. “Any day of the week.”