Beastly Tales (1989) The Mystery Writers of America Anthology by Sara Paretsky (ed)

Author:Sara Paretsky (ed) [Paretsky, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CLARK HOWARD

Plateau

Tank Sherman felt his daughter Delia’s hand shaking him gently. “Tank. Tank, wake up. Bruno’s dead.”

Tank sat up, moving his legs off the side of the cot where he had been napping, fully clothed except for his boots. Bruno? Bruno dead?

“You mean Hannah,” he said, automatically reaching for his boots.

“No, Tank, I mean Bruno. Hannah’s still alive. It’s Bruno that died.”

Tank frowned. That was not the way it was supposed to happen. He pushed first one foot, then the other, into black Atlas boots with riding heels. He had owned the boots for eighteen years, and they were as soft as glove leather. After he got them on, he sat staring at the floor, still confused. Bruno dead? How could that be? Bruno was supposed to have survived Hannah. Bruno was young; Hannah was old. And it was on Bruno that the lottery had been held.

“What happened?” he asked Delia.

“I don’t know. Doc Lewis is on his way over to check him.” She crossed the little one-room cabin to the stove and turned on a burner under the coffee pot. Getting out a cup, she poured a shot of peach brandy into it. “Will they still have the hunt, do you think? Since it’s Hannah and not Bruno?”

“No,” Tank said emphatically, “they couldn’t. Hannah’s too old. It wouldn’t be a hunt; it would be a target shoot.”

When the coffee was ready, Delia poured it in with the brandy and brought it to him. As he sipped it, Tank studied his daughter. She had the dark hair of her mother: thick and black as a crow’s wing. And the high cheekbones of her mother’s people, the Shoshone. Her light halfbreed coloring and blue eyes she got from him. All her life she had called him Tank instead of Daddy. At nineteen, her body was round and strong. She lived in her own mobile home down the road, and dealt blackjack for a living in an illegal game behind the Custer’s Last Stand restaurant. Tank himself still lived in the cabin where Delia had been born. He had been alone for a year, since Delia left; and lonely for six years, since her mother had died of bone disease.

“Are you going down to the concession?” Delia asked.

“In a minute.” He held the coffee cup with both hands, as if warming his palms, and smiled at his daughter. “Remember how your ma used to raise hell when she caught you lacing my coffee with brandy?”

“Yes.” Delia smiled back.

“She always wanted me to make something of myself, your ma. Always wanted me to do something important. But I guess it just isn’t in the cards. If Hannah had died first, like she was supposed to, why, I could have done something important for the first time in my life. Important to your ma, at least, if she was still alive. And to Bruno. But Bruno ups and dies first, so I’m left with nothing important to do. If your ma was still alive, she’d swear on her medicine bag that I arranged it this way.

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