Big Sky Blues by Robert Sims Reid

Author:Robert Sims Reid
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Argo-Navis

Chapter 12

Spring. The days lengthened, the sun seemed to take forever finding its way completely into the sky. Low, broken clouds hung against the mountains like a ragged T-shirt. Culp looked over at Bartell, who, as usual, was driving. Neither had said a word in the hour since they’d cleared from briefing. In fact, they’d hardly spoken since the Quentin Davies show aired over three weeks ago.

After months of winter and early darkness, it suddenly struck Culp as strange to see evidence of daytime life around him.

Children waved for fun instead of because they needed help.

Dogs barked and nobody cared.

Nobody was drunk.

Because it was spring, Rudy’s Tires had gone into the business of selling boats, too, parking a pair of Yukon houseboats on the lot. All of the car dealers had flags set loose in the breeze and bare-bones prices smeared on the windshields of cherry used cars. Bicycles were thick as fleas, reminding Culp of a picture he’d seen once of a street in Beijing, curb to curb with a million Chinese clattering around on bicycles. They drove past a McDonald’s on the Rankin Strip. Knots of kids hung around the lot. Girls brushed their hair, using the mirrors of cars, while boys leaned on the fenders and smoked cigarettes. Red and blue and yellow and green cars. Colors. Everything had color in the daylight, color faceted by intermittent rain beaded up on new wax jobs. Flashy pickups with roll bars and fog lamps. Camaros. Z-cars and Trans Ams. These kids, where in hell do they get the money? Burglary, probably. Selling drugs.

Bartell turned off on a side street and drove along the brown, swelling Holt River. Culp watched a long cloud slink over the top of Bride’s Canyon and settle like a long flat gray cat into the valley.

How was it that spring always happened? They’d been lost on nights and now it was April and night was delayed. Rain smudged the mountains in just about any direction you cared to look, but for now, it was not raining on Paul Culp. He lowered the window and sniffed the air, which was warm and fecund. He wouldn’t need his leather jacket until after dark.

Bartell was trying to think of something, anything, to say when they got a call. Ambulance and Fire rolling to 480 Harkins. Heart attack. No life signs. They were less than five blocks away.

This was no bogus alarm, no Chester Boyles special. Bartell kicked it in the ass and bottomed out the car on the first humped intersection he crossed, hoping to Christ that the ambulance, or at least the fire truck, got there first.

But he and Culp were first on scene. Bartell let the overhead lights run to mark the right house, then ran ahead of Culp across the soggy lawn to the stucco house in the middle of the block. He heard the fire truck’s siren and saw the lights a couple of blocks away.

The door was locked. Bartell pressed the bell with one hand and pounded on the door with the other.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.