Swan Peak by James Lee Burke

Author:James Lee Burke [Burke, James Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781416548546
Google: W7v2-54JavwC
Amazon: 1416548548
Goodreads: 3346854
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2008-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

THAT SAME MORNING I went to the post office to pick up our mail, then into Missoula to buy new tires for my pickup. On the way back, I stopped at the cabin where J. D. Gribble lived, just over the mountain from Albert’s house. I had been there twice since Gribble had woken up in the back of Albert’s truck and had seen the man in the mask pouring gasoline on Clete Purcel. In both instances, Gribble had not been home or anywhere on the property that I could see. This time, when I parked my pickup by his cabin, I heard music, first the tail end of “Cimarron” and then “Madison Blues.”

Gribble’s door was open, and I could see him sitting in a straight-back chair, three steel picks on his right hand, a Dobro stretched across his lap. The Dobro was inset with a chrome-plated resonator, and Gribble was accompanying his chord progressions with a kazoo that he blew like a saxophone, leaning into it, totally absorbed inside his music, one booted foot patting up and down on the plank floor. His face jerked when he saw me, and he lifted the steel picks from the strings.

“Not many guys can do both Bob Wills and Elmore James,” I said.

“It was Leon McAuliffe that was the big influence. White or black, they all got their styles from him, no matter what they claim,” he said.

“I wanted to thank you for saving Clete’s life. I came up here yesterday but didn’t see you around.”

“A cougar or a bear busted the wire on the back fence, and some of the horses wandered up the hill. That deal concerning Mr. Purcel is something I’d rather not revisit.”

“Why’s that?”

“’Cause it scared the hell out of me. That FBI woman has done talked it to death, anyway. I don’t know who that guy in the mask was, and I ain’t interested in finding out. I’d just like to get shut of the whole business.”

He set the Dobro on his table and looked around, as though his exasperation were a means to confront spirits or voices that hung on the edges of his vision.

“What I’m trying to tell you is Clete and I are in your debt. You need a favor or help of some kind, we’re your guys,” I said.

He sucked in his cheeks and stared into space. “Mr. Purcel said you was in Vietnam.”

“A few months.”

“You come back with some spiders in your head?”

“A couple.”

“You spend a whole lot of time talking about it with other people?”

“No.”

“How come?”

“Because it’s not something they care to hear about or would understand.”

The sun had gone behind clouds, and it was dark and cool inside the cabin. Gribble pulled the steel picks from his fingers and dropped them in a tobacco can. He wore a denim shirt buttoned at the wrists. He brushed at his nose with his shirt cuff, his gaze turned inward. He waited a long time before he spoke. His manner, his mind-set,

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