Echo Burning

Reacher was silent for a long moment. Then he nodded.

"O.K.," he said. "I wouldn’t want to intrude."

Rusty smiled and Bobby avoided his eye. They walked into the house and Reacher went down the steps into the yard, out into the midday heat. It was like a furnace. Hack Walker was on his own next to the Lincoln, getting ready to leave.

"Hot enough for you?" he asked, with his politician’s smile.

"I’ll survive," Reacher said.

"Going to be a storm."

"So people say."

Walker nodded. "Reacher, right?"

Reacher nodded. "So everything went O.K. in Abilene, I guess."

"Like clockwork," Hack said. "But I’m tired, believe me. Texas is a big, big place. You can forget that, sometimes. You can drive forever. So I’m leaving these folks to their celebrations and hitting the rack. Gratefully, let me tell you."

Reacher nodded again. "So I’ll see you around, maybe."

"Don’t forget to vote in November," Hack replied. "For me, preferably." He used the same bashful expression he had used the night before. Then he paused at the car door and waved across the roof to Sloop. Sloop made a gun with his fingers and leveled it at Hack and pursed his lips like he was supplying the sound of the shot. Hack slid into the car and fired it up and backed into a turn and headed for the gate. He paused a second and made a right and accelerated away and a moment later Reacher was watching a new cone of dust drifting north along the road.

Then he turned back and saw Sloop strolling up across the yard, holding Ellie’s hand in his right and Carmen’s in his left. His eyes were screwed tight against the sun. Carmen was saying nothing and Ellie was saying a lot. They all walked straight past him and up the steps, three abreast. They paused at the door and Sloop turned his right shoulder to allow Ellie in ahead of him. He followed her across the threshold and then turned his shoulder the other way to pull Carmen in after him. The door closed on them hard enough to raise a puff of hot dust off the porch floorboards.

* * *

Reacher saw nobody except the maid for nearly three hours. He stayed inside the bunkhouse and she brought him lunch and then came back to collect the plate an hour later. Time to time he would watch the house from the high bathroom window, but it was closed up tight and he saw nothing at all. Then late in the afternoon he heard voices behind the horse barn and walked up there and found Sloop and Carmen and Ellie out and about, taking the air. It was still very hot. Maybe hotter than ever. Sloop looked restless. He was sweating. He was scuffing his shoes through the dirt. Carmen looked very nervous. Her face was slightly red. Maybe tension, maybe strain. Maybe the fearsome heat. But it wasn’t impossible she’d been slapped a couple of times, either.

"Ellie, come with me to see your pony," she said.

"I saw him this morning, Mommy," Ellie said.

Carmen held out her hand. "But I didn’t. So let’s go see him again."

Ellie looked mystified for a second, and then she took Carmen’s hand. They stepped behind Sloop and set off slowly for the front of the barn. Carmen turned her head and mouthed talk to him as she walked. Sloop turned around and watched them go. Turned back and looked at Reacher, like he was seeing him for the first time.

"Sloop Greer," he said, and held out his hand.

Up close, he was an older, wiser version of Bobby. A little older, maybe a lot wiser. There was intelligence in his eyes. Not necessarily a pleasant sort of intelligence. It wasn’t hard to imagine some cruelty there. Reacher shook his hand. It was big-boned, but soft. It was a bully’s hand, not a fighter’s.

"Jack Reacher," he said. "How was prison?"

There was a split-second flash of surprise in the eyes. Then it was replaced by instant calm. Good self-control, Reacher thought.

"It was pretty awful," Sloop said. "You been in yourself?"

Quick, too.

"On the other side of the bars from you," Reacher said.

Sloop nodded. "Bobby told me you were a cop. Now you’re an itinerant worker."

"I have to be. I didn’t have a rich daddy."

Sloop paused a beat. "You were military, right? In the army?"

"Right, the army."

"I never cared much for the military, myself."

"So I gathered."

"Yeah, how?"

"Well, I hear you opted out of paying for it."

Another flash in the eyes, quickly gone. Not easy to rile, Reacher thought. But a spell in prison teaches anybody to keep things well below the surface.

"Shame you spoiled it by crying uncle and getting out early."

"You think?"

Reacher nodded. "If you can’t do the time, then don’t do the crime."

"You got out of the army. So maybe you couldn’t do the time either."

Reacher smiled. Thanks for the opening, he thought.

"I had no choice," he said. "Fact is, they threw me out."

"Yeah, why?"

"I broke the law, too."

"Yeah, how?"

"Some scumbag of a colonel was beating up on his wife. Nice young woman. He was a furtive type of a guy, did it all in secret. So I couldn’t prove it. But I wasn’t about to let him get away with it. That wouldn’t have been right. Because I don’t like men who hit women. So one night, I caught him on his own. No witnesses. He’s in a wheelchair now. Drinks through a straw. Wears a bib, because he drools all the time."

Sloop said nothing. He was so silent, the skin at the inside corners of his eyes turned dark purple. Walk away now, Reacher thought, and you’re confessing it to me. But Sloop stayed exactly where he was, very still, staring into space, seeing nothing. Then he recovered. The eyes came back into focus. Not quickly, but not too slowly, either. A smart guy.

"Well, that makes me feel better," he said. "About withholding my taxes. They might have ended up in your pocket."

"You don’t approve?"

"No, I don’t," Sloop said.

"Of who?"

"Either of you," Sloop said. "You, or the other guy."

Then he turned and walked away.

Reacher went back to the bunkhouse. The maid brought him dinner and came back for the plate. Full darkness fell outside and the night insects started up with their crazy chant. He lay down on his bed and sweated. The temperature stayed rock-steady around a hundred degrees. He heard isolated coyote howls again, and cougar screams, and the invisible beating of bats’ wings.

Then he heard a light tread on the bunkhouse stair. He sat up in time to see Carmen come up into the room. She had one hand pressed flat on her chest, like she was out of breath, or panicking, or both.

"Sloop talked to Bobby," she said. "For ages."

"Did he hit you?" Reacher asked.

Her hand went up to her cheek.

"No," she said.

"Did he?"

She looked away.

"Well, just once," she said. "Not hard."

"I should go break his arms."

"He called the sheriff."

"Who did?"

"Sloop."

"When?"

"Just now. He talked to Bobby, and then he called."

"About me?"

She nodded. "He wants you out of here."

"It’s O.K.," Reacher said. "The sheriff won’t do anything."

"You think?"

Reacher nodded. "I squared him away, before."

She paused a beat. "I’ve got to get back now. He thinks I’m with Ellie."

"You want me to come with you?"

"Not yet. Let me talk to him first."

"Don’t let him hit you again, Carmen. Come get me, soon as you need me. Or make noise, O.K.? Scream and shout."

She started back down the stairs.

"I will," she said. "I promise. You sure about the sheriff?"

"Don’t worry," he said. "The sheriff won’t do a thing."

* * *

But the sheriff did one thing. He passed the problem to the state police. Reacher found that out ninety minutes later, when a Texas Ranger cruiser turned in under the gate, looking for him. Somebody directed it all the way down past the barns and in behind the bunkhouse. He heard its motor and the sound of its tires crushing the dust on the track. He got off of his bed and went down the stairs and when he got to the bottom he was lit up by the spotlight mounted in front of its windshield. It shone in past the parked farm tractors and picked him out in a bright cone of light. The car doors opened and two Rangers got out.

They were not similar to the sheriff. Not in any way. They were in a different class altogether. They were young and fit and professional. Both of them were medium height, both of them were halfway between lean and muscled. Both had military-style buzz cuts. Both had immaculate uniforms. One was a sergeant and the other was a trooper. The trooper was Hispanic. He was holding a shotgun.

"What?" Reacher called.

"Step to the hood of the car," the sergeant called back.

Reacher kept his hands clear of his body and walked to the car.

"Assume the position," the sergeant said.

Reacher put his palms on the fender and leaned down. The sheet metal was hot from the engine. The trooper covered him with the shotgun and the sergeant patted him down.

"O.K., get in the car," he said.

Reacher didn’t move.

"What’s this about?" he asked.