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The man nodded as though he understood. “It’s a big country, wide open and empty. A man could lose himself out here with no one the wiser.”
“I don’t know about that. A stranger would get spotted right off,” Potter told him. “We don’t get that many out here.”
“I don’t suppose you do.” The stranger glanced inside the building, then back to Potter. “Is this your place?”
“No. It belongs to Emmett Fedderson.” He pointed to the small sign above the door that listed Emmett as the proprietor. “He’s around back with the Calders. There was a nasty head-on collision last night on the highway. It killed one of the Triple C ranch hands outright, but the Anderson boy walked away from it with little more than a scratch. Naturally, he was drunker than a hoot owl.”
The stranger’s expression never changed, yet Potter felt his interest lift. “Oh? Which one of the Anderson boys was that?” he asked, as if he knew the family.
Which Potter was ready to bet a whole month’s pension check that he didn’t. Potter gave him a sly look and ran his thumbs under his galluses. “show me just who’s asking?”
The gray eyes turned cool for a half a second. Then the stranger reached inside his windbreaker, pulled out a wallet-sized leather case, flipped it open and held it out.
Potter looked at it. “Logan Echohawk. Treasury Department.” He thought about that for a moment. He’d never had much dealings with the federal boys, though he’d always heard those FBI men were arrogant bastards. The Treasury Department, that was another matter. Just about everybody Potter knew—on both sides of the law—considered Treasury agents incorruptible.
He chortled in satisfaction. “I figured you for one side of the law or the other. You see, I was sheriff here for more years than some men live. Folks always thought I sat around too much doing nothing. But you can learn an awful lot from just looking and watching. You get to know who’s just plain rowdy and who’s gonna be trouble. Usually you can even figure what’s gonna set it off.” He realized he was rattling on, something he had done a lot more these last few years. Not many people listened to him, though. But the stranger did. He was listening closely, sifting through the bits and pieces just like Potter himself had done. “It was Neil Anderson’s youngest boy Rollie that caused last night’s wreck. Which boy are you after?”
“Latham Ray Anderson.” He returned the identification to his pocket.
“Lath, huh.” Potter tugged on his galluses. If he had been in his favorite chair, he would have rocked back to think about that. “I can’t say I’ve heard his name mentioned in years. That boy had a belly full of anger, though,” he recalled. “He hated the farm, and the way his pa made him work like a dog on it. He hated having nothing and naturally hated anyone who did have anything. It didn’t surprise me when he joined the Army straight out of school. In fact, I was kinda relieved. Lath had a streak of mean in him that always worried me. Every now and then you run across ones that just seem born with an instinct for violence. Some of the bad ones grow out of it. I was hopin’ the Army might knock it out of Lath. I guess they didn’t. What did he do?”
/> “We just want to ask him some questions,” the stranger replied. Potter could tell the man wasn’t about to divulge any more information than that, ex-sheriff or not.
“He hasn’t shown his face around here in years—not since his brother Leroy’s funeral about six years back. If he had come around, there’s enough people who still remember him that the news would have spread faster than a grass fire.” Potter paused and looked up at the man, suddenly tracking his thinking and taking it a step farther. “Course, Lath always did hate the hard life his ma had. I remember the time Lew Michels caught him slipping a bottle of perfume in his pocket. Lath said it was a present for his ma. Lew made him sweep floors to pay for it. About a week later his storefront window got broke. It always seemed an unlikely coincidence to me. But you’re right if you’re thinking that. With his ma gettin’ on in years, Lath might keep in touch with her.”
The man smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners, a mixture of amusement and respect in their gray depths. “Not much gets by you, does it?”
“Looking, listening, and thinking has been a habit too long,” Potter declared, liking this stranger more and more. “Don’t know how much information you’ll get out of them. The Andersons have always been a closemouthed clan. None of them thinks much of the government, or any other kind of authority. It’s an attitude you see a lot in folks as poor and proud as they are. It’s a combination that can make a body bitter and resentful.”
“It can do that.” The gasoline pump clicked off. The Treasury agent walked back to the rental car, topped off the tank, and put the nozzle back, then went inside to pay. Within minutes he was back. Again, he paused, his glance running to Potter. “Which way to the sheriff’s office?”
“Turn right just past Sally’s Place, then straight ahead two blocks. You can’t miss it,” Potter told him.
The stranger glanced in that direction. “What can you tell me about the current sheriff?”
Potter’s expression turned sour, revealing a contempt toward his successor. “Sheriff Blackmore likes the badge and the authority it gives him, and he ain’t shy about telling people, either. Too bad his brain isn’t as big as his mouth.”
The information didn’t require a direct response, and the agent offered none, merely nodding. “Thanks,” he said. “It’s been a pleasure talking to you.”
“Hell, the pleasure was all mine,” Potter replied and meant it. It was the first time he’d felt useful in years. With sharp regret, he watched the man walk to his car. On impulse he called out, “Say, if you ever get tired of the government rat race and all the political posturing, you might give some thought to moving here. This country could use a man like you.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” The stranger sketched a wave, then opened the driver’s door and ducked inside the car.
Within seconds the car pulled away from the pump island and onto the highway. Potter watched it make the turn past Sally’s and head toward the sheriffs office. From around the corner came the crunch of footsteps, signaling the return of Fedderson and the Calders.
When they walked into view, Potter studied the long shadows cast by Chase Calder and his son. He thought of the stranger and knew he wouldn’t be awed by the Calders. And he wasn’t the kind to crawl into a man’s pocket just because there was money in it, like Blackmore. Yup, Potter nodded to himself, this country definitely needed a man like him. Too bad he wouldn’t be hanging around.
Logan Echohawk pulled up in front of the squat, brick building and parked the rental car at the curb. His glance was drawn again by the vast and raw plains that stretched away from the town. Stepping from the car, he felt the call of it. He had never been a man who cared much for desks and cities. But in this day and age it was the way of things. Yet always, somewhere deep within him, there ran a touch of the primitive and untamed. Maybe it came from the fraction of Sioux blood in his veins.
He breathed in the smell of wildness that came off the tall grass prairie. In some ways, he could still be called a warrior. But today, he was a hunter, and his quarry was a man. Turning, Logan walked into the one-story building that housed the local sheriff’s office.
Twenty minutes later, a deputy escorted Rollie Anderson into the interview room where Logan waited with Sheriff Blackmore, a barrel-chested man in his fifties with a belly that hung over his belt. Even in orange jail garb, Anderson looked like what he was—a big, strapping farm boy with wheat-blond hair, blue eyes, and a sun-browned face that showed a telltale band of white near the hairline where his cap always sat. A wide bandage partially covered one pale eyebrow, and the effects of a bad hangover were evident in the pasty gray undertone to his skin and the dullness of his blue eyes.
His head came up when he saw Logan, his puzzled glance running to the sheriff. Blackmore waved him toward a chair at the scarred metal table.
“Sit down, Anderson,” he said. “This is Agent Logan Echohawk from the Treasury Department. He wants to ask you some questions.”
“Questions?” Rollie lowered himself into the chair and stared at the identification Logan pushed across the table to him. He wiped a hand across dry lips. “My God, how much more trouble can I get into?”
