She came out of the tall pillars across the front of the Colonial in Woodland Hills and walked up to Raylan and Boyd waiting by the limo. She didn’t look at Boyd. She offered Raylan her hand saying, “Carol Conlan.”
Raylan, his expression pleasant enough said, “Ma’am,” touched the brim of his hat and gave her hand a squeeze. “I’m Raylan Givens.”
“I know, I’ve been reading about you, the one who shot the nurse.”
Raylan waited.
“The write-up in the paper called you brave. Are you?”
“I try to be whatever’s required.”
“Would you give your life to save mine?”
That took him to the heart of his job here. Raylan paused.
“It would depend on the situation.”
“What does that mean?”
He said, “Carol… once I’m dead and gone to heaven, how do I know I’ve saved your life?” There. If she didn’t care for him calling her Carol, fire him.
But she seemed to let it go. What she said was, “Raylan,” in a mild voice, “wouldn’t heaven know if you saved my life or not?”
He had to smile saying, “You got me.”
Carol said, “Let’s get in the car.”
Boyd, way up in front at the wheel of the stretch, couldn’t believe it. The two buddy-buddy already. He watched them in tes he rearview mirror, next to each other on the backseat; Ms. Conlan, her legs crossed in expensive-looking tan slacks, a preppy black sport coat, sunglasses. Raylan sitting up straight but looked at ease, still wearing his cowboy hat, Ms. Conlan going easy on him, not scaring the shit out of him yet. Boyd looked at his controls now and turned the speaker on back there-to tell the driver what you wanted without raising your voice-and kept it low, both their voices coming to him, Ms. Conlan asking Raylan about the nurse who stole kidneys, saying she read about it in the paper.
Y ou know what I’ve wondered?” Carol said. “If you ever got it on with Layla. She was attractive, wasn’t she?”
“You’re askin me,” Raylan said, “since she’s good-looking, did I try to get her in bed?”
Carol paused. “Did you?”
“By the time we met I was on to her.”
She wouldn’t let go of it. Now Carol said, “But if you didn’t know what she was up to…?”
“My boss asked me the same thing. He said if I hooked up with her, not knowing what she did, I’d be laying in an alley missing my kidneys.”
“So you set out to arrest Layla the transplant nurse and shot her instead.”
Raylan waited. It wasn’t a question.
“What was it like,” Carol said, “shooting a woman? Was it different?”
“I can’t say you get use to shooting any body. As a rule, women aren’t into crimes where they’d get shot by people in law enforcement. So we don’t get that many opportunities to shoot women.”
Let her chew on that.
She didn’t seem to mind it, saying, “With Layla, did you hesitate?”
“I had, I’d be dead,” Raylan said.
She seemed done with shooting women and said, “You’ve worked as a coal miner.”
He didn’t answer and Carol said, “Isn’t that true?”
“My boss told me not to open my mouth unless you asked me a question. Yeah, I dug coal, when we weren’t on strike.”
“Do you still think like a coal m linfoiner?”
“I don’t have his problems, finding work, getting pushed around by the company.”
“Your attitude about the companies hasn’t changed.”
“I think miners’ complaints are all real. A miner’s injured on the job, he keeps working or you fire him.”
Carol held up her hand to Raylan and said in a quiet voice, “Boyd, where’d you put the Cokes?”
Raylan watched him look at the mirror.
“They’re on the other side from you, by Raylan.”
Carol said, “Turn off the speaker.”
“Oh, was it on?”
She said to Raylan, “He lies, doesn’t he?”
“It’s his nature,” Raylan said. “I’m looking at him for shootin Otis Culpepper.”
Carol said, “You know I was there.”
“I understand you told the authorities you were by the trailer,” Raylan said, “when Otis fired his shotgun at you.”
Carol nodded, brushing her blond hair away from her face. She said, “I was coming out,” and started to smile. She knew what he was about to tell her but Raylan said it anyway.
“No buckshot hit the trailer where you were standing. There aren’t any marks or dents in it.”
She said, “Then he missed, didn’t he?”
“From thirty feet, where Boyd drilled him.”
Carol said, “Raylan,” and put her hand on his knee. “Your job is to look out for me. You don’t investigate a matter that would bring me in as a witness, I don’t have time. Just watch my back, all right? I think this meeting could become physical.”
She was through talking about Otis, Carol looking out the window now.
“It’s so green… the trees in the hills come so close. Like they want to envelop us.”
“Pretty soon,” Raylan said, “ylanfonou’ll see the ridge going bald, but it still causes people living below to fuss. Now they have rocks and bare earth envelopin them.”
“Be nice,” Carol said.
B oyd didn’t hear them once she caught him listening.
He’d look at the mirror and he’d see them talking most of the whole way to Cumberland on 119. He turned on the speaker-hell with her-saying, “You like, I could direct your attention to some points of interest.”
Carol’s voice said, “No, we wouldn’t.”
He thought of what he’d recite had she let him. Lynch, we’re not goin there, but you might be interested to know Lynch is where colored miners lived. Excuse me, Americans of the African persuasion. Benham now has a tourist attraction. Portal 31, where you can pay to ride down from the surface and see what a mine looks like cleaned up and tidy. There’s a Johnny-on-the-Spot you never saw in a working mine, any the tourists have to take a leak. Finally they were coming to Cumberland, driving past nice-looking houses on the outskirts, Boyd telling them we have arrived. Approaching Cumberland High he pointed to the red and gold flag flying. He’d tell Ms. Conlan looking out the window, “I don’t know if our Indin brothers have complained about it yet, but look at that sign. Cumberland High School, Home of the Redskins.”
C ars and pickups were parked along the front of the school-early arrivals-more cars on the other side of the road. Boyd headed for the lot next to the school, not many cars in there yet, and passed an open space directly in front of the building. Saw a colored guy in a chauffeur suit standing in the space like he was guarding it.
Casper Mott’s driver.
It was. It put Casper in the stretch parked in front of the space, by the walk that went up to the school. There were people with signs standing across the walk from one another. On one side,
COAL KEEPS THE LIGHTS ON, and opposite them on the other side of the walk, was the same sign with words crossed out and one written in that said COAL KILLS.
Boyd saw the chauffeur in his rearview step out in the road and wave his arm for Boyd to come back, Boyd easing the brakes on and heard Ms. Conlan tell him to stop and he did. Told him to back up and Boyd said to Ms. Conlan, “We never gonna fit in that dinky space.” All right, she’d get out here, and opened her door saying to Raylan, “See you in school,” and walked back to the stretch, the chauffeur holding the door open now. Raylan watched her stand there talking, most likely to Casper, before she got in.
Boyd said, “That colored fella drivin, I believe was a fighter one time, from Lynch.”
“Reggie Banks,” Raylan said. “Promoters’d take him around to different coal camps. Pay a miner ten bucks to go two rounds. Reggie had style. Shuffle his feet like Muhammad Ali, fake you out of your jock and hit you with a right he called his stinger. Reggie’d get a hundred bucks to fight five guys in a row, two rounds each.”
Boyd said, “You know him, huh?”
“I fought him back when we were diggin coal.”
“He take your head off?”
“He came close. But we got to know each other.”
They parked in the school lot and walked around to the front of the building, Raylan nodding to miners he knew.
One of them holding a GOT ELECTRICITY? THANK A MINER sign said, “Raylan, I hear you’re on the company’s side this time.”
“Till tomorrow,” Raylan said.
Another coal lover in his sport shirt and M-T company hat said to Raylan, “I’ll meet you out here after, you want. Teach you respect for the company.”
“You don’t see me right away,” Raylan said, “practice falling down till I get here.”
The two sides were yelling things at each other now and Boyd said, “Come on,” and they walked toward Casper Mott’s limo, Boyd saying, “Aren’t you suppose to be keepin the peace?”
“I’m in this, but don’t have a say.”
Reggie Banks stood by the door waiting to open it, saw Raylan coming toward him and said, “Man, you still pickin fights?”
They touched fists, Raylan saying, “Reg, you still off the sauce?”
“Not in two years, nothin. Had me drivin fast till I went to AA and got calmed down.”
“What’re they doing in the car?”
“Waitin till they ready. Or the company lady’s given ’em their bonus, one.”
Raylan heard a tap on the window, from inside.
“Time to let ’em out,” Reggie said. “Man’s too wealthy to open the door hissethes" lf. Somebody told him he was a man of leisure, don’t have to do nothing he don’t want to. Dumb as mud he ain’t schemin with his money. I wonder, does he put on being simple as a child.”
Reggie opened the door and little Casper Mott came out grinning at Raylan.
“Boy, hey, you lookin good. Ms. Conlan tells us you’re her security.” He added, not moving his mouth, “I’d stay as close to Carol as I could get, but not believe a word she tells you.” He reached up and gave Raylan a hug. “Hey, I’ve got a guest with me’s an old friend of yours.”
He turned to the car and the man came out ducking his head and Raylan was looking at his hairpiece shaped for life.
“Mr. Pervis Crowe,” Casper said.
There he was, wearing a suitcoat with wide lapels and a tie and his toupee. Now he was an old friend? Pervis took hold of Raylan’s hand saying, “They’s matters we disagreed on, but I always saw you as a man. Even tellin about my boys stealin kidneys. You kept bein yourself, not puttin on how smart you are.”
Raylan said, “I’m sorry about your boys.”
Pervis held up his hand. “I let ’em become nitwits. They had plenty time to straighten out, so I’m not takin blame. I swear I couldn’t stand to have ’em around.”
“I get Pervis here for the day,” Casper said. “Tomorrow he has to be home-Rita’s coming. She visits every two weeks-set your watch by it.”
Raylan glanced at Pervis listening, not seeming to mind.
“She puts on her maid’s outfit,” Casper said, “and her and Pervis play house all day.”
Raylan looked at Pervis. “You mind him tellin your business?”
“He talks, he sounds like a woman. Everybody knows she lived with me for years. I set her up.” Pervis said, “Rita’s the smartest dealer in the state.”
“All I’m tryin to do,” Casper said to Raylan, “is show my good buddy how to get rich.”
“I got enough,” Pervis said, “without sellin any my properties.”
Carol was getting out of the car now.
Raylan watched her come out telling Casper, “I’m not here to make Mr. Crowe an offer. I’ve told you that. My job is to hear complaints and work out disagreements. Listree coen to what miners h ave against the company that’s giving them jobs.”
Casper was grinning. “Honey, we know each other, we been across the table. You’re gonna set all your girlish devices on poor Mr. Crowe and get him to sell.”
“You mind my asking,” Raylan said, “what you all are talking about?”
“Big Black Mountain,” Casper said, “the highest peak in the state of Kentucky, and Pervis owns it.”