Cold Bullets and Hot Babes: Dark Crime Stories by Arlette Lees Page A

repairing farm equipment. We had dinner at Denny’s before heading back to the ranch.
    A week after our trip to Phoenix, Deputy Wittler pulled up in his patrol car, sending a big dust cloud over the corrals. Duke was fiddling with the engine of an old tractor and Dan and I were throwing down some flakes of hay for the horses.
    “Any word on Heidi?” asked Dan.
    “That’s what I was going to ask you,” said Jason.
    “Not word one on Heidi but Gaylord is up Idaho way.”
    “We gotta do something permanent about them kids. Can’t have CPS crawling down my neck, Mr. Wellstone.”
    “Seems to me they’re doing right fine where they are. I feed ’em right and their grades are up.”
    “You seem to be the only relation they got.”
    “Seems so.”
    “Their uncle, right?”
    “That’s a fact.”
    “And which side of the family would that be on, sir?”
    The men stood in silence for a moment, their eyes locked and unwavering. The way they looked at each other made me a bit edgy.
    Finally Uncle Dan said, “I’m closest to the mother.”
    Jason looked at the toe of his boot and kicked up a puff of dust.
    “That’s good enough for me, Mr. Wellstone. Have you considered filing a missing person’s report on Heidi?”
    “Couldn’t hurt.”
    “Let’s give it another week or so. I’d hate to do all that paperwork and find out she was just shacked up somewhere.”
    That Christmas Duke got a fully loaded tool box and I got a breeding pair of Australian rabbits. We got new coats and gloves and riding boots. We saddled up and rode out to Blue Canyon and ate canned chili around a campfire. It was the best Christmas we ever had.
    The winter months passed slowly like winter always does. One morning Duke and I rode the horses through a light snowfall to the mailbox at the end of the driveway.
    “If they come back, I’m not going,” said Duke. I knew what he meant.
    “Me neither,” I said. “I never want to leave the ranch.”
    He looked toward the horizon. “I want to see the world.”
    Dan took us to see Dr. Moss when my burn scars started acting up. They got worse in cold weather and before it rained, just like old people’s creaky joints.
    Duke’s ulcer was healed, but he often cried out in his sleep and woke in a cold sweat. Dr. Moss prescribed ointment for my back and told us kids to go to the waiting room while she had a word with our uncle. I listened on the other side of the door.
    “God knows what psychological damage those miscreants have inflicted on those children,” she said. “If they return I’ll have them incarcerated.”
    When they neared the door, I jumped into an orange plastic chair and snatched up a magazine.
    “ Mechanics Illustrated ?” said Dan, when he saw me.
    “It’s more interesting than you might think,” I said.
    “Especially when read upside down.”
    Duke laughed so hard he almost fell off his chair.
    It was a relief to have Heidi out of our lives, but given that Gaylord was more shiftless than down right mean, I missed his bad jokes and the way he used to ruffle our hair. Then, as the years passed, all I could recall was a man disappearing into a wind-swept night and a wild-haired woman thrashing her head against a patrol car window.
    It was the summer between eleventh and twelfth grade when I drove the pickup into the yard and saw a woman with long black hair drinking from the hose in the garden. There was a bedroll and backpack at her feet. She paid me no mind. I figured her for an illegal seeking shade and made no acknowledgment as I walked past her into the house.
    A man sat at the table with Dan. Something about him looked vaguely familiar.
    “Say hello to your dad,” said Dan. I was caught off guard and couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say. He looked half the size and twice the age of the man I remembered. He had broken capillaries on his nose and a tooth missing up front.
    “So, you’re driving now,” he said.
    “Have been for a while.”
    “Dan