Justice by Larry Watson Read Free Book Online Page B

kick in Wesley’s direction, and as he did, Frank shoved him, sending Tommy stumbling into the wall. Tommy let himself be carried further than the push’s actual force warranted. “Fine,” said Tommy. “I don’t give a good goddamn. Go ahead and put this on me.”
    â€œNobody’s putting it all on you,” Frank said. “We’re just saying, you’re the one had the gun.”
    â€œWell, the sheriff didn’t say too much about a gun.”
    â€œFigures though, don’t it,” added Lester.
    Tommy rubbed the floor with the toe of his boot and then spit toward that spot. “Shit ass.”
    Frank squatted against the wall, leaning his head back and trying to make himself as comfortable as he could. “And you can leave off that business, telling him who our dad is. We’re not going to do it.”
    Wesley sat next to his brother and looked at his companions.
    Each stared at a far wall or into a dark corner as though he was waiting for something in the room’s shadows to take
shape and lead them out of their predicament.
    On the floor in front of Wesley was a small dark stain. He wondered if blood could have made that mark, and then he tried to push that thought away by concentrating on the stain’s shape. Iowa? Was that its shape? Like the state of Iowa on a map of the United States? Their father originally came from Iowa, and whenever he looked at a map Wesley liked to estimate the distance between Iowa and Montana. Or maybe rust made that stain.
    Wesley held his head very still, trying to determine if he was still feeling the whiskey. The stain didn’t move, and neither did his head, even when a drop of icy nervous sweat fell from his armpit to his ribs. He was sober, for all the good it did him.
    His shoulder still held the memory of Sheriff Cooke’s hand resting there. His hand had felt warm, tender, and for the few seconds it rested on his shoulder Wesley could allow himself to believe that the sheriff meant them no harm.
    None of the cells had windows, but there was a small high window at the other end of the jail. Wesley considered going down there, hoisting himself up, and looking out. What would he see? Another wall? Snow, certainly. Snow, snow, and more snow.
    Three years ago in late December, right before Christmas, warm chinook winds rolled down the Rockies’ eastern slopes, pushing temperatures into the forties and fifties. For five days the western winds blew, and when they stopped there wasn’t a patch of snow left in northeast Montana. Women went coatless, men gathered in the streets in their shirtsleeves, and the
town skating rink turned into a pond of slush. Boys threw baseballs in the streets and their fathers went out to the golf course.
    That Christmas Wesley was in love with Martha Woods, a girl in the class ahead of him at school. Martha didn’t know of Wesley’s feelings for her; in fact, they had no relationship at all beyond saying hello on the streets or in the halls of their school. Nevertheless, as that warm, gusty, snowless Christmas approached, Wesley felt he had to do something to declare his feelings for Martha. At Douglas’s Rexall he bought her a gift, a perfumed powder puff and mirror set, and he took it to her house on the afternoon of Christmas Eve.
    As Wesley stood on the porch of the Woods home and waited for Martha to appear, he could hear the warm wind rattling the house’s rain gutters and humming through the window casements. Snowmelt ran through the streets like bright new rivers.
    At last Martha appeared, but she was with a friend, and the small speech Wesley had prepared could not be delivered in front of another listener. He thrust the package out to Martha, and he saw now how sloppily he had wrapped it—the uneven ends, the crumpled and creased paper, the drooping ribbon. He said, “For you, a Christmas gift”—a phrase that sounded ridiculously formal. No one