"What did the sheriff want?" Carmen called.
"Come inside," Bobby called back.
We are inside, Reacher thought. But then he saw he meant.
"Come into the parlor."
It was a big red room at the back of the house. It had been remodeled. It must have been a kitchen once. It opened out through the original wall of the house to a replacement kitchen easily fifty years old. The parlor had the same worn paint everywhere, including all over the furniture. There was a big farmhouse table and eight wheelback chairs, all made out of pine, all painted red, all worn back to shiny wood where human contact had been made.
One of the chairs was occupied by a woman. She looked to be somewhere in her middle fifties. She was the sort of person who still dresses the same way she always did despite her advancing age. She was wearing tight jeans with a belt and a blouse with a Western fringe. She had a young woman's hairstyle, colored a bright shade of orange and teased up off her scalp above a thin face. She looked like a twenty-year-old prematurely aged by some rare medical condition. Or by a shock. Maybe the sheriff had sat her down and given her some awkward news. She looked preoccupied and a little confused. But she showed a measure of vitality, too. A measure of authority. There was still vigor there. She looked like the part of Texas she owned, rangy and powerful, but temporarily laid low, with most of her good days behind her.
"What did the sheriff want?" Carmen asked again.
"Something happened," the woman said, and her tone meant it wasn't something good. Reacher saw a flicker of hope behind Carmen's eyes. Then the room went quiet and the woman turned to look in his direction.
"His name is Reacher," Carmen said. "He's looking for work."
"Where's he from?"
Her voice was like rawhide. I'm the boss here, it said.
"I found him on the road," Carmen answered.
"What can he do?"
"He's worked with horses before. He can do blacksmithing."
Reacher looked out of the window while she lied about his skills. He had never been closer to a horse than walking past the ceremonial stables on the older army bases that still had them. He knew in principle that a blacksmith made horseshoes, which were iron things horses had nailed to their feet. Or their hoofs. Hooves? He knew there was a charcoal brazier involved, and a bellows, and a great deal of rhythmic hammering. An anvil was required, and a trough of water. But he had never actually touched a horseshoe. He had seen them occasionally, nailed up over doors as a superstition. He knew some cultures nailed them upward, and some downward, all to achieve the same good luck. But that was all he knew about them.
"We'll talk about him later," the woman said. "Other things to talk about first."
Then she remembered her manners and sketched a wave across the table.
"I'm Rusty Greer," she said.
"Like the ballplayer?" Reacher asked.
"I was Rusty Greer before he was born," the woman said. Then she pointed at Bobby. "You already met my boy Robert Greer. Welcome to the Red House Ranch, Mr. Reacher. Maybe we can find you work. If you're willing and honest."
"What did the sheriff want?" Carmen asked for the third time.
Rusty Greer turned and looked straight at her.
"Sloop's lawyer's gone missing," she said.
"What?"
"He was on his way to the federal jail to see Sloop. He never got there. State police found his car abandoned on the road, south of Abilene. Just sitting there empty, miles from anywhere, keys still in it. Situation doesn't look good."
"Al Eugene?"
"How many lawyers you think Sloop had?"
Her tone added: you idiot. The room went totally silent and Carmen went pale and her hand jumped to her mouth, fingers rigid and extended, covering her lips.
"Maybe the car broke down," she said.
"Cops tried it," Rusty said. "It worked just fine."
"So where is he?"
"He's gone missing. I just told you that."
"Have they looked for him?"
"Of course they have. But they can't find him."
Carmen took a deep breath. Then another.
"Does it change anything?" she asked.
"You mean, is Sloop still coming home?"
Carmen nodded weakly, like she was terribly afraid of the answer.
"Don't you worry none," Rusty said. She was smiling. "Sloop will be back here Monday, just like he always was going to be. Al being missing doesn't change a thing. The sheriff made that clear. It was a done deal."
Carmen paused a long moment, with her eyes closed, and her hand on her lips. Then she forced the hand down and forced the lips into a trembling smile.
"Well, good," she said.
"Yes, good," her mother-in-law said.
Carmen nodded, vaguely. Reacher thought she was about to faint.
"What do you suppose happened to him?" she asked.
"How would I know? Some sort of trouble, I expect."
"But who would make trouble for Al?"
Rusty's smile thinned to a sneer.
"Well, take your best guess, dear," she said.
Carmen opened her eyes. "What does that mean?"
"It means, who would want to make trouble for their lawyer?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I do," Rusty said. "Somebody who buys them a big old Mercedes Benz and gets sent to jail anyhow, that's who."
"Well, who did that?"
"Anybody could have. Al Eugene takes anybody for a client. He has no stan-dards. He's halfway to being plain crooked. Maybe all the way crooked, for all I know. Three quarters of his clients are the wrong sort."
Carmen was still pale. "The wrong sort?"
"You know what I mean."
"You mean Mexican? Why don't you just come right out and say it?"
Rusty was still smiling.
"Well, tell me different," she said. "Some Mexican boy gets sent to jail, he doesn't just stand up and accept his punishment like we do. No, he blames his lawyer, and he gets all his brothers and his cousins all riled up about it, and of course he's got plenty of those come up here after him, all illegals, all cholos, all of them in gangs, and now you see exactly how that turns out. Just like it is down there in Mexico itself. You of all people should know what it's like."
"Why should I of all people? I've never even been to Mexico."
Nobody replied to that. Reacher watched her, standing up shaken and proud and alone like a prisoner in the enemy camp. The room was quiet. Just the thump and click of the old air conditioner running somewhere else.
"You got an opinion here, Mr. Reacher?" Rusty Greer asked.
It felt like a left-field question in a job interview. He wished he could think of something smart to say. Some diversion. But it wouldn't help any to start some big clumsy fight and get himself thrown off the property inside the first ten minutes.
"I'm just here to work, ma'am," he said.
"I'd like to know your opinion, all the same."
Just like a job interview. A character reference. Clearly she wanted exactly the right sort of person shoveling horseshit for her.
"Mr. Reacher was a cop himself," Carmen said. "In the army."
Rusty nodded. "So what's your thinking, ex-army cop?"
Reacher shrugged. "Maybe there's an innocent explanation. Maybe he had a nervous breakdown and wandered off."
"Doesn't sound very likely. Now I see why they made you an ex-cop."
Silence for a long moment.
"Well, if there was trouble, maybe white folks made it," Reacher said.
"That's not going to be a popular view around here, son."
"It's not looking to be popular. It's looking to be right or wrong. And the population of Texas is three-quarters white, therefore I figure there's a three-in-four chance white folks were involved, assuming people are all the same as each other."
"That's a big assumption."
"Not in my experience."
Rusty bounced her gaze off the tabletop, back to Carmen.
"Well, no doubt you agree," she said. "With your new friend here."
Carmen took a breath.
"I never claim to be better than anyone else," she said. "So I don't see why I should agree I'm worse."
The room stayed quiet.
"Well, time will tell, I guess," Rusty said. "One or other of us is going to be eating humble pie."
She said paah. The long syllable trailed into silence.
"Now, where's Sloop's little girl?" she asked, with an artificial brightness in her voice, like the conversation had never happened. "You bring her back from school?"
Carmen swallowed and turned to face her. "She's in the barn, I think. She saw the sheriff and got worried her pony had been stolen."
"That's ridiculous. Who would steal her damn pony?"
"She's only a child," Carmen said.
"Well, the maid is ready to give the child its supper, so take it to the kitchen, and show Mr. Reacher to the bunkhouse on your way."
Carmen just nodded, like a servant with new instructions. Reacher followed her out of the parlor, back to the hallway. They went outside into the heat again and paused in the shadows on the porch.
"Ellie eats in the kitchen?" Reacher asked.
Carmen nodded.
"Rusty hates her," she said.