“The same,” I said.

“How much buffalo jerky? It’s a buck a stick.”

“Maybe later, ma’am.”

“You notice what it’s like out there? Damn oil painting, those deadbeats park all day and eat their own junk. Darn portable freezers. I could use the business.”

“I’ll take a stick,” said Milo.

“Three sticks minimum,” said Bunny MacIntyre. “Three for three bucks and with the Diet Cokes that’ll be six and a half.”

Without waiting for an answer, she pressed buttons on the machine and released two cans, wrapped the jerky in paper towels that she bound with rubber bands, and slipped it into a plastic bag. “There’s no grease to speak of.”

Milo paid her. “How long has Barnett worked for you?”

“Four years.”

“Where’d he work before that?”

“Gilbert Grass’s ranch— used to be up a ways, on 7200 Soledad. Gilbert had a stroke and retired his animals. Barnett’s a good boy, I can’t see what business you’d have with him. And I don’t pay attention to his comings and goings.”

“How do we get to his cabin?”

“Walk back behind my house— the one with no sign— and you’ll see the cut in the trees. I built the cabin so I’d have some privacy. It was supposed to be my painting studio but I never got around to painting. I used it for storage. Until Barnett fixed it up nice for himself.”

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 16

The path through the trees was a six-foot-wide swath overhung by branches. The black Ford pickup was parked in front of the cabin.

The tiny building was raw cedar with a plank door. One square window in front. As simple as a child’s drawing of a house. Propane gas tanks stood to the left, along with a clothesline and a smaller generator.

The truck’s windows were rolled up and Milo got close and peered through the glass. “He keeps it neat.”

He used a corner of his jacket and tried the handle. “Locked. You wouldn’t think he’d be worried about theft, out here.”

We walked up to the cabin. Green oilskin drapes blocked the window. A square of concrete served as a front patio. A hemp mat said Welcome.

Milo knocked. The plank was solid and barely sounded. But within seconds, the door opened.

Barnett Malley looked out at us. He was taller than he’d appeared on TV— an inch above Milo’s six-three. Still lean and rawboned, he wore his yellow-gray hair long and loose. Fuzzy muttonchops trailed below his jaw before right-angling toward a lipless mouth. Sun exposure had coarsened and splotched his complexion. He wore a gray work shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows. Thick wrists, veined forearms, yellowed nails clipped straight. Dusty jeans, buckskin cowboy boots. A silver-and-turquoise necklace ringed the spot just below a prominent Adam’s apple.

A peace symbol dangled from the central turquoise. More aging hippie than militiaman.