"He's dead all right."
Frank Walker shot a hot glance over at Jarvis Lang, his foreman, who was kneeling over Walt Vrbas' broken body. "Will somebody cover him up," said Walker in his gravel voice, and one of the ambulance crew moved quickly to do just that. He was talking to a sheriffs deputy who had anived on the scene about the same time the ambulance crew showed up. Walker and the cowboys were already there when the emergency services anived, all too late to do anything for poor Walt, who was still staring lifelessly into space. "And close that man's eyes," grumbled Walker. "Let's let him have a little dignity, poor bastard."
Jarvis Lang lingered for a moment, eyes fixed on the face of the corpse, apparently mesmerized at seeing death up so close. An ambulance attendant tapped him on the shoulder so that Jarvis would move aside and let him in next to the body, still packed in among the fallen bales. The attendant nonchalantly closed Walt's eyelids and then arranged a white sheet over him.
"Who was here when it happened?" asked the deputy, and Walker gestured with a head toss toward Py. "He was driving," he said.
Py was sweat-soaked and shaken, his heart still pounding madly. Seeing the way Walt lay twisted among the bales, being fearful of moving him, he had immediately set out on a dead run for a farmhouse that was visible in the distance, maybe a mile away. He had thought Walt was already dead, but he hadn't dared to stop running. When he arrived at the farmhouse he found a wife there with her kids and he had her call an ambulance and then Frank Walker, and while she set out for the home of a neighbor, who had a phone, Py started on a dead run back to the field where the broken man lay. But it was all too late. He sat there beside Walt, waiting for help to arrive, but it was nearly twenty minutes before anyone got there.
"So how did it happen?" the deputy asked Py, but Py could hardly find the words to speak. "He ...1...started up the terrace ... Truck jumped ...load shifted ..."
"Shit," Jarvis Lang said, sending a stream of tobacco spit shooting out between his front teeth. Py looked at him, hearing the indictment in his voice, then realized it wasn't only Jarvis who regarded him contemptuously. The other cowboys stood around looking at him too, each wearing the same condemning look. Even Frank Walker. They all looked at him like Walt's lying there dead was all his fault. It was a lynching sort of look. The cowboys didn't much tolerate a guy whose incompetence could get another of them killed. Now it didn't seem to matter that Walt was never one of their kind. Now it was all just judgment and blame. Py hadn't honored the code. He hadn't looked out for the other guy.
"We found this under the seat." One of Walker's cowboys held up a half-empty fifth of whiskey. He handed it to the deputy, who looked closely at it and then leaned forward to sniff at Py. He couldn't smell anything on his breath. Then he went over to where Walt lay, pulled back the sheet, and stuck his nose up close to the dead man's face. Again, nothing.
"Look, we're gonna need to get a more complete statement from you," the deputy said to Py, the tone of his voice comfortably non-judgmental. "I want you to come to the office tomorrow morning, where you can talk to the sheriff." Py nodded that he could. "Do not leave town," said the deputy, who then stepped back to let the attendants pass as they carried Walt's body to the ambulance. Py and the deputy watched silently as the stretcher was shoved into the back of the van and the doors were shut for the ride to the morgue. "If you do leave town you'll be considered a fugitive from the law," the deputy said, a little vacantly. Then refocused -"You'll be a fugitive from justice, and you don't want that. So I'll see you in the morning, okay?"
Py gave a blank acknowledgment to the deputy then watched as the ambulance drove slowly away from the scene and toward the edge of the field, two small clouds of dust trailing off the back tires as it went.
Frank Walker walked over to Py and pressed his pock-marked face right up against Py's blood-drained visage. "I want you off my property," he said in a low, threatening voice. "Get your things and get out. You're fired."
END OF CHAPTER TWO