Part 15 (1/2)

'Did you know Nathan Jones?' Book asked.

'Nope.'

'You were at his funeral.'

'He was a Marfan. One of us. That's why I was there. That's why I cared.'

He sipped his coffee.

'What about you, Professor? Why do you care so much about Nathan Jones?'

'I owe him.'

The sheriff grunted. 'Well, I never crossed paths with him. Must not have done criminal defense work.'

'Oil and gas. Mostly gas.'

'Lot of that going around these days.'

He drank his coffee.

'I worked up the accident scene myself, Professor. No signs of foul play. Everything I saw said it was just an accident. So that was my official cause of death: accidental. We get half a dozen of these car crashes every year, main cause of death in Presidio County, right after old age and boredom.'

'Sheriff, have you ever heard anything about fracking contaminating the groundwater?'

'Nope. No brown water, no one's been lighting their tap water on fire like I seen on TV. We still drink the water, don't need to pay extra to have it served in a bottle.'

He held up his cup of coffee.

'Tap water.'

Nadine frowned at her coffee cup. The sheriff noticed and half smiled.

'But environmentalists been crawling all over West Texas, trying to prove up contamination, which would be a pretty serious matter around here.'

'Because of the water?'

'Because of the jobs. Fracking brought jobs to Marfa, Professor, good jobs for good ol' boys. When you got a family to feed, you don't worry about a little a.r.s.enic in your drinking water.'

Nadine's eyes got wide; the sheriff chuckled.

'Look, Professor, I don't want to drink frack fluids either, but I've never heard anyone complaining about contamination. And trust me, folks would call us-h.e.l.l, we're the only thing resembling authority in Presidio County. d.a.m.n near four thousand square miles we cover.'

'Nathan said he had proof.'

'Find it.'

He replaced the letter inside the envelope and flipped it across the desk to Book.

'In the meantime, I wouldn't go waving that letter around town, Professor. You're threatening a lot of people's jobs. Folks around here don't abide outsiders stirring up trouble.'

'Not the first time I've heard that.'

'I don't want it to be the last time.'

The two men regarded each other for a long moment.

'May I see the autopsy report?' Book asked.

The sheriff grunted again, which apparently was a basic form of communication for him.

'Well, you see, Professor, there wasn't enough left to autopsy.'

'Fire got real hot, I expect.'

Book, Nadine, and the sheriff stood in the impound lot on the northern edge of town. The prairie stretched in front of them all the way to the Davis Mountains. Nathan Jones's pickup truck-or what was left of it-sat before them on the dirt ground. The vehicle had been cut nearly in half and burned down to the steel frame. With Nathan Jones strapped in his seat. Book could hear his screams.

'Figure he fell asleep.'

'The rumble strip didn't wake him?'

Rumble strips ran along the shoulders of most Texas highways, grooves cut into the asphalt that cause a vehicle to vibrate if the driver veers out of his lane. Intended as a safety feature to alert inattentive drivers, they were dangerous to motorcyclists. Book always took care to avoid rumble strips while on the Harley.

'Apparently not. He must've been running ninety, ninety-five. Got sleepy, lost control, ran off the road, slammed into a pump jack on the pa.s.senger's side. Impact split the vehicle, ruptured the gas tank, knocked the pump jack loose. Between the oil and the gas, must've been one h.e.l.l of a fire. d.a.m.n lucky the wind was down, or it might've burned half the county to dirt.'

The sheriff grunted.

'Bad way to go,' he said. 'Course, there ain't no good way. I got photos from that night, if you want to see them.'

'No, thanks.'

Book wanted to remember Nathan Jones as the law student he knew, not as a charred corpse.

'Where'd this happen?'

'East of town, north side of Highway Sixty-seven, just past the Marfa Mystery Lights Viewing Center.'

Every evening the hopeful gather at a man-made rock structure nine miles east of Marfa on the south side of Highway 67. When night falls, they stand at the low rock wall and face south. They stare out beyond the runways of the old Marfa Army Air Field and into the dark desert toward the Chinati Mountains, focused on an area known as Mitch.e.l.l Flat situated between the Marfa and Paisano pa.s.ses.

They are hoping to see the lights.

Since 1883 when a young cowboy reported seeing mysterious lights between the pa.s.ses, the 'Marfa Mystery Lights' have drawn tourists from around the country to that very spot. A few see the lights-red, green, orange, or yellow b.a.l.l.s-hovering above the land, darting back and forth, even giving chase-but most do not. But that does not dissuade more tourists from coming. For ninety years, the mystery lights defined Marfa-until Donald Judd moved to town.

The Viewing Center sits on the south side of Highway 67. Nathan Jones died on the north side. Book slowed the Harley and made a U-turn. They rode slowly along the shoulder until they came to a spot where a wide swath of the tall prairie gra.s.s had been scorched bare, as if a wildfire had swept across the land. He stopped and cut the engine.

'He ran off the road here.'