Page 49 of Hell and Halos

“That’s two!”

Most of it goes right over my head. But I know the word call. You call a bet. You call it due. Somebody at the table says all of it, now, and either you got it or you don’t.

The Whites don’t.

Turns out the richest family in Miles City didn’t own a damn thing. They borrowed against their stock, and their stock was riding on oil, and the oil was riding on water trucks that quit showin' up Friday.

Now the bank wants paid. Today.

The suits on TV say the market stops every time it falls too fast, to give everybody a minute to breathe.

But nobody in those boardrooms is breathin’.

They’re on the phone. Callin’ banks. Callin’ oil men. Callin’ anybody with money who might throw them a rope before the next bell. And nobody’s pickin’ up.

Money that was there at breakfast is gone by eight.

Fake money, just like I figured.

Then I notice Cash’s phone, face down on the coffee table, buzzin’. It buzzes through the whole halt. It buzzes again through the next one.

“That’s three!” Wyatt yells, and Cash says, “Wyatt,” without lookin’ away from the screen, and that’s the end of the cheerin’.

Cash doesn’t touch the phone. Doesn’t even look at it. Elbows on his knees, eyes on the suits, same face he wears watchin’ cattle prices. And I don’t need to understand stocks to understand that. There’s only one man in Montana who can stop this, and he’s sittin’ on Eleanor’s couch, not pickin' up.

I paid cash for my bike. Every man who ever rode with me owns what he rides. And this mornin’, sittin’ in one of Eleanor’s wingbacks, I figure that makes me richer than every White in Montana.

The halts keep comin’. I quit countin’ after Wyatt does. The sun moves across the rug, and the suits on TV change ties, and somewhere around nine-thirty a new word comes up on the screen.

Downgraded.

The fella in the blue tie says junk, and says it slow, like it’s a diagnosis. No bank’s comin’. No oil man’s comin’. Everybody who might’ve saved them has already looked and walked away.

Cash leans back on the couch.

First time all mornin’.

That’s when Savannah and Mercy come down the stairs, still in pajamas, hair a mess, and Cash picks up the remote and mutes the suits like they’re a commercial.

Mercy says she’s starvin’. Savannah crosses the room and sits on my lap for a minute, warm and quiet, her head on my shoulder, and nobody says a word about it.

Nobody says a word about anythin’.

Not a damn word about how they were both kidnapped yesterday. Not a damn word about how Cash and Wyatt carried Marcus White Jr.'s body up from the archive wrapped in a tarp and threw him into the toaster.

Mercy looks fine. Better than fine. She’s pickin’ at a hangnail and askin’ Wyatt if he’s drunk already.

“Where the hell is breakfast?” Wyatt says.

And just like that, everybody gets up. Savannah, Mercy, Wyatt, me. Everybody but Cash, who stays on the couch with the TV on mute and his phone on the table.

Breakfast is in the dinin’ room, on platters, like it always is. Bacon. Eggs. Biscuits. Coffee in the silver pot. Mercy eats like she hasn’t eaten in two days, which, I guess, she hasn’t. Savannah steals bacon off my plate. Wyatt tells a story about a horse that’s mostly a lie. It’s a real nice breakfast. Everyone seems chatty, and happy, and like… this is all normal.

Around noon I go lookin’ for Cash.

The study’s empty. The suits are still talkin’ on mute. Cash’s phone is still lyin’ face down on the coffee table. It’s not buzzin’ anymore.

I catch him through the window, out past the yard. So I go out.