A Black Place and a White Place

by Patrice Greenwood

  “Is unclear.”

  I thought over the past couple of days. “I think it’s fair to say Wesley Roan was hated.”

  Tony stroked my hair. “Is it? Or was he just disliked because he was incredibly annoying?”

  “If you had seen the way Flag Hat looked at us this morning ... he wasn’t just annoyed.”

  “Was he looking at you, or the Roans?”

  “I’m not sure. But when I looked back, he looked away.”

  “Where was this?”

  “In the dining hall. Before you got there.”

  Tony’s eyes narrowed as he frowned. Had Flag Hat been present, he might have trembled in his designer boots.

  “Anything else interesting?” I asked, to distract him.

  “Yeah. The angle of the buckshot indicated the shooter was above Roan. Well above him, like at least ten feet.”

  “So...?”

  “So maybe they were above the arroyo.”

  “Or in the tree,” I said. “But not on the ground.”

  Tony gave a huff of laughter. “Yeah. Why climb up in a tree to shoot, when you could shoot from the ground? But the angles are all wrong.”

  “Why is the big question,” I said. “Why did Wesley run out to that arroyo? Why did the killer shoot him after he was dead, and drag him to a tree and string him up?”

  “Well, stringing him up is pretty obvious.”

  “Is it? You just said that context matters. What if hate had nothing to do with this?”

  Tony leaned his head back to look at me. “What’s your motive, then?”

  “Maybe someone was after his money. You’ll need to check out his will—”

  “That’s underway,” Tony said.

  I paused, mixed feelings hitting me on the subject of Wesley’s will. On the one hand, I hoped every penny he had went to Lisette. On the other, that would add to her motivation for killing her husband. Or having him killed.

  Neither of which I truly believed was possible.

  “Or maybe,” I said slowly, groping after a new thought, “a competitor of his wanted him out of the way.”

  Tony raised an eyebrow. “Battle of the Houston sports bars?”

  “Territorialism. Ancient and honorable reason for killing your neighbor.”

  “Well, I don’t know about honorable.”

  “Or maybe Wesley was trying to blackmail someone,” I said.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “It’s the sort of thing assholes do.”

  “Not all assholes.”

  I had to chuckle at that. Tony rolled on his side and pulled me closer.

  “We’re getting into extreme speculation here,” he said.

  “I thought speculation was the name of the game.”

  “Mm. We could play another game.”

  He ran a hand along my shoulder blades, setting them tingling. My brain sent some happy affirmative signals shooting through me.

  “What game do you have in mind?” I asked, and nipped his chin.

  His answer was non-verbal.

  Some time later, after we’d showered and dressed, we headed for the welcome center to confer with Deputy Trujillo, who had been sending Tony texts for half an hour. I sent a thought of gratitude toward my mother, who had taught me always to pack extra socks and underwear.

  Outside, the sun was gleaming through the overcast, a pale ball in a gray sky. The air was a little warmer It was still bitter cold, so there hadn’t been much melt-off yet. Our footsteps scrunched as we made our way to the road, where the snow was packed by the passing of the plow truck and other vehicles.

  We could get out, hurrah! Home tonight!

  That is, if I could get the Camry onto the road. And if Tony could tear himself away from the case. I glanced at him sidelong. His mood was cheerful, which I found interesting, as that wasn’t how he usually reacted to a murder case.

  But then, it wasn’t his case. He was on vacation, technically. He had just chosen to help out Deputy Trujillo. Maybe he was having fun with the problem-solving, without feeling the usual pressure of responsibility.

  “You up for a hike?” Tony asked, his breath fogging.

  “Now? In the snow?”

  “Yeah—mostly walking. Not on ridges like the Matrimonial Trail. But it might be kind of long.”

  “Oh, well. In that case, why not?”

  I was being flippant, but I got the impression Tony wasn’t joking. Why he suddenly wanted to hike, I had no idea—but I was curious. It must have something to do with the case.

  We reached the welcome center just as Deputy Trujillo was emerging. He wore a sheepskin coat over his khaki uniform, and the Stetson hat he’d had on the night before.

  “There you are,” he said to Tony. “Almost gave up.”

  “Sorry for the delay,” Tony said.

  “It’s OK. My uncle just got here. You need to go in?” He gestured toward the center.

  Tony shook his head. I dug my gloved hands into my pockets, wondering if I’d regret agreeing to hike, because I now suspected what our destination would be.

  The center’s door opened and a tall man in a sheepskin coat over jeans stepped out. He wore no hat; his long, black hair was braided and tied with a single feather; and he was Bernardo Milagro.

  I’m sure my eyes were like saucers. In the daylight, I could see threads of silver running through his hair, and deep creases at the corners of his eyes. He had a well-worn leather satchel slung over his shoulder, and carried a flute in one hand. He squinted at the bright spot in the sky that was the sun, then looked at me and Tony and grinned.

  “It’s the bride and groom. Morning!”

  “Morning,” I said, not quite sure I wasn’t dreaming.

  Milagro looked at Trujillo. “Let’s do this.”

  Trujillo nodded, head down, and suddenly I recognized the movement. I had seen him before. On the stage, backing up Milagro on the electric piano. My impression of his personality underwent a rapid and radical transformation.

  Trujillo led the way along the trail that led to the stables. A faint hope that we were going to ride was smacked down by my sensible side. Riding in snow would be dangerous for horses and riders alike, even if the ranch management had no objections, which they surely would. Liability, etc., etc. Not to mention fatiguing the animals.

  We walked past the corrals, where said animals were out of sight, probably in their stalls munching hay. Trujillo led us to the horse trail and along it. There were no prints of any kind on it, but the indentation in the snow marked the path that the horses’ hooves had worn across the mesas. The snow wasn’t as deep there as it was where there was foliage. We walked single file, Trujillo in the lead, followed by Milagro, then me, with Tony again bringing up the rear. No one talked.

  Knowing this would be a long walk, I tried to occupy myself by thinking about things I needed to do for the tearoom. We had February reservations coming in already. Kris wanted to extend our hours, as we’d done in December, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to do that again so soon. It would mean more hours for my staff, or hiring additional help. There was also the special Valentine’s Day event I had tentatively planned. That would need to be firmed up and I’d have to reach an agreement with the musicians...

  Somewhere in the midst of considering these and other details, I found myself going over the murder case again. The tearoom slid from my thoughts, replaced by the image—burned into my memory—of Wesley Roan’s body swinging gently from a cottonwood.

  Why had the killer been so unnecessarily thorough? Why bludgeon a man to death, then follow it up with shooting him, dragging him, and hanging him? That spoke of intense animosity.

  A large bird flew by overhead and I paused to watch it. It was black: crow or raven, I wasn’t sure. Because we were in O’Keeffe’s country, I immediately thought of Black Bird, another of my mom’s posters. Tony came up beside me and gave my shoulder a squeeze.

  “You OK?” he said softly.

  I nodded and turned
to catch up to the others.

  Walking behind Milagro, I had leisure to admire his braid—which was very thick—and the feather, which was tied in with strips of leather and beadwork that glinted even in the filtered sunlight. They reminded me of the dragonfly necklace he had given me and Tony. His satchel was plain, heavy leather that had been well-cared-for over years of use. It made me think of the pouch I had found: Captain Dusenberry’s treasure.

  Milagro’s flute was a thing of beauty: dark wood, carved and polished, ornamented with beads and a bear fetish made of bright turquoise that was lashed to the flute with deerskin. He’d made it himself, I was sure. I remembered hearing he made all his own flutes, and there had been one for sale on his table. This might be one of the ones he had played at the concert.

  I was hiking in the snow with Bernardo Milagro. The day was getting surreal.

  I was no longer cold at all, I realized. I was a little concerned about being out here without water, but there was plenty of snow if we got thirsty, and the sky was gradually brightening, so cold wasn’t going to be an immediate danger. I looked at the cliffs, trying to gauge how far we’d come. We had not yet passed O’Keeffe’s ranch house.

  Even as I thought this, I saw the roughly horizontal lines of the rail fence ahead, covered with snow. The fence slanted haphazardly; the windows were dark, empty eyes. It truly looked abandoned now. We passed by and headed on toward the cliffs. As we climbed a shallow slope, I could see the impression in the snow of the service road that ran past the ranch house, where the landscape tour bus would normally run. All of today’s tours had been canceled—because of the snow, not to mention the murder—but would the plow be coming along this road? Would it destroy unseen evidence?

  For that matter, if there were tracks beneath the snow, would there be anything left of them when it melted? I didn’t know.

  We made our way down a steep cut into an arroyo, then switchbacked up the other side. There’d been several such crossings on the trail ride, I remembered. We were getting farther from the ranch complex, closer to the cliffs. They seemed to loom over us now, towers touching the pearly sky.

  My feet were beginning to ache, and my legs were getting tired from walking in heavy boots (though I was grateful for them, because they kept my feet warm). To distract myself, I looked at the cliffs and thought about O’Keeffe’s many paintings of this land. These were the red hills she so loved. I wondered if they had inspired White Shell with Red. The background in that painting was the same bright, vermilion-red of these sandstone hills.

  I hoped Lisette would return to her art. I hoped seeing O’Keeffe’s places had inspired her, and that her art would help her through her grief. Maybe the trip would inspire Jeremy, too. Certainly it was good for him to see places like this.

  For Wesley, it had been too late. He was too ingrained in his football culture and in his own life habits to be touched by natural beauty. And he’d had plenty of company. I wondered why Flag Hat and the other football fans were here at all. Had all of them been dragged unwilling to Ghost Ranch by family members who were seeking inspiration?

  That couldn’t be the case. They must be here for better reasons than that. What would bring a man like Flag Hat Guy here? A workshop or retreat? Maybe he was actually a paleontologist who just happened to love football?

  Tony might know, if Trujillo had shared his interviews. Not that I was curious to know myself.

  I looked up from watching where I placed my feet in the partially-trodden snow, to where Trujillo was blazing the trail for us. He’d called Milagro his uncle. So he was Pueblo, or part Pueblo. And he’d been at the concert. A musician, as well as a cop. I remembered Tony’s guitar, and how surprised and delighted I’d been when he played it and sang for me.

  Below the cliffs, a tall, barren bush rose at the edge of the mesa. As I looked at it more closely, I realized it was a tree: the top of a cottonwood growing in an arroyo. I glanced at Trujillo, still breaking through the snow in the trail, its indentation winding away before him, snake-like, across the snowy mesa. This was looking familiar. I looked at the cliffs, and westward at the more distant horizon, also defined by cliffs, with blue mountains marching away to the southwest. The tempo of my pulse increased a notch.

  Glancing southward, I looked for the ranch road. There it was, a wide and shallow dip in the snow, curving northward. Beyond it, the sagebrush was beginning to emerge from its blanket of snow. The hollow darkness between branches showed black, like little caves, and I wondered if little animals were hiding in some of them, waiting for the sun’s return.

  The day was getting warmer. Our breath no longer froze in the air. Ahead, Trujillo halted, then Milagro stopped beside him. I stayed back, waiting. Tony stepped up even with me.

  We stood at the edge of a descent into the arroyo. The deep-worn trail rang more bells of familiarity. Looking northward, I saw a bit more of the tree that was not a bush.

  Wesley’s tree.

  My stomach was suddenly heavy, trying to drop out of me. I swallowed, realizing my throat was dry. A sip of water would have been good. I wasn’t yet desperate enough to eat snow.

  The two men in front of me exchanged a murmured word, then Trujillo started northward along the top edge of the arroyo, going more slowly as he left the trail. Again, we followed single file in his tracks. He avoided the small bumps in the snowy ground that were clumps of wild grass or baby trees, and skirted the larger bushes, junipers, and the occasional cholla. I wondered nervously if there was prickly pear beneath the snow, then reminded myself that even if I had the bad luck to step on a hidden cactus, my boots should protect me.

  The cottonwood tree loomed as we got closer, bare branches reaching skyward. It was bigger than I’d thought, its crown rising a good fifteen feet or more above the edge of the mesa. When we’d come as close to it as we could without descending into the arroyo, we stopped again.

  Milagro stepped forward, joining Trujillo at the edge. Glancing back, he motioned to me and Tony to join them. I moved to Milagro’s right, and Tony stepped to my right.

  We all stood staring silently at the tree. I gazed down through the upper branches, unwillingly trying to discern which bough was the one on which Wesley had been hanged. A low one that grew out over the arroyo, I remembered.

  Milagro reached into his satchel and withdrew a gourd rattle. Suddenly he began to sing, the first syllable a bark that made me jump, sharp in the cold desert air. It was Tiwa, so I had no hope of understanding the words, but the meaning was crystal clear. He sang with the anguish of one who has lost a brother. After a few lines, he began to shake the rattle, slowly, in the rhythm of a heartbeat.

  That rhythm evoked every feast-day dance I’d ever been to. My feet wanted to move with it: right LEFT, right LEFT, right LEFT. Shadows of the deer dancers, the buffalo dancers, the butterfly dancers and corn dancers stepped through my memories.

  Was this a sing?

  Still playing the rhythm as he sang, Milagro held the rattle out toward Trujillo, who took it without missing a beat. A few more phrases, then Milagro raised the flute while the rattle’s heartbeat continued.

  If the singing had sounded mournful, the flute was doubly so. I realized I was holding my shoulders tensely, and deliberately relaxed them. As I let go, the flute’s sorrow flowed through me. Tears filled my eyes and overflowed. Tears for a wrongful death, for a joyless life, for the pain of a wounded family, now broken.

  The music went on and on. At times Trujillo shook the rattle in a continuous buzz, and memory played a drumroll along with it while he joined Milagro in singing: a calling, a summoning. Then the rhythm would begin again, and another song—another dance—would follow.

  Finally I had no more tears. I swallowed, trying to be silent, trying not to sniff. Once I raised my hand to wipe my face. In the cold, the tears chilled my cheeks even more.

  Milagro sang again, played the flute again. Cold crept up my legs now that we were standing still. To keep my feet from falling asleep,
I eased my weight gently back and forth with the rhythm of the rattle: right left, right left, right left.

  Another roll of the rattle, another chanting call, and then three strong beats, followed by silence. I held still, listening to the echo of the rhythm and the song. A breeze stirred the tree branches, rattling them together. Their motion drew my eye, and through them I saw a splash of blue and white.

  Tony’s hand slid into mine. I turned my head to meet his gaze. His eyes were dark and intense. The music had called something out of him, just as it had with me. There was fierce feeling in his gaze, but it wasn’t anger. It was love—fierce love—as though his soul was saying “no matter what the world throws our way, I will be here for you.”

  I drew a deep and slightly shaky breath, and let it out in a sigh. Trujillo held out the silent rattle to his uncle, who stowed it in the satchel.

  That blue and white troubled me. They were not colors that fit into the landscape, even with the snow. Wanting to know what it was, I took a couple of steps to the right, trying to find a gap in the branches to see through. Tony came with me, steadying me as I groped for level footing. Some of the branches did not look right, until they suddenly resolved into fence posts. Even more haphazard than the O’Keeffe homestead fence, these posts were barely kept upright by long-neglected barbed wire. In a couple of places they were down, the wire hidden by the snow. The blue was a sign, roughly lettered in white: KEEP OUT, then a little smaller, DANGER UNSTABLE, followed by rows of text decreasing in size. I remembered another such sign, seen on the trail ride, not so very far from where we stood.

  How sad that someone was so frightened as to think such signs were needful. How sad that sometimes, they were. I looked at it again, and noticed now that the sign and the fence didn’t just flank the arroyo: they crossed it.

  What I had thought to be a bend in the arroyo, curving around the cottonwood tree, was in fact the end of the arroyo—or rather, its beginning. A short distance beyond the crazy fence, a jumble of yellow boulders tumbled into the bottom, blocking the way. A wash, coming down out of the hills, that only became a seasonal stream bed when it reached the softer sandstone mesa. Snow-capped, the rocks looked smaller than they really were.