The Last Temptation

by Gerrie Ferris Finger

  “No,” she said, not bothering with a phony French accent. “He’s on vacation this week.”

  “Where is the girl who sells flowers?”

  “Nicole?”

  “Yes, is she around?”

  “She never is,” the woman grumbled. “She’s a part-timer. I’ve told Philippe that we must get someone more dependable. But he goes for cheap.”

  Outside, I said to Lake, “Betcha Theodosia’s also on vacation.” He didn’t comment. In doubting silence, he seemed content to take me wherever I wanted to go.

  In the hotel bar, the bartender who’d jived with Dartagnan the night I arrived wasn’t there. He was on vacation. I drank an Amstel Light and ate a corned beef sandwich while Lake drank Coke. No doubt he thought he needed a clear head—what with taking me into Lost Coyote Canyon where I believed there had to be evidence of a burned-out Jeep, where I said a torrent of water had nearly washed me into an abandoned gold mine.

  We kept up the hush when we hit the road. I hugged the passenger door of the Jeep. Even with sunglasses, the desert light burned into my eyeballs. Ten minutes into the ride, the AC in the rented four-wheeler began pouring hot air out the vents. I agreed we should roll down the windows rather than go back and get another vehicle. I suspected the shocks failed, too, because we jostled up the tuff road—still with nothing to say to each other. We came to the gold mine. No tourists today. In silence, Lake and I walked over the place where I’d been found. He put an arm around me. I looked up at him, feeling like I was tumbling on a wall of water again.

  He let his arm slip to his side and turned toward the head of the arroyo. “That Ripple Rock?”

  “That’s Ripple Rock,” I said.

  He looked west. “Those hightops could become thunderheads.”

  Let the goddamn thunder roll, and the rains come down, I wasn’t intimidated. “Let’s go on.”

  The Jeep rocked and rolled onward, up the arroyo, past the apex of Ripple Rock and kept going up into the high desert. My head ached. Lake’s polo shirt was soaked. So was my hair. We reached the cairn above the dry fall. I studied it. “I never had a chance,” I murmured.

  “For what?” Lake asked.

  “Salvation,” I said.

  He looked at me and asked, “Do you want to go on?”

  “Just drive.”

  The Adobe Flats rose on the skyline. Lake pressed the gas, and the four-wheeler dusted up fine desert dirt, which felt like sandpaper on my face.

  “The famous Adobe Flats?” Lake said. Sarcastic bastard.

  Wiping sweat beads laced with grit, I answered, “The very ones.”

  “People lived in those stacked hovels?”

  “A hundred and some–odd years ago, after they’d been stripped of their land, and before the government allotted them a few acres for a reservation.”

  He spoke, and I listened to his mellow voice. “My ancestors didn’t keep slaves, and they didn’t run the natives down the Trail of Tears, but I often feel I should answer for those who did.” I looked over at him. He put his hand on my knee. How awkward, I thought, but I smiled at him, at the memory of how I used to feel when he touched me. If only he believed me.

  We drove in circles looking for a patch of dirt and spiny thorn scrub that had seen fire. I didn’t expect to see a burned-out Jeep, but there had to be fire debris. Everything leaves a trace. “We’ve passed these same cactuses several times,” Lake said. He pointed a finger over to his right where a few smoke trees and yuccas bunched together above desert brush. “There’s a likely place you might have crawled.”

  We left the four-wheeler and stepped through the scrub. There wasn’t a speck of evidence that I’d been in the flora cave. But then it had rained many days in a row.

  I heard a tic-tic-tic.

  “Snake,” Lake said. He grabbed my jeans at the back belt loop to keep me from taking another step. “Sidewinder.”

  I watched, horrified, as it sidled and snapped away from us.

  “Fascinating,” he said. “What’s a night hunter doing out now?”

  I wondered if it had been the one. “Maybe he came out to say he’s sorry.”

  It disappeared into the rocks while I rubbed my arm. It was nearly healed. So was my brain bruise, although I still had mild dizzy spells. Right now, I fought to keep one at bay.

  Lake looked west. The bright clouds were coagulating. “You want to see other things before the rains come down?”

  * * * * *

  We rode through the main street of stylish ranch homes. Lake commented, “Looks like Twenty-One Oh One Suburbia Street, Alpharetta, GA.”

  “The casinos have made Native Americans rich,” I said.

  We stopped at Tess’s family home. The shutters were tight. On the mailbox, the sign read: The home of Casper and Rosa Rosovo. Please ring the bell. We will fetch the mail. Thank you.

  It was useless to press the bell button, and I knew it by instinct, but I did anyway. Two Dobermans ran forward, snarling and baring their teeth. As I waited—in vain—the smothering afternoon heat wrapped around me, and I felt eyes watching me through the shutters. Maybe I’m round the bend and haven’t realized it.

  Lake was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel when I got inside the Jeep. He backed onto the main street, and we rode quietly to Moon Lodge. It looked deserted. Glancing at Lake as he opened his door, I saw an impassive profile. My blood pressure dropped a couple of points. He hates this. I walked up the cabin’s steps and tried the doorknob. Locked. I went to a window, looked in, held my breath, and stood back to let Lake see into the room. He looked at me. “Like you said, one room and a barrel stove.”

  Nothing else was as I’d described it, or remembered it. Benches didn’t line the walls. The interior was furnished like a hunting lodge—a deer head mounted on the wall by the stove, a few early American chairs and a settee haphazardly placed, as if men had scooted them around to chat and drink and smoke with each other, animal skins on the wooden floor. The wood looked old. The night of the moon ritual, it had been an earthen floor. I looked at Lake’s face where shadows shifted across etched lines. Say something.

  “A deer in the desert?” Lake said.

  “A mule deer,” I muttered. “They’ve changed the cabin since I was here.”

  “To make it look like you don’t know what you’re talking about.” His words were even and toneless.

  Balling my fists, desperation giving way to anger, I was about to spout off when I heard engine noise wavering on the thin, hot air. We turned to see a Jeep trail dirt as it tore toward us. The Jeep was new. It might be Tess. Ten seconds later, I was disappointed to see a broad-shouldered, dark-complexioned man get out and walk up with a mild question in his expression.

  “I hope we’re not trespassing,” I said, too fast. “I’ve been here before. I think I lost a bracelet inside the cabin.”

  He looked at his boots for a moment, then back at me. “You are not trespassing. We welcome all who wish to visit. When was it that you lost your bracelet?”

  “A week ago, Friday night. Mrs. Rosovo was holding a moon ritual that night.”

  He scratched a cheek. “A moon ritual? Here?”

  “I was with my friend, Tess Rosovo. You know Tess?”

  He looked as if he smelled something bad. “Is this a joke?”

  “No.”

  “This is not the house of moon rituals. This is a house for men and boys.”

  “But I’m sure . . .”

  His eyes were hard, and equally sure. “You are mistaken.”

  “Can you tell me where I might find Tess Rosovo and where they hold their moon ritual?”

  “To both, I cannot.”

  “It’s important.”

  He looked at Lake as if seeing him for the first time—thus dismissing me. “Who are you?”

  “Richard Lake.”

  “Tell your friend she is mistaken. This is a hunting lodge.”

  “I can see that,” Lake said. “Where is Miss Rosovo?”
/>
  The man apparently decided to give in. “She lives in Palm Springs.”

  “She’s not there. Dartagnan LeRoi said she was on the reservation.”

  “She might be. It’s a big place. Her uncle’s home is back on the main street.”

  “No one answered.”

  “Then they are somewhere else.”

  I looked out at the desert sky and wondered if I hadn’t been transported into one of Arlo’s cheap films.

  Lake said, “Makes sense.” He threw up a hand. “We’ll be going. Sorry to trouble you.”

  “No trouble.” The man turned for his Jeep.

  I came down the steps after Lake and followed him to the four-wheeler. When we’d closed the doors, Lake didn’t look at me.

  “Well?” I said, a little more belligerently than I intended. When he didn’t crank the engine right away, I said, “Look, I am not mistaken.”

  He turned the key and put the gear in drive. “Okay.” He looked out his side window. “He’s watching us.”

  I turned my head. The man in the Jeep looked as if he were going to get out and come toward us.

  Lake pressed the gas. I said, “Drive back to town.”

  “What then?”

  “I’ll go my own way.”

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  “I don’t like your attitude.”

  “No attitude.”

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “I can read your face and your body language.”

  “My face and body language should be telling you that I’m concerned. That’s all.”

  “Concerned for what? That I’ve lost my friggin’ mind?”

  That ended conversation until he said, “We’re passing the Rosovo house again. Want to stop?”

  It was still shuttered, but my sixth sense saw eyes following us up the street. “No one’s going to answer the door. This is a setup.”

  “Why have these Native people set you up?”

  “They’re protecting Eileen and her daughter.”

  “Why?” he said. We were leaving the town, bumping along on an unpaved road.

  “Arlo,” I said, my butt bouncing on the bad shocks.

  “Why?”

  “Seems obvious.”

  “Not to me.”

  “It does to me.”

  “Are you going to tell me what’s so obvious?”

  “No.”

  “Well, where do you want to go?”

  “To the Adobe Flats.”

  * * * * *

  Lake constantly checked his rearview mirror. I checked the side view. No Jeep. No dust. Just a mirage of shimmering light in between the cacti and smoke trees. And the high clouds closing in. “Gonna come down,” Lake said.

  I shrugged, not caring, feeling invincible.

  At Adobe Flats we got out. I scanned the horizon. There was an outcropping of rocks I hadn’t noticed before. They were perhaps a hundred and fifty yards away, near the end of the building. “Over there,” I pointed. “I thought I saw a flash.”

  Lake studied the rocks. He turned his palms up and let his gaze skim my face. We got out of the Jeep and walked over the sand-dirt to the stone steps. Ghost pain burned my rear end—Tess dragging me down those steps. The entrance was an upright rectangle smack in the middle of the long building. The wooden lintel brushed Lake’s hair when he ducked to go inside. A narrow hall disappeared into murky light, presumably at the back of the building. Off this hall, narrower halls lead into tiny rooms. “Rabbit warrens,” Lake said.

  He inspected the ground, perhaps for real evidence that I’d been here, or maybe he was pretending to believe me.

  I said, “I thought I was in a cave.”

  Nodding, he said, “I could use a flashlight.”

  We reached the back of the building where worn earthen steps led upward. It was dark as night, and I willed my visual purple to kick in. Halfway up, we came to a landing off which passages went right and left. The ancients who lived here had to be short. I was stooped, and so was Lake. He asked, “Could you have been kept in one of the rooms on this floor?” I had told him that the room I was in was near steps.

  “No, there are no windows in these rooms. In one of my awakenings, I recall seeing stars from a window.”

  I followed him up to a third story where little rooms were carved out of the walls. “Jesus, people lived here?” Lake said.

  Daylight shined through exterior windows, enough that I could see that the rooms were bare, except for signs of joint-smoking, beer-drinking and love-making. “Condoms,” Lake said. “I thought this place was sacred.”

  “Articles for the sacred rituals, maybe?” I said. “If we ever find Tess, she can tell us.”

  “Why do you say if?”

  “I have a bad feeling about Tess.”

  His dark eyes, though shadowed, sought mine. “I’ve always trusted your instincts, Dru.”

  He’d created another awkward moment. “You’re talking about the past.”

  “No,” he said, taking my hand. “But I’m wondering if you remember everything.”

  Did I remember everything? I said, “Nobody remembers everything about anything.”

  27

  We came to a wide, shallow room. “Must be the penthouse,” Lake said.

  Looking around, I said, “I doubt the people living here would have called it that.”

  He shook his head. “You’ve lost your sense of humor, too.”

  That could be because one night my bones melted in this place.

  The room had two earthen windows facing the western sky. Lake was drawn to a spot under one where a blanket was scrunched against the wall. He reached down to pick it up.

  At that same moment, I looked out the second window and saw a man standing on the rock where I’d seen the flash. His arms were extended. I’m sure he held a rifle.

  Terrified, I dived for Lake just before he stood up. The bullet whistled through the window. I rolled off Lake and sat, gasping for air.

  “Shit!” Lake cried, reaching for the gun in his ankle holster. I didn’t realize he wore his off-duty gun. He jumped to one side of the window and pointed the automatic toward the ceiling. He shoved his head out the window and drew it back quickly—twice. “Stand across from me,” he said. When I positioned myself at the other side of the window, he knelt, put the gun on the floor, and shoved it toward me. “Watch for sudden movement, and shoot,” he said. He backed away and crossed the open window.

  I held the gun and took quick glances outside. No one stood on the rock, or lay on it. Nothing on the desert floor moved. Lake inched closer. “Lake,” I said. “Get back.” I held the gun, looking out, watching for movement.

  “The shooter’s gone,” Lake said. He craned his neck for a quick glance out the window. “You say he was on that rock?”

  “Standing up.”

  “You think he was deliberately calling attention to himself?”

  “Could be,” I said, “but why?”

  “Didn’t you say this was a forbidden canyon and outsiders aren’t welcome?”

  “Tess brought me here.”

  “That doesn’t mean she extended an open invitation.”

  “So what are you trying to say, Lieutenant?”

  “A warning shot—to run us off. Maybe the man at the cabin.”

  “More than one man wants to kill me, I think.”

  “He shot at me.”

  “You’re in the way. They want me.”

  “Because you think the men’s lodge had a moon ritual in it?” He spoke like his vocal chords were in a vice grip.

  “No, because I’m looking for Eileen and Kinley.”

  “You said they drugged you after they kidnapped you from the cabin. Why didn’t they just kill you then?”

  “I don’t . . .” I heard a noise. A quiet flap on hard ground. I turned to Lake. “I heard something down there, outside, coming inside.”

  Lake stuck his neck out t
he window, peering down. “I don’t see anything.”

  “I heard—”

  “Your hearing is astute these days,” he said, and turned from the window.

  I held the gun at my side, pointing at the floor. “And your skepticism seems to have affected your senses,” I shot back.

  He walked to the middle of the room, then looked back, “You coming?”

  I flung past him into the hall. Something sparkling on the floor caught my eye, and I picked up a piece of silver. Birds in flight. I shoved it at him. “Tess’s. She wore the earrings the day she took me to the moon ritual.”

  He glanced at the earring. “Nice workmanship.”

  A short, sharp scrape interrupted my retort. “Did you hear that?”

  He put his finger to his lips. “Yes.”

  Then came the guttural whispers of angry or frightened men. I went ahead of Lake, to the top of the steps. “First floor front hall,” I said. “Three at least. They could all have rifles. We are two, with one thirty-eight. Not good.”

  He reached for the gun hanging in my hand. “You don’t know they all have rifles.”

  Before he could get his hand on the gun, I darted down the steps.

  “Dru! Get back here.” He clamored after me.

  I fired rounds as I jumped down the steps. The Glock has seventeen in the magazine. Its retort echoed off the ancient mud walls, booming like a shotgun, bullets pinging into the landing wall. I reached the landing with Lake breathing on my neck. “Give me the gun, Dru. Now.”

  I scooted across the landing, gun held in both hands, cop style, aiming to head-shoot anyone who popped into view. Light rose from the first floor, and I ran down the steps, turned the corner into the main hall and saw three men dash from a side hall and pump their legs out the front door. Lake caught up with me, and I handed him the gun. “They’re outside.”

  Grim-eyed, he grabbed the automatic and examined the magazine. I followed as he checked the side halls for sneak attackers. Outside, the three had reached the rock and rounded it. A heavy truck started up. The engine pounded down the canyon, but we never saw the truck.

  The gun in his hand, pointing at the sand, Lake aimed his stormy brown eyes at me. “What the hell did you do that for?”

  “We were trapped, outmanned, and probably outgunned.”