by Philip Craig
I waited for a call from the police telling me that Blondie was in custody. No call came. Instead, some more police arrived and went into the woods to make a cast of footprints Blondie had left behind.
I waited all afternoon, then, just before five, phoned a travel agent and made airline reservations, discovering what everyone who ever tried to fly from Boston to Durango no doubt already knew: that it costs almost as much, and is twice as hard, to fly from Denver to Durango as it does to fly from Boston to Denver. Getting to Durango was apparently like getting to the Vineyard. You can fly to Boston from anywhere in the world, but you can go crazy trying to get the last hundred miles to the island. My trusty travel agent finally got me a cheaper route via Albuquerque. I drank two martinis before supper.
By the next morning, as I was packing, I had thought a lot about why I’d decided to go west. I was bored and worried and resentful because Zee was in New Hampshire deciding what to do with the rest of her life and maybe deciding to lead one without me in it; I was deeply angry with Blondie, who, after all, had tried to kill me three times, and then had broken into my house and shot in my direction after he knew I was the wrong guy; mostly I wanted to stop Blondie before he actually killed John Skye or anyone else. I didn’t like to admit this last motive, because I’d been trying hard not to get involved with problems I didn’t have to get involved in. But here I was.
I decided I had plenty of reasons to go to Colorado, even though some of them might not stand too much inquiry. Hemingway once said something like moral is what you feel good about afterward, and immoral is what you feel bad about. I didn’t feel good about going to Colorado, but I would have felt worse not going.
The phone rang. It was the Edgartown police. I felt excitement; maybe Blondie was in jail. He wasn’t, but the cops did have some news. Yesterday Dr. David Rubinski, beardless this time because his wife had made him shave it off, had rented a car in Vineyard Haven, paying in cash, but leaving his Visa card with the dealer to assure him of his trustworthiness. The car had not been returned as scheduled, and the cops had found it in the parking lot in Oak Bluffs where the Vineyard Queen docks before and after its run to Falmouth. The bogus Rubinski was presumably now on the mainland.
I asked if they’d heard anything more from Newark about who he might really be. They hadn’t. I phoned for a taxi. It was the first taxi I had ever ridden in on Martha’s Vineyard. The driver took me to the Martha’s Vineyard airport and frowned at my tip.
“You drive too fast,” I said, and went to check in for my flight to Boston.
In Boston, I had almost two hours before my Albuquerque flight, so I took another taxi to the hospital and went in to see Geraldine Miles. I hate hospitals. They’re unhealthy places. Probably more people die there than anywhere else.
There was no cop outside of her door, so apparently the Boston PD had gotten the word that Lloyd Cramer was back in Iowa and “that Geraldine was no longer in any danger from him. Presumably, Geraldine had gotten the same word. I walked into the room.
Geraldine looked out at me through bandages wrapped around her face. Her lips were swollen and I could see stitches in them. One of her arms was in a cast. She wore a lacy gown, not one of those backless things they give you in the hospital, so I knew that Aunt Jean Wiggins had been to see her and had made her get prettied up. There were flowers beside her bed. I sat down. Her eyes rolled to follow me.
“How’s it going, kid?”
She held up her good hand and formed a little O with her thumb and forefinger.
“You don’t have to talk,” I said. “I just came by to see how you’re doing and give you the gossip.” I told her that the bluefish were pretty much gone, but that there were still plenty of shellfish and that I’d take her out and show her my capturing secrets when she got back to the island. I told her I was going out to Colorado for a while, but I imagined I’d be back on the island about the same time she was. I told her about the weather and complained about the Red Sox annual August slump, and told her the joke about the Portuguese doctor and the guy who cut off his finger. That got a little choking, muffled noise that might have been a laugh. Then I put out my hand and she put hers on it and we sat there as I babbled on. After a while, it was time for me to go.
“You’re going to be okay,” I said. “You’re a gutsy girl. I’ll see you when I get back. You’ll be on the island by then.”
She formed the O again and moved her fingers in a slow wave.
In the hall I met a nurse coming in. “How is she?” I asked.
“Are you family?”
“I’m her brother.”
“Well, she’s not brain-damaged, but it will be a long time before she’s over this.”
“Plastic surgery?”
“Oh, yes. But you should talk to the doctor.”
“Thanks. When will she be able to leave the hospital?”
“You’ll have to speak to the doctor.”
“I will.” I turned away. Behind me, the nurse spat out a word. I turned back. “I beg your pardon?”
The nurse looked at me with hot, tired eyes. “I said, ‘Bastard.’ Damn the bastard that did this and all like him!” She drew a breath, eased it out, and went into the room. I heard her voice, now gentle, say, “Hi, sweetheart.”
I taxied back to Logan and later, only half an hour behind schedule, not bad for modern times, was in the air looking down at Boston as my plane banked and climbed toward the west. Airplanes do not bother me, because there are walls between me and what’s Way Down There. I actually enjoy the view.
Due, perhaps, to my life on an island only twenty miles long, I was impressed by the sheer size of the United States. We flew for hours over mountains, farmlands, rivers, and lakes. I changed planes in St. Louis, home of the Cardinals who, fortunately for the Red Sox, were in the other league. I did not see the famous arch.
We flew on, over lands less green, then lands that were brown and gold, then lands that were very brown, then over mountains, then over real desert, then down into Albuquerque, where I stepped out into August heat. I tried to imagine having come all that way by covered wagon or on foot. Ye gods!
Albuquerque was, I knew, an ancient town, where people had lived long before the gentlemen of Seville had come north from Mexico to search for the seven cities of gold. I did not, however, have time to explore it; instead, I caught Mesa Airlines north to Durango.
Mesa Airlines consisted, in my case, of one of those cigar-shaped airplanes which is so cozy that you’d better be on good terms with both the pilots and your fellow passengers. Still, it flew us north toward the rising Rockies as well as any plane might. We passed over desert, then mesa country, and almost to the high mountains themselves before the plane descended over a final mesa and landed with barely a thump. If truth be told, I actually like little airplanes better than the big ones, because I believe the little ones can fly, but I don’t believe the big ones can. Look at a 747 someday, and you’ll know what I mean. A thing like that will never, ever, get off the ground! Too big. Too heavy. No way!
There was a car rental place at the La Plata County airport, and I took advantage of it to rent the cheapest car they had. I had no idea where I was or where I hoped to go, but the country out there was so big that I knew I’d need a car to get there, wherever it was.
I was faintly aware of my breathing. No wonder. I was at 7,000 feet, and the mountains all around me went up from there, especially the ones to the north. I asked the way to County Road 302. Nobody at Mesa Airlines knew where it was. One of a number of men wearing wide-brimmed hats and cowboy boots said, “Damned government’s put numbers on all the damned roads and now nobody Goddamn knows where to find anybody! Who you looking for, son?”
“I’m looking for a ranch owned by some people named Skye,” I said. I gave him the box number.
“Hell, son,” he said, “there’s Skyes all over the place. A big bunch of ’em live out there on the Florida Mesa. You get yourself a phone book and start calling
Skyes and you’ll soon find your man.” He pointed west. “Florida Mesa’s right there, just the other side of the river. Highway to Durango goes right over it. Ya can’t miss it.” He put a large Western hand on my shoulder, smiled, and went outside and climbed into a pickup and drove away. He’d pronounced Florida in the Spanish way, with the accent on the second syllable. I wondered why they didn’t do that in Florida.
His advice seemed sensible. I found a phone and called John Skye’s mother’s number. The phone rang and rang. Nobody home. I had the telephone number for the Skye the chief had talked to from Edgartown, so I tried that one. A woman’s voice, touched by a faint twang, said, “Hello?”
“Mrs. Wilma Skye?”
“Yes?”
“I’m J. W. Jackson. I’m a friend of John Skye, back in Massachusetts, and I’m trying to find his mother’s place, but I don’t know where it is. Can you help me out?”
“Oh, John’s up on the Hermosa someplace. That nice wife of his and the kids are up there too. Won’t be back for a couple of weeks. From Massachusetts, eh? Got a call from some policeman back there. You’re a long way from home.”
“Yes, I am. I understand that his mother still lives out on the ranch. I’d like to see her, but when I phoned just now, nobody answered. I thought she might be outside someplace. Can you tell me how to get there?”
“Well, I don’t know if Aunt Vivian’s there. Since John was going up into the mountains, she was planning to drive up to Glacier National Park, the last I heard. Ever since she got that little green Mazda, she’s been batting around all over the place.”
“Can you tell me how to get to her place? It’s on County Road 302, but I don’t know where that is.”
“I suppose giving numbers to all these roads makes sense to somebody back in Washington, but it hasn’t done much for the local folks, so far. Where are you?”
“Out here at the airport. Just flew in.”
“Oh. Well, welcome to the San Juan Basin. First time out this way?”
“Yes.”
“Sure hope you’ll have time to see some of this country. We figure this is about the prettiest territory there is.”
“Sure looks that way. How do I get to Vivian Skye’s place from here?”
“Lots of things to do: fishing, the little train to Silverton, Mesa Verde, riding, sight-seeing, river rafting, skiing in the winter, you name it.”
“Sounds good. Now, just where am I with respect to County Road 302?”
She told me and I finally got off the line. I wondered if I was going to be friendlied to death before I got out of Colorado.
There was a map in my car and on it, with the help of Wilma Skye’s directions, I found County Road 302. I drove out to the highway and turned west, dropping down into a valley where the Florida River flowed over a stony bottom. The sides of the valley were rocky and covered with the sort of tough vegetation that grows in dry, desert country. I climbed the other side of the valley and found myself on a green mesa covered with farms and ranches. To the north, the blue mountains rose into the sky and ahead of me other high peaks climbed out of blue foothills. To the west, south, and east a ring of lower mountains, blue-gray and dry, fled away toward the desert country I’d flown over on my way in. It was sagebrush country, and there were cedar and piñon trees growing where there were no fields. The soil was a red clay and there were rotating irrigation devices spraying water over the fields. Fairly prosperous-looking farmhouses sat beside sometimes shakier-looking barns, sheds, and corrals. Occasionally, the barns and outbuildings looked better than the houses. The sky was bright blue, but there were thunder-heads hanging over the mountains to the north.
I found County Road 302 and followed it until I found a mailbox with the right number on it. I turned in and parked in front of a large, old, well-maintained farmhouse surrounded by elm trees, a green lawn, and flower beds. Behind the house I could see a gnarled orchard. Across the road were a barn and outbuildings. Beyond them was a pond and beyond that, beside a thick grove of blue-green piñon and cedar trees, in a field of alfalfa stubble, a half-dozen horses grazed.
Barbed-wire fences lined the road and divided the land into fields. High grass marking irrigation ditches wound around the contours of the fields. I saw a few cattle in a far corner pasture and checked my directions. Yes, by God, it was the south forty! There really was a south forty!
I didn’t see a green Mazda. I went to the house and knocked at the front door. Nobody home. I walked around to the orchard, then on around the house. Nobody. I peeked in through a window and saw a comfortable, old-fashioned room with furniture that had been there a long time.
I went around to the front door again and tried the knob. The door opened. So there were still people like me who didn’t lock their doors. I was pleased. I shut the door and walked across the road to the barn and outbuildings. Nobody.
I crossed the road again and went into the house. There was a phone on the wall of the kitchen. I called Wilma Skye and told her where I was.
“Nobody home,” I said. “No Mazda. Can you tell me how to get to the Hermosa range?”
“I sure can. We all used to run our cattle up there, before the cattle business got so bad we couldn’t afford it anymore. But that’s big country up there, and I don’t rightly know where Cousin John is camped. Might be he’s down on Clear Creek, though I doubt it. Might be there on the flats where the old Turnip Patch Cabin used to be. Might be up on Little Elk. Or he might be up at the top of the Hermosa Cliffs, up near where the old Arnold Cabin used to be. We all used to crawl around the cliffs when we were kids. Danged near scared our parents half to death when they caught us. If I was to guess, I’d guess he’s up there someplace, up toward the top of Dutch Creek. Around the Bath Tub, maybe. Good graze for the horses up there, good water, sun comes up early and goes down late, not too far from some good fishing. You get yourself a horse and somebody who knows the land, and I imagine you can find John’s camp in a couple of days. Not that many places to look, if you know where you’re looking.”
“Where is this place?”
“Why, you just drive up the valley north of Durango and a few miles along you’ll cross Hermosa Creek. You can drive up the creek for a ways, and you’ll go through a drift fence. That’s the lower drift fence for the range. Then you can go on up past the old sawmill for a half mile or so. But from there on, it’s all trail. The Hermosa range is mostly on your right. All those little creeks come down out of it and run into the Hermosa. Range runs all the way up to the other side of Big Elk. A lot of square miles and some rough country until you get up to the meadows at the head of Dutch. The cliffs mark the east end of the range. You’re going to like them! A thousand feet high, rising right out of the Animas Valley. You jump off one of them, you might starve to death before you hit the ground!” Wilma had a healthy-sounding laugh, I thought.
“So you think I’ll need a horse and a guide.”
“Heck, there are hikers and mountain bikers and dirt bike people who get way up there, too. And you can get yourself a Forest Service map, and try to find John’s camp by yourself, if you want. But unless you know the area, you might walk around there for a week and never find squat, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t have a week to spare. Where can I find a horse and a guide?”
“Where can you find a . . . ? Just a second.” I heard her distant voice. “Billy? Billy Jo, come here.”
Billy Jo apparently came. I heard an exchange of voices. Then Wilma Skye came back on the line. “Tell you what,” she said. “I think we can take care of you right here. We’ve got horses and a horse trailer and Billy Jo, who knows that range better than I do. That is, if you don’t mind being guided around by a genuine college graduate who doesn’t have a steady job yet.”
A voice protested in the background.
“I don’t mind,” I said. “I don’t have a steady job myself. How do I get to your place?”
She told me. I went west to 550, then north, th
en east again at the top of the big hill. “If you go down the big hill, you’ve gone too far,” Wilma had said. I spotted the big hill just in time and took the road to the right. A couple of miles farther along I came to a gate topped with steer horns and the name Flying Shirt-tail Ranch. There was no missing that name, and I pulled in and stopped in front of another large farmhouse. A tall, handsome, rawboned woman came out of the house as I climbed out of my little car. She put out a hard hand.
“You’d be J. W. Jackson. I’m Wilma. Mack’s in town getting some part or other for that danged tractor. Pouring good money after bad, if you ask me. He should be home anytime.” A dazzling girl in jeans, cowboy boots, and a checkered shirt came out into the sunlight. Her hair was dark and fell in two braids down over her shoulders. Wilma grinned and waved her forward. “Come here, sweetheart. Mr. Jackson, this is my youngest, Billy Jo. Billy Jo, this is Mr. Jackson. Mr. Jackson’s come all the way from Massachusetts. He’s a friend of Cousin John.”
Something tingled between me and Billy Jo. She came forward and I saw that she wasn’t a girl, she was a woman.
My hat, the forest green one with the Martha’s Vineyard Surfcasters Association logo on the front, which I had carefully selected for the trip from my collection of hats with other things printed on the front, was already in my hand.
“I’m the one without a steady job,” she said, putting out her hand. A little smile played across her lips. Her hand was firm and lightly callused.
“My friends call me J.W.,” I said. “I’m a stranger in a strange land, and I need somebody to lead me to John Skye. I gather that you can do the job.”
“I can find John Skye for you, if that’s what you want. When do you want to go up there?” Her eyes were dark, like her mother’s, and she had the same fine bone structure in her face.
“I want to see him as soon as possible.”
“That’ll be tomorrow, then. Too late today. I’ve got to bring in the horses from the north pasture.” She looked up at me. “Must be important.”
