Desert Wind

by Betty Webb

  “I’d a brought you my roping horse but he got sick on me with all them boils livestock been getting these days, so I had to put him down,” Curly had explained, then took time off to cough. Finished, he lit up another cigarette. “Only wisht I had more to give you.”

  “You gave me plenty, and I mighty appreciate it,” Gabe had answered, with no exaggeration. There’d been the blue-eyed pup, grown these past five years into a gray and black heeler Abby named Blue. Now added to that first fine gift were the gelding, a lived-in saddle, a halter, a many-times-mended bridle with a gone-green bit, two coils of rope, and a rusting Ford pickup held together with baling wire. The sum total of a man’s life.

  Looking into Curly’s yellowed eyes, Gabe had said, “Once the hospital fixes you up, you’ll be good as new. Then you come by and I’ll give ’em back. Loans is all they are.”

  Whistling past the graveyard that had been, and both knew it. Sure enough, a week later Curly shot himself.

  “You be careful,” Abby called to Gabe from her perch on the top rail as Blue waited loyally below. “That Star, he’s a big one. Don’t you go pulling a John Wayne, now.”

  Every time Gabe took a chance with a horse, Abby teased him like that. She knew how he felt about Wayne and tolerated it, had even framed the autographed photo the Duke had given him, hanging it right above the center of the sofa so everyone who walked into the ranch house could see how important Gabe was. “To my good friend, Gabe Boone. Ride ’em, cowboy! An admiring John Wayne,” it said.

  “You’re the one oughta be careful, Abby. A five-months pregnant woman’s got no business sitting on a top rail like that. What if you fall off?”

  “I’ll sit where I want, cowboy.”

  Gabe hid his grin. Losing their first baby had hurt her spirit something terrible, but with a new baby on the way, the old Abby was back. She sang at her work during the day and held him tight at night, singing a different song. “Women got no sense,” he whispered to Star. “None at all. Why, that girl actually loves me.”

  “What’re you telling that horse?”

  Gabe grinned at his boots. “Just that he’s gonna be a good ’un.”

  Abby’s laugh was as pretty as a breeze playing through mesquite. “Sure you were, cowboy.”

  Gabe put his foot in the stirrup and swung himself into the saddle.

  Star splayed out his feet. Humped his back.

  Oh, here we go. Gabe waited for a thousand pounds of horse to explode underneath him, but nothing happened. The animal just turned his head and gazed quizzically at him.

  Gabe tugged gently on the right rein to straighten the gelding’s head, tapped its flanks with spurless boots, and shifted his weight forward. “Move along now.”

  Star walked three steps forward, then stopped and looked back at him again. Gabe straightened its head and tapped its flanks. The horse obeyed, moving three more steps. Stopped. Looked back. Gabe tapped its flanks and got more steps. Stop. More steps. Stop. More steps. Repeating that three-step-stop-three-step dance, man and horse eventually made a complete circuit of the corral.

  Abby opened her mouth in a theatrical yawn. “My, this is exciting.”

  “Yeah, I’m thrilled to death.”

  Gabe was secretly pleased. Bucking broncs might be fine for a rodeo, but they were a pain in the neck for ranch work. Better to have a steady horse, one that didn’t try to out-wild its rider. A no-nonsense horse that got the job done.

  “Gabe!”

  Concentrating as he was on the gelding’s step-stop-step progress, Gabe at first missed the strained note in his wife’s voice.

  “Gabe. Something’s wrong!”

  Gabe jerked his head up, saw Abby climbing down from the fence rail toward a worried-looking Blue, her jeans darkened with blood.

  Oh, Abby.

  Chapter Five

  First thing the next morning I placed a call to Sunset Trails Guest Ranch and asked to be connected to Jimmy’s room. To my surprise, the young woman who answered informed me he wasn’t staying there. After identifying myself as Jimmy’s business partner, I asked where he might be staying.

  “He’s at the Desert View Motel. By the way, Lena, I’m Leilani, his sister.”

  Sister. I wondered how many more of Jimmy’s siblings worked at the ranch.

  When I told her it was nice to meet her, as it were, she replied, “Jimmy’s told us a lot about you and what a good detective you are, so I’m really glad you’re here. Ted’s in a lot of trouble, and as much as I love Jimmy, him being my older brother and all, I’m afraid he’s made things worse than they already are. Did you know he even got himself arrested? The way he looks, his long hair, that tattoo on his face, gosh, he really scares people.”

  Not women, I thought. The number of women who’d taken advantage of Jimmy’s sweet nature was long and growing ever longer. There had been the divorcee who’d talked him into buying her a house full of furniture, then dumped him; the topless dancer whose full tuition he’d paid for cosmetology school but who dropped out the second week; the ex-con who stole his truck…But had he ever retaliated? Nope. He took his lumps and moved on to the next user. Compared to Jimmy’s messes, my love life, which included a serial cheater and a hard-drinking cowboy who’d almost got me killed, wasn’t all that bad.

  Leilani sounded too young to hear the truth about her gullible brother, so I merely said, “Yeah, I heard about the arrest.”

  With that, I gave her my cell number and told her to call me if she learned anything new, then rang off and looked around my room. On the bottom shelf of the nightstand, I spotted a copy of the Walapai County Yellow Pages, where I found the listing for Jimmy’s motel. It was still early, so there was a good chance I might catch him in his room. But when the Desert View clerk transferred me to his extension, he didn’t answer. Figuring that he had left for breakfast before visiting Ted at the jail, I decided to grab some breakfast myself.

  The morning was relatively cool and a slight overcast promised to keep it that way. As I walked to my Trailblazer, the scent of frying bacon wafted to me from the Stagecoach, but I gave it a pass. Walapai Flats being such a small town, there was a good chance I might find Jimmy at one of the other local eateries. A few minutes later, I was proven right. Halfway down John Wayne Boulevard, I spotted Jimmy’s Toyota pickup in front of Cowboy Cal’s Espresso & Smoothies.

  Entering, I saw my partner on a corner stool underneath an old movie poster of John Wayne that advertised The Searchers. Jimmy was so busy slurping down a pink smoothie he didn’t see me.

  I walked over and tapped him on the shoulder. “Couldn’t find a Starbucks?”

  “What the…?” Turning around with a scowl, Jimmy found himself facing several alarmed faces. He lowered his voice. “Lena. Why am I not surprised?”

  I slid onto the stool next to him. Leilani was right. Jimmy was a big man, and with his waist-length black hair and the curved tribal tattoo across his temple, he could look pretty fierce. Especially when scowling.

  Smiling, I said, “You’re not surprised because state-licensed investigators like myself are good at finding people, even when they don’t want to be found. I drove up last night to bail you out, but was informed that your dad already took care of that. What’s all this about you ‘suborning perjury’?”

  He shifted uncomfortably on the stool. “I was merely trying to get people to open up, to tell me what they knew about Donohue’s murder.”

  I thought about that. “How close were you standing when you questioned them?”

  “Close. I read in Investigator’s Monthly that to get information from people that’s what you should do. Stand close. What difference does it make?”

  Did the man never look in a mirror? I motioned to the plastic cup in front of him. “What are you drinking?”

  “Apple Cherry Soynami with wheat germ.”

  “Good?”

  An exasperated sigh. “Lena, if I’d wanted you up here, I’d have invited you along.”

  “Ju
dging from the pink moustache you’ve sprouted, it’s at least drinkable, so I’ll have one, too. And, Jimmy, I’m just here to help.”

  He wiped his upper lip. “Don’t need your help.”

  “I disagree. There’s that suborning perjury business hanging over your head, and your brother’s still in jail. Your dad couldn’t get him released, too?”

  His scowl intensified, turning the tattoo even darker. “He tried. It didn’t work.”

  “Then you both need my help.”

  Leaving him to mull that over, I went to the counter and ordered an Apple Cherry Soynami without wheat germ from a pretty redhead. In homage to the place’s cowboy theme, she wore a Western shirt and cowgirl hat, but her makeup was pure L’Oréal. By the time I returned to my stool, Jimmy had calmed down.

  “Why’d you leave out the wheat germ?” he asked, looking at the cup.

  “Tastes like sawdust.”

  “It’s good for you.”

  “I’m healthy enough.”

  His scowl disappeared into a grin that softened even my own crusty heart. “You are so self-destructive.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are too. Listen, there’s nothing going on here that I can’t handle myself, so why don’t you drive back to Scottsdale and take care of business.”

  “Murder is my business.” The minute I said it, I realized how melodramatic it sounded, so I added, “And so is bailing my partner out of the pokey.”

  “That’s all well and good, but who’s taking care of the office?”

  Now he worries. “You know as well as I do that nothing much happens this time of year. But the calls are being transferred over to Jean Begay. As for walk-ins, we never get them.”

  “We did one time.”

  “Remember how that turned out?”

  His grin widened. “That lawsuit was fun, wasn’t it?”

  “Not to mention the money we wound up collecting.”

  “Bought me a new truck.”

  “Bought me a new wardrobe.”

  He laughed out loud, making heads turn again. “Oh, yeah. More black jeans, black tee shirts, and two pair of black Reeboks. You’re some fashion plate, Lena.”

  From the counter, the redhead threw him a flirtatious look. The girl’s clear eyes and perky step hinted that she wasn’t dysfunctional enough for him, so I resisted the urge to play Cupid and plunged back into business.

  “I’m not going away, Jimmy, so you might as well fill me in on what you’ve learned so far.”

  “Outside.” With a sigh, he stood up and tossed his empty cup into the trash container. I took a final chug at my smoothie and did the same. The thing had been too sweet for me, anyway.

  As we left the shop, two customers I recognized from the restaurant last night exited several paces behind us. Mr. and Mrs. Tosches. He sported an especially vulgar Rolex and his child bride’s diamond ear studs had to be at least a carat each. They moved down the sidewalk a few paces, where the man pretended to be fascinated by a display in the hardware store window next door, and the woman kept batting her eyelashes at Jimmy.

  “Let’s go someplace less crowded,” I murmured to Jimmy. “We’ve got an hour to go before we can see Ted.”

  After a pause long enough to make me nervous, he finally said, “You staying at the Covered Wagons?”

  At my nod, he told me he’d meet me there.

  Ten minutes later we were sitting at the card table in my motel room, where it was considerably more private. From Jimmy’s body language, he didn’t think much of the decor, especially not the framed photographs of Paiute Indians. Their faces bore a trapped look, as if they’d knew their life had irrevocably changed, and not for the better.

  To get his mind off racial memories that had to be humiliating, I said, “That couple who followed us outside seemed pretty interested in our conversation. Mr. and Mrs. Tosches, right?”

  He turned away from the photographs. “Apparently you’ve already been busy snooping around, but yeah, Ike Donohue—the man Ted’s accused of killing—he worked for Tosches.”

  “Could there have been some sort of disagreement between them?”

  “Anything’s possible except Ted’s guilt.”

  From past experience, I knew that given the right motivation, anyone was capable of killing. Mothers killed to protect their children, husbands to protect their families. Even children killed. When I was nine, I’d tried to kill the foster father who raped me. Unfortunately, my knife hadn’t gone deep enough.

  Skipping the pop psychology lecture, I said, “We both know that this ‘material witness’ thing is a precursor to an arrest. The authorities must have a strong suspicion that Ted killed Donohue, but haven’t collected enough evidence yet. Why are you so certain he didn’t do it?”

  Jimmy shook his head. “Because he told me he didn’t.”

  “Oh, well, that proves it.”

  He glared at me, but said nothing.

  “You’re going on your feelings, is that it?”

  The glare didn’t go away.

  “Okay, then, Jimmy. Maybe you can tell me what Ted said he was doing at the time of the murder. That’s if he told you anything at all, other than protest his innocence.”

  Grudgingly, he said, “He said he was driving around, thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “Things.”

  “Is there any chance someone saw his car? With him in it?”

  “Truck, not car. A blue half-ton Silverado. If anyone saw him, they haven’t come forward.”

  “What a great alibi.” The minute the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to call them back. My partner didn’t need wisecracks, he needed help. “Sorry. I’m still cranky from the drive up here. But if we’re going to get Ted out of jail, we need to come up with something more concrete than a ‘just driving around’ kind of story.”

  His glare finally faded, replaced by a look of despair. Whoever said Indians didn’t show emotion never knew an Indian. “I know, Lena, I know. I tried to get him to say more, but he’s not talking. He won’t even talk to Dad. Dad tried to get him to open up, and when Dad tries to…”

  Jimmy had seldom discussed his adoptive family other than to say his parents were good people who had given him and his likewise adopted siblings every opportunity, including college educations. I knew he and his adoptive mother had been close, but she’d died some years earlier. I also knew Jimmy and his father didn’t get along.

  “Speaking of your father, what’s the deal with staying at the Desert View Motel instead of the guest ranch? Even though you two are estranged, surely he’d be more than happy to let you bunk there so you can spend time with your brothers and sisters. They must be upset about Ted’s situation, too.”

  Jimmy didn’t answer right away. Instead, he looked up at the largest of the framed photographs on the motel room wall. It showed a large Paiute family, the mother wrapped in a shawl, the father holding a bow. One of the half-dozen children clutched a puppy. Instead of smiling for the birdie, they looked guarded. Perhaps they already knew that soon their children would be taken from them and shipped off to boarding schools, and that for the rest of their lives, they would be treated like aliens in their own land. Did I detect a gleam of sympathy in my partner’s eyes? Or was it anger?

  When he turned back to me, he’d wiped all emotion away and his voice was level. “No point in staying at the ranch. Besides the disabled kids, Leilani’s the only one still living there, and even she’s headed back to college in a couple of weeks. As for the others, time marches on, right? Some started their own businesses; some are married and busy with their own families. As for Dad, the less said about him the better.”

  “So you two are still having problems.”

  “Nothing you need to worry about.”

  In other words, his relationship with his father was none of my business. “Then I’m glad to hear the situation isn’t all that dire. If I’m going to be of any use to Ted, I need to find out as much about his sit
uation as possible, so why don’t the both of us visit him at the jail, then drive over to the ranch together. Maybe one of the wranglers knows something.”

  “No!” As if shocked by his reaction, he cleared his throat and modulated his voice. “What I mean to say is, morning’s are bad because everyone’s busy with the guests. There’s no need for you to go out there at all, it’d be a waste of your time.”

  “But…”

  “I’ve already interviewed everyone at the ranch, wranglers included. There’s nothing left for you to find out.”

  Here again is an area where trained investigators have skills the average person doesn’t. We can tell when someone’s being evasive.

  I tried to remember what Jimmy had told me about his early childhood in Salt Lake City. He’d described a veritable Garden of Eden, with happy school days, camping excursions in summer, ski weekends in winter, all the happy-happy any child could wish for. His adoptive parents had been non-drinking, non-smoking church-goers, but a healthy lifestyle didn’t always guarantee a long life. Five years after the family bought the guest ranch and moved to Walapai Flats from Salt Lake, Jimmy’s mother died from a sudden heart attack.

  There is no Eden, no matter how much we long for one.

  Given Jimmy’s evasive behavior, I fleetingly wondered if all those old tales of good times were merely attempts to cover up a family secret, then immediately hated myself for thinking it. Still, the possibility sent my thoughts scurrying along an interesting path.

  I studied the photograph of the Indian family. Jimmy’s skin was almost as dark as theirs. Born red, raised by Whites. If push came to shove, which side would he choose? Nature or nurture, that was the question. We aren’t only ourselves, we are our ancestors—our grandfather’s grandfather and our grandmother’s grandmother, back through countless generations until ancient genes rumbled underneath modern mindsets. If a crisis arose and Jimmy felt he had to sacrifice one side of his family to save the other, which side he would wind up on?

  I leaned forward over the card table and took his hand. “Is there something you need to tell me?”