Dance of the Bones

by J. A. Jance

  He was standing in front of the dresser, about to put the bag in a drawer, when he realized that he’d stuck the four gems from the strainer into the pocket of his jeans. He had them in hand and was about to return them to the jar when he realized there was no way for Carlos or anyone else to tell how many gems had been concealed in the peanut butter. If Gabe kept them, did that mean he was one of the Bad ­People, too?

  The gems didn’t exactly speak to him. What he heard in his head was Lani’s long-­ago voice telling him one of the I’itoi stories and explaining how four was a sacred number because all of nature goes in fours—­four seasons, four directions. Was this the same thing? Was that the reason there had been four diamonds in that single spoonful of peanut butter—­not three or five or six, but four? Maybe this was a message from I’itoi, or maybe even the trickster, Ban—­Coyote—­whispering in Gabe’s ear and telling him those four diamonds now belonged to him.

  He returned them to his pocket. Then, stripping off his jeans and underwear, he turned to a far more pressing matter—­getting the last of those pesky cholla spines out of his bare behind. When he had most of them removed, he got into bed and turned out the light. He was still chilled, and Gabe was grateful to pull the covers up around him. There may have been the sharp end of a cholla spine or two still sticking him, but he had walked too far and was too tired to notice.

  He fell asleep and dreamed of bats—­hundreds of bats, maybe even thousands. During the dream he noticed something odd. He was out in the desert somewhere all by himself, and although the bats were flapping all around him, for some strange reason, he wasn’t the least bit afraid.

  CHAPTER 9

  AFTER BUZZARD RETURNED WITHOUT FIRE, ­people were still cold at night, and the stories of those who had tried to bring back fire only made them want it more. They held another council and decided that they should send something that flies at night, so they asked Bat—­Nanakumal—­to go to Tash’s house, slip in through a crack, and bring back Fire. Nanakumal said he would try. The next day Bat set off. When he left for Tash’s house, he was covered with soft gray feathers.

  The ­People were sure that Bat would succeed, so that night they stayed awake, waiting for him to return.

  It was very dark. At last they saw a light coming, and it flashed from side to side and there was a great roar. When the light reached the earth, there was a loud bang. Some of the Indians were frightened and hid, but others said it is Tai—­Fire—­flashing like the sun. They ran as fast as they could to the spot and found a place where the grass was burning and so was a tree.

  One of the men, an elder, ran to the burning tree, took one of the branches, and waved it in the four directions—­North, East, South, and West—­so the ­People would know not to be afraid.

  There was still much noise and many flashing lights. The ­People called the noise Bebethki—­Thunder—­and the flashing lights, Wepgih—­Lightning.

  The ­People were so excited to have Fire that they forgot all about Bat. The next day they went looking for him. They found poor Nanakumal hanging limp in a tree. He had not one feather left. Tash had burned Bat black, all the way to the skin. Bat was so ashamed of how he looked that no one could coax him into showing himself. That is why, nawoj, my friend, even to this day, Bat comes out only at night.

  AS THE NIGHT SOUNDS OF distant traffic hummed in the background, Brandon’s thoughts returned to that Sunday afternoon summons that had taken him from Gates Pass in the Tucson Mountains on the far west side of town to the base of the Catalinas on the far east side.

  That day, as he drove, he’d kept a wary eye on the weather and the less-­than-­optimal road conditions. Redington Pass Road was primitive to begin with, and summer rains had made it virtually impassable in spots. Not only that; a wall of white and gray thunderclouds was boiling up on the back side of the mountains, rolling in from the southeast. If a gully washer was in the offing, Brandon knew he’d be lucky to get to the crime scene and even luckier to make it back home. And if the medical examiner’s folks were very far behind him, they might be no-­shows altogether.

  It took the better part of two hours from the time he left home before Brandon finally spotted a light blue Land Cruiser parked alongside the road. A man and a woman stood leaning against each of the front fenders. Brandon pulled up alongside the vehicle and rolled down the window.

  “Are you the folks who called the sheriff’s department?”

  Nodding, the woman stepped forward. She was young and blond, with windblown hair and a peeling sunburned face, complete with a freckled nose. “I’m Suzanne Holder, and this is my partner, Kent Perkins.”

  Kent didn’t seem any too happy. “Took you long enough,” he muttered glumly, peering over his shoulder at the tower of clouds marching toward them. “I was expecting lights and sirens. That storm’s going to be here any minute.”

  Brandon put his Plymouth in Park and stepped out of the vehicle, proffering his ID wallet as he did so. “I was told these were skeletal remains,” he said, “so it’s not exactly a life-­and-­death situation. As you can see from my ID, I’m Detective Brandon Walker with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. What have you got here?”

  Suzanne studied the badge and ID before handing it back. “Don’t mind Kent,” she said with a laugh. “He’s a city slicker from California. He always translates times and distances in terms of freeways.”

  “So what have you found?” Brandon prodded. “And what brought you out here in the first place?”

  Suzanne answered the second question first. “We’re grad students in anthropology at the University of Arizona. In the past ­couple of years there have been lots of unsubstantiated rumors about Papago artifacts being found in this area. The problem is, the San Pedro is a long way from the Papago’s traditional haunts. There were far more Apaches here in the past than there were Papagos. So for the past few weeks, Kent and I have been spending a lot of time out in this area, trying to sort out those rumors once and for all.”

  “Is there a chance that’s what the remains in question are all about?” Brandon asked. “Maybe they’re Indian artifacts, too.”

  “I doubt it,” she said.

  “How about if I have a look? How far is it?”

  “A mile and a half,” she answered, “maybe two.”

  “Can you lead me there?”

  “Of course,” Suzanne responded. “Kent can wait here and flag down the M.E. Here are the keys,” she added, tossing a key ring in his direction.

  Suzanne appeared to be several years younger than Kent, but she was clearly in charge, and Brandon wondered if the Land Cruiser wasn’t hers as well.

  Brandon went back to his car and radioed in to Dispatch. Luke told him that the M.E. van was still a good forty-­five minutes out. Brandon figured that was information Kent didn’t need to have. Rolling up his window and locking the door on his patrol car, he went around to the trunk. He kept a sports bag back there loaded with spare clothing in case a quick change was needed. Dumping those out, he loaded in gloves, evidence markers, and a supply of evidence bags as well as a camera and extra rolls of film. Then, carrying the bag with him, he crossed the road and followed Suzanne into seemingly trackless desert.

  With the coming storm, the temperature had dropped from midday highs of well over a hundred to something maybe ten degrees cooler in a matter of minutes, but from Brandon’s point of view, it was still plenty hot, especially with the thickening humidity. He had to bite back the temptation to repeat that old saw about “mad dogs and Englishmen.”

  It was rough terrain, and Brandon was grateful to have taken Luke’s advice about wearing boots. When they had to plow back and forth across a dry creek bed, street shoes would have instantly filled with sand. To begin with, carrying the bag wasn’t a problem, but it grew heavier as they went, with Suzanne charging ahead, keeping a stiff pace, and talking as she went.

  �
�Earlier this morning, we had been combing both sides of the canyon,” she explained. “By the time we emerged from the canyon itself, it was right around noon and hot as hell. Looking for some shade, we ducked into a grove of mesquite, and that’s where we found him.”

  “What are the chances you stumbled on an ancient burial ground that surfaced during a rainstorm?” Brandon huffed, doing his best to keep up.

  “It’s not an ‘ancient burial ground,’ ” Suzanne replied. “This guy had a wallet with a driver’s license in it. He’s also got gold fillings in his teeth.”

  “You touched the wallet and the skull?” Brandon asked.

  “Of course I touched it,” she said. “What do you think I am, some kind of sissy? Here we are, come on.”

  Suzanne led the way into a grove of mesquite. Had the mesquite been left to its own devices, the branches would have grown low enough to touch the ground, but this was ranch land—­open range. Grazing cattle had trimmed the lower branches as far up as they could reach. As a result, Brandon was able to remain almost upright as he walked under the trees to where the remains of what would later be identified as Amos Warren lay scattered in dozens of pieces.

  The sheltering trees were probably the reason so much of the body remained in one place rather than being spread farther afield. The scavengers who had devoured the decaying flesh had most likely been attracted to the site for that same reason. While there, they were protected from above by a canopy of branches. On the north side, the mountains kept it from view. To the south of the trees, a rugged ridge of what had likely once been molten lava had created a natural basin that, in the aftermath of rain, would create a natural water hole—­a charco—­that would provide moisture for the trees long after the monsoon season ended.

  With thunder grumbling in the background, there wasn’t a moment to lose. Brandon made no effort to collect the bones. That wasn’t his job. Instead, he put down evidence markers, photographed the bones in situ, then went about the business of gathering evidence—­starting with the brittle remains of a leather wallet that contained a faded driver’s license years out-of-date and what appeared to be a perfect arrowhead.

  If he was packing an arrowhead around as a good luck charm, Brandon mused to himself, it sure as hell didn’t work.

  Brandon’s careful search unearthed a few other artifacts. He located a scattered circle of blackened rocks that had most likely once surrounded a campfire. On a long piece of desiccated bone that had once been a forearm, he found an intact watch—­a Timex. The hands, still visible behind the dirt-­crusted lens, read 2:35.

  A few feet away Brandon found a dented canteen, empty but still covered with ragged bits of canvas. Near that he saw bits of tattered material that might have been a bedroll and what looked like the remains of a leather jacket. Not far from the jacket was another long bone, a rib this time. It had been gnawed along the edges, but through the bone itself was a small, perfectly semicircular hole. You didn’t need to be a medical examiner to read the signs. This was the mark from a small-­caliber weapon, but Brandon knew that at close range and with the right placement, a shot from a .22 can be every bit as deadly as a .45. Even years after the fact and with no additional evidence, he got the picture. Whoever this poor guy was, he hadn’t died of natural causes. Somebody, mad as hell, had nailed him with one shot and maybe more. This was a homicide.

  Brandon was combing the ground in a hopeless search for spent bullets when Suzanne called him. “Hey,” she said, “over here.”

  After snapping one last photo of the rib bone, Brandon hurried over to where Suzanne stood. Knowing this was a crime scene, he had donned a pair of gloves and had prevailed upon her to do the same. Looking where she was pointing, Brandon saw a second piece of bone, this one a long leg bone lying near the remains of what had once been a sturdy hiking boot. The boot was marred by grooves from the teeth of gnawing scavengers who had evidently felt protected enough in that grove of trees to dine in place rather than hauling their prizes off to a den.

  “Coyotes?” Suzanne asked.

  Taken aback that the woman didn’t appear to be the least bit squeamish, Brandon nodded before putting down another evidence marker and snapping the next photo. “Probably,” he said. “I’m guessing all we’ll find are the larger bones. Vultures will have carried off the smaller bits.”

  “What’s going to happen now?” Suzanne asked.

  “Once the M.E. does his autopsy and verifies how the victim died, we’ll need to find out who did this. Then,” Brandon added as the camera shutter clicked one last time, “we’re going to put the killer away.”

  Suzanne said nothing, but Brandon looked up just in time to see her nod. At the same moment, a sharp crack of lightning and a roll of thunder announced the arrival of the long-­delayed storm. Struggling against torrential and almost blinding rain, they headed back to the cars. Long before they reached the vehicles, they were soaked through, and the M.E. van was nowhere in sight. A call to Dispatch told them that the M.E. had been forced to turn back on the far side of Redington Pass.

  For the time being, there was nothing to do but wait. Then, in a move no one expected, the storm proceeded to stall directly over Redington Pass. Eventually the water in the washes to the south of them receded, while the ones to the north roared bank to bank. That night, the only way back home to Gates Pass was on I-­10 via Pomerene and Benson.

  It was another two days before Redington Road was again passable. Driving a four-­wheel drive SUV, Brandon led the late-­arriving M.E. back to the crime scene. This time, with the aid of a metal detector, Brandon Walker searched the mesquite grove and managed to find and retrieve not one but two spent bullets. They were buried in dirt, otherwise pack rats would have carried them off long ago.

  Among the bones the M.E. collected were three rib bones and a sternum that showed the victim had been shot at least three times in the chest. Because of the driver’s license they already suspected they knew the victim’s name, but it took far longer for dental records to confirm that this truly was Amos Warren, a man who had disappeared in 1970 and been declared missing in 1971. Not long after that, Brandon Walker had found himself hot on the trail of John Lassiter, arresting him and bringing him to justice.

  As for Suzanne Holder? It was years before Brandon saw her again. By then he was no longer a homicide detective. He had run against Sheriff Jack DuShane and had won the race fair and square. It was sometime after that, probably during his second term in office, when his receptionist had called over the intercom to say that he had a visitor in the outer office, someone named Suzanne Holder, who wanted to see him.

  At first Brandon couldn’t place the name, but as soon as she stepped into his private office, he recognized her as the woman from Amos Warren’s long-­ago crime scene. She was still freckle faced, but her long wind-­blown blond hair was cut in a fashionable bob. The hiking boots and jeans had been replaced by a suit and a pair of low pumps.

  “My goodness,” he said as they shook hands. “It’s been years. How are you doing and what are you doing these days?”

  “I’m in town for a meeting,” Suzanne said, “but I had to come by and say thank you.”

  Brandon was bemused. “Thank you?” he asked. “For what?”

  “For changing the course of my life,” Suzanne answered. “What you said that day out in the desert about finding the murderer and bringing him to justice really got to me. It was something that seemed far more important than studying ancient artifacts. I could see that tracking that man’s killer down gave you a sense of purpose. I wanted to have that same kind of purpose in my life, too. I ended up quitting anthropology and moving over into pre-­med. I’m an M.E. now, living and working in Littleton, Colorado.”

  That meant that at least one good thing had come out of Amos Warren’s homicide. Brandon was proud of Suzanne, of course, and gratified that in those few hours on the back side of the Rincons he
’d been able to have such a positive influence on her life.

  What seemed grossly unfair to him was that guiding a complete stranger onto a better path had been so effortless and easy when having the same impact on his own sons had turned out to be utterly impossible.

  Brandon looked down at the sleeping dog. “Life isn’t fair, is it, Bozo boy?” he said aloud. “Come on. It’s late. Go get busy and then what do you say we hit the hay?”

  CHAPTER 10

  THEY SAY IT HAPPENED LONG ago that a boy and girl, a brother and sister, were left all alone when their parents died. They lived in the southern part of the Tohono O’odham’s lands. They felt very lonely living there because everything made them think about their father and mother. So they moved to a new place, the village of Uhs Kehk—­Stick Standing—­which is close to the place the Milgahn call Casa Grande.

  The boy had no fields, so he went out hunting and was gone all day. The girl, after grinding her corn on her wihthakud—­her grinding stone—­would go out into the desert to find plants for cooking and drying and to find seeds as well. The girl was S’kehg Chehia, which is to say, she was very beautiful.

  But because this brother and sister were alone and had no ­people and seemed so sad, the ­people in Stick Standing said they were bad. In this kihhim—­this village—­there was a man of great influence, Big Man—­Ge Cheoj. Big Man had power over the ­people because he had large fields. He soon fell in love with this new girl who was so very beautiful and so very different from the girls in his own village.

  But Beautiful Girl was always working or out in the desert gathering plants, so Big Man could not see her very often.

  THE LIGHTS WERE OFF AND Diana was sleeping when Brandon tiptoed into the bedroom. Bozo was already sacked out and snoring on his bed in the corner. Of the three, Brandon was the only one who still couldn’t sleep. With his mind caught up in the case, he tossed and turned, wrestling his covers, battling his pillow, and once again reliving that long-­ago crime scene.