Cave of Bones

by Anne Hillerman

  18

  Bernie hurried into her coat, leaving her last twenty for the meal and the tip; she couldn’t wait for change. By the time she reached the parking lot, Franklin was gone, the taillights of his truck red beacons growing smaller in the falling snow. As she ran for her unit, she watched him turn left onto Grants’ main street, toward the on-ramps to Interstate 40 and, beyond that, the eastern side of the Malpais.

  As she put her backpack on the seat, Bernie felt her cell phone vibrate. Mama, Darleen, Leaphorn, even Chee—whoever it was would have to wait. She clicked on her seat belt, started the engine, and radioed the local law enforcement that she was in pursuit of a distraught Navajo man driving a black Ford pickup.

  “You’re aware of the weather conditions?”

  “Yes, that’s part of my concern.” She gave the dispatcher Franklin’s name and description.

  “You know about the ongoing search out there for the missing person?”

  “Yes.”

  “Be careful. Make sure they don’t end up looking for you, too.”

  Her first judgment call came as she neared the freeway entrance. She could get on I-40 West here, head toward Gallup, and then get off at the San Rafael exit, which accessed the west side of the Malpais and also was closer to the house Franklin and Cruz shared in San Rafael on weekends. But her instincts told her to keep going straight toward the badlands, straight to the area where the search for Cruz was based.

  The bridge over the freeway had started to ice, but it wasn’t slick yet. Traffic on the interstate was surprisingly heavy; the storm must have caught the truckers off guard. Snow had accumulated on the edges of the highway, but the paved roadway was wet, not icy, at least not yet. She experimented with increasing her speed until she found the right level, as fast as possible without undue risk. The wipers set a steady rhythm for her thoughts and did a decent job of clearing the swirl of rapidly falling snow.

  She should never have mentioned suicide to Franklin. He was partially unglued already, judging not only by his unkempt looks but by his tears and impulsiveness. His mental stability had been hanging by a thread, and her questions might have taken him to a dark place.

  She’d spent too many nights talking to cops, she decided. She knew that words had consequences; that was why the Holy People had taught the Navajo to use them wisely and with restraint. Talking about the negative, as she had done, brought it into the forefront, like inviting evil into the hogan, into your living room. She was only talking, not thinking. Talking too much, a little too proud, a little too full of herself. All behaviors the Holy People warned against.

  The snow came down more heavily now, fast enough that her wipers struggled to keep the windshield clean. A slick spot on the highway slid her unit across the yellow shoulder line. She automatically took her foot off the gas, eased back into the proper lane, and focused her full attention on driving. The wall of falling snow in front of her made it hard to see the directional signs indicating curves and switchbacks and intersecting roads until she was on top of them, but she had driven this way often enough recently to know when to slow down. She peered through the windshield, looking for Franklin’s taillights, seeing only a moving curtain of white.

  She watched for the junctions. Seeing no tracks at the road that went to the closed BLM ranger station or to the Sandstone Bluffs entrance a few miles farther south, she continued toward La Ventana Natural Arch, looking for Franklin’s truck beside the road. The snow made it harder to see if another vehicle had come this way, or if she was driving through a layer that was undisturbed.

  Franklin hadn’t had that much of a head start. If he were driving much faster than she, she would have seen his truck—or its tracks—in a skid off the highway. She looked at the clock on the dashboard and decided she’d give the road another ten minutes, unless she got to the arch parking area first. If she didn’t spot him there or before, she would admit that she’d made the wrong call and he was on the road to San Rafael, the highway on the west side of the badlands. In that case, he had too much of a head start for her to find him, and she’d quit worrying and head home.

  The snow was falling even more heavily now, sparkling white. Headlights approached from the south, hopefully in the opposite lane. The distance between them closed. It was a big truck pulling a trailer, moving cautiously through the storm and staying in its own lane.

  She pulled into the Ventana parking lot to turn around, finding no tracks, only beautiful unbroken snow. On another night, if the moon were shining and the blizzard had ended, she would have climbed out to see the sandstone arch covered with snow. She turned the unit around to head back toward Grants, disappointment weighing on her. Franklin must have gone the other way. Maybe he’d done the smart thing and gone home to bed. When her phone buzzed, and she saw it was Mama, she stayed in the parking lot, put the unit in park, and took the call.

  “Daughter, I’m waiting for you to take me to the grocery store.”

  Bernie sucked in her breath. She knew she had told Mama she couldn’t help her tonight. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve had some crises at work. Those things soaked up my time, and I forgot to call you.” She didn’t get into the specifics of Franklin’s despondency or Larry’s accident. “We will go as soon as I can. Did you have something for dinner, Mama?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No. Mrs. Darkwater came over, and we watched that show on TV, you know, where people try to guess words and spin the big wheel. She brought some applesauce, and we had that too, for dessert. It was good, but not as good as those brownies I like.”

  Mrs. Darkwater, Mama’s closest neighbor, had become a friend to her and an auntie for Bernie. Mama usually didn’t like talking on the phone, but tonight was different. Bernie turned up the heater a notch, put the phone on speaker, and shifted into drive.

  Mama chatted on, telling her about Mrs. Darkwater’s grandson and how he was making a volcano for his science project. Then she talked again about her weaving student and her slow but steady progress. Bernie drove faster now, pushing the unit against the storm, convinced that Franklin had taken a different route.

  Mama finished bragging on her student and told Bernie again about the applesauce and the TV show. Then, “Did you talk to your sister?”

  “Yes. Her program is over on Friday. A few more days, that’s all, and then she’ll be home.”

  “I miss her.” Mama paused. “You sound far away. Where are you?”

  “I put you on the speakerphone, Mama, that’s why I sound different. I’m out by Grants, but I’m heading back to Shiprock now.”

  “That is a long drive, daughter. Be careful. I saw on TV that a storm is coming. I think it is good that we did not go shopping tonight. Will your husband be home soon?”

  “I hope so.”

  Mama ended the call. Bernie felt a pang of anxiety about the conversation, but she filed it away to consider later.

  The snow continued with a vengeance. New Mexico needed the moisture, a beautiful gift, but she wished it had waited until she could snuggle warmly in bed. She turned her wipers on to high and slowed down a little more. Her earlier tire tracks had disappeared, along with the center line. She used the reflectors along the side of the road to navigate.

  Keeping the interstate highway open during a storm took precedence, so she hoped that a plow and sand truck had already been out to scrape the asphalt. Less-traveled roads like the one she was on now were a lower priority. On the Navajo Nation, most roads were unpaved, and snow removal usually consisted of neighbors with plows on their trucks or, more often, the emergence of the sun and warmer days. That created another problem. Every year she rescued people whose vehicles had gotten stuck in cold, deep mud.

  Except for the truck and trailer she’d encountered, no vehicle had passed her in either direction. Even though she was almost sure Franklin had taken the other road—the one she wasn’t on—she watched for a vehicle parked off the road. She slowed down as s
he reached the turnoff for the Acoma-Zuni trailhead, remembering that this was where the trailer had passed her. If Franklin had parked here, she would have missed him. She looked closely as she drove past. Did she see a vehicle, or was it only a reflection from the snow?

  She tapped the brakes, feeling the unit slide before the tires found traction. She backed up until her headlights caught the entrance road. A set of tracks was faintly visible in the snow: someone had turned here. She drove in. Her headlights reflected off a glint of glass and chrome—a snow-covered truck. Franklin had parked his dark vehicle behind a cluster of piñon trees at the spot closest to the trailhead and farthest from the highway. She pulled in next to it.

  The hood of the truck was still warm, and the driver’s door was locked. Bernie shined her flashlight inside. Franklin wasn’t there, but the winter jacket he had been wearing earlier was on the seat. His hat and gloves were on the floor. She studied the snow with her flashlight until she found the smooth prints of his cowboy boot soles, then called in the situation to local law enforcement, put the space blanket from her trunk in her backpack, and pulled on her knit cap and her gloves, all the while envisioning Franklin out in the blizzard, cold but safe.

  The trail, a single track in the dirt, was marked by rock cairns. It would have been a challenge to follow in any circumstances. Now, about six inches of snow had accumulated, and even with her boots the flat stretch at the beginning held some challenge. Using her flashlight to hunt for Franklin’s footprints and for obstacles now buried beneath the relentless snow, she followed his faint tracks, thankful that he stayed on what must be the narrow path of the trail.

  She remembered hiking this way once with Chee in the spring, and how the trail started out heading toward the lava, then made a surprising turn to the right and edged along the flow before climbing through the rugged black rock. That had been several years before, and in the daylight, but she hoped the route had wedged itself in her memory, to be accessed if needed.

  The snow had begun to settle in little drifts against the base of rocks and trees. After about ten minutes of walking, she called to Franklin. There was no response from the darkness. Then she saw a place where someone, probably Franklin, had slipped.

  The snowflakes melted against Bernie’s cheeks, tickled her eyelashes. Her hands and toes were cold, and the wind pushed the frigid air through her jacket. She nearly tripped over a log made invisible by the snow, and as she waited to catch her breath, she noticed another disruption in the snow’s surface. Franklin had fallen here. She walked faster, hoping that if he collapsed somewhere, she could find him in the blizzard. The dark night and the intensity of the snowfall were disorienting, conditions that made it easy to get lost in a dangerous place. She was glad she’d left the emergency lights flashing on her unit, a beacon to guide her back.

  Now, when she scanned the snow for Franklin’s boot prints, she couldn’t see them, only the way the snow had drifted over the trail. She walked on. Still nothing.

  “Franklin? Franklin! It’s Bernie. Are you out here?”

  She continued, using the snow-covered rock piles as guides, but his prints didn’t reappear. Either the blizzard had buried them or he had turned off the trail somewhere, and she’d missed the place. She called again, listened. The wind stopped, and her chilled bones rejoiced, but the only thing she heard was silence. She called again, listened to the hush of the flakes landing on piñon needles, sage, and lava rock.

  Her face was numb now, and her toes barely responded when she tried to wiggle them. She couldn’t risk becoming another job for the search team. Saying a silent prayer for Franklin, she turned back; she’d pay more attention to the sides of the trail now, for places he could have headed off into the lava. She had walked only a few minutes when she noticed faint depressions in the snow away from the trail to the west. An animal? Maybe. She looked at the prints more closely, and then for landmarks to help her find the spot to connect back to the parking lot trail, spotting a lone snow-covered tree that leaned to the right. Not much, but it would have to do.

  She remembered how he’d been dressed at the restaurant, only a long-sleeve denim shirt and jeans under the jacket she’d spotted in his truck. If she felt chilled now, as warmly dressed as she was, he must be close to frozen.

  She called again as she set out, stepping in the indents that might be his tracks. Adrenaline energized her, and she forgot her cold feet and hands, focusing closely on the rapidly disappearing path she hoped Franklin had made. The deepening snow crept over the top of her hiking boots and sifted in to melt against her socks.

  At first, it sounded like an animal, maybe a rabbit in distress or a fox. The sound wasn’t exactly anything she’d heard before. It stirred ancestral memories of shape-shifting creatures that roamed the earth at night, causing trouble. She stopped, her heart racing. It came again, and this time it sounded human.

  “Franklin?”

  She heard the sound a third time, and then something heartbreaking, muffled by the snow. It could have been her own name.

  19

  Bernie nearly stumbled over him, sprawled in the snow-covered lava, his arms folded over his chest.

  “You’re not dying tonight,” she told him. “You’re coming with me.”

  She supported Franklin to a sitting position and then slowly to standing, the emergency blanket from her pack wrapped around his shoulders. His soaked clothing had already started to stiffen. It wouldn’t have been long before hypothermia set in. She put her warm hat over his icy ears and assisted him on the cold, slick walk to her unit. The challenge and the stress helped her forget about her numb toes and frozen hands.

  When they finally reached the parking area, she asked Franklin about the keys to his truck so she could unlock the vehicle and extract his coat, hat, and gloves. He stared at her without responding. She felt his pockets but didn’t find the keys.

  She opened the trunk to get the extra blankets and energy bars she kept in case of emergencies, pushing aside the cardboard box the ranger had entrusted to her. That encounter seemed like weeks ago, not just that afternoon.

  After helping Franklin in, Bernie started the engine and waited what seemed like forever for the orange needle to float up to the C and then a touch beyond it. Finally she cranked up the heat to maximum as Franklin shivered in the seat next to her.

  “Sit on your hands to help warm them up,” she said. His face was ashen, but a warmer shade of gray than when she had discovered him, partly covered in snow with the big flakes melting on the bare skin of his face and neck.

  “I wanted to da-da-die there.” The bone-deep cold made his teeth chatter. “Ba-ba-but when I heard you calling, I had taaaa-to answer.”

  When the unit grew warmer, she persuaded him to remove his soaked shirt and gave him one of the soft, warm blankets for his bare shoulders. She poured some lukewarm coffee from her thermos into a cup and held it while he drank so his shaking hands wouldn’t spill it.

  “That tastes terrible.”

  She laughed. “Did your grandmother forget to teach you any manners?”

  “My shimásání is gone. Dom must be dead, too.”

  Everything she could think of saying in response sounded clichéd. She changed the subject. “Do you know where the keys are to your truck?”

  “I dropped them in the snow. I left my coat in the car so it would be dry for Dom if I found him. My hat and gloves, too. I thought he would need . . .” Franklin left the thought suspended in the winter air, and they sat with the pain, raw and deep.

  After a while she offered him an energy bar. “Eat this. You could use the calories. Then try to relax. We need to go before the roads get any worse. Would you like me to take you to the hospital?”

  “No. I’ll be fine. I want to go home. You’re ca-ca-cold too, aren’t you? Here, take your hat back.”

  “I’m OK. I’ll drive, you rest. You don’t need to talk. Think of a warm, safe place.”

  Franklin wrapped the blanket more tightly
around his bare shoulders.

  “I always feel safe with Dom. He’s my anchor, you know, strong, smart, kind. And now . . .” Bernie heard a choked sob.

  “Franklin, you weren’t meant to die out there. That’s the reason I found you.”

  She stopped talking to give driving her total focus. In the long minutes she had spent finding Franklin and getting him to her unit, NM 117 had accumulated enough snow to force her to slow down even more drastically. The blizzard made each curve a driving test, and the gusty wind created periodic whiteouts. She could see only as far as the place ahead where her headlights penetrated the wall of falling snow.

  From the corner of her eye, she watched Franklin tug the blanket around himself. “If I’m cold sitting in this car with the heat on and wearing your hat and everything, imagine how Dom must feel. I hope he’s dead. That’s better than suffering.” He let out a low sob. “No, no, I don’t mean that.”

  “Shhhh. Rest.” She drove with both hands on the wheel, using the reflectors along the roadside to make sure her unit stayed on the pavement, headed in the right direction.

  After what seemed like forever, she came to the overpass that led to the interstate. She relaxed a tiny bit when she saw that the highway department had not erected the road-closed barriers—not yet. She expected the bridge to be slick, and it was. She stayed in the center and then eased onto the four-lane highway heading west to Grants. Her passenger sat up straight, staring unblinkingly ahead, watching the storm and the trucks that crept along. She appreciated his silence.

  She heard the radio squawk, and Franklin flinched.

  “Manuelito, where are you?” It was the rookie, Officer Wilson Sam.

  He chuckled when she told him. “No kidding? The interstate is closed west of Grants because of the storm. A truck overturned, and it’s blocking both lanes. You won’t make it back tonight.”

  “I guess not. Is the captain there?”