The Evil That Men Do

by Robert D. Rodman

  I whispered, “Shit. We need to do something. Can we find one of those picks? We need some kind of weapon. I refuse to make this easy for them.”

  I started feeling around again. “Oh, damn, I keep bumping that box of dynamite.”

  “The dynamite!” exclaimed Charles. “Where? Put my hand on the box.”

  “Here, it’s here,” I said, guiding his hand. “What the fuck are you going to do with dynamite?” I whispered throatily. “Are you crazy?”

  The hinges on the old crate squeaked loudly as Charles lifted the top. “Capital, capital,” Charles muttered under his breath. “They left some.”

  The creaking hinges gave away our location. A flickering of two lights grew brighter from around the bend. Gravel crunched underfoot as they approached our tunnel.

  “Good of them to provide light,” said Charles. “Stay here!”

  “Charles, please, I’d rather be shot than trapped in a cave-in. What are you doing with the dynamite?”

  “Stay here! Turn around. Cover your ears. Trust me.” He gave my arm a squeeze and moved off. I had only a moment to contemplate how many times a man had said, “Trust me,” and I’d later wished I hadn’t. But here in this mine, trapped in the dark, what choice did I have?

  Charles’s silhouette was barely visible. He was bent forward, his left arm swung back, grasping the stick of dynamite by its middle. He moved forward rapidly, in a crouch, as if bowling. He gave a sharp plosive grunt, like the kind weight lifters make. I turned, covered my ears, and closed my eyes tightly.

  Just before the loud crack, Charles scurried back. The flash of the explosion penetrated my closed eyelids. The echo of the detonation reverberated throughout the tunnel and throughout my head. I listened breathlessly for the sound of falling rock, partially deafened though I was. What I heard was loud cursing and rapidly retreating footfalls.

  Then Charles was holding me. “You okay?”

  I was shaking so hard it took me a moment to get my voice.

  “Dagny, talk to me,” pleaded Charles.

  “I’m okay,” I murmured. “I’m having a real blast. And you?”

  “Very funny,” he said, giving me a crushing hug. “I’m okay. My ears are ringing, but I spun round the corner in time to avoid the direct shock wave. I think our friends will have trouble hearing for a while. I doubt they’ll bother us anymore.”

  He hugged me harder. For an instant we lost our balance. I staggered a couple of steps backwards, kicking the box of dynamite with my heel, and nearly falling backwards into the open crate.

  “Jesus, I’m gonna blow my ass away,” I blurted out, as Charles steadied me.

  “Don’t worry. Dynamite isn’t that sensitive to shock.” He kicked the crate to emphasize his point, and my heart jumped into my mouth. “My main fear when I bowled that stick into the wall of the main shaft was that it wouldn’t detonate.”

  “I didn’t know you were a bowler.”

  “Oh, I am, but not in American ten pins. I bowled for East Surrey, a cricket team. It’s like pitching in your baseball. A good cricket bowler can hurl a ball as fast as a pitcher. I wasn’t bad for an amateur. I rolled the dynamite off my finger tips so it’d hit flat on.”

  “Weren’t you worried about cave-ins?”

  “I’d examined the shoring and it was solid. The dynamite exploded in an open place, so most of its force dissipated into the air. Mines are built to withstand blasting. I’m going to have a peek into the main shaft. I think we discouraged them. They probably think we have a bazooka,” he chuckled.

  I followed Charles. Before reaching the main shaft we stopped to listen. An engine cranked. We stepped out into the main shaft and gazed into the square of light. I couldn’t see a thing, but I heard a vehicle retreating.

  In the faint twilight of the shaft, we peered around for the flashlight. Charles spotted it a few feet from where he had fallen. The top had jarred loose, but it was easily fixed and we had light again. Charles scanned the wall with the light.

  “There’s where the dynamite detonated.” He shined the light on a charred patch of wall about two feet from the ground. “I bowled a low ball for fear of hitting the lintel over our tunnel entrance. But it had to be high enough and fast enough to strike the wall. I don’t think bouncing on the ground would’ve detonated it.”

  I had to laugh. About his considerable medical abilities, Charles was quite modest. But when it came to his cricket skills, he couldn’t keep himself from bragging.

  We began to walk toward the entrance, Charles idly swinging the flashlight. A metallic glint caught my eye. “What’s that?” I cried.

  “What’s what?”

  “Something shiny. Let me have the light.” I searched the floor in front of us. “It’s my baby, my baby Glock.” I squealed with delight. “Some bastard was going to shoot me with my own gun. It was blown right out of his hand. It looks none the worse.” I blew the dust off it and tucked it in the waistband at the small of my back.

  I squinted at Charles. The light revealed the damage done to his face. “I’m afraid the side of your face got a bit messed up when I dragged you. I’m sorry. I’ll clean you up as soon as we’re out of here. Maybe this will help.” I moved my lips over his scrapes, touching them lightly, ending up on his lips.

  “Quite better already,” he said after a long, searching kiss.

  We were nearly out of the mine when I heard a car’s engine laboring up the hill. We moved back into the dimness of the shaft off to one side. I palmed the Glock. I stared toward the road, narrowing my eyes against the brightness. The surrounding vegetation shimmered from green to blue to green. I blinked hard to help my eyes adjust. A moment later the grille of a large car bounced into view.

  Chapter 9

  The black and orange car advanced purposefully into the clearing, turned and pulled up behind the Subaru. On the driver’s door was the logo of the Churok Tribal Police. On the roof, the blue lights were flashing.

  I tucked the semi back in my waistband and prayed silently that our would-be assassins hadn’t stolen my P.I. license and gun permit. “Keep your hands in front of you,” I warned Charles. We exited squinting into the sunlight.

  “Good afternoon,” I shouted. The two policemen, who’d been examining the Subaru, turned toward us, hands resting on holsters. We approached slowly. “I’m Dagny Jamison. I’m a private investigator. This is Dr. Charles Clarke. I represent a client who is a part owner of this mine. She asked me to check it out for her.”

  We approached closer. “I have a pistol tucked in the small of my back,” I called out. “I have a permit to carry it, but I’m going to let you remove it.” I turned around and held my arms out to the side. To their credit, they didn’t draw their weapons. One of them came over and removed the semi. He stared at it for a moment, and then decocked the hammer, released the magazine, and removed the remaining, chambered bullet. He asked Charles if he had any firearms, and accepted the denial at face value.

  “My license and permit are in the car, if you’ll allow me.” They did. I opened the passenger door of the Subaru, composing lies as fast as I could in case my wallet was missing. The contents of my bag had been dumped on the passenger’s seat. To my relief the wallet was present and untouched. On the other hand, the men who attacked us were not thieves; this was all the more scary. One cop took my P.I. license and gun permit, asked Charles for his driver’s license, and retired to the squad car for a computer check. I repacked my handbag.

  The three of us waited in silence. The Churok cops didn’t waste words. The one who’d been back to the squad car returned after ten long minutes. He looked me over carefully, checking height, weight, and complexion. Satisfied, he returned my license, permit, and pistol. “You check out,” he said. “Technically, your permit’s invalid on the Churok reservation, but we try to get along with the State of California. If you wouldn’t mind, lock your firearm in the glove compartment when you’re on the reservation.”

  I promised I would, th
anked him, and waited for them to leave. No such luck.

  “We came up here to investigate a report of an explosion.” He waited expressionlessly.

  Charles opened his mouth to explain, but I cut him off. “My client, Miss Judy Raskin, asked me to find out whether this mine has any potential value. I asked Dr. Clarke, who’s trained as a geologist, to help me. We set off a small charge to test the vein.” I was hoping either that this lie was reasonable, or the cops knew less about mining than I did. It must have been one or the other because they bought it.

  “What about your face?” he asked Charles.

  “I’m afraid in retreating from the detonation I stumbled and collided with the wall,” lied Charles.

  Oh, this is wonderful, I thought: we are lying together.

  “Do you have any papers giving you permission to be on this property?” asked the second cop, who up to now had been silent.

  “Yes sir, I do.” I fetched out the leasing agreement I got from Bill Raskin and handed it to him. “You can see that Miss Raskin, Mr. Stanton, Mr. and Mrs. Blair, and Mr. Greatoak, who is a Churok, are all partners.”

  The two cops looked at each other. They exchanged a few words in Churok. Then the second cop said, “We know Mr. Greatoak as Towippa, one of the elders of the Churok Nation. Perhaps, since you’re setting off explosives in his mine, you would care to meet him.”

  I took this as a quid pro quo request. They knew they had cut us some slack. Now we needed to cooperate, which was easy enough since I had intended all along to find Mr. Tommy Greatoak and fill him in on the deaths of two of his partners.

  They allowed us to drive our vehicle. We followed the police car down the rutted trail. When we reached Whitewater Spring Canyon Road, with its less demanding surface, Charles felt able to talk. “Why didn’t we tell them we were attacked, Dagny? They might be able to radio ahead for a road block.”

  “For one thing, those thugs would be long gone. For another, we don’t have a description of them or their vehicle. For a third, I’d prefer to leave them in the dark as to what happened to us. For all they know, we blew ourselves up. Or maybe they think they did something to cause the explosion. I’m sure they hauled ass out of there. I doubt they wanted to answer questions from those two,” I said, nodding at the police car in front of us.

  “I’ve never had anyone try to kill me,” replied Charles. “I guess I don’t know what to do.”

  “I have had people try to kill me,” I said grimly. “My brother’s given me pointers on how to avoid such a fate, and my military police training helps a lot. I’ll try to keep us alive. Anyway, I think it’s me they’re after. I’m not sure why. If I’ve learned something that threatens anyone, I sure as hell don’t know what it is.”

  “We’re in this together, Dagny. I’m not going to leave you to face this alone.”

  “Brave, sweet, sexy Charles,” I said, squeezing his hand. “You’ve already saved us. That was a helluva gutsy performance inside the mine. If this keeps up, I’m gonna have to start wearing a pacemaker. I about had a heart attack.”

  We reached the bottom of the canyon. The cop car signaled for a right turn on Moorland Boulevard We followed. To our left was the Makrui valley, arid and flat, where most of the Churoks lived. The canyons of the national forest were on the right. Every half-mile or so would be a sign for such-and-such canyon: Guevara Canyon, Badde Canyon, Shelby Canyon, Cecelia Canyon, Blue Canyon, and so on.

  We crossed the Makrui River. Just over the bridge was a sign for the hamlet of Horse Potrero, population 452. We slowed to a respectful 25 miles per hour as we drove down Main Street. People were out in numbers, milling about. Some were patronizing the few small businesses along the road—a hardware and feed store, the Henny-Penny five-and-dime, a mini-supermarket whose unabashed green sign read 7-EVEN.

  The local hangout was Fosters Freeze, a burger and ice cream joint with half a dozen concrete picnic tables for outside seating. The town’s liquor store was next door to it. A number of people were sitting on the tables, feet on seat benches, enjoying their favorite beverage. A woman was playing a guitar. Several dogs roamed the premises, looking for someone who actually had food.

  The road rose and crested, offering a view of the Makrui River, a shimmering multi-colored ribbon winding through the sun-soaked valley. At the bottom of the hill, the cops signaled for a right turn. We followed them onto Chaparral Canyon Road. The houses, as everywhere on this part of the reservation, were of the small clapboard variety, set well back from the road. A couple of miles into the canyon, the patrol car signaled, slowed, and made a left turn onto a gravel driveway.

  As we crept along, dogs of various sizes, shapes and colors materialized to run alongside the two vehicles. They escorted our little convoy with enthusiastic barking until we stopped a respectful distance from the house at the driveway’s end. The cops made no move to leave their car, nor did they honk. They waited, we waited, the dogs circled, baying and barking.

  Suddenly a particularly large specimen put his front paws on the driver’s side window and leered at Charles, mouth agape. Charles grinned and lowered his window. The moving window spooked the dog and he disappeared. Charles clucked for it to come back and the large black head was suddenly inside the car. This was a very good sign; Charles liked dogs. I couldn’t imagine a lover who didn’t. The whole scene reminded me of how much I missed my two greyhounds at home in North Carolina, though I knew they were being shamelessly spoiled by my dog/house-sitter.

  “That’s a nice boy, good boy. What’s your name?” said Charles, as he scratched behind the dog’s ears and rubbed the top of its head. A bit of slaver dripped on Charles’s bare arm. “He’s just a big old loopy Lab,” said Charles. I reached over and scratched the massive head. He was the biggest Labrador retriever I’d ever seen. I stroked his ears, silky as fine velvet.

  The jaws opened and moved to encompass my wrist, a typical Lab gesture of friendship. Charles apparently thought I’d be afraid and reassured me. “He likes you, Dagny. When Labs like something, they want to hold it in their mouth. He won’t hurt you. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s a big, friendly baby boy, aren’t you?” The last few words had dissolved into baby-doggy talk, and were directed at the animal.

  “Why are the cops just sitting there?” I wondered aloud, my hand now stroking the creature’s muzzle, which he apparently liked because when I stopped he craned his neck to nose my hand.

  “Maybe they called this Mr. Greatoak and they’re waiting for him to come out. I gathered he was an important person. American cops, they’d just walk up and bang on the ruddy door. They don’t know if that person’s eating, sleeping, or making love. Maybe these Churoks are more attuned to others. Remember how they waited without talking back at the mine. They’re comfortable with silence, and patient. They leave a person space to think and consider.”

  “Yeah, and time to make up stories if they’re in a pinch, thank goodness,” I added gratefully.

  A deep voice boomed the single word “Quiet,” which had an immediate effect. I had relegated the barking and snuffling to background noise, so the silence was even more striking. The Lab jumped down. The other dogs stopped in mid-bark and looked toward the house.

  Standing on the front porch was a colossus of a man—a veritable Paul Bunyan—with a long, black ponytail secured by a red and turquoise band. He wore overalls and a plaid work shirt with rolled-up sleeves. The only place this man wouldn’t stand out would be in the defensive line of a pro football team. Whether because of his size or his gigantic voice, he commanded respect from the pack, which seemed to await his orders.

  At last the cops got out of their car. They walked toward the house as Mr. Greatoak, for that was who it was, descended from his front porch to meet them. There was no handshaking, but a conversation had already begun. In a moment one of the cops beckoned to us.

  We exited the Subaru and made our way over to the three men. The big Lab accompanied us, his tail swishing back and forth. Th
e other dogs were watchful, deferential.

  One of the cops introduced us. “This is Dr. Clarke and Miss Jamison. Dr. Clarke works for the coroner’s office in Santa Barbara; Miss Jamison is a private investigator.”

  Turning to us, he said, “This is Mr. Greatoak, one of the leaders of the Churok Nation.” Ordinarily I would have offered my hand, but handshaking didn’t seem to be customary, and Charles had picked up on that, too.

  “I’m pleased to meet you both. People call me Tommy.” The colossus said something to the two police officers in Churok. They nodded to us and left. “I hope Rikka and Nostawwa were polite to you. I’ve known them since they were children. They’re good boys.”

  Greatoak’s voice was deep and resonant, mellow as old bourbon aged in oak. He looked down on us benevolently. Despite his daunting size—he was nearly a foot taller than Charles—I didn’t feel threatened by him, though I wouldn’t have minded if the cops had remained.

  “They did their job,” I said. “We have no complaints.”

  “Good, good. Please come in. I want to hear everything about my little sister Judy.”

  We followed him to the front door. The Labrador escorted us inside, the only dog so privileged. “I see you’ve met Izzie,” he said, reaching down to stroke the big head.

  “That wouldn’t be short for Isidore by any chance?” said Charles, using the dog’s name to help break the ice.

  “It’s short for Izupimma,” the big man said, and in answer to Charles’s questioning look continued in a friendly tone, “I named him as I was named. When I was born, I weighed nearly fourteen pounds. My parents named me Towippa for my size. ‘To’ is Churok for ‘oak,’ ‘wip’ means ‘large’ and ‘pa’ means ‘very.’”

  “But what’s that to do with Izzie?” asked Charles, genuinely interested.