Wild Sorrow

by AULT, SANDI

  “Nothing that noble. As you know, I’ve been looking into Gallegos’s business and financial affairs, trying to build a better case for my appeal in the tenant dispute. I found out that when Eloy’s mother died, he and his second cousin, Benny Baca, were the sole heirs to the Baca Land Grant, a tract of land given in the Spanish Land Grants. Eloy used his share of the inherited land to become a Taos slumlord, renting his handful of run-down adobes and failing to provide needed repairs and services. Benny, whose family had moved to California when he was young, had gotten into gangs and afoul of the law. After his parents’ death and a short stint of prison time, he returned to Taos to be the strong-arm in the Baca Land Development operations that Eloy was running, which for years was only renting the run-down places and extorting the renters for their rent and deposits. But recently, Eloy Gallegos was courting a developer who wanted to buy the land and put up condos.”

  “Don’t tell me,” I said, putting a plateful of warm food in front of Diane. “Cassie Morgan was somehow involved in the development deal.”

  “Kind of,” Diane said. “However, it’s more like she wasn’t involved, and refused to be involved. Gallegos had made an enemy of Cassie Morgan through a series of confrontations over the years because Morgan’s fine home was on land adjacent to the run-down Baca houses—over on the opposite side of the land grant from where I rented from Gallegos. Morgan had lodged countless complaints of raw sewage, improper maintenance, noise, trash, and more—but each time, she was thwarted because Gallegos paid off the officials. So, when the Baca Land Development Company needed Morgan to sell them an easement so that the condo deal could go through, Morgan refused.”

  I poured coffee for each of us, and gave Mountain another hunk of deer sausage. I had a fleeting thought of what Roy would have to say about that, but I shoved it out of my mind. “But what a way to kill someone—not that there are good ways—but this way was really malicious.”

  “Or maybe that’s just his way of being wily and creative. As a child, Gallegos had to have heard countless stories of the child abuse at San Pedro de Arbués Indian School. When Gallegos discovered Morgan’s past identity, he figured a way to remove her as a problem and to point the finger of blame for the murder at the Indian school survivors. And besides, he probably counted on the body not being found, or at least not for a long time, at which point the evidence would have been mostly gone and the trail cold.”

  “But what about the attacks on me? Do you still think it was that ATV chase that started it all?”

  “You discovered the body. And the UTV itself was a major clue; it belongs to the National Guard. It’s specially made for rugged terrain to transport medics and supplies. He thought you saw it, and possibly him, too. They figure you either knew or could put it together eventually. Gallegos is the keeper of the keys for that fenced federal training facility out there. That’s how he’d come and gone without anyone seeing him do it when he left Morgan’s body at the old Indian school.”

  “That’s how those guys got back from leaving you out on the mesa last night without me seeing them, too,” Kerry said. “Or that shepherd Kuwany.”

  “But what do you think Gallegos was doing out there, idling along on the UTV a day or so after the body had been found?” I said.

  “Like I said, they left something behind.” Diane spooned a bite of tamale into her mouth.

  “Wait a minute,” Kerry said. “Jamaica doesn’t know about the knife.” He turned to me. “The paramedics were checking you over when Diane arrived last night, and I gave it to her. In all the excitement, I forgot to tell you: I found a knife on the ground about a hundred yards from the entrance to the Indian school. It’s a military-issue commando-style knife.”

  “You found a knife? But how did we miss it? We searched the whole area in a grid pattern the morning after I found the body,” I said.

  “Probably the winds. Covered it up the night you were trapped in the snowstorm. Could have uncovered it last night,” Kerry said. “The blade was glistening in the light of that full moon.”

  “I sent the knife to the lab,” Diane said. “The prints were there, we’ll just hope we get a match.”

  We were all quiet a minute or two while we ate. Then I said, “So we’ve talked about Gallegos and Baca, but there’s a third guy involved. And what about the elk cow? And the cell phone?”

  “Let me tell you some of what I found out about Benny Baca,” Diane said. “His juvie record was sealed, but the Silver Bullet is going to help me get it opened, now that we have the DNA on Gallegos and see the tie-in. But just look at his adult sheet, and you’ll find out that Baca has been charged with two counts of torturing animals—one for setting his neighbor’s dog on fire and watching it burn to death, and the other for dragging a string of six cats behind his car down the Santa Monica Freeway. He pleaded down to a lesser charge and did six months of community service. Animal rights don’t get high priority in most overcrowded court systems. He’s also had a string of arson, assault, and attempted rape charges brought against him, most of which were dropped. He did serve time for assault when he was nineteen, and the victim was a woman who’d been badly beaten. They tried to prove rape, but that charge got thrown out due to a technicality in the handling of evidence.

  “And I told you before how Eloy Gallegos has everyone in town on a bribe or a debt. That’s one of his number one landlord ploys—if he gets someone in a position where they owe him, he can call in a favor when he needs it. He probably knows someone that somehow got your cell phone number for him. You said it’s posted on a bulletin board in here. It could have been anyone—a janitor, a delivery person, even a visitor that he sent in here under some pretext. Or it could be someone who works here, who didn’t know what they were doing when they gave it out.”

  “And what about the third guy?” I said.

  “I think I have an idea who it might be,” Diane said. “Once we question Baca and Gallegos, we’ll know for sure. Baca’s got a buddy down in Española he runs with, another winner with a checkered past. I had him picked up this morning just in case. He had a parole violation, so he can spend Christmas in lockup and we’ll put him and Baca in a lineup for your viewing pleasure tomorrow.”

  Just then, Roy peered in the doorway and looked right at me. “How are you doing, kiddo?” he asked, coming forward to study my face.

  “I think I’m going to make it now, Boss.”

  He started to raise his arms, as if he might have wanted to hug me, but wasn’t sure if he should do so. Instead, he reached up and tipped his cowboy hat back on his head, then dropped his arms to his sides. “I told you last night when the paramedics were looking you over that I’d come in and file the incident report today so you could get some rest. Looks like you didn’t pay a bit of attention, as usual.”

  I tried to suppress a smile as I reached out and put my arms around Roy, giving him a big hug. “I wanted to be the one to make the bust,” I said. “I needed to . . . break the news to Gallegos personally.”

  Kerry and Diane smiled at this. Roy patted me gently and then pulled away from my embrace. He turned to Diane. “So you got Gallegos in custody?”

  “And Baca,” Diane said. “And another guy I think was probably involved.”

  “And, Boss,” I said, “I did hear you last night: I didn’t file the incident report yet.”

  Roy pursed his lips. “So, you got the bad guy yourself and left me with the paperwork, huh?”

  I just smiled, even though it hurt my cracked lips and swollen cheek to do so.

  “So what are you guys doing here, then?” Roy asked, looking around. “Wait a minute—is that my deer sausage?”

  44

  Everything Changes

  On the morning after Christmas, I received the best possible gift. Charlie Dorn and his crew returned the she-lion to the Coldfire Ranch. Lorena and Scout had reported seeing the cubs eating at the feeding station east of the spring on Christmas Day, so we all hoped that meant the family wo
uld be successfully reunited. I drove out to the ranch to watch the release. The crew kept the cage covered until they were ready to set the cougar free, and the rest of us stayed well back of it and out of her way. The biologist pulled the release and the cage door flew open. A hesitant lion pushed her nose out and sniffed, but she did not move out. We waited, hushed and hopeful, for what felt like a small lifetime; then, she extended her head and looked from side to side. We huddled in our group behind the screens set back twenty yards from the cage. A minute later, she sprang, bounding away toward the foothills without looking back—surely remembering in our scent, and in the cage, and in the vehicle behind the cage, the report of the gun that had pierced her leg and cost her so much. I was excited that she might actually survive because of this fear, and hope purchased a small handhold in my worried, skeptical mind.

  Later, I drove the Blazer out to the overlook where I’d gone to monitor the traps. I made Mountain wait in the back while I got out and watched through my field glasses. I trained them to the east, where the cubs had been spotted, and for an hour I waited and watched without a sign. The wolf fell asleep, and I nearly did, too. Just as I was about to give up, I spied the two cubs crossing a flat, and in a few minutes, I saw their mother come in from the west. She lowered in the front, crouching as if to pounce, but stood stock-still and let the little ones approach, her tail high and waving, posed as she might to attack prey. I held my breath and said a silent prayer. Nothing happened for a few minutes, and the wary cubs started to leave. Then suddenly, the she-lion lay down, and the young ones returned—one of them sidling up to lick her face and the other snuggling into her side. She raised her head and closed her eyes, and I could almost hear the sound of her deep, motoring purr. These three great cats of the wild, these few of the last living embodiments of the untamed West, were a family once more.

  That afternoon, I stood in front of a one-way glass as six men lined up in a room on the other side of the barrier. The man I knew as Steel slouched casually against the wall and smirked, as if he had secret knowledge that this was all somehow going to go in his favor, and the rest of us had been deprived of that information. He picked dirt from under one of his fingernails with a thumbnail, and when asked, he stepped forward, crossed his arms over his chest, put one hand under his chin, and grinned leeringly at the glass. I felt my insides tighten, and for a moment, I thought I might lose control of my bladder. “That’s him,” I said. “He’s the one who almost raped—”

  Diane interrupted. “That’s Benny Baca,” she said. “Anyone else here look familiar?”

  I swallowed and nodded. “The guy on the end, on my right.”

  Diane pressed a button. “Number six, step forward, please.”

  Short didn’t look confident. In fact, he looked close to panic. His lips were quivering and he kept shifting his eyes from side to side nervously. He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans as if they might fly away if he didn’t.

  I nodded. “That’s the other one,” I said.

  “Yeah, just like I thought,” Diane said. “That’s Baca’s Española buddy.” She pressed the button again. “Thank you, gentlemen, that will be all.” Diane turned to me and put an arm around my shoulder. “You okay?”

  I drew in a long breath, and let it out. “Unh,” I said, as the women at the pueblo had taught me to do.

  The following Monday, Diane called to update me. “Benny Baca rolled on his cousin Eloy for the murder, and on his friend from Española, too. He’s hoping to plea-bargain his own murder charge down to manslaughter and leave those guys holding the bag. Eloy’s fingerprints were on the knife. Baca says Gallegos used it to cut off the victim’s hair. We only got prints from the knife, though, no hair fibers. But we have the DNA from the rope, so everything else is redundant.”

  “I figured you had the right guys,” I said. “I haven’t been attacked now for the better part of a week.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, I think we got it figured out. And I want you to know that even if Baca can plea down the murder charge—and I don’t think he can—he’s still going down for the assault on you.”

  “Why do you think Gallegos came to rescue me when Baca and his buddy had me under the cottonwoods?” I asked.

  “I’ve been thinking about that. You remember when you said something about recognizing him from before, when we were outside of the courthouse?”

  “Yeah. I was talking about recognizing him from the first day I went to the courthouse. He was wearing his army uniform that day; he bumped into me.”

  “I’m guessing he must not have been sure what you meant—or that he had a sense that you weren’t quite sure about him.”

  I was quiet a minute. “You mean, you think he might have set that rescue thing up to sway me away from suspicion?”

  “Well, it’s all I can come up with. It’s not like the guy has a decent bone in his body and would have done it for the right reasons.”

  “Or maybe Baca was going too far . . . getting out of control . . .”

  “Too far? Let’s remember how Cassie Morgan was murdered, shall we?”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. You know, the idea that maybe Eloy set up the scene to save me makes a little sense when I remember what happened on Christmas Eve morning.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I told him that I was grateful for what he had done, but that I didn’t change sides. I said that I knew what he was up to, and I was going to see that he paid for it.”

  “So, when he hears that, he decides to get rid of you for good, that very night. Maybe Baca’s been pushing for it, and Gallegos has either been wanting to just try to scare you off or wait and see. But now that seals it.”

  “That’s probably as close as we can get for now. Maybe we’ll never know the whole story.”

  “Look, Jamaica, there’s always a flaw or two in their thinking. There’s always some deviation from sound reasoning, that’s what leads the bad guys to do the wrong thing in the first place. When what a murderer does starts to seem logical,” Diane said, “it might be time for us to go do something else. Like sack groceries or wait tables.”

  “So is Agent Sterling going to get you a promotion and a new assignment, now that you’ve solved the case?”

  “I can get my own promotion. I don’t need Agent Sterling to do it for me.”

  “But I thought you and the Silver Bullet—”

  “Let me tell you something: he may be the Silver Bullet, but I am the gold standard of done. He bores me. He’s too full of himself.”

  “So, what about that new assignment you wanted?”

  “I could request a new assignment. But you know, I’m reconsidering.”

  “You are?”

  “Yeah. That procession on Christmas Eve, it was really something. It made me think I ought to stick around, maybe see what else I might have missed.”

  Kerry came in as I was hanging up the phone. Mountain got up from snoozing on the floor and greeted him with his tail wagging. “That was Diane,” I said. “She’s going to stay in Taos.”

  He looked down at me and blinked his eyes but didn’t speak.

  “And you?” I said.

  “I got the job, it’s confirmed.”

  I rose from my chair and kissed him. “Congratulations, Kerry.”

  He folded his arms around me, pulling me against his chest, into the warm cave of him where I had always felt safe and sheltered. He put a finger under my chin, raised it up, and studied my face. “Come with me,” he said, his eyes pleading.

  “I can’t.” I wanted to look away, but I didn’t.

  I felt his chest deflate. He stared me down. “You won’t.”

  I was quiet a minute. Mountain moved in between us, demanding to be rubbed. “I can’t,” I said softly, my eyes filling with tears.

  “Maybe we can figure out a place for Mountain,” he said. “There’s a wolf sanctuary in Washington—”

  “I won’t leave him,” I said. “I can’t.”
<
br />   Charlie Dorn sent a crew to my cabin to put up a fenced area for Mountain, and the wolf watched warily from the end of his chain as they built it. Once the workmen had left, I propped the tall hogwire and two-by-four gate open and hooked Mountain’s chain to the eyebolt in the gatepost so that he could enter the new confine in his own time and by his own choice. I walked into the nine-foot-high fenced area and pretended to be curious about its construction.

  “This isn’t how I wanted it to be,” I said, looking back at the wolf.

  Mountain stood as far away from the pen as his chain would permit, and he watched me with curiosity, his ears up, listening.

  I took hold of the fence and gave it a shake. It was solid. I turned to face my four-legged companion. “You just couldn’t make it in the wild, buddy,” I said, my lip quivering. “First, your mother was shot, and you needed someone to take care of you, or you would have died. Then we tried to get another pack to adopt you, and they wouldn’t take you in. You were so tiny, you were all alone. They kept you in a cage for a few days, and then they asked me to help take care of you until we could get you placed somewhere with a pack.”

  A breeze blew up, carrying the scent of the pines. Mountain and I raised our noses in unison and inhaled the fresh, beautiful fragrance.

  I sat down on the ground in the middle of the enclosure. “But we became a pack. You and me.” Tears streamed down my face. “I never thought it would come to this, you on a chain or in a pen. I would never have kept you if I had known. Of course, if you were in a sanctuary somewhere, you’d be in a fenced enclosure, but it would be bigger, and you’d have other wolves with you.”

  Mountain sat down just outside of the gate and looked in at me.

  I remained seated on the ground. “This is just for your safety, and I will never leave you in here when I’m not home. I’ll always take you with me whenever I can. And we’ll still go running together out on the mesa when the weather is nice, hike up through the woods, go out for long romps in all our favorite places.”