It took Kim only fifteen minutes to pick up her passengers: Sara, Allie and Veronica, then just one more stop before heading north on Highway 95. She swung her Jeep Cherokee into a gas station and up to a pump. She announced in a loud voice, “Okay, everyone, law of the desert south-west: gas tank full, bladder empty!”
She got out and went around to the front passenger side, expecting to help Sara out, but Sara had already opened the door and headed for the building. Veronica followed her into the store. Veronica was in her early twenties but Kim thought she still had the lanky look of an under-active, under-fed, under-socialized teenager. Straight, muddy brown hair a shade darker than her eyes contributed nothing in the way of attractiveness.
Allie hung back to talk to Kim while she pumped gas. “Thank you for doing this, Kim. It’s really important to Sara. For the last ten or twelve years she didn’t know where her daughter lived or even if she was still alive. I think she needs to anchor her memories of Cindy with some geographical place. It will give her some closure, some peace of mind.”
Kim leaned one hip against the vehicle. “I’m glad you were able to come along. I was a little uncomfortable with the idea of taking a hike with Sara and a bird-watcher I’ve never met.”
“I know. Thanks again.”
“I’m happy to do it, but this kind of trip sure isn’t the tradition in my culture. Our ancestors – most Native American ancestors – didn’t go near the place someone died. If it happened in a house, they burned it. I can’t help wondering about Veronica and why she came along.”
Allie said, “I don’t know Veronica very well. I met her through Cindy. I have the impression the only things that really interest her are birds and eligible men. She has lots of knowledge about birds, can tell you about them all day long but I think men are a little more elusive and harder for her to get close to.”
When Sara and Veronica returned, Kim and Allie took their turn in the restroom. On the road again, Kim and Allie soon paused their own conversation to listen to Veronica talk about Cindy. A group of Cindy’s massage clients and bird-watcher friends had created a memorial service to honor her just a few days after her body was discovered. Veronica said she had missed the event so she was eager to pay her last respects to Cindy today.
When they reached the trail head, Kim parked the Jeep in the same spot it had occupied on the day she discovered Cindy’s body. She switched off the ignition, suddenly deaf to the others’ voices. A chill went through her, an unfamiliar sensation she didn’t understand. Was it just the memory of Cindy’s murder that was making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end? Or was it a super-sensitive awareness and warning of present danger? With effort, she managed to dismiss the eerie feeling as a remnant of Native superstition. Allie asked her a question. Grateful for the distraction, she busied herself with familiar pre-hike preparations along with the others.
Veronica took the caps off the lenses of her binoculars, hung it around her neck and pulled her field guide out of her backpack. Allie laced on her hiking boots. Sara donned a beige cloth hat with an exaggerated front brim and a back brim that flopped all the way down the back of her neck. Kim turned away to hide her smile at how peculiar it looked. Last, before they set out, she checked the backpacks of the others and supplemented most of them with extra bottles of water.
Just minutes into the climb she pointed out that the cylinder-like Saguaro cactus, many of them fifteen feet high, had finished blooming. The cup-sized, waxy white flowers had been pollinated at night by bats and now were producing plum-sized fruit which would be harvested by some Native tribes and brewed into an intoxicating drink.
She also talked about the prickly pear cactus with clusters of succulent pads the size of small plates, bearing spines like toothpicks. In spring they had sprouted blooms along their edges which were now magenta-colored fruit covered with hundreds of stickers thinner than a hair. Some bore the bite marks of javalina. The pig-like javalina also savored the spiny green pads.
Kim’s comments about the cactus didn’t interest Veronica, who had been to Kofa as many times as Kim. She hung back with Sara, while Kim and Allie hiked side by side. A rattling sound stopped them. Sara, following close behind, bumped her head on Kim’s backpack and stepped on her heel. Veronica stumbled while avoiding a collision with Allie and almost fell. A four-foot long Gila Monster burst from a nearby creosote bush and hurried away from them with a sinuous gait necessitated by short legs on a wide body. It took a minute for the four women to watch it go, apologize to each other and sort themselves out.
During the last minutes of the hike Kim pictured the site the way she had last seen it and fervently hoped, for Sara’s sake, that no visual trace or odor of death lingered there. She said to the others, “I think we’re almost there, but let me go ahead to be sure. Just stay here and rest for a few minutes.”
If evidence of the remains were discernable by any human senses at the actual site she would fudge a bit on the location. She stopped by the boulder and examined the place, a picture of the body vivid in memory. With relief she saw the blood and body fluids along with their odors had succumbed to the assimilating powers of the desert. The place appeared no different than the terrain around it.
Kim walked with Sara to the spot while the others hung back a little. Sara stood looking down at the place in the dirt where Cindy’s body had lain. She took off her backpack and lifted out an arm-full of jacaranda blossoms picked in Yuma that morning. They were withered now, the once-spectacular flowers, shaped like ruffled cornucopia, were a limp mass of purple color and sweet scent.
From her own backpack, Kim took the little white wooden cross Sara had brought. Together they set it up and Sara lay the bouquet at its base. They all stood in silence until Veronica said, “She was a mentor to me when I started bird-watching. She was so good. She could spot a tiny little Vireo in a mesquite from fifty feet away.”
Allie put her arm around the young woman. “She was special,” she said. “She loved her friends and her massage clients and she loved the birds. That was her motivation. That’s why she did things – because she loved them.”
Kim began to speak. “I didn’t really know her, but I know she didn’t deserve…” She glanced at Sara quickly, aware that Cindy’s mother didn’t need to hear expressions of her own outrage over the murder.
Sara said, “I think I need to talk to her alone.”
The other three walked away until they were out of sight but close by, on the other side of the large boulder. They scuffed at the dirt with their hiking boots, looked for rocks big enough to serve as seats, and finally settled down. A minute later Veronica popped to her feet, reached for the binoculars hanging around her neck and sighted on something in a mesquite tree nearby, creeping toward it. Kim and Allie smiled at each other with silent amusement at her intensity.
“Cindy focused like that, too, when she had her binoculars,” Allie said. She gulped and a few tears slid down her cheeks. Kim leaned to the side a bit until her shoulder touched Allie’s, but said nothing. They watched as Veronica moved further away in pursuit of more birds.
When Sara began to speak Kim realized the words were clearly audible. She looked at Allie in concern and started to rise, intent on moving further away, but Allie shook her head and raised one palm. Kim settled back on the ground again, feeling guilty but unable not to listen. Allie didn’t try to hide her own eavesdropping. Kim reasoned that Allie’s motivation must be clinical curiosity. Allie had pushed the boundaries of a professional relationship with Sara by taking part in a personal activity like this one. Although she no longer saw Sara on a regular basis, Kim knew she liked Sara and still felt concerned about her.
“It never should have happened,” Sara was saying. “No child should die before her own mother. And not this way, Ruthie.” A long pause. “See here, the flowers I brought you? You always loved bright things that smell good. These came from a tree so big and such a glorious purple, like a giant bouquet set down by the hand o
f God.”
A long pause, with no sound at all. Kim pictured Sara arranging the wilted blossoms like a blanket on the dirt beneath the white cross. Then her voice again, “I’m sorry, Ruthie. . . we lost so many years together. I know I pushed you away. I wasn’t thinking straight in those days. My fears and my stories confused you and they drove you away. But why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t you tell me. . .?” The words went straight to Kim’s gut. She pulled her knees toward her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her head on her forearms, closing her eyes. It could be her own mother’s voice speaking to her. Was she herself like Sara’s Ruthie? Had she run away to Yuma because of what she couldn’t tell her mother? If only she had been able to tell – tell about a monster disguised as a seemingly ordinary man who had tormented her childhood for three years! If she had been able to tell, things might be different right now, different between her and Lon.
Sara’s voice sounded louder and more strained. “I forgive you for running away, Ruthie. You found someone you believed loved you. We all follow love. We follow love or run from fear, Ruthie, get led by love or get pushed by fear. That was me, Ruthie, pushed by fear.” A pause. “That is me.”
Again, the words sounded in Kim’s mind as if meant for her. She pushed them away – a cursed soliloquy in this cursed spot in the desert. She didn’t want to think, didn’t want to hear a truth rising from her heart to her mind.
Sara’s voice again, “Ruthie, I never told you…I hardly ever hugged you or even touched you. But I loved you.”
Silence. Kim lowered her head on her arms again and surreptitiously wiped tears from her eyes. Sara’s words had reached a part of her that she had tried to lock away, releasing an understanding that had eluded her all her life. In spite of her Apache forbearer’s history of torture and violence, she acknowledge for the first time that she had been given a legacy of strength, passion, endurance and loyalty. And in spite of the secret she harbored that no mother wants to hear but every child should tell, she loved her mother deeply and she knew her mother loved her.
Silence. The warmth of the sun, the scent of baked earth and sage brush, the barely-felt passage of a light breeze carrying the soprano notes of bird song. Kim fell deep into thought. The woman she had been doubtful about and even wary of, Sara, was a person with insight and courage who had just delivered a message not meant for her, but deeply felt and personal to her.
• • •
Chapter Thirty
“I’m done.” Sara’s words and sudden appearance startled them.
Allie scrambled to her feet and started to hug the woman but checked the urge at the last minute. “How are you Sara? How do you feel?” she asked.
The older woman shrugged and stared into space for a moment. Then she spoke,
“Too hastily my heart and soul bow to pray,
Let all humans know much longer life.
Why should lives so soon go the dusty way
When dark still rules and wretchedness is rife?”
Her face showed no sign of tears or distress. When neither Allie nor Kim replied, Sara asked, “What’s up there?” pointing to a faint trail leading up the side of a nearby canyon.
Kim answered, “The Queen Mine and Skull Rock.”
“I want to see it. Let’s go.” She headed in that direction.
Kim and Allie looked at each other. Allie said, “It’s not eight o’clock yet, and fairly cool. Do you think we have time?”
“It’s not time we have to worry about, it’s water.” Kim reached for her backpack and checked the extra water she carried, then looked in Allie’s backpack. “Yeah, I think we’re okay. Veronica, how about a little side trip?”
Veronica slowly removed the binoculars from her eyes and turned. “Sure, why not?”
The trail led through more upper desert landscape decorated by saguaro, teddy bear cholla, jojoba and creosote bushes. They climbed a saddle between hills and descended to a long, wide wash. The dry wash provided a footing that was sandy and relatively stable but steeper than anything they had climbed yet. In places the gravel was loose and deep, giving the feeling of walking on a sandy beach. After a quarter mile they entered high-walled Queen Canyon with jagged grey buttes close by and at a distance, high walls of brick red.
They hiked the wash in silence until Kim stopped and whispered, “Look!” High along the side of the mountain to their left, three prong-horn antelope walked sedately on their own path, seemingly unaware of the hikers. Kim shushed the others’ exclamations of surprise. They stood quietly watching the graceful trio until they were out of sight. Kim smiled at Sara, whose mouth still formed a surprised “O.” She said, “They knew we were here, but they decided we weren’t a threat.”
Sara looked Kim up and down as if she were seeing her for the first time that day. “Tell me about your family and your people,” she said. She moved to walk beside Kim, while Allie and Veronica followed.
Kim was surprised but pleased. “I’m a Member of the Yavapai-Apache Indian Nation, if that’s what you’re referring to.”
“Where is that, Kim?”
So many people hear “Apache” and think we’re all one, but there are sub-divisions. Once our homelands covered parts of New Mexico and almost all of Arizona. Each clan had its own culture and traditions and territory.”
“So which Apache are you?”
“By heritage, I belong to the Tonto Apache clan. The Yavapai-Apache Nation, the tribe I belong to, was actually two distinct tribes before they joined. We were enemies once, before the White Eyes came.”
“I never understood that term, ‘white eyes’.”
Kim laughed. “I know. I didn’t either. But after the settlers and then the army, the military relocated our band of Apaches to a reservations further south in Arizona. Now we’re back in the Verde Valley, in central Arizona where we belong.”
“So why did two tribes join, if you were enemies?”
“We decided that two tribes combined would fare better with the government than two small ones separately.”
Sara glanced at Kim and shook her head in understanding. “It’s big and powerful, the government. It doesn’t like women. All those boys, those soldiers trained to kill people. . .”
Kim was at a loss. Finally she said, “You know, our own ancestors held some very conflicting attitudes about women. When a girl had her first menstruation, they held a very elaborate puberty ceremony. It lasted four days and four nights, with the men’s blessing. But when a woman committed adultery, they punished her by slitting her nostril.”
Sara gave a guttural sound of disgust.
“They did it to make her so unattractive no man would want her.”
And so it went, questions and answers exchanged as they hiked and took rest breaks to drink water and munch the energy bars Kim had put in her backpack “just in case.”
When they resumed the hike after one rest break, Sara said, “I’ve seen movies about the Apaches. That Geronimo and some of the others came to a sad end, but the sins of the father…”
“What?” It sounded to Kim like a rebuke coming. “My father is not a sinner, and how can you say Geronimo was? You weren’t there. You don’t know.”
“…are visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation.”
Kim stopped, suddenly angry beyond reason. “What are you saying? That they all deserved what the military and the government did to them? That I and my Apache friends are all sinners?”
“No! Well, no more than any other tribe or race on earth. What I meant to say is that we all inherit. Some good things, some bad things. We have no control over it except what we do with it once it’s ours. Seems to me you’re doing a great good with yours.”
Kim looked into the old woman’s grey eyes for long seconds, then bent to wrap her arms around Sara’s back in a hug. Allie had watched and listened to the exchange between them with alarm. She held her breath. Sara’s face took on a look of discomfort, then
she slowly lifted her arms and leaned into Kim’s hug. Allie exhaled relief.
They hiked another half-hour. Veronica occasionally stopped to raise her binoculars at a bird, then trotted to catch up with the others. They passed a recently dug, open-cut mine, a tennis-court size gash in the rock with red tailings staining its center.
Kim stopped again, her eyes fixed on the sky.
Allie followed her gaze and saw nothing unusual. “What are you looking at?”
“That darkness in the distance. I can’t tell what it is. It’s too low to be a rain cloud. Anyway, monsoon storms never come this early in the day. And they come from the south-west, but that’s to the north-east.”
“Whatever it is, it’s miles away.”
“True.” They continued to hike until the breeze began to stir creosote shrubs and the sky overhead took on a strange greenish cast. Again Kim stopped. The dark cloud definitely looked closer. Suddenly she said, “I know what it is. A haboob.”
“What?”
“The word is Arabic. It means sand storm. Come on, we have to get to shelter. Fast.”
Veronica laughed. “Kim, what’s the big deal? It’s miles away. Besides, we’ve had dust storms before in Yuma and survived.”
“Not one like this, you haven’t.” She began a slow jog, and when she saw the others were keeping up with her, she increased the pace a little.
“Where are we going?” Veronica asked, her voice wavering in time with her jogging. Not waiting for an answer, she stopped. “We could just sit down here in the shelter of some bushes. The wash is deeper than ground level, so we’ll be fine.”
Kim shouted, “No!” and resumed the pace. Seconds later she looked back to see Allie with her hand on Sara’s elbow, encouraging her to keep up. Veronica still stood on the trail, putting the caps on the lenses of her binoculars.
The wind felt stronger now, the leading edge of the storm bringing with it just a few fine grains of dirt and sand. Veronica bent over to pick up something from the ground. Her binoculars caught a gust of wind and began a metronome-like swing. The same gust blew Kim’s long pony tail into a hectic dance. She motioned for Allie and Sara to keep going and went back.
Fatal Refuge: a Mystery/Thriller (The Arizona Thriller Trilogy Book 2) Page 17
