The Old Gray Wolf

by James D. Doss

  “Not unless she wants the gentleman to know which lady bought his ticket before he takes that last train to Glory.” The deputy allowed himself a crooked smile. “I thought her note was a nice touch.”

  Despite his annoyance, Parris snickered. “Yeah—‘It is difficult to shop for a public servant whose tastes and preferences are unknown to me. Nevertheless, I hope that this small gift will suffice until I forward something more appropriate.’”

  “Despite some minor character flaws, Mrs. Hooten has a sense of humor.”

  “And she intends to have the last laugh, Charlie. Sooner or later, she’ll send another assassin to shoot us fulla holes.”

  The same thought had crossed Moon’s mind. “Sooner or later, we’ll both end up dead from old age.”

  “So what d’you intend to do with your gift, Charlie—put it on the parlor mantelpiece with your other trophies, souvenirs, and mementos?”

  “Nope.” The rancher removed a butcher-paper-wrapped package from the refrigerator. “I intend to forget all about dead felons and their vengeful mothers, and just do what comes naturally.”

  “Hah—you’re goin’ to feed your face!”

  “I wouldn’t put it that crudely, but I am about to whip me up a light midday meal.” He paused to give his friend time to think about that.

  Parris did, and licked his lips. Lunch sure sounds good.

  “After some grub, maybe I’ll mosey over to Lake Jessie and wet a line.”

  Fishing sounds good, too. But even for Moon’s ardent-angler buddy, there were more-immediate priorities than hooking finned creatures: Parris’s mouth had begun to water. “So what’s for lunch, Chucky?”

  “Nothing special, pard. Just some thick-cut pork chops, as many buttered biscuits as I can choke down, a big bowl of ice cream—and fresh coffee. Oh, I almost forgot to mention the best dish of all—” Moon grinned at his distant friend. “But I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

  It had already been a trying day, what with a shouting meeting with the halfwit mayor whose meddling wife was determined that all GCPD officers should start wearing big white cowboy hats (“It will help the tourist trade”), Officer Knox punching out a mouthy tourist who called him a gun-toting fascist Nazi swine (an insult to decent pigs everywhere), and a sweet little old bespectacled lady who drove her shiny new Chevrolet Volt over a nun’s parked bicycle. Not to mention the parcel received from the purse snatcher’s brazen momma. With all these unsavory events on his mind, the edgy chief of police’s hundred-watt brain was overloaded and running in its dim-bulb mode. But when Parris caught on to what the Ute was alluding to, he laughed like a braying mule. “You are kidding me!”

  “I’m serious as a twenty-year drought, pard—and hungry as a grizzly who’s just woke up to smell the spring flowers. I’m ready to take a bite out of anything that looks like food and can’t outrun me.”

  “Don’t you dare start without me.” The chief of police pressed the accelerator pedal to the floorboard. “When’ll lunch be ready?”

  “How long’ll it take you to get here?”

  “Lemme see.” Parris caught a glimpse of a thirty-mile-marker sign with a .44-caliber bullet hole dead center through the zero. “I’m about nine miles from the Columbine gate.” And then there’s that long, bumpy gravel road to the headquarters. “Maybe half an hour.”

  “Lunch’ll be ready by the time you belly up to the table.”

  “How many pork chops have you got?”

  “Two for me, two more for you. There’ll be a big pot of cowboy coffee, enough sourdough biscuits to sink a small canoe, a half gallon of store-bought peach ice cream, and of course we’ll have us a fine mess of—” Moon adjusted the propane flame under the skillet. “Did you bring your gift from the purse snatcher’s momma?”

  “No, dang it.” Parris grimaced as a plump moth splattered on his windshield. “Mine’s back at the house.”

  “Not a problem, pard. With all the other grub, I expect we can make do with one can of black-eyed peas.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  THE SHAMAN WALKS IN CAÑÓN DEL ESPÍRITU

  We’re not talking about a Sunday-afternoon stroll in the park; Daisy Perika’s spindly legs ached and her shortened breaths came in painful gasps. Was our determined hiker discouraged? Certainly not. The tribal elder (with tongue firmly in cheek) assured herself that … “If I’m all tuckered out, it’s not because I’m getting feeble.” Why did she waste a precious breath by speaking aloud what she could have thought at no incremental cost? The answer is: the aged recluse was feeling lonely, and her offhand remark was offered in hopes of striking up a neighborly conversation with one of the canyon’s longtime inhabitants.

  If one of the more gullible local haunts had taken the bait and asked the Ute elder what the problem was—if not the natural infirmity of having lasted too many winters—the senior citizen would have asserted that with every year that passed, this tiresome expedition into the shadowy canyon was getting longer. Literally—by about two dozen paces. Moreover, the grade of the climb was increasing about a degree per annum. It was (Daisy would insist) as if the unseen hand of some sadistic prankster was gradually stretching the sinuous deer path—and elevating the rocky canyon floor that lay before her. (That same perverse trickster who shrinks newspaper print so that aging folk are obliged to squint.)

  Sad to say, none of the resident spirits offered such an accommodating inquiry—which omission served only to increase her exhaustion.

  For the eighteenth time in as many minutes, Daisy paused to lean on her oak walking staff. While inhaling a refreshing tonic of the crisp autumn air, she mused about how easily this mortal life can slip away. I could have a heart attack and fall down flat on my face and die and nobody would even know I was missing for weeks. She scowled at the injustice of it. Maybe months. By and by, Charlie Moon might wonder, “Why haven’t I heard a word from ol’ Aunt What’s-her-name since sometime last year?” After taking care of important matters (like making sure his already-fattened cows were well fed) her nephew (the big gourd-head!) would eventually get around to driving down to her remote reservation home, and finding her hideous corpse. By then, them damned old coyotes would’ve had their fill and left the rest to the buzzards and magpies, who’d pick my eyeballs out of their sockets. The morbid old soul could visualize the grisly scene with crystal clarity. All that’d be left would be some cracked bones with all the marrow sucked out, a half-dozen nubby little teeth, and a hank of gray hair.

  As her taciturn grandfather used to say about a century ago—“Maybe so.”

  But, as it had for many decades, her old heart kept right on apumping. When she had breath enough, the old woman resumed her slow ascent.

  Daisy Perika’s intended destination?

  The tribal elder was going to visit an old friend. No, not the sort of friend she’d want to be snowed in with during a midwinter blizzard. Put the emphasis on old. Think a thousand years or so. That’s right: the shaman was paying a call on the pitukupf. For what purpose? It was a journey of conscience. Yes, Daisy does have one, though that indispensable faculty wasted away due to insufficient exercise. Every once in a while—probably just to make its presence known—that minuscule residue of her happy childhood would raise its small voice and whisper some folderol to the crotchety old soul about duty, kindness, and patience—even humility, for goodness’ sake! Charlie Moon’s irascible aunt mockingly called her better self “Daisy Do-right,” her virtuous invisible sister’s unsolicited advice “pesky naggings.” Daisy D-r’s hopeful exhortations would generally go in one ear and right out the other and be forgotten in a heartbeat, but upon occasion (such as during the past twenty hours) the small voice would persist.

  If the elderly woman wanted to get a wink of restful sleep, there was nothing to do then but obey. Which, in this instance, required a long, tiresome walk into Cañón del Espíritu.

  What did Daisy Do-right require of her? That shall become clear soon enough.

&
nbsp; The abandoned badger hole that had been homesteaded by the dwarf is yonder in the smallish clearing, just beyond that cluster of bushy junipers. Reclining beside the entrance is a recently fallen ponderosa. (Within the seemingly ageless walls of Cañón del Espíritu, “recently” means “within the past few decades.”) When she arrives, Daisy will seat herself on that rotting, fungus-encrusted log and wait for the pitukupf’s appearance. While she does …

  TIME WILL PASS

  While it did, the old woman leaned her head against the sturdy walking stick and dozed. She also snored intermittently, and dreamed fitfully about her mother—who was telling an oft-heard tale about how Coyote stole a string of catfish from a Navajo child. Thankfully, the dozer did not fall off the log. Thankfully for the dwarf, that is. For if Daisy had taken a comical topple, the Little Man would almost certainly have laughed. And if he had uttered the least chuckle, chortle, or snigger—the old woman would have gotten a firm grip on her big stick and knocked his fool head clean off.

  Which would necessarily have been the end of the story, their forthcoming conversation being forever lost to posterity. As it happened, the dwarf awakened the tribal elder by tickling her nose with a fuzzy Apache-plume blossom that he had plucked specifically for that whimsical purpose. Subsequently, the preamble to the one-act play went something like this:

  * * *

  Daisy Perika (rubbing her eyes sleepily): “Ahhhh!—why’d you do that?”

  The pitukupf stated his reason (succinctly).

  Mrs. P.: “Well I didn’t need you to wake me up.” She yawns. “I open my eyes when I’m done sleeping.”

  The Little Man inquired as to the purpose of her visit.

  (Good for him; now we are getting to the meat of the matter.)

  * * *

  Settling herself more comfortably on the pine-log bench, the old woman opened her mouth … and hesitated. This ain’t going to be easy. In a pathetic ploy to delay the painful ordeal, she cast a furtive gaze this way and that. Swatted at an annoying gnat. Daisy also dithered, shilly-shallied, and vacillated—and in alphabetical order. Which vain subterfuges rapidly got tedious. I might as well get this silly business over and done with. “Thing is…” After a final wavering, she spat the distasteful mouthful out: “I thought I ought to come over here and apologize to you.”

  Well.

  Was the elfin personage stunned? Yes. Like a poetical soul who pauses in a flower-strewn meadow, bends to gaze at a dainty little daisy, and is greeted (rearward) by the lowered head and horns of a playful one-ton longhorn bull trotting along at about twelve miles per.

  Perhaps the elderly neighbor was forgetful, but in all his long association with the Ute woman (which had begun when Daisy was a bright-eyed child), the pitukupf could not recall hearing the least word of apology, regret, or any other expression of contrition slip between her lips. So it was not surprising that, after reaming excess wax out of his left ear with the long nail of a gnarly forefinger, he asked his guest to repeat what she had allegedly said.

  She did. And, urged on by her conscience, Daisy enlarged upon her confession: “When you came to my Columbine bedroom a few weeks ago and warned me to be on the lookout for a haunt, well … I guess I should’ve paid more attention.” Having made her basic apology, she felt entitled to an excuse: “I was awfully tired and sleepy—it was hard to think straight.”

  Equally surprised and gratified by this unprecedented admission of human frailty, the pitukupf said that he hoped his information had proven helpful.

  “It should’ve.” Daisy allowed herself a sigh. “But when that ghost showed up, she looked more like a bloated toadstool than a young woman. That’s why I took Miss Smithson for Hester ‘Toadie’ Tillman. You know who I mean—ol’ Toadie died in that pickup truck accident over by Ignacio.”

  Nodding to signify that he was aware of Mrs. Tillman’s fatal accident, the dwarf admitted (with uncharacteristic generosity) that the error on Daisy’s part was understandable.

  The tribal elder should have appreciated this small kindness, but it irked her to be patronized by a sawed-off know-it-all who (after all) did bear a measure of responsibility for this case of mistaken identity. The cranky woman knew that she should let the matter lie; even a helpful suggestion might be taken amiss by the volatile dwarf. But nasty old habits die hard. Despite urgent exhortations from Daisy Do-right, she simply could not resist the temptation to offer some constructive advice to this conceited little pipsqueak. “From time to time, when you have something important to tell me—it’d be nice if you’d add a helpful detail.” She glared at the pitukupf. “Like what a person’s name was.”

  The dwarf appeared to be genuinely puzzled.

  Daisy elaborated: “If you’d told me to expect Miss Smithson’s ghost, that would’ve helped some.”

  The Little Man hastened to demur. As it happened, the dead woman was from out of state. That being the case, he did not (so he claimed) know the spirit’s name.

  Certain that he was lying between his pointy little yellow possum teeth, Daisy snapped back, “Well, you must’ve known she was a dead woman whose body was in that rusty old Bronco parked in Charlie’s yard—it wouldn’t have made your forked tongue fall out to tell me that!”

  It never helps to lose one’s temper.

  From this point, their conversation deteriorated into a lively exchange of charges, countercharges, finger waggings, pointed reminders of previous offenses (some going back to the early 1930s), and finally—unseemly allusions to the other party’s venerable ancestors, comparing the dearly departed to various diseased quadrupeds, sharp-toothed serpents—even the loathsome larvae of pestilent insects. It would be indelicate to provide a detailed description. (But for those few who hanker for one: mangy coyotes, treacherous rattlesnakes, and ugly maggots.)

  It is hard to find anything positive to report about this unfortunate exchange, but in the interest of promoting the illusion of an upbeat conclusion, some attempt must be made. Try this woolly euphemism on for size:

  Like all unpleasant events in our transitory existence, this one finally came to an end.

  Still somewhat of a downer?

  Point taken. What we need here is an upbeat adverb. One pops immediately to mind.

  Happily, the two old-timers finally ran out of steam. Thus exhausted, they were in the mood to mend fences. No, they did not embrace. Neither was there an exchange of comradely handshakes. But as she withdrew from the field of conflict, Daisy did offer a genuinely friendly smile with her fond farewell: “See you later, little neighbor.” When I ain’t got nothing better to do—like grow a big, hairy wart on the tip of my nose.

  How did the pitukupf respond? In that faultless, archaic-Ute dialect with which he customarily communicated, the diminutive gentleman expressed his heartfelt wish that the Ute elder would arrive home safe and sound. To find her fine house burned to the ground.

  EPILOGUE

  CLOSURE

  The conclusion to Charlie Moon’s romance with the reference librarian occurred on a fine September afternoon, when the mobile phone buzzed inside his jacket pocket. He frowned at the caller ID, and was about to return the communications instrument to his pocket when he realized that … This is as good a time as any for a final goodbye. “Hello, Patsy—how’s your sister getting along?”

  “Why hello, Charlie—Daphne’s doing fine.” The lady’s bright voice did not conceal her inner tension. “Aren’t you going to ask how I am?”

  “So how are you?”

  “Oh, okay I guess.” After waiting vainly for a response, she added, “I’m in Granite Creek for a few hours to pick up some belongings I’d left at my house … and … well … to tie up some loose ends.”

  The loose end nodded. “That can take some doing.”

  Pretty Patsy Poynter sighed like a warm southern breeze. “You know how it is—moving away can be such a pain.”

  “Mmm-hmm. I know how it is.” But tell me all about it.

  What she had to s
ay for the following minute or so is of no more interest to us than it was to Mr. Moon. Pretty Patsy chatted about this and that and whatnot before getting around to the issue that had prompted her call. “Oh, by the way—when I was coming out of the public library today, who do you think I almost bumped into on Copper Street?”

  The gentleman admitted his ignorance, but concealed the fact that he did not really give a damn.

  “Well, it was Sarah Frank—she is such a sweet little child.”

  Uh-oh. Moon waited for the other dainty high-heeled shoe to drop.

  It did. “And Sarah was wearing an engagement ring.”

  He arched an eyebrow. So that’s what this is all about.

  “And the thing that struck me as such a strange coincidence was that it looked very much like mine—” She cleared her throat. “Well, I mean like the ring that you gave me.”

  Moon nodded at his mental image of the gorgeous woman. “The one you returned by FedEx.”

  “Well … yes. But let’s not get into all that sad business right now.” Patsy inhaled a deep breath and homed back in on the burning subject like a heat-seeking Miss Missile. “Anyway, when I asked the adorable girl who the lucky man was—she wouldn’t tell me.”

  The unlucky man grinned. Maybe Sarah figured it was none of your business.

  Patsy Poynter affected a conspiratorial tone, as if two sensible adults were discussing a silly juvenile. “Well, not right off she wouldn’t. But when I pressed, Sarah looked me right in the eye and said, ‘Charlie gave it to me.’ Moon’s ex produced a brittle little laugh. “Well, what do you think about that?”

  The designated fiancé sighed. I think this is gonna be a long, interesting engagement.