by Sylvia Nobel
“No.”
“The spiky peaks stand all topsy-turvy and go every whichaway,” he said gesturing with his hands, “and because of that, some of the troops decided they resembled a bunch of outhouses, so they nicknamed ‘em the Shithouse Mountains.” He cackled with glee and slapped his knee. “Now, apparently the wives took exception to that and started a campaign to change them to the Shorthorn Mountains. Sometime later they were shortened to just the plain, old S H Mountains.”
He rambled on and on, regaling me with other examples of towns and mountain ranges that had been renamed since the time of the original settlers and I really was trying to pay attention, but soon found myself daydreaming about Tally’s return to the ranch. How was I going to handle this sticky situation Should I abandon my promise to Ginger and tell him that I knew about the ring Distracted by my thoughts, I was only half listening as he droned on and on about a place originally known as Cave Springs. I think I’d pretty much zoned him out when something he said snagged my attention. “…must be a hundred different versions of the legend of a phantom black stallion supposedly seen there only on moonless nights.” He chuckled. “Now if you want to hear more details, you need to talk to Felix about how he and his two brothers used to cross over the border in the wee hours on their mules to work in the mine. He swears they all saw the ghostly creature galloping down the canyon hell bent for leather, snorting fire from his nostrils and it scared the living daylights out of them.”
Something clicked in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t think of what it was or why it was important. “I’m sorry. Where did you say this place is located”
He didn’t answer, just stared at me slack-jawed as if I were suddenly speaking a foreign language. “What”
“I think you were talking about a place called Cave Springs” I could tell by the dull sheen of perplexity in his fixed gaze that something had happened. He looked away, his mouth still moving, but no words coming out. After an extended silence, I touched his shoulder. “Mr. Beaumont, are you all right”
He turned and peered at my face, murmuring, “Oh, yes, hello. What can I do for you”
Oh, dear. The old guy was having one of his forgetful spells and it made me wonder how much of what he’d told me earlier was actually factual. “It’s okay, ” I said. “We can talk later.”
“Yes, later,” he repeated vaguely, falling silent, apparently enclosed once more in his own world. My throat tightened with sympathy and I sat with him another five minutes or so before rising to my feet. “I’ll be right back.” I should probably alert Felix or Lin Su to the old timer’s seemingly catatonic state, but was hesitant to leave him alone. I got as far as the gate when Felix appeared around the corner of the house. Relieved, I motioned to him and explained the old man’s condition.
“It happens more and more,” he said with a resigned sigh. I accompanied him back to Cecil’s chair. “Meester Bo,” he said softly, shaking the old man’s arm. “Time for you to come into the house. Dinner will be ready soon.”
Cecil looked up and greeted him with a welcoming smile as if seeing him for the first time that day. “Felix, it’s so nice to see you. How are you today”
“Fine, Meester Bo, just fine.” The elderly Mexican man and I exchanged a poignant look before he led Cecil away. With sadness, I watched the two old men shuffle back to the house. I stayed alone in the little garden a few more minutes, soaking up the warmth of late-afternoon sunlight now casting long shadows across the patio, and contemplating how lucky I really was. Poor old Cecil’s deteriorating health put my present dilemma into proper perspective. At least I had some control over my immediate future. He didn’t.
I glanced at my watch again. Almost four o’clock. Tally should be getting back any time now. It had been only six days since we’d last been together, but my blood ran hot at the prospect of grabbing hold of his muscular frame and pressing my lips against his sensual mouth. And that was just for starters. Delightfully preoccupied in my fantasies, I made it out the gate and halfway towards the front door when something Brett said earlier pounded at my dormant brain cells like a ball-peen hammer. ‘It’s my favorite story and Uncle Jason’s too.’ Holy smoke! I did an about-face and rushed back to the garden, snatching up The Golden Treasury of Children’s Literature that he’d left behind on the chair. How dense was I Was this book the source of Froggy’s fractured rendition of Little Boy Blue and the puzzling ditty in Jason’s e-mail My heart thumping erratically, I ran my finger down the table of contents. Oh, yeah. I fanned to the story of Rumpelstiltskin and began flipping the pages, speed reading, until one particular phrase leaped out at me: Merrily the feast I’ll make, To-day I’ll brew, to-morrow bake; Merrily I’ll dance and sing, For, next day will a stranger bring. Little does my lady dream Rumpelstiltskin is my name!’”
My hands trembled with excitement. Was I getting myself overly agitated or was this the link I’d been looking for—the one connecting Froggy to Jason I reread the verse. Something was different, but I couldn’t pinpoint it. I wracked my brain, cursing the fact that all my pertinent notes were in the trunk of my stolen car. Think. Think, damn it. My head felt like it was packed with sludge from so many days of high fever, along with the magnitude of events that had transpired since last Sunday evening. I must have sat there for ten minutes sorting through the file drawers in my memory bank before the vital detail finally emerged. Four days! Hadn’t Jason’s riddle said ‘in four days will some strangers bring,’ not ‘next day’ like the original text And if one interpreted ‘strangers’ to mean that someone was planning to smuggle in a group of illegals then that meant…I counted the days backwards to Sunday. Good Lord! Tonight! Something was going to happen tonight! But where And when And, I still had no clue as to why.
I snapped the book shut, my heart racing full throttle, the urgent need to take action overwhelming. But what exactly should I do Report my suspicions to the sheriff or Border Patrol My shoulders sagged. And just how did I intend to prove what would probably sound like a ludicrous hypothesis They’d probably react to it the same way Tally had. I could hear them laughing now. ‘Let’s get this straight, Ms. O’Dell, you want us to act on suspicions based solely on woman’s intuition, the unlikely, unsubstantiated testimony of a five-year-old illegal Mexican boy with a wild UFO abduction tale and a few lines from a nursery rhyme book.’ Sure, they were going to buy that.
Somehow I had to find something incriminating to prove my theory. My thoughts circled madly like a hamster racing on a wheel until the answer exploded in my head. Jason’s room! Of course! And with him safely stashed behind bars, there was no better time to search it than right now. I jumped up and dashed out the gate, storming around the corner of the house so fast I practically bowled over Lin Su. Gasping with surprise, I grabbed her arm to steady her. “I am so sorry. I should have been paying more attention. Are you all right”
“Yes.” Undaunted as always, she righted herself and remarked with confidence, “Special tea make heart, mind, body strong again, yes”
I grinned. “I don’t know what your magic potion is, but thanks to you I feel great, and thank you for preparing such a nice lunch.”
She nodded, acknowledging my compliment with a slight smile. “Phone for you in living room. Lady with loud voice says come quick. Very important.”
Thinking it must be Ginger, I dashed up the porch steps and hurried inside, passing the open door to the kitchen where the delightful aroma of food cooking wafted out and followed me down the hallway to the living room. I snatched up the cordless phone, but when I said, “This is Kendall,” a voice I didn’t recognize screeched at me, “You two-faced liar! This is all your fault, I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you!”
Flinching defensively, I countered the accusation. “Who is this”
“Don’t play games with me, missy. You know damned good and well who it is. What have you done with him” came a high-pitched snarl. “Where is he”
My senses swam in recognition. “Sister Goldenrod What’s going on”
“You told that woman about him, didn’t you”
“Whoa. Back up. Who are you talking about”
“That…that UFO woman…Mazzie…something or other,” she blubbered, her sobs rising to a panicked wail. “How else could this have happened” A tremor of unease fluttered inside me. “Take it easy. Tell me what’s happened.”
“He’s gone! Javier is gone!”
24
A pang of distress ricocheted through me as I stood listening to her terse explanation. After leaving Javier in Celia’s care, she’d driven to Tucson on church business. When she’d returned about three o’clock to bring him a snack she’d discovered the room empty. Celia claimed she’d checked on him about one-thirty. I checked my watch. That meant he’d been missing for less than three hours.
“Is it possible he’s just wandered off someplace” I asked hopefully.
“Not likely. The poor tyke was terrified of his own shadow. In fact, he had another nightmare last night and screamed so loud he woke up the whole house. I couldn’t get him calmed down so I finally let him sleep with me.”
With an impatient snort she dismissed my suggestion that relatives may finally have come for him, or that he’d attached himself to one of the many other Mexican families passing through the mission. The optimistic approach would be to embrace the idea that his sudden disappearance was simply a coincidence, but the timing bothered me. “What makes you so sure Mazzie La Casse has anything to do with it”
“What other explanation is there”
Sadly, I didn’t have one. “Sister Goldenrod, I swear to you that I did not tell her where Javier was.”
“This is a real small community, Ms. O’Dell. By now, everyone knows that you and Lupe were here. She may have put two and two together. How do I know she didn’t sneak in here while I was gone What’s she going to do, use him for one of her UFO experiments What do you really know about this woman anyway”
Not a whole hell of a lot, I had to admit to myself, wincing as a guilty noose tightened around my heart. Had something I’d said or done inadvertently given away Javier’s hiding place “Well, if she does have him, I can’t imagine any harm will come to him, but before you panic and point fingers, are you sure you’ve looked everywhere on the grounds”
“Of course I did!” she barked. “I’ve turned this place upside down, inside out and every which way.”
“Have you notified the sheriff’s department yet”
A derisive hoot. “And tell them what—that I’ve been harboring an illegal alien You know I can’t do that.”
“You said Javier woke everyone up last night. Did that include Froggy”
A pause. “I suppose so.”
“Is he there now”
“No, it’s his day off,” she said, sounding puzzled, and then she sucked in a startled breath, catching my drift. “Oh, dear Jesus in Heaven. That drunken asshole’s probably been at the bar all day. By now he’s blabbed it all over town! Well, shit! That means the Border Patrol got wind of it or maybe those sneaky INS people raided the place again while I was gone,” she said, her voice ripe with disgust.
“Wouldn’t Celia have noticed something that obvious”
“How The undercover people don’t wear uniforms and they drive unmarked cars. They could have marched right through my kitchen and she wouldn’t have known any difference.”
I desperately wanted to believe that Javier was safely in the custody of the Border Patrol, or even Mazzie La Casse, but I could not shake the insistent sense of foreboding. After advising her to continue searching and to call me if anything new developed, I hung up and forced myself to refocus on the more serious problem at hand. Bent on searching Jason’s room, I got no more than a few steps from the phone when it rang again. Thinking that Sister G may have forgotten something, I scooped up the receiver and was surprised to hear a male voice ask for me. “Speaking.”
He identified himself as a deputy with the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. They’d found my car. “Oh, thank God,” I exclaimed with relief. “Where did you find it”
“A few miles east of Amado.”
“Where’s that”
“Near Arivaca Junction,” he informed me, “but when I say we found it what I mean is we found what’s left of it.”
My stomach tensed. “What do you mean”
“It was completely stripped.”
“What exactly are you saying”
“The people who stole it took everything but the actual body of the vehicle.” His blasé monotone indicated that this was not an unusual event.
But it sure was to me. Engulfed with fury at the loss of my precious little car, not to mention everything else that had been in the trunk, I was left speechless for long seconds. “Well, this is just friggin’ wonderful,” I groused, blinking back tears. “What am I supposed to do now”
“Take it up with your insurance company.” He gave me the name and address of the towing company where my car, or rather the remains of my car was being stored in Tucson. Steeped in self-pity, I slammed the phone down. Time to find Tally. A cursory glance at the kitchen revealed only the Mexican girls and the laconic-faced Indian woman preparing dinner. A quick search of the grounds outside confirmed that he had not yet returned. Drat!
The waning afternoon sun, hovering in a splendid tangerine sky, streaked with patches of silver-rimmed clouds, gradually relinquished its heat, allowing the early evening chill to set in. I rubbed the mass of goose bumps skimming along my arms and headed back inside. It was closing in on five o’clock. Where the hell was Tally I tried not to think about him out there with Bethany working her beguiling witchcraft on him, instead wrestling my mind back to the business at hand. Evidence. I had to find some hard evidence or no one was going to take me seriously. Ever. I made it half way up the staircase when the clamor of quarrelsome voices outside stopped me. I turned around just as Twyla Beaumont marched in the front door followed by Jason. Shit! My heart dropped as the opportunity to explore his room evaporated before my eyes.
“I told you I can’t, Ma,” he whined as his mother, appearing tired and distraught, slammed a pile of folders onto the entry table. “I got other important things to do tonight.”
“No excuses,” she snapped, massaging the back of her neck. “I’ve had about all I can handle for one day and right now I can only hope and pray we can get your father released tomorrow as well.” When she glanced up and saw me, her eyes rounded in surprise. “Oh, hello,” she said, re-modulating her voice to a pleasant level. “It’s nice to see you up and about. Are you feeling better”
I mustered a polite smile. “Much.”
Jason’s reaction to my presence was telling. He flinched violently and stared up at me, aghast, the emotions in his eyes shifting in quick succession from shock to anxious disbelief before settling into fiery hostility. Momentarily taken aback, I glared back as the discomforting realization fully registered. If I’d had any doubts before, the ferocious gleam in his close-set eyes put them to rest. He hadn’t expected me to be here. No. I was supposed to be dead, locked away forever in the tumbledown jail in Morita, just as he and his conniving sister had planned. All at once, the convenient theft of my car took on a far more sinister connotation. What a rotten pair.
“Well, that’s good, dear,” Twyla murmured absently, turning away. “Jason, get out of those filthy clothes and put on something nice. We’re going to need your help this evening with the hayride.”
“I told you, I can’t, ” he complained, turning the threatening stare on his mother. “I don’t have time to entertain a bunch of pansy-assed tourists.”
Unaffected by his little hissy fit, she smacked a bunch of keys onto the wall hook and swiveled to face him. “I am in no mood to argue with you.”
The fact that I was witnessing their personal exchange earned me a look
of extreme irritation. He puffed his chest assertively. “I’m goin’.”
“Don’t talk back. The last thing I need is for you to go out drinking and gallivanting around with your buddies. You can’t take a chance on getting into trouble again,” she insisted wearily. “Now, I’ve got enough on my mind, so we’re not going to talk about this anymore.” Satisfied that she’d made her point, she disappeared through the kitchen door.
Snuffling hard through his nose like an angry bull, his fists clenching and unclenching, he wheeled around and charged up the stairs, peppering the air with obscenities and making sure he deliberately bumped me against the railing as he passed. When he slammed the door to his room I couldn’t suppress a twinge of impish pleasure that my presence irked him, but at the same instant apprehension gripped me as his angry words rang in my ears. He had something important to do tonight. Not tomorrow, tonight. Was it just a fluke or was I trying to make something out of nothing just to prove to myself that there really was something sinister afoot I’d been in this predicament twice already in the past six months, and like my other two big stories, I’d had not one speck of tangible evidence to validate my macabre theories. But, I’d been right. Okay. I’d arrived at another of those momentous introspective roadblocks. Time to decide whether to just forget the whole thing or have faith in my gut instincts.
I slumped down on the steps, chin resting in my hands. As things stood now, I could do nothing to stop what I strongly suspected would be a replay of whatever evil had befallen Lupe’s relatives and Javier’s mother. Javier. Poor little Javier. What could have happened to him My heart ached as I pictured him cowering in the farthest corner of the closet, lost and motherless, bedeviled by nightmares, afraid of his own shadow, afraid of bug-eyed monsters, afraid of black horses. Afraid of black horses I frowned. Why did that sound so familiar
As I sat there mulling over each lead, each incident, each conversation, and together with what I’d learned these past five days, something kept hammering at the perimeter of my subconscious. I don’t know if it was the result of my recent illness or preoccupation with Tally, but I couldn’t fit the pieces together into any cohesive order. “Come on,” I urged myself, squeezing my eyes shut. “Concentrate!”
