by Win Blevins
“He was the first person I showed it to. Hasn’t been there since then.”
“Anywhere near?”
“No.”
“Then, Sheriff, do you believe he could be charged?”
“No.”
“Answer the question, Damon.”
Damon hesitated.
“Who’s the seller?”
With a twisty smile, Damon said, “Johnny Cash.”
Everybody chuckled but Zahnie.
“Does he wear black and play the guitar?” Gi-tar, the sheriff pronounced it.
“You know him?”
“Yeah.”
“Johnny Cash?”
“Yeah, him and me got the deal rolling.”
Zahnie said, “Damon, if you don’t tell the truth, you lose your immunity.”
“Yeah. Like I said, Johnny Cash. I never figured it was his real name.”
She looked at Yazzie. He gave a shake of his head too small to disturb the air.
“How’d you meet this guy?”
Damon named an expensive hotel bar on the plaza in Santa Fe, one with live music.
“So what’s his place in this operation?”
“Fronts dough for expenses. He has buyers for the goods, he says. Must—he’s paying good money for it. Says from Santa Fe you can sell worldwide, on the Internet.”
Zahnie felt bile in her throat.
“What expenses you talking about?”
“Food and water, stake-bed truck, advances against what we’re supposed to get later. He bought us a backhoe, which quit the first afternoon, but he had the cash to go out and get us another one.”
Yazzie managed to radiate violence without a flicker. Rule grinned like a pig in shit and reached up to clap Yazzie on the shoulder. Yazzie sidestepped.
“Well, ain’t we hit the jackpot?” Rule said. “The feds come in and arrest one dozen small-time dealers. Right smack at the same time the biggest theft in county history was going down under their noses, and the sons of bitches missed it clean.”
“Or they were set up to miss it,” said Yazzie. “A distraction.”
“What’s good is, local law found it,” said Rule.
The county lawmen would have the smell of meat in their nostrils now. Me too, thought Zahnie. The only reason for a backhoe was to dig deep, probably excavating kivas, probably knocking down walls.
“Butchers,” said Yazzie.
“Mr. Goldman,” said Rose, “you are here as an observer only.”
Zahnie was an observer who wanted to throw up.
“Damon,” said Rule, his voice like a rasp, “you’re damn lucky your lawyer got you broad immunity. They’d throw all the books in the law library at you.”
“Back off, Rulon,” said Rose. “Gloat about what you got.”
The sheriff leaned back, apparently relaxing, wiped his hands on his thighs. “Damon, of the three other men up there in Lukas Gulch, did one or more of them participate in the killing of Dr. Nielsen?”
“Yes.” Pause. “One. Pretty sure the older one gave the order.”
“Why’d they get rid of him?”
“They brought him in to give them some idea what the stuff was worth. They didn’t trust Johnny Cash, not all the way, wanted a knowledgeable local person. When he finished his estimate—he didn’t even try to pry a bigger fee out of them—they saved themselves paying him a dime.”
Damon mouthed but seemed to be unable to get something out. The second time he managed. “They’re a family. In fact, they call themselves a Corps, like soldiers or something. They tried not to let me hear that stuff. Now I think … I think they planned to get rid of me, too.” He sounded like his mouth was full of tart persimmons. “I’m not a good ol’ boy.”
Rose said, “Damon, you’re getting too close to names here. Back away.”
Rule pushed back his chair. “Counselor, I believe I have what I need.”
“And Red gets his bail money back?”
“When we get before the judge, which is nine o’clock sharp,” said Rule. “It’s set.” He got to his feet. “And it’s getting toward my bedtime.”
Zahnie said good night and nodded them out the door. She squeezed Red’s hand. To Damon—“Everything okay?”
Damon shrugged. “I’m okay with the deal.”
“You feel safe?”
“Maybe I better hang in Santa Fe until the trial. They don’t know where I live.”
Zahnie hesitated. “You’ll show up for court.”
“It’s jail if I don’t.”
She nodded to herself. “Then take my car. Tomorrow if you want to go. Right after breakfast.”
“Sounds good.”
She put both arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. Something about it seemed daring to Red, not something she did a lot. “Sleep in Grandpa Winsonfred’s room.”
Damon went upstairs without looking back.
To Red—“Let’s go to bed.”
Behind her through the darkness, Red said, “Gianni came in while you guys were talking.”
“He can go to breakfast with us. Run back and tell him the Squash Blossom Café at seven o’clock. You, me, Damon, and Gianni. For some reason Damon likes that place.”
In the Granary she made them tea and told Red the whole story of the interrogation. He got a laugh out of “Johnny Cash.” At that point she yawned and said, “Time for bed.”
She led him up to the loft, unbuttoning her blouse as she went. “Damn that stupid kid.” She threw the blouse at her clothes hamper, and it fluttered short. Her face said she was still turning something about Damon over in her mind.
She nipped out of her jeans and underwear, put everything in the hamper, and stretched out on the narrow bed under the sheet, which came up to just below her small, perfect breasts. She looked at him in a way that said her mood had changed for the better.
Red started undressing, hesitantly.
“I like it,” she said, “that you undress like it’s new and special.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed and smiled.
She lifted the sheet wide. “Let’s get this show on the road. Tomorrow I’ve got bad guys to chase.”
32
LICKETY-SPLIT
Don’t have tattoos. Only a medicine man, during a ceremony, can write or draw on the body.
—Navajo saying
“Gianni went to meet someone,” Jolo told Red. “He’ll meet you there.” Now he was late, big-city style.
The Squash Blossom Café was a bare-bones eatery. The mustard and ketchup came in slick plastic packets, and so did the syrup.
“I’m hungry,” said Damon.
“Let’s not wait to order,” said Zahnie. “Got to be in court, seal the deal, and get the money back.”
A middle-aged woman with a face like a chipped sandstone boulder cooked and ran the register. A Navajo waitress worked the tables. Zahnie showed Red an article on the wall, framed and displayed like it was an enthusiastic review or award. Turned out to be a page from the AAA guidebook declaring that this restaurant offered the worst food and worst service in the entire Southwest. The Boulder didn’t look to Red like she had enough sense of humor to brag about it, yet she’d framed it and hung it.
He looked around for Gianni, but no luck yet.
All of a sudden the Boulder came rolling out from the back. A young couple were seating themselves, apparently tourists, the man Japanese from his appearance and the woman a perky blonde. She carried a tiny baby in the crook of one arm.
“You’ll have to leave,” the Boulder said. She threw them the bossy look of an overseer.
The Asian man, a mild-mannered guy with wire-rim glasses, stood up. “What’s the problem?” he said, puzzled. He had no trace of an accent, and their clothes were pure California.
“You’ll have to leave,” the Boulder repeated. She pointed at the baby. “No shirt, no shoes, no service.”
The baby had bare feet, not that anyone puts shoes on a one-month-old infant.
&
nbsp; The blonde wife’s mouth dropped open. “What did you say?”
The Boulder spoke like spelling it out for a moron. “No shirt, no shoes, no service.” She pointed to the door, like they needed help finding it.
“Get real,” said the mother. Her eyes were wide, her skin turning red.
The Boulder’s words were like the handle of a bullwhip being slapped into a hand. “No shirt, no shoes, no service.”
“This is racial bullshit,” said the mother.
“Darlene!” said her husband.
“The rules are the same for everybody,” barked the Boulder. “Get out.”
“Screw you,” said the tourist woman.
She and her husband stalked toward the front door. As they passed, Zahnie said, “Excuse me.” The woman stopped and looked at Zahnie wildly. “It’s stupid,” said Zahnie, “and it’s mean. But it’s not racial. She did it to me. She does it to everyone. She does it to people she’s known twenty years. She’s just crazy.”
The blonde woman stomped out, trailed limply by her husband.
As the waitress slid out platters of pancakes like a weary blackjack dealer, Gianni wheeled up in one of those white rental compacts under a big leafy cottonwood tree, which was unloading clouds of white fluff from its branches. As Gianni stepped out of the car, Red caught a drop of sweat falling from his nose and said, “He-e-re’s Johnny, arriving in a snowstorm.”
Red met Gianni at the door and accepted his air kisses. “Abrazos, abrazos,” Gianni said. “Sorry I’m late.” It had taken years for Red to find out that abrazos were Mexican hugs, not Italian, but it didn’t matter.
As he led Gianni back to the table, intending to introduce Gianni to his hot new musical discovery, Damon, Red saw the young man was gone.
“Men’s room,” said Zahnie, and nodded toward a pantry-width door that bore a label in glue-on glittery letters: MEN.
Gianni waved at the waitress and called, “Two headlights, three little pigs on the side.” He grinned at Red. “Eggs sunny-side up with links. The only good thing about this place is she speaks real, old-time diner lingo. What a day. Look at that sky.”
Red looked outside. What he noticed was a lithe figure half a block away running up the dirt street like a speedboat. Red did a double take and hollered, “Damon! He’s taking off!”
Zahnie swore.
They all ran for the exit. Red sprinted for all he was worth. A moment later the door banged again and he heard the waitress shout something about the check.
As Red hit the road, Damon looked back and saw him. He cut left onto a path or track or something. When Red got there and looked left, the kid was out of sight.
Zahnie came huffing up beside Red.
“He was on that two-track, but I lost him.”
The track split off into a couple of driveways and led to a dirt road at the end of the block.
“Let’s get the van!” she urged, and they ran back, clinging to each other’s hands for solace.
At mid-block Gianni came up and said, panting, “You two drive the roads near the bluffs. I’ll drive the ones on the river side of the highway.”
They jumped into vehicles and kicked up dust on the way out of the parking lot.
It didn’t work. No Damon. Twenty minutes later Red and Zahnie sat in the restaurant again. The Boulder refused to make new pancakes, even after getting paid and being offered another round of full pay. But she said she’d microwave the cold ones. They drank lemonade made of lemon flavoring and corn syrup and eyed each other glumly.
Gianni joined them. “No fleeing Damon I could see. Asked everywhere, but no-go.”
Zahnie was crying softly. “Red, I’ve got to call the sheriff.”
“He hasn’t jumped bail yet. We don’t know that he will.”
“I’d like law enforcement to be on the lookout for him.”
Red looked at her and supposed that if you’re a cop, you believe in that system. “Okay.”
“And I’m going over to the office now. I’ve got to talk to Yazzie about what we’re going to do.”
“Okay.”
“Meet me there when you’re done.”
When she was gone, tear tracks hardly dry on her face, Gianni said, “What gives, bro?”
Red told Gianni, “It doesn’t matter. Leeja recognized me from a poster and blew my cover to Zahnie and everyone. Which is okay here.”
“So where are we now?”
Red gave him a short version of the story, how Damon was hunting pots, Dr. Nielsen got murdered, Damon got caught and made a deal with the cops but wouldn’t give any names, Red bailed him out, and now the kid was gone.
All the way through Gianni looked at Red like he’d always thought his friend was a few bricks shy, but now he’d lost the whole load.
Red was absorbed in remembering the tears on Zahnie’s face.
“Hell, you don’t have enough to blow ten grand.”
Red murmured, “No kidding.”
Gianni blew breath out big. “You can’t imagine how lucky you are. This deal I’ve got going, sorry it’s been taking up my time, it’s a copper mine. In a couple of days I can take you out there. And the money will come steady, some every month, but the picture is pretty clear. We’re going to double our money—every one of the investors, including you. Which you deserve. We needed the capital. One to two years, double your money, and more to come. Is that sweet or what?”
Red tried to tell himself it was sweet, but he couldn’t stop fretting about Zahnie and Damon.
Gianni said, “So I got to do some finishing up, huh? See you guys at home for supper.”
“Yeah.” Red tried to say sounds good, but it came out garbled.
* * *
Zahnie and Red drove around town that afternoon to talk to Navajo families, who lived mostly on the west side in trailers.
Now, driving around, Red saw Moonlight Water more intimately. The little town was a crazy jumble, Victorian homes cheek by jowl with trailers and a very occasional modern house in the Santa Fe style. The citizens had planted thousands of shrubs and trees, making an oasis. There were several galleries selling arts and crafts. Front yards sported homemade life-sized metal sculptures, the artistic impulse alive and well. For himself, Red had met no artists except Clarita and Jolo. The streets were empty of everything but heat. A dog snapped at a dust devil, attacking and attacking the air again, but eerily, without a single sound. Quiet waited like an open door. Red felt an urge to sing, to howl.
Damon’s songs. Hell, probably an oddball community like this encouraged Damon and gave him plenty of room to explore his music. Like they seemed to encourage Jolo.
Red and Zahnie made stop after stop in search of Damon. They’d pull into a dirt drive, steer around a half-dozen cars being used as parts warehouses, and sit. A man or woman would soon come out of the trailer, and Zahnie would speak with them in Navajo, saying that Damon was running from the law and she was afraid it would make his trouble worse, so if they saw him, would they call her or tell him to come home?
Each time Zahnie plopped back into the van and slammed the door, her face was frustration. Red wondered if this was a waste of time. Since Zahnie was a federal agent herself and was with a white guy, would the Navajos hide Damon even from her? He didn’t know.
Red’s stomach felt sour. He liked Damon and loved his music, and he saw all that talent doing the Big Flush.
They glummed their way through supper at Tony’s. For some reason Gianni didn’t show up. What more? Damon on the lam and in danger, Red losing ten grand, Tony headed to jail, Harmony House going downhill, even Virgil’s chocolate pudding routine didn’t cheer anyone up. Tony stayed at his desk.
“Not even time to eat with us?” Red asked.
“I’ve got to get Harmony House’s finances straightened out,” Tony said, “as much as I can.” He sighed. “Everything shipshape for when I’m gone.”
Red had no words.
He saw that the bill Tony was paying was Mutual of Omaha.
“Life insurance on me,” he said, “to tide the business over in case of my demise.” He snorted. “Harmony House would be better off if they sent me to the electric chair. Which they would dearly love to do. Marijuana is spawn of the devil.”
“What’s next?”
“Preliminary hearing.” Red watched Tony’s body language. He was a deflated balloon.
Red put a hand on his shoulder.
Tony let his arms sag onto the desk and looked up. “Do you know what my lawyer’s talking about? A plea. Dismiss the two smaller charges, plead on possession with intent. Maximum sentence fifteen years, minimum one. Then it’s up to the parole board. Judge can’t give you less than the one.” He made a sardonic hmmph! “Do you know what they do to gay men in Utah State Prison? A year of getting cornholed.”
Tony looked into Red’s eyes. Red wanted to run away screaming.
“How will I stand it?” Tony said softly.
Then he gave a wicked cackle. Red couldn’t look into his face. “Maybe I’ll get AIDS. That’ll slow them down.” He let out a wild riff of snicker. “Saved by AIDS!”
Gianni walked in on this last line and gave Tony a screwy look.
Zahnie said loudly, “All right, no more hanging our heads. Time to drive out to Leeja’s and pick up Winsonfred.”
33
VENTURING FORTH
Don’t cross the path of a coyote. You’ll be in danger.
—Navajo saying
Leeja started to greet them with a shriek and stopped. Zahnie clasped Red’s hand briefly, which felt to him like a way of staking her claim in front of her sister the poacher. “Nothing new on Damon,” Zahnie said flatly.
Leeja embraced her sister. “I’m so sorry.”
Leeja’s sad eyes lit up when she looked Gianni in the face. “It is so great to see you. Wondering what’s going on, no one to talk to—forget that!” She pantomimed tearing her hair out.
The teenagers Sallyfene and Wandafene had a different complaint. “We’re rezzed out,” they groaned.
Leeja got that lightbulb-coming-on look. Red wondered if it was dangerous. “You know what? Could be Damon’s meeting up with a friend at Delgado’s.”
