by Win Blevins
Buzzard righted the chair and set the hand brake. He hefted Goldman into the chair. Why did the bastard have to be so big? Slowly and carefully, he used strips of torn curtain to bind the old man’s arms and legs to the wood and iron of the chair. Then he got in the truck, drove it a hundred yards down the slickrock, stopped, and killed the engine.
Buzzard smoked a cigarette. He looked at the stars and admired the infinite blackness between them. He wondered how high a buzzard could fly into that blackness, how long it would take to join those inky forces. He hand-rolled another cigarette and smoked it. Surely the old man’s bowels were watery with terror by now.
He walked back and squatted in front of his prisoner.
“You know me.”
It was not a question.
The old man spat toward Zopilote’s face, but his lips and tongue failed, and the spittle drooped to dry ground.
“Say my name!” Zopilote said, his voice lilting with mockery.
His captive spat again and this time hit Zopilote’s knee.
Buzzard pulled out the derringer and showed it to the old man with a grin. Then he cocked one barrel, put the muzzle against the old man’s temple, and barked, “Say my name!”
The sounds “odd” and “dick” garbled out of the ancient mouth. For sure Zopilote was recognized.
“Say how much you hate me.”
More garbage words rat-a-tatted out. Zopilote thought he heard “hate” and “evil.”
“No matter how violent your feelings are, I hate you more. I had twenty-five years to do nothing but water and fertilize my hatred for you and your daughter—my wife, who betrayed me.”
He grinned again.
“In court you said I was a murderer. That I was not a man gravely offended. Not a man justly angered. Plain and simple, a murderer.
“I have just begun to kill. You, Father of the Betrayal Clan, will start dying first. And then?” He licked his lips.
“Except for that movie whore, I have not fucked a woman in more than twenty-five years. Before I shed my wife’s blood, I will fuck your daughter every way possible. Then I will cut out her lying tongue and keep it for a souvenir.”
He got out a hunting knife and made a honing motion with it on the palm of his hand. “As she watches in horror, I will cut her throat with this blade, enjoy seeing it pump out all her blood, and catch it in a bowl. In front of her, whether her eyes still see or not, I will cover myself with her evil spirit.”
He cackled. It echoed against the bluffs, and the sound twisted between sand and stone for an eternity.
“But back to you. What about the captured one, the helpless one, the one useless even to himself? Do you want to know how you will die?”
No answer.
“You boil with curiosity. I will supply the details.
“And if you don’t want details? Hmmm. How can you stop your ears? How can you keep your mind from seeing the pictures my words will draw?”
Zopilote stood. “Before we start, I think I will go for a little walk. While I am gone, enjoy your imaginings.”
He was unable to stay away as long as he would have liked. He felt too greedy for the pain he was about to inflict. He leaned against the big boulder half a dozen feet away.
“You will die, of course. Much simpler than Nizhoni. Much slower. Very, very slow.”
He studied the Jew’s face. Unfortunately, the slackness of his skin, the ravages of his well-deserved stroke, killed all expression.
“I will do nothing. Nothing at all. You will be privileged to stay here, exactly as you are, day after day. In prison I learned about the chains of patience. I’m passing you that knowledge as a gift, old man.”
Zopilote shrugged and smiled at Mose Goldman.
“Each moment, you will die a little more. Within an hour or two you will piss yourself. A few more hours, you will shit yourself. All tonight and tomorrow the same.
“Then, nothing. No piss, no shit. None left.
“The first day, hungry and thirsty. The second day, the same. The third, only thirsty. The fourth, parched. The fifth, desperate. Who knows how many days you will last? Ten, twenty…?”
Zopilote walked close and turned the wheelchair. “I will leave you faced to the south, straight into the sun. Tied, you can’t move. You can’t shade your face from the nasty rays. You can only suffer.
“You will want to die. You will ask to die soon. You will beg.
“But there will be no relief, no hope.”
He stood tall in front of the old man.
“Hope? Oh, wait. Yes. I have hope. And only I have hope.”
He waited.
“I hope you live, on this very spot, for twenty-five more years.”
He walked away, climbed in the truck, drove across the sandstone to the road, and slept. It was the best sleep he’d had since the night before he discovered his wife’s treachery.
And his most delectable pleasure was yet to come. When the old man was dead, and drying in the desert air like a piece of jerked meat, Zopilote would return. He would sit beside the body, imagine the old man’s suffering, and relish his handiwork. Then, like a true buzzard, he would imagine eating of the flesh of the dead. It was all part of the drumbeat of Darkness Rolling. It was important to stay right on that beat, his path, Zopilote thought.
Nineteen
Mom actually fell into the backseat of the car, laughed at herself, and laughed up toward the moon, at the joy a party brings. She crawled over to make room for me. Julius drove.
“Three times! One of them a waltz!” cried Mom. “And he dipped me.”
“I saw the way he looked at you.”
“Oh, silly. Think how many hours he’s spent in front of the mirror perfecting that look. And it has so mesmerized the actresses in Hollywood that they don’t notice he’s slipping their clothes off at the same time.” She hooted again. “And I danced with Victor Mature. He’s so sexy, the sexiest man I ever saw. He looked at me and I felt …
“I never had so much fun!”
Pause.
“You know what I’m thinking?”
She wasn’t going to slow down. I said, “I almost hate to ask.”
“Right now he’s got Linda Darnell’s clothes off. And you’re a bachelor again, aren’t you?”
“Thanks for mentioning it,” I said. I pictured Rulon standing guard outside the cabin while— I snipped off my thought. Cut, don’t print.
“Really, you don’t have to be a bachelor,” Mom said. She leaned her head on my shoulder.
I wondered who she’d picked out to end my bachelorhood. At the same time, I didn’t want to know.
“Iris’s sweet on you,” Mom said.
“Actually, she’s got a case on Colin,” I said.
Mom shrugged. “He won’t be around much longer.”
“And she’s my aunt!” I added.
“No, no, you know…”
After a long moment’s wait, I realized I wasn’t going to have to hear the rest. Mom had passed out on my shoulder.
I leaned to make her more comfortable. I ran photo memories of Iris in my head. Then Iris with Colin. I was doing more of that when Julius said, “We’re here.”
I shook myself to wake up. For some reason I said to him, “Thank you, sir.” Julius chuckled, the first time I’d heard that.
I slid my arms around Mom and eased her out and onto her feet. She blinked over and over.
Then I saw something odd. The door to the living room was standing wide open and the light was on.
“Julius, will you hold Mrs. Goldman steady here for a moment? I’d better take a look around.”
“You got it.”
I pulled out my .45.
Iris was lying on the floor, facing the open doorway between the living room and the bullpen. She was bound head and foot, and gagged. When she saw me, she started kicking like a madwoman and trying to shout something through the cloth.
I cut her gag with my pen knife.
“A Navaj
o broke in. He kidnapped Grandpa.” Tears gushed. “Kidnapped Grandpa!” Sobs heaved. Then, softer, “And he killed Cockeyed.”
I squatted down to hold her, to listen, to hear what horrific events were unfolding in the center of our lives. To understand that our home was no longer a safe haven.
* * *
Julius, Mom, and I sat, riveted and made stone-cold by Iris’s story. We asked plenty of questions, she told us about the sounds Grandpa made. Something like “odd” and “dick.”
Iris was exasperated with us. Distraught, hating to repeat details. But the picture she painted was clear enough. She raged at us to run into the night, not to worry about her, to find Grandpa. Julius told her details were important—there was no time for dead-end leads.
We learned very little, but it was something. A Navajo man, in his fifties, spoke English fairly well. He was vicious—what other kind of person could kill her cat and hang it? Would kidnap an old man?
I could only begin to imagine Iris’s heartache. The bastard had said something about taking Grandpa to a “pot of gold,” and that went right by me. I was thinking that we were targets. Sitting ducks.
The shot-gunned radio was junk. Julius headed back to Goulding’s, his tires spitting gravel.
The other help I thought we could rely on was Jake Charlie. He was out with the sheep, carrying a deer rifle. I tried the pickup, and all I got was a whirring-nothing sound. Opened the hood. No distributor cap. Mom ran into the shed and hurried out with one. Every trader keeps spare parts. Sometimes that felt like a matter of life and death. This time it was.
I hurried the women into the truck. I was not letting them out of my sight, and I would give that beat-up old truck as much juice as she could take.
In half an hour we rumbled back with Jake Charlie in the truck bed, rifle at port arms.
Amazement. Julius, Colin, and Rulon were there with what seemed like a small miracle—a radio. Colin was setting it up in the kitchen. Iris sat down at the table, head in hands, paying no attention to him or anything else.
Julius said, “I got through to the tribal cops, but the only squad car they have on duty is all the way in Red Mesa, and there’s no telling when they’ll be back.”
Mom made strong black coffee and she said, “I have one idea.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. We were all sleepless and beyond tired.
“About the pot of gold. I thought of Rainbow Bridge, that’s where rich tourists, or serious photographers, or geologists want to be packed in to.”
I nodded. I’d gone along on those pack trips myself, helping Grandpa out.
Mom plunged ahead. “Remember, Dad used to say that Rainbow Bridge was going to be our pot of gold. That we can’t make money off people who don’t have any, meaning Navajos. But white people who wanted to go to Rainbow Bridge? That would be worth something.”
I heard Rulon talking to someone on the radio. He roared into the room like a diesel engine. He said, “Mr. Hughes is volunteering to fly his plane and start searching for Mr. Goldman at first light.”
“Thank God. What about Miss Darnell?” I said. “Is she protected?”
Julius took over. “Mr. Ford has moved everyone in the cabins into the tent dormitory. He has two guards on duty there, and I’m driving back to stay right beside Miss Darnell.”
“And so am I,” said Rulon. “Orders from Mr. Hughes.”
Nothing made sense. A maniac who had brutalized Linda, who had killed Iris’s cat and then kidnapped my grandfather. But that’s what a true maniac inspires. Absolute chaos, fear, mania. A moaning world, gone to its side, huddled in a ball, waiting for something to turn it right again.
Julius said, “Hughes doesn’t know the country. How’s he going to find him?”
I said, “The only clue we have is that the kidnapper may have taken Grandpa to the west on the Rainbow Bridge Trail.” May have … “Grandpa knows that country best, by far. I’m a distant second, but I’m second.”
“It’s up to you, then,” Julius said.
Leaving my mother. Leaving Iris. To hunt for one outlaw and one heroic old man in five hundred square miles of canyons. Leaving Jake Charlie and Colin here with Mom and Iris. It didn’t make me feel easy, but it was the best we could do.
“Okay. I’ll fly with Hughes and scout the country.” So much slickrock, and so much of it looked the same. “If it doesn’t work first time around,” I said, “we’ll start making concentric circles.” Over five thousand square miles of red-rock desert—one hell of a lot of circles.
“Straight on,” Julius said. “Make your luck good.” He stuck a pair of high-powered binoculars in my hand.
Julius worked best in a take-charge mode. I liked that.
Twenty
Mose Goldman took his time. When he got the job done—yes, when—he would sleep a little. And then he would go. Go.
He shoved at the belt buckle. Pushing with his left hand was no problem. Holding the other end with his right hand was driving him crazy. His fingers clasped a little, but they tired quickly, and when he forced the issue, they cramped. Still, he would get it done.
It was a simple mechanism, common in the century he was born in, uncommon now. The buckle, which was on the left side, had been custom-altered by a good leather man. Beneath the buckle, sewn into the heavy leather, was a three-inch blade. When you buckled the belt, you slid the blade into a sheath sewn onto the underside of the other end. If you needed a knife in a hurry, one hard push of the two ends of the belt together, a mechanical release, a fierce jerk of the belt out of its loops, and behold—armed and deadly.
He’d always worn belts of slick leather. Every time he bought a new belt, he took the blade to a Navajo leatherworker—he was now in his third generation of these men—and had the blade and sheath sewn on.
Pop! He felt it release. He let out gallons of breath, shook his right hand, and let it rest.
With his left hand he pulled the belt hard, and with his right he jiggled the leather enough to keep it moving through the loops. Soon he had the belt off. From there, cutting his bonds was easy.
He looked up the hill. He would have to inch the wheelchair up. Somehow. Maybe I should start now. Maybe.
No. Too risky, not being able to see. And if I don’t sleep, I won’t have the strength.
For the moment, everything else could wait.
As he drifted off to sleep, a lopsided smile smeared his face.
* * *
He woke at the first glimmer of light, the new sun pinging dull off the iron and wood of the wheelchair.
Adikai? Do I have a surprise for you.
With his strong left arm he pivoted the chair toward the opening in the cleft. Then, slowly, half a foot at a time, he rolled upward.
* * *
At first light I was driving the pickup toward Goulding’s. Hughes wouldn’t be able to land on our section of the road—too many curves.
I was relieved to see him doing something to the plane when I drove up. I parked and ran over.
Without preliminaries, he said, “Preflight check.”
We didn’t say a word while he did this and that. It took too damn long. And the checks hadn’t saved him, according to the newspapers, from a near-fatal crash. Well, maybe that was why he was extra-careful now.
Finally, he said, “All right, let’s turn the plane around.”
Those frail-looking crafts, made of struts and sheet metal—they’re heavy, but we got her turned with sweat and willpower.
We lifted off, made a wide 360, and lined up with the road headed west. I’d never been up in a small plane, but right now I didn’t care about how it felt, only about what I could see. Which was a lot.
“This is what you want,” he said. He had the air of a man with his mind on his business.
“To start with,” I said. “If we’re lucky, he didn’t take Grandpa more than ten or twelve miles beyond the trading post.”
“And if we’re not lucky?”
I shrugged bu
t didn’t let myself say needle in a haystack. I wanted everything I could get out of this man. Finally, I said, “Depends on how much gas we’ve got.”
“We’re full,” he said. “And Harry Goulding keeps aviation fuel on hand.”
Yeah, he would, for film companies. I hadn’t thought of that.
When we passed it, I said, “There’s our trading post. He could be anywhere west of here.”
“What do you say we fly loops?” Hughes said. “The kidnapper wouldn’t hide your grandfather right on the road.”
“Good idea.”
We flew westward in the kind of wide curves that a meandering river makes. Took more time, but it was more thorough. I had a feeling that whatever Hughes did, he did very well.
But well enough? To match this country? That might be another story. And, somewhere in this country was Grandpa. Hope was slim, but my grandfather wouldn’t give up hope. I wasn’t about to, either.
* * *
The rise slanted a little more upward, and Mose Goldman quickly discovered that his good left arm would not do the job. The top was too far. Such a long way. But he felt confident.
Maybe after a rest, he told himself, knowing better. Maybe, but maybe not.
Breaths in and out. Thoughts in and out. Fears in and out. Wondering where, exactly, the monster disguised as a man was now. Mose was not a religious man, but he prayed. He prayed for his daughter first, for Nizhoni, the center of his world. Also the center of that beast’s crazed revenge.
Then a good idea. A risky one. He said to himself, I am the toughest man in this whole damned desert. Anyone to say different? Quiet from all lizards, potsherds, and buzzards.
He needed that pep talk.
Adikai will rape and kill Nizhoni.
He didn’t let the details—exactly what Adikai had sworn to do—nibble at the edges of his mind.
He shoved himself forward to the edge of the seat of his chair. A deep breath. He pushed himself off onto the rock, knees first. Pain.
The chair started rolling backward.
He grabbed for the hand brake, felt his hand glance off it, then watched the chair careen back down the slope. Mose shouted all the cuss words his upbringing allowed.
After about thirty feet it hit a low boulder and flipped. It landed on one side, upper wheels spinning against the bottle-blue sky.
