Daisy glared at her nephew. “You going to give up just like that?”
“I’ll give her description to the Durango and Ignacio PDs.”
Daisy nodded. “Well I hope somebody will do something useful.” You sure didn’t.
“This redhead—she say anything at all that might help the local cops find her?”
“Like what?”
“Like who she is, where she lives. Why she didn’t approach a uniformed law enforcement officer. Why she wanted to talk to me in particular.”
“No.”
Figures. He drained the last of the chocolate milk shake.
“And just so you won’t think I’m a silly old fool, I did ask her what her name was.”
There was no point in asking. “But she didn’t tell you.”
Daisy tapped her walking stick on the floor. “She didn’t tell me who she was. Or exactly where she lived. But she said, ‘Tell him he can find me in Arroyo Hondo.’”
Well, that’s better than nothing. There were at least three Deep Arroyos within a couple of hundred miles. The nearest one was an abandoned mining settlement halfway between Granite Creek and the Columbine’s eastern border. It was listed as a ghost town on the Forest Service map, but there might be a few down-and-out squatters hanging about. Also, that particular Arroyo Hondo was in Scott Parris’s jurisdiction. Moon paid his bill, tipped the congenial waitress more than he could afford.
Ignacio, Southern Ute Reservation
It was quite late, almost the eleventh hour. Having said his prayers, Father Raes Delfino crossed himself, got into bed. He stretched out on the lumpy mattress, found the familiar hollows that cupped his hips and shoulders. Having come as near to comfort as was possible, he rested his head on the pillow, closed his eyes. I am so very tired…. He began to drift away into that diffuse shadowland that divides ordinary consciousness from the near death of sleep. The Jesuit priest was about to dream his dream when—
There came a knock-knock-knocking on the rectory door.
He groaned, raised himself on an elbow. Oh please, God—not a caller. Not at this hour. Muscles tensed, he waited for a second knocking.
It did not come.
Pleased to have his prayer answered so promptly, the priest yawned. And fell into the most peaceful of sleeps.
Chapter Six
BLOOD CEREMONY
THE RAZOR-EDGED TEN-INCH BLADE WAS TINTED WITH CRIMSON. There was not a hint of pity in the white man’s hard eyes. The object of his attention was a thing. A piece of meat. He got a better grip on the elk-horn handle, set his square jaw, savagely plunged the blade into the flesh until tempered steel was deflected off the surface of moist bone. That’s better. In an age-old gesture of triumph, he lifted a sliver of pink tissue on the tip of the deadly instrument, stuffed it into his mouth. Closed his eyes. Chewed. That’s mighty good.
The sole witness to this brutish exhibition suppressed a surge of nausea. The aged Ute turned his face away from the grisly scene. “Patch, you’re the only man I know who brings his own knife to a restaurant.”
Patch Davidson pointed the sliver of tempered steel at his dining companion. “Oscar, a man needs a heavy blade when he’s cutting meat. None of these flimsy little steak knives—” He was interrupted by a buzzing sensation that tickled his ribs. “What’s that?” Colorado’s senior United States senator scowled as he reached into his jacket pocket. “It’s my cell phone.” He unfolded the charcoal-tinted instrument, held it against his ear. “Start talking.” He listened, tapping the knife blade on a china plate. “Sure, Billy. Take your time. We’ll be here for about another hour.” He snapped the instrument shut, slipped it back in his pocket. “That was Billy.”
The chairman of the Southern Ute tribe nodded. “I thought so.”
“He’s hanging out at that sleazy bar on the west end of town.”
“The Mountain Man?”
The senator nodded. “I asked him to have dinner with us, but I guess this place is not to his taste.”
Oscar Sweetwater was not eager to walk down this path. But Billy Smoke was an enrolled member of the tribe. “He doing a good job for you?”
Senator Davidson wiped at his mouth with a linen napkin, sawed off another chunk of very rare beef steak. “Billy’s one of the best drivers I’ve ever had.”
Sweetwater gathered bushy eyebrows into a fuzzy frown. “I hear some worrisome talk. Rumors he’s acquired some unsavory friends.”
The senator forked a buttery chunk of baked potato. “I suppose Billy does hang out with some roughnecks.”
The elderly Ute, who had a highly sensitive digestive system, helped himself to a spoonful of cream of mushroom soup. After thinking about it, he said, “You want me to have a talk with him?”
“Wouldn’t help. Billy’s a grown man—he’ll choose his own drinking buddies.”
“I could ask Charlie Moon to do some poking around. Find out who these buddies are.”
Patch Davidson expertly speared a floret of steamed broccoli with his fork, looked across his plate at the tribal chairman. “I thought Charlie had given up law enforcement.” The former Ute policeman now owned one of the largest ranches in Colorado. And Moon’s Columbine bordered the senator’s BoxCar Ranch.
“He’s a special investigator for the tribe,” the chairman said, and added: “On a part-time basis.”
“Interesting,” the senator said. “Charlie have a private-cop license?”
Oscar Sweetwater nodded, crumbled a pair of saltines into his soup.
As their pleasant supper continued, the pair of politicians discussed several issues of mutual interest. Charlie Moon’s prior success as a tribal policeman. Charlie Moon’s huge ranch. Charlie Moon’s aunt Daisy, who reputedly communed with sundry ghosts and spirits. Why the senator had carried only fifty-two percent of the tribal vote in the previous election. A legal battle between the tribe and the state over water rights in the Piedra Basin. What to do about the ever worsening mess in the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
A smartly uniformed waiter pushed aside a red velvet curtain to enter the small dining room. The space was reserved for special parties and infrequent VIP guests. The senator—who cherished these intimate meals with influential constituents and old friends—loved the occasional luxury of privacy. He always entered and left by a rear door that exited into the employee parking lot.
THE SLEEPING MAN
BILLY SMOKE had three cans of Coors beer under his belt, along with a greasy order of fish and chips. The Ute belched as he eased the black Lincoln into the employee parking lot behind the Blue Light Cafe. He shifted to park, cut the ignition. The senator’s chauffeur glanced at his wristwatch, checked it against the clock on the dash panel. “The old man shouldn’t be stuffin’ his face much longer,” he mumbled. “Probably having his dessert right about now.” He thought about going inside to let his employer know he was here with the car. Then, there was the lazy man’s solution—he could call the senator on the cell phone again. If I go inside I could order some strawberry shortcake to go. With ice cream. But feeling sleepy, the chauffeur decided to sit awhile in the Lincoln, let his supper settle. He switched the radio on, pressed the Seek button until the receiver locked in on the FM signal from the Rocky Mountain Polytechnic radio station. KRMP was broadcasting a Prairie Home Companion rerun. The lovely voice of a woman singing slipped across the airwaves. Swing Low Sweet Chariot.
A cold rain began to fall from the heavens. Droplets peppered hard on the windshield, threatening to become sleet.
The chauffeur leaned back in the luxurious seat, closed his eyes. There wasn’t much more a reasonable man would ask for. Full belly. Fine music filling his ear. The sweetly soporific drumming of cold rain on the steel roof. This triple blessing was too much. The chauffeur slipped off to sleep. He snored. Dreamed of the well-endowed barmaid who’d poured his beer at the Mountain Man Bar & Grille. Charlene was bouncing on a blue trampoline, higher and higher. And she was singing in a sonorous, bluesy voice, “‘Sw
ing low…coming for to carry me home.’”
THERE WAS a rhythmic crunch of footsteps on the wet gravel. The figure treading the fragmented stone seemed immaterial—a misty shadow that had somehow raised itself up from the earth. It approached the Lincoln. Slowed. Stopped. Stared through the rain-splattered window at the sleeping man.
THE BOUNCY barmaid was inviting him onto the trampoline. Billy tried to get aboard the contraption, but it was too high, his legs too heavy. She reached out with a wand. Rapped him on the head. Tappity-tap. Why did you do that? The Indian’s absurd dream was interrupted by a second tap-tapping sound. He grunted, opened his eyes. It took Billy Smoke a long moment to remember where he was. In the senator’s car. A second later, he remembered that he was the senator’s driver.
Still another tap-tap on the window.
He blinked at the dark form on the opposite side of the rain-streaked glass.
Oh, hell’s bells. The senator’s standing out there in the rain. And me asleep and with beer on my breath. The mean old sonofabitch’ll chew my ass for this. He opened the door, the apology already spilling out of his mouth. “Sorry about that, sir—I just closed my eyes for a minute and—”
Something hard smashed into his face, flattening his nose, driving a sliver of bone into the base of his brain. Another crushing blow to the temple. Billy slumped to his side, rolled onto his back. One hand was slightly raised, as if in supplication. His eyes were closed. Forever.
OSCAR SWEETWATER watched the white man finish a slab of Mud Pie. Far more separated the mismatched politicians than the linen-covered table. But the Southern Ute tribal chairman reflected that he genuinely liked the powerful matukach. One thought lead to another. He mused that a desire for power was what led to most of the trouble in the world. And power was what politics was all about.
A silent waiter appeared with the check. When Oscar Sweetwater insisted on paying the bill with a tribal credit card, the wealthy senator made a show of protesting. But the Southern Ute chairman was a lobbyist of sorts, so it was understood that he would pay for the eats. The waiter departed.
The senator smoked an expensive cigar. Told a few off-color jokes.
The tribal chairman smiled at the appropriate moments. And thought his thoughts.
The waiter returned with a credit card receipt. Oscar signed it. The evening was over.
Because the elderly Ute felt the need to pay a call on the urinal, they said their good-byes inside the private dining room.
THE RAIN, true to its threat, had been transformed into pea-sized pellets of sleet. Wind whistled in the eaves, scattered dead leaves. It was the sort of night that reminds even a powerful, successful man that he is much like ordinary mortals, who toil and fail and laugh and cry. And die. That he is made from the same stuff as the earth.
And to dust you shall return.
Senator Patch Davidson did not tolerate such humbling thoughts for more time than it took to dismiss them. Having pulled on his overcoat, he stood just outside the employee exit, musing about whether the meeting with the Southern Ute tribal chairman had accomplished anything useful. Next election, Oscar Sweetwater’s goodwill could add two or three percentage points on the reservation. He allowed his eyes time to adjust to the night. The employee parking lot was darker than usual. Something seems different. He realized what it was. The single lightbulb that normally illuminated the graveled space was black as an eight ball. Senator Davidson leaned forward, as if this would help his vision penetrate the damp blackness. Where’s the car? Billy knows he’s supposed to turn the lights on when I come out. Maybe he’s still hanging out in that sleazy bar. Maybe drunk. Maybe I should call him on the cell phone.
As he collected this handful of maybes, the senator’s pupils dilated just enough. He spotted an outline that resembled the big Lincoln. The barge-like automobile was parked less than ten yards away. “Well, turn on the lights, Billy-Boy.” It occurred to him that the chauffeur might not be able to see him in the darkness. He pulled the coat collar close around his neck, started across the parking space toward the black sedan, heard his footsteps in the soaked gravel. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. As he approached the automobile, he noticed that the door was open just a crack. Davidson leaned to peer through the window. “Billy?” He pulled at the door. The dome light switched on, bathed the luxury car’s interior in soft amber light. The front seat was empty. “Now where the hell is he?” Maybe he went inside looking for me. Probably stopped at the john to take a leak. That’s why I missed him. Sure.
Senator Davidson heard footsteps, turned, expecting to see the approaching form of his good-natured Indian chauffeur.
HIS BLADDER relieved, Oscar Sweetwater was at his Buick, fumbling in his pocket for the keys, when he heard the sound. The tribal chairman turned toward the rear of the restaurant, where Billy Smoke always picked up the senator after their late dinners. There it was again. Something between a whimper and a groan.
Sweetwater unlocked the Buick, removed a flashlight and a very old Colt .32-caliber revolver from the glove compartment. As he walked slowly toward the sounds, he opened the cold steel cylinder and ran his finger around it, feeling the rims of brass cartridge cases, counting six. Ready for business. Rounding the corner of the cinder block building, he heard an indistinct thumping sound—a car door closing? He waited, then called out, “Who’s there?” The silence was prickly-cold. The elderly Ute switched on the flashlight. He swept the beam across a half dozen parked sedans, a rusty Chevy pickup. And the senator’s Lincoln. But no sign of a living creature, human or otherwise. The pitiful whimpering had ceased. A sea of silence washed over the graveled parking lot.
The tribal chairman took a half dozen steps toward the Lincoln. “Hey—Patch. You there?”
The answer was illuminated in the beam of his flashlight. The senator, easily identifiable by a shock of silvery-white hair, was stretched out on his side. The Southern Ute tribal chairman knelt by the still figure. “Patch—are you…dead?”
There was a faint, answering whimper. Sweetwater played the flashlight beam around the lot. Barely a dozen paces away, immediately behind the Lincoln, he saw another body. Must be Billy Smoke. Right size. Right shape. Right hair color. But it was impossible to be certain if it was Billy. Much of the man’s face was caved in. Sweetwater was certain of one thing. Only one of these men would need medical attention.
The tribal chairman grasped his friend by the shoulder. “Hold on, Patch.” The aged man managed a stiff, bowlegged gallop toward the restaurant. Oscar Sweetwater heard someone screaming for help. It was his own voice. The Ute didn’t realize he was speaking in his native tongue.
THE CASHIER looked up in openmouthed alarm as the wild-eyed maniac burst through the restaurant door. It was an old dark-skinned man waving a flashlight in one hand, a pistol in the other. He was shouting in a choppy language she did not understand. The woman, who had been robbed three times in five years, automatically raised her hands over her head. She nodded at the cash register. “Hey, take it all, Pops—just don’t shoot me!”
Oscar Sweetwater pointed the revolver at a telephone, sucked in a deep, rattling breath. “Call an ambulance.”
“Yes sir.” She snatched the phone off the hook.
“And the police—call them too.”
Chapter Seven
Four Months Later
LATE MORNING SUNSHINE BATHED THE COLUMBINE IN A SPRAY OF purest gold. On the wintertime side of the ranch headquarters, the river—swollen with snow melt—roared over black basalt boulders. At the edge of the south valley, the mirror-surfaced glacial lake nestled like an emerald on the throat of the mountain. Charlie Moon, who owned this rugged corner of paradise, was leaning on a steel-pipe fence beside a fat, bearded trucker who smelled of beer and tobacco. Both men were watching Moon’s ill-tempered foreman and a half dozen dusty cowboys unload twenty head of Herefords into the holding corral. The purebred animals were a fine sight to behold. Fine enough to make a stockman’s eyes go moist. When the last of th
e costly beasts were unloaded, the trucker said a hearty good-bye to Moon and thanked the rancher for a first-rate breakfast. The heavyset man went to button up his rig in preparation for a long, empty run to Fort Worth.
With the throaty rumble of the diesel engine, the cowboys shouting and cursing, the clanging of gates, the snorting and stomping of half-ton animals, the corral was incredibly noisy. Moon, who had his back to the ranch headquarters, had not heard the arrival of the sedan. Neither was he aware of the small man making his cautious way down the slope from the big house. He was startled when a thumb poked him in the ribs.
He turned to see the wrinkled, smiling face of the Southern Ute tribal chairman. The rancher shook the elder’s outstretched hand. “Hey, Oscar—you sneaked up on me.”
Oscar Sweetwater took a place at the fence. Admired the fat cattle. “Looks like you’re doing all right for yourself.”
“I haven’t gone bankrupt yet. And,” the former tribal policeman added, “it beats hauling drunks to the jailhouse.”
“But you still carry a badge.” Sweetwater was not a man for making small talk. He had a reason for reminding Charlie Moon that he was a special investigator, reporting to the tribal council. Which, for practical purposes, meant that he did an occasional piece of work for the tribal chairman. If Moon had the time. And the inclination.
The rancher was on his guard. “You here for pleasure—or business?”
Sweetwater looked up at the seven-foot Ute. “I am a fortunate man. For me, business is always a pleasure.” He jutted his chin to indicate the animals in the corral. “I think you like your business too.”
The younger man clapped his big hand on the chairman’s thin shoulder. “Let’s go up to the house.”
OSCAR SWEETWATER’S small form was almost swallowed up by a huge, overstuffed chair. The old man’s eyes were closed. He would occasionally open them, take a sip from a mug of coffee laced with milk.
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