Dead Soul

by James D. Doss

  There was a long silence before Arthur realized that while Patch Davidson would listen to his illegal monologue, he would take no part in it. That would transform it into an illegal conversation. Participation could make the canny politician culpable. Why didn’t I keep my big mouth shut? I could’ve done him some other favor. One that wouldn’t be likely to land me in a federal penitentiary. What if he turns me in? Well, Art—you’re already up to your ass in Mud Creek. Might as well wade all the way across—and then get the hell outta here. “From what I heard at the IAC meeting, either your office in D.C. or your Western headquarters are targets of espionage. That’s the reason I didn’t want to say anything inside. Your house—especially your secure meeting room—may be bugged.”

  A cold breeze whipped across the open porch.

  The DIA attorney continued. “I don’t know if the FBI counterespionage office has been notified. But if they haven’t, they will be. It’s just a matter of time. And the more people get involved, the more likely somebody will talk. First, it’ll just be the usual rumors. Then some smart-ass columnist will write a piece for the Times or the Post. That’s why I wanted to give you a heads-up.” He hesitated. “If you want my advice, I think you ought to go to the FBI before they come to you. You don’t have to let ’em know that you’ve heard any rumors. Make up some other reason. Maybe you got somebody on your staff that you don’t feel altogether comfortable with. Tell ’em you want every place you hang your hat swept for bugs. Your office on the Hill. Your home in Georgetown. And for good measure, this place.” The visitor buttoned his coat. “Well, Patch—I gotta get going now.”

  Senator Davidson stared into the dense night. Wondered what it would look like when the sun came up. If it ever did.

  “Tell Henry I’m waiting in the car.” The DIA visitor walked away across the neatly trimmed lawn.

  In his heart, the politician yearned to say “Thank you, Arthur.” Or at least good-bye. But his mind was in firm control of his lips…they would not part to offer a word of acknowledgment to the man who had risked his career to save another’s.

  HENRY BUFORD stood beside the DIA attorney. They watched the pilot remove nylon ropes from steel eyebolts set in asphalt.

  Despite the heavy raincoat, Arthur Westerfield was shivering in the cold. “Well, I told him.”

  “Good.”

  “I have no idea what he’ll do with the information. But I hope he calls the FBI director.”

  “Patch didn’t get where he is today by being stupid,” Buford said. “He’ll do what needs to be done.”

  The DIA employee stuck his hand out. “Good-bye, Henry.” He glanced toward the aircraft, where the openly curious pilot watched the two men. Arthur Westerfield lowered his voice. “And for heaven’s sake, don’t say my name out loud in front of this civilian flyboy.”

  “Gotcha.” The ranch manager grinned. “See you later, Mr. McSpook.”

  Westerfield sighed. “One last thing, smart-ass—you take good care of Patch.”

  Henry Buford’s face lost the grin. “That is Job One.” Some yahoo sets out to harm the senator—he’ll have to get by me first.

  Chapter Twelve

  THE MISERY RANGE

  MOON EMERGED AT DAWN TO PLAN HIS DAY. HE LOITERED ON THE west porch with a cup of sugary coffee, took a long, thoughtful look at his faithful F-150 pickup. The much-used Ford was dented in a dozen places, the fenders were rusting out, the windshield was cracked and sandblasted. The V8 engine smoked like a coal-burning locomotive. It was, in its waning years, a pitiful-looking vehicle. Not suitable for a visit to a rich man’s fancy ranch. I’ll drive the Expedition. The fine-looking four-wheel-drive automobile had recently been washed and waxed. Moreover, the ranch’s namesake flower was painted on the driver’s door. And then he remembered. The Wyoming Kyd had taken the Columbine’s flagship into town for a brake job. So the battered F-150 would have to do. Well, at least the truck has character.

  After a breakfast of pork chops and scrambled eggs, the tribal investigator inspected both of his suits, selected the gray one. He slipped on a crisply new white shirt, looped a black string tie under the collar. He pulled on knee-high cotton socks, a pair of soft bullhide boots. Like the gray suit, the boots were reserved for special occasions. Marriages. Baptisms. Funerals. The expensive footwear had not gotten much use.

  Following a telephone conversation with his gruff foreman, who lived a half mile down the lane, Moon donned his dove-gray Stetson and went outside to inhale a full measure of crisp, high-country air. His destination was to the west, on the far side of a blue granite ridge that peaked out at over thirteen thousand feet. The Misery Range had been named by an early prospector who had presumably suffered many hard trials in that barren, lofty wilderness. Moon’s Columbine and the senator’s BoxCar Ranch shared an ill-defined border that meandered over and around and across these jagged mountains. Though Moon’s drive would be about thirty miles to the entrance of the BoxCar, the ranch properties abutted in the Miserys at the highest elevation of Dead Mule Notch, which was a few yards over nine thousand feet. If a man was of a mind to ride a sure-footed horse through that broad, boulder-strewn gash in the mountains, the Columbine headquarters was barely twelve miles from the BoxCar’s home base. Aside from an urgent desire to suffer, there was no reason for such a daylong punishment of man and horse. Especially in the backyard of an aging cougar who was getting too slow to bring down deer or elk—and who might have developed a taste for horseflesh. Or something more exotic.

  THE GATEKEEPER

  AFTER FORTY-FIVE minutes on the road, Charlie Moon slowed for a better look at the personification of the BoxCar Ranch. The logo, situated a few yards off the highway, was a rusty red boxcar. Faded, yard-high white letters were evidence that this hardware had once rolled for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe. It rolled no more. Separated from its fellows, the former carrier of freight now sat alone on a concrete pad. Like the rest of the senator’s property, it was behind a fence topped with three strands of barbed wire.

  Three hundred yards down the road, the seemingly endless fence was interrupted by a steel gate under a massive pine log arch. In case a passerby had missed the meaning of the full-scale boxcar resting on rusting iron wheels, a yard-long ornamental version was suspended on brass chains from the arch. It swayed gently in a southerly breeze. Squatting darkly beside the gate was a sturdy log building. A pair of narrow horizontal windows suggested slitted eyes. On the peak of a pitched, red shingle roof, a vertical antenna was strapped to a sandstone chimney that needed chinking. The Ute pulled the pickup to a halt by the gate, waited.

  A full minute passed.

  Finally, the gatehouse door opened. An aged cowboy emerged. He was a short man with skinny legs, skinny arms, a neck about the size of his wrist—and a pendulous belly that hung over his belt. The sallow face wore a dazed, grumpy expression, like a bear whose winter sleep had been disturbed.

  Moon watched the man’s swaggering approach.

  With the easy manner of one who is familiar with deadly instruments, the gatekeeper had a carbine slung in the crook of his arm. Beady eyes squinted under a new straw hat. “Who’re you?”

  “Charlie Moon.”

  The armed guard pulled a pad from his pocket, licked his thumb, flipped a few pages. Frowned as he attempted to decipher his own crude printing. “Oh, yeah. You’re expected.” He removed a cell phone from a clip on his belt, pressed the buttons, waited until the woman’s voice tickled his ear drum. “Hidey, ma’am—this is Ned. Mr. Moon’s at the gate.” He listened. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll send him right in.” He turned his back on the visitor, vanished inside the log building.

  The steel gate’s lock clicked like a well-oiled rifle bolt. Moon heard the painful, grinding sound of an electric motor driving a gear shaft. After a couple of hesitant jerks, the gate began to swing open. The tribal investigator eased the truck through as the aged cowboy emerged again from the log building. As if the visitor had a choice, Ned pointed the carb
ine to indicate the direction. The graveled road disappeared into a gathering of gray, piñon-studded knobs. “Ranch house is six-point-one miles thataway.”

  The hollow-eyed man looked painfully lonesome. Like he wanted to talk. Maybe he’d know something about Billy Smoke. “I’ve never been on the BoxCar Ranch spread before.” Moon gazed at the far hills. “Guess the pasture must be pretty good this year.”

  The wrinkled-apple face under the straw hat pursed thin lips, spat. The gatekeeper wiped his mouth against a soiled sleeve. “BoxCar’s not a actual ranch anymore. Don’t have a cow on it. Has some horses, but they’re not workin’ broncs. They’s for soft-butted city dudes to ride on.” He spat again.

  “This must be a good place to work.”

  “Work?” The aged stockman grinned, exposing the half dozen remaining teeth in his jaws. “That’s a good one. Hell, sonny—if I’d a wanted to work I’d a got me a real job. There’s nothin’ to do here anymore. No hay to bale, no stock to take care of. Oh, it’s a fine place to look at. All the windmills is runnin’—fer to water little fish ponds and raise acres and acres of purty grass that’ll never get inside a cow’s mouth. But I’m not complainin.’” He pointed the carbine at the gatehouse. “This so-called job is a soft spot for an old man.” He wondered whether this well-dressed fellow in the beat-up pickup had come to see the senator about a job. “You from around here?”

  “Ranch to the east.” Moon pointed with his chin. “Other side of the Miserys.”

  The pot-bellied cowboy leaned closer, exhaling a mixed scent of raw whiskey and garlic. “That new owner at the Columbine—he a good man to work for?”

  “The very best.”

  Ned scratched at his whiskers. “I hear he’s an Injun—a Paiute or ’Pache or somethin’.”

  “Southern Ute,” Moon said.

  “You and him pals?”

  “I’m about as close to him as a man can get.”

  “Now is that a fact?”

  “He don’t make a move without my say-so.”

  Rogers, who knew the Columbine foreman, cast a doubtful look on the visitor. “Who’re you?”

  “I am that Injun fella.”

  This statement took a moment to register, then produced a dry cackle. “Well, don’t that just about cap the bottle.” The almost toothless man managed a low whistle. “You must be rich as a Rockyfeller to own a big spread like that.” He fumbled in his shirt pocket for a pack of cigarettes.

  Moon’s mouth made a sad smile. “I’m what they call land-poor.”

  The gatekeeper touched a lighted match to the tip of his Lucky Strike. “Me an’ your foreman—we’s old buddies from way back when ol’ dogs was jus’ puppies.”

  “I didn’t know Pete Bushman had a friend in the world.”

  “Pete is a sour old cracker, ain’t he?” The gatekeeper stuck out a hairy paw. “I’m Ned Rogers. Some folks call me Shorty.”

  Moon shook the liver-spotted hand. “Glad to meet you.”

  “If this soft spot I got here ever plays out, maybe you could hire me on. I ain’t young anymore, but I still got plenty a vinegar in my veins. And I knows cows.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.” Moon looked up the road. “I understand the senator lives here practically by himself.”

  “Well, the old man does like his privacy—but he’s not all by hisself.” Rogers began to count on his fingers. “First, there’s Patch’s nephew, Allan Pearson. The senator took him in some years ago after the kid’s folks died. I guess it turned out to be a good thing for Patch to have some extra family in the house to keep him company, ’cause it wasn’t long after that when Miz Davidson took that bad fall down the stairs an’ broke her neck.”

  Moon shut off the pickup ignition.

  The gatekeeper turned down a second stubby finger. “Then there’s Henry Buford—he’s the straw boss around here. Henry, he kinda looks after the place, ’specially when the senator’s away in Washington. Which hasn’t been all that much since some mean sumbitch busted up Patch’s legs.” He counted a third finger. “And then there’s the senator’s assistant, Miz James. Nice lady.” Ned Rogers winked. “And a purty little thing.” He paused to call up the pleasant image.

  “Must take a sizable staff to take care of the senator’s business.”

  “Oh, there’s them staffers that’s in an out from Washington all the time. Sometimes they stay for a few days, but then they’re gone again. And there’s a few local folks who work on the BoxCar. But they don’t stay on the property—they show up in the mornin’ and leave before the sun sets. Like there used to be this woman who did the cookin’. What in the world was her name…” Ned Rogers closed his eyes to concentrate.

  Moon waited.

  “Oh, yeah. Now I remember—Miz Brewster.” He made a gummy grin at the visitor. “The ol’ gal ain’t Mexican—I think she’s shanty Irish. But she can whip up a stacked green enchilada that makes my mouth water just to think about it.” Rogers bowed his head in an expression of despair. “But she don’t work at the BoxCar no more. Now mosta the eats is brought in.”

  This sounded odd. “Brought in—how?”

  “Little panel truck. Had a sign on it.”

  Moon knew of only one caterer in Granite Creek. Patch Davidson and his friends must be eating high on the hog. “How’s the senator managing—with his injury?”

  “He’s doin’ pretty fair for a bunged-up ol’ cripple. Patch is in his ’lectric scooter ’bout all the time now. ’Cept when he’s in bed.”

  “He hired a new driver yet?”

  “No need to. Since Billy Smoke got kilt over in G-Creek, Henry Buford’s been doin’ all the drivin’. Henry, he’s a strong bugger—he heists the old man up from his scooter and into the car like Patch wasn’t nothin’ but a peck a beans.”

  Moon managed to squeeze a few more drops out of the old sponge before it went dry. The gatekeeper hinted at the occasional presence of Very Important Visitors. They came to the BoxCar from everywhere. Denver. Dallas. San Francisco. New York City. Washington D.C. “Even from some o’ them foreign countries.” The old cowboy lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper, as if someone might eavesdrop on this conversation in the middle of an empty prairie. “Some real big shots drops in at the BoxCar.” He glanced over his shoulder. “You’d be surprised who takes over my job sometimes.”

  The tribal investigator pretended ignorance. “Well, I guess if the governor was to come to visit Senator Davidson, the state police would—”

  “I’m not talkin’ about none a your common John Laws, young man. Besides, here at the BoxCar, guv’ners and such is common as red dirt.” Ned Rogers leaned backward so he could look down his nose at the Ute. “Sometimes that little log shack is chock full of them people from the Secret Service.” He pointed the carbine at a flattened spot on the sparse grass. “Right over there is where they land them big whirly-birds.”

  Moon assumed a doubtful look. “You’re not telling me that the president of the United States visits—”

  The gatekeeper raised a shushing finger to his lips. “I never told you nothin’ about no president. You didn’t hear that from me. No, sir.”

  Moon observed that it must be interesting work, watching all those important folks come through this very gate.

  “Oh, very few comes through here.” Ned Rogers squinted at the sky. “Most of ’em flies in.” He explained that there was an asphalt runway north of the ranch headquarters, more than long enough for the senator’s jet airplane. The aged cowboy informed the visitor that the BoxCar was mostly a gathering place for big shots and no-goods. Not that there was necessarily “a helluva lot of difference.”

  The gatekeeper’s telephone buzzed on his belt. It was Miss James. She was concerned that Mr. Moon had not shown up. Might he possibly have had car trouble along the ranch road? The old cowboy assured her that he had not. Mr. Moon would be there d’rectly. Adopting a cool, professional demeanor, he waved the guest on with the carbine.

  Moon eased the tru
ck away. In the rearview mirror, he watched Ned Rogers enter the log shelter, saw the massive steel gate swing shut behind him. Heard it close with a heavy thunk. It was an unpleasant sound that spoke of finality. Of fateful decisions made that could not hereafter be revoked. The Ute had a bad feeling in his gut. Coming here was a mistake.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE BOXCAR

  CHARLIE MOON’S PICKUP SLIPPED ALONG THE UNDULATING EBB AND flow of the earth’s rippling crust. Underneath the F-150 tires, the road ribboned over a high, shortgrass prairie that soaked up ten inches of rain in a good year. For as far as the eye could see, the arid land was dominated by native buffalo grass, with only occasional growths of western wheatgrass and side-oats grama. To the east, fingerlike ridges reached out to pull at the skirts of the blue mountains. The Misery Range stood protectively between the senator’s remote estate and the Columbine, a broad-shouldered picket line separating the rich man’s limbo from the Ute’s paradise. This was the way Moon saw it.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a roaring sound. He had just noticed a puff of dust in the rearview mirror when a cherry-red motorcycle roared by the F-150, the right handlebar almost nicking the pickup fender. “Damn!” The former SUPD officer barely had time to notice that the rider with the straw-colored hair was not wearing a helmet.

  A light breeze wafted the dust away; it was as if the motorcyclist had never been.

  As the road dipped through a shallow valley, Moon saw a rambling log house in a cluster of cottonwoods. There were tire tracks in the driveway, but no vehicle. He pulled to a stop, checked the odometer. He had driven almost four miles from the gatehouse, so this clearly was not the senator’s home. More likely, it was a house used by one of his employees. A floppy-eared bluetick hound appeared from under the porch, shook off some dust, croaked a single bark.