“You should know better than to mess with a man’s food.” Oh so slowly, Ute raised himself from the bar stool.
From the far booth, the remaining bikers—who also wore personalized T-shirts—watched the slender, broad-shouldered man unfold to an alarming height.
Pie Eye muttered to Yazzoo, “Oh my gawd, but he’s a big ’un.”
Said Yazzoo, who had a red patch over his bunged-up left eye and a slight measure of good sense, nodded. “I’d estimate…hmm…about two hundred and sixteen. Give or take a pound.” He had spent the summer of ’99 estimating patrons’ weights with the Ullibari Brother’s Greatest Carnival and Circus West of the Atlantic. “And he’ll measure a good four-foot-forty with the hat.”
Pie Eye wiped a smear of beer foam from his mouth. “I say we go back up ol’ Half-Ton.”
“Nah. The big guy can take that Indian. Besides, you know the boss don’t want any help—it’s against the rules.”
“Hell with the rules.” Pie Eye drained the last of his Bud, grasped the neck of the bottle in a hairy hand. “Backwater if you wanta, but I’m goin’ to get me a piece of that tommy-hawk flinger before Half-Ton tears his head off.”
The more prudent of the trio watched Pie Eye leave the booth. Yazzoo had a plan of his own, which did not include being present when the blue suits showed up to sort things out. There was always the possibility of confusion when the local Gestapo started stirring the pot. On occasion, the boundary between rowdy participants and innocent bystanders could become murky. Yazzoo had no intention of being dropped into the Granite Creek jug along with this pair of ignorant felons.
Half-Ton raised a pair of arms, flexed biceps the size of watermelons. “Say nighty-night, Injun.”
Moon recognized the inevitable when it spit in his face. Just so it’s clear he started this fight, I should let him take the first swing. That would be the righteous thing to do. But it would also be stupid. The Ute launched a hard right.
Half-Ton caught the blow full in the face, staggered two steps backward, blood gushing from his mouth.
The Ute was pleased. Okay, one down.
But the buffalo-sized man did not fall. He staggered, spat out a yellowed pair of teeth. Grinned merrily at his opponent. “Now, Geronimo—you really pissed me off.”
Alas, this was not the end of the bad news.
Pie Eye came high-stepping it across the barroom floor, knocking chairs and tables aside, yowling like a banshee on fire. A six-inch switchblade glistened in his hand.
For about two minutes, Charlie Moon’s life was intensely interesting.
SCOTT PARRIS braked his aging Volvo to a halt in front of the Mountain Man Bar & Grille. Two squad cars had already responded to the call from the frantic waitress. The chief of police normally would not have been bothered with a common bar fight, but the description of one of the participants had caused the GCPD dispatcher to notify Charlie Moon’s best friend. Parris, who had been enjoying his day off, arrived only shortly after the officers already on the street and a good ten minutes before the ambulances. He braced himself with a deep breath of the crisp air, went inside. Had a first look. Damn. This was bedlam carried a notch too far. Chairs and tables smashed. Blood splattered about as if by a chain saw massacre. One good-sized fellow was stretched out on the bar, faceup, eyes wide open, staring up at nothing. He appeared to be dead. An absolutely enormous man was crawling around on hands and knees, moaning pitifully, evidently searching for that which was lost. Each time the hippolike figure picked up a tooth from the dirty floor, he cursed. Every time he cursed, he spat more blood onto the floor. Not that one more mouthful of crimson liquid made a noticeable difference.
Charlie Moon, seated on a bar stool, was ignoring a string of questions being put to him by officers Knox and Slocum.
The waitress was fussing over her favorite customer. “Honey, are you sure you’re all right—d’you want some coffee?”
The Ute nodded.
The chief of police elbowed himself past his ineffectual officers. “Charlie?”
Moon turned to present a battered face. “Hi, pardner.”
Parris grimaced. “Are you okay?”
“I been better.” The Ute’s lips ached, his left shoulder was dislocated, and from the sharp pain in his side, he supposed that a rib had cracked under the force of Half-Ton’s monstrous bear hug.
The chief of police waved his arm to indicate the scene of destruction. “What in hell has happened here?”
“Fight.”
“Well, I can see that.” He nodded to indicate the biker laid out on the bar. “Did the fat guy kill this one?”
“Oh, no—I did that.” Moon leaned to study Half-Ton’s prone sidekick. “Only I don’t think he’s altogether dead.”
Parris was fascinated by the huge biker, still on his knees. Half-Ton was laboriously counting a handful of teeth. “You took on both of these apes?”
“Coulda been worse.” Disabled by a split lip, Moon grinned crookedly. “A third one hightailed it when the rhubarb started. And I appreciate his leaving—I’m not sure I coulda managed all three of ’em.”
Parris stared at a deep cut over the Ute’s eye, the front of his bloody shirt. “Looks like you may need a transfusion.”
“Nah, that’s Half-Ton’s juice.” The Ute made a big fist and frowned at it. “But I think I hurt my hand when I hit Pie Eye in the head.” Should’ve used a bottle.
Parris ordered Knox and Slocum to cuff the massive biker. He put a finger under Pie Eye’s jutting jawbone, felt a weak, irregular pulse. “What was this brawl about?”
“That big moron started it.” Charlene pointed an accusing finger at Half-Ton, who—in an attempt to evade the cuffs—had dropped a handful of broken teeth on the barroom floor. The whalelike man was blubbering like a small child whose double dip of strawberry ice cream had toppled off the cone to go splatt into the mud.
Parris eyed his friend. “He hit you first?”
Moon offered the lawman a solemn expression. “Worse’n that.” He pointed an accusing finger at Half-Ton. “That man put his cigar out in my chili.”
The chief of police deeply regretted taking the call. He turned to the waitress. “So what should I charge these bums with?”
She glared at the pair of bikers, then looked uncertainly at the Ute.
“He doesn’t mean me,” Moon said.
Parris held his tongue. Don’t count on it.
“What to charge ’em with’ll be up to the boss, and he ain’t here right now.” Charlene frowned at Pie Eye’s outstretched body, then at the behemoth biker sitting on the floor. “But I expect it’ll be for disturbing the peace. And destruction of private property.” She grimaced at Half-Ton’s bloody, four-chinned face. “If it was up to me, I’d add on being more ten times more ugly that the law allows.”
Scott Parris aimed an official glower at his best friend. “And how about this one. He had a piece of this, too.”
“Oh, don’t bother Mr. Moon—he didn’t do nothin’ wrong.” She patted the Ute’s hand.
The tribal investigator grinned at her. “You can call me Charlie.”
She bared the impressive gums at the charming man. “All right…Charlie.”
Moon turned to the chief of police. “Anyway, it was self-defense.”
“Don’t matter none to me,” Parris said. “I can’t play favorites. I got to charge you with something.”
The Ute surveyed the wreckage. “How about…littering.”
Chapter Twenty-One
THE DANCING WOMAN
DAISY PERIKA FELT OLD AS MOSES’ GREAT-GRANDMOTHER. GETTING out of bed was hard work. Moreover, her knees and shoulders ached. By all rights, the weary woman should have spent the chilly morning sitting at her kitchen table with a strong cup of coffee, listening to broadcasts of bad news from the tribal radio station, wondering, What is this poor old world coming to? But the Ute elder felt an urgent need for a walk in the canyon. And so she pulled on her dead husband’s wool overcoa
t, wrapped her fingers firmly about the stout oak staff, plodded away toward the mouth of Cañon del Espiritu. With the shallow waters of Snow Creek splashing along at her side, she moved slowly up the slight grade. For most of her journey, Daisy followed the rutted dirt lane that cousin Gorman Sweetwater used to truck in hay to the few of his wild-eyed, white-faced cattle that inhabited the many nooks and crannies of the canyon.
The bottom of the deep, narrow gorge was dotted with great sandstone boulders, prickly clusters of yucca spears, fragrant congregations of juniper and piñon, even an occasional ponderosa. Cottonwoods and willows huddled along the rocky stream bank, shuddering in the slightest breeze. Owls and ravens talked to the shaman while she walked, and she answered them. Daisy ignored those irritable squirrels who scolded her with chattering barks, arrogant flips of bushy tails. As the sun was nearing its zenith, the shaman passed close by the pitukupf’s underground home, but did not give the abandoned badger hole a glance. This was not a day for communing with the dwarf. Daisy did not know how she knew such things, but she knew. The lane eventually faded into a narrow deer trail that crisscrossed the stream a half dozen times before branching into several barely discernible paths that led to nowhere in particular.
Her strength almost spent, the tribal elder seated herself on a blackened pine stump. Ahhh…that feels good. Daisy Perika laid the walking stick across her lap. The silence was perfect. She closed her eyes, felt the pleasant warmth of the sun on her face. Nice place for a nap…except I’d probably fall off this stump and break my collarbone. But it was hard to stay awake. And so the shaman dozed. She was startled to hear the sound of padding footsteps. The Ute elder opened her eyes. In the shadows near the west wall of the canyon, was something very odd.
Daisy’s mouth dropped open. What on earth…
The gaunt form was comprised of knobby limbs, grayish flesh. The specter’s torso was clothed in a diaphanous garment, the face was hidden behind a webbed veil. As it walked, its knee joints went squeak-squeak-squeak. The thing looked vaguely like a female. But none such as the shaman had ever seen—not even in her terrifying journeys into Lower World.
Apparently unaware of the astonished observer, the enigmatic figure approached without so much as a glance at Daisy.
This unwarranted intrusion was all quite annoying to the Ute woman, who had a remarkably low threshold of irritation. “Hey!” she called out. “Who are you?”
If this odd-looking personage was blind to the Shaman’s presence, perhaps it was also deaf. By all appearances, the visitor did not hear Daisy’s words.
The tribal elder was searching her memory for an appropriate insult to shout at the impertinent trespasser when it emerged from the shadows. Yes, this was certainly a woman. Or the residue of what once had been. In a shaft of sunlight, Daisy saw through the webbed veil—and wished that she had not. The face was black as tar; a swollen tongue protruded from the mouth. Something was twisted tightly around the neck. Something that looked like a turn of heavy wire.
Remembering who she was and whose she was, the Catholic crossed herself.
Now, the lonely phantom did the most astonishing thing—she stretched out skinny arms as if to embrace an unseen someone. Slowly, with a macabre grace, she waltzed to a ghastly symphony the shaman could not hear.
Daisy Perika crossed herself a second time, began to mutter the Lord’s Prayer.
When it seemed that the unseen orchestra had ended the piece, the strangled phantom was stilled. She paused for an eternal moment, stared through the veil at the shaman.
Daisy prayed again. Harder. Please. Make her go away.
And the gaunt figure did depart. She moved through the pink bark of an aged ponderosa, appeared on the opposite side of the mossy trunk, then passed across a small clearing and into the surface of a massive, potato-shaped boulder. There was, thankfully, no second emergence. It was as if she had never been; there was no sign of her presence. Except for the squeak-squeak of dry knee joints, which continued for a few heartbeats, fading finally into a haunted silence.
The old woman raised her eyes to heaven. Thank you, God. Though bathed in the midday sun and perspiring under the heavy overcoat, Daisy shivered as she pondered the meaning of what she had seen. The eerie visitation raised several troubling questions. The Ute elder had a strong conviction that she and this spirit were connected in some peculiar way. She wondered whether the vision was from the past, or the future. Or elsewhen. Whatever the case might be, Daisy Perika was certain about one thing. Whoever that was, she wasn’t from around here.
And so the world turned.
Chapter Twenty-Two
BLUNT INSTRUMENTS
THE CHIEF OF POLICE SAT ACROSS A TABLE FROM THE UTE TRIBAL investigator. “You look awful. Like a cross between a corpse and the bogeyman.”
“Yeah, I know.” Moon rubbed at a half-closed eye. “Every time I look in the mirror, it scares me.”
“How’re your ribs?”
The Ute rubbed at a torso wrapped in several layers of tape. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Okay.” On the surface between them was a one-gallon plastic ZipLoc bag. Inside the transparent container was a navy-blue wool sock with three red stripes. Inside the sock—and partially spilled into the bag—was a quantity of light brown sand, a scattering of small pebbles, a few tiny pieces of vegetable matter. Scott Parris opened a white folder, consulted a sheaf of papers. “FBI forensics lab was extremely helpful. They informed me that what you found in the P.I.E. warehouse drain pipe is a sock. With sand in it.”
“It’s always gratifying to have our suspicions verified by the experts.”
“You bet. But that was only for starters.” The chief of police read from the official document. “Material—reprocessed wool. Said sock was fastened at one end with a green wire tie.” He looked across the table at the tribal investigator. “Said wire tie is provided with the best-selling brand of plastic garbage bags in Colorado and thirty-six other states.”
Moon tried to talk without moving his split lip. “That’s it?”
“Oh, no—there’s more. The woolen garment is tinted with a common blue dye. Object of apparel was manufactured in South Korea about two years ago.” He pitched the folder aside. “You don’t even want to know how many pairs of these fine socks have been sold in the continental United States of America by Wal-Mart—just to mention one major outlet.”
“What about the sand?”
“There the news gets better.” From the tilt of his head, Parris gave the impression of being very proud of himself. “I did some police work. As you already know, Miss Brewster—who told your aunt about somebody stealing sand—worked as a part-time employee for the Rocky Mountain Polytechnic Campus Police. I checked out her assigned work pattern on the campus, also the most likely routes she would have used between the RMP police station and her apartment. I took samples of every source of sand along the way. You’d be surprised how much of that stuff is lying around.”
Moon faked a yawn. “I hope this isn’t gonna be one of your hour-long stories.”
“Not a chance—I shall be the very soul of brevity. The sand in the blue sock is from a preschool playground. Which is located on the university campus.” The chief of police paused for dramatic effect.
He wants me to ask. “How do you know that?”
“Forensics techs found some bits of vegetable matter in the sand that was in the sock. Turns out to be fragments of elm leaf. Being an observant fellow, I noticed this big elm that leans over a playground sandbox. I got a DNA analysis done. Perfect match.”
“Well, pardner, what can I say?”
“You’ll think of something.”
“Okay. I am very nearly impressed.”
“Thank you.”
Moon thought about it. “But why does our mugger select this particular spot to fill his sock? Sand, he can find anywhere.”
“A good question, Charlie. I gave it some careful thought. The sandman must have some connectio
n with the campus.”
The tribal investigator felt a twinge of pain from a cracked rib. “That preschool where you found the sandbox—isn’t it pretty new?”
“Yeah. Construction was just finished a few months ago.” Scott Parris thought he knew where this was going. He didn’t like the neighborhood. “So?”
“Didn’t Senator Davidson get a sizable piece of funding for that project?”
“That he did. Our beloved public servant scared up over three million federal bucks for the campus preschool facility.” Parris cocked his head at his friend. “Nickel for your thoughts.”
“That’s five cents more’n they’re worth.” Moon smiled at his best friend. “Well, pardner, you’ve done a fine piece of police work. Made some real progress.”
“Oh yeah,” the chief of police grumped. “I have identified a sandbox. And thanks to you, where I formerly had only one felon to find, now I have two. A sadistic bastard who uses a piece of rebar to do his dirty work—and a more sensitive soul who prefers to tap his victim with a sock full of sand.”
Maybe. The Ute looked out the window at a day filled with golden sunshine.
Scott Parris leaned forward. “I need to interview Wilma Brewster. Find out why she skipped town. And more importantly, get her to tell us who she saw at the playground—stuffing sand in a sock.”
“Aunt Daisy said the redhead mentioned Arroyo Hondo again. You ever get around to sending somebody to check the place out?”
“I sent Knox and Slocum. It was a snipe hunt. No sign of anybody camping out up there.” Parris drummed his fingers on the table. “Maybe Wilma Brewster’s hanging out at the Arroyo Hondo down near Taos. I’ll send her photo to the New Mexico State Police. I’ve already alerted the PDs where your aunt has seen Miss Brewster.”
“Any response from Durango or Ignacio?”
Parris shook his head.
“She’ll turn up. There can’t be that many skinny, redheaded young women at large who enjoy talking to Aunt Daisy.”
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