by Thomas King
“Fishing’s better around here,” said Duke, “and there’s nothing that Black Jack loves more than fishing.”
“Great.”
“So you’re off the hook,” said Hockney, “in a manner of speaking. And I don’t owe you a fancy stove.”
“Fair enough,” said Thumps. “But I need a favour. You remember the kid at the airport rental desk?”
“Sure,” said the sheriff, after Thumps had explained the situation. “Nothing I’d like better than to pull old Norm’s chain again.”
“It was a pleasure meeting you, sheriff.” Boomper took a card out of his pocket. “If you’re ever in Houston, you give me a call.”
Duke walked across the dining room with the same slow, bowlegged gait that movie star cowboys favoured just before they got to the gunfight scene.
“So if it’s not someone’s head,” said Boomper, pointing to the bag, “what is it?”
“A present for Claire,” said Thumps.
Claire snorted. “You bought me a present?”
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” said Austin.
Thumps untied the bag and emptied the contents on the table. Claire’s smile faded.
“Rocks?” she said.
Boomper leaned back in the chair, his face flat and impassive.
“You bought me rocks?”
“You should ask Mr. Austin,” said Thumps. “He’s quite the authority on rocks.”
Claire picked up one of the rocks and held it up to the light. It was a dark and dirty-looking piece of stone with red flashes at the edges.
“Had some friends do a little digging,” said Thumps. “And then there were the phone calls to your gem broker in Thailand.”
“Damn, son,” said Boomper. “You sure know how to land on someone’s cake.”
“Friend of mine sent you a photo,” said Thumps. “You might want to take a look.”
Boomper fished his phone out of a pocket and tapped the screen.
“Randy Palmer took it,” said Thumps. “He’s studying photography at the college. That’s you and the Escalade and the monitoring station. Yesterday afternoon.”
Claire turned the rock around in her hand. “I take it this is valuable?”
“Red beryl,” said Boomper. “Finest quality I’ve ever seen.”
Claire put the rock down and picked up a second piece. “And you found this on . . . Bear Hump?”
“One of Mr. Austin’s companies did the drilling for the monitoring stations,” said Thumps. “He wanted to keep track of the progress Orion was making with their technology.”
“Gemstones are a hobby of mine,” said Austin. “Man who was in charge of the drilling has worked for me for years. Knows his minerals. He recognized the beryl as soon as he saw it.”
Claire put on her pleasant face, the one she saved for government bureaucrats and annoying children. “That’s tribal land.”
“Yes,” sighed Boomper. “It is.”
“And you were going to tell me about this . . . when?”
Thumps gestured at Boomper’s ring. “That didn’t come from the mine in Utah either, did it? It came from Bear Hump.”
“Guilty.” Boomper rubbed the stone with his finger. “A beauty, isn’t it?”
Claire pushed the rocks on the table into a tight pattern. “Well,” she said, “this is certainly a different present than a girl normally gets.”
“I know this doesn’t look good,” said Boomper, “but I’m hoping we can hammer out an agreement that is mutually beneficial.”
Claire nodded. “You mean where we allow you to mine the beryl and you pay us for the privilege.”
“That sounds about right.”
Claire stretched and signalled the server. “Then I suppose we’re going to need more coffee.”
Thumps left Claire and Boomper to work out the details. He had had more than enough fun for a while. He had film to develop, negatives to print, and a surly cat to cajole. Full-time work if there ever was.
And there was Claire. Right now, she was willing to let him go with her to Seattle, but Thumps knew her well enough to know that that could change. Once the intense emotions of almost getting killed wore off, the old, independent Claire might resurface, and then Thumps would have to begin the process of being included in her life all over again.
Cisco Cruz was sitting on the hood of the Volvo. Again. Thumps wondered if the man did this just to annoy him.
“Pancho.”
“You’re on the hood of my car again.”
“Good steel,” said Cruz. “If I sat on the hood of one of the new Fords, I’d crush it.”
“So the sheriff didn’t arrest you.”
“I appreciate what you did,” said Cruz, “but I was willing to go to jail.”
“I know,” said Thumps.
“I couldn’t let that pass,” said Cruz. “Tú entiendes?”
Thumps wanted to ask if killing Parrish had made any difference. But he didn’t. “How did you know?”
“About Parrish?”
“You were waiting for us.”
Cruz slid off the hood. “The girl at reception. She’s sharp.”
“That she is.”
“She saw Parrish and your lady in the bar together,” said Cruz. “Saw them come out. Noticed that Merchant wasn’t feeling all that well.”
“And she told you?”
“Like I said,” said Cruz, “she’s sharp. So, I went up to Merchant’s room, listened at the door, heard a little bit of Parrish’s plan.”
“What if we had taken his car?”
Cruz shook his head. “Wasn’t going to happen.”
“You didn’t know that.”
“His car had a problem,” said Cruz. “Flat tire.”
Thumps grunted. “Imagine that.”
Cruz jammed his hands in his pockets. “I was hoping you might drop me off at the airport.”
“Sure.”
“Figure I’ll go home, remind myself why I left Pie Town in the first place.” Cruz shaded his eyes from the bright sun. “That should take about a week.”
Thumps smiled. “So just how much Spanish do you really speak?”
Cruz grinned back. “Enough to frighten the tourists.”
“And Austin didn’t fire you.”
“No,” said Cruz, “he didn’t.”
“You blame yourself,” said Thumps.
“Wouldn’t you?” Cruz climbed into the passenger seat. “Why don’t you drive this time.”
“You want to talk?”
“No offence, vato,” said Cruz, “but all things considered, I’d rather listen to music and just watch the sky.”
Fifty-Four
Thumps took Cruz to the airport and waited with him until the plane boarded. Thumps didn’t think Cruz saw him as a friend, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about the man from Pie Town, New Mexico. There was hard tragedy in both their lives, and perhaps that was what they shared.
Perhaps that was all they shared.
He spent that night with Claire at her house. She had had a spirited discussion with Boomper Austin about the price of red beryl and the cost of deceit, and was in a playful mood, which translated into a game of bedroom hide-and-seek, complete with shrieks and soft moaning. They didn’t talk about the cancer or about Seattle, didn’t make any promises, didn’t try to tell each other that everything was going to be okay.
And in the morning, they went their separate ways, Claire to her office at the tribal centre and Thumps back to his house with its basement darkroom and its grumpy cat. He didn’t stop in at Al’s for breakfast, and he didn’t call Archie. He considered checking in with the sheriff but decided to leave that dog lie.
Beth and Ora Mae could work out their relationship on their own.
Instead, he packed his photo gear into the trunk of the car and began driving toward the Canadian border and the Rockies. He’d lose himself in the mountains for a few days and then drive to Lethbridge to see old friends on the Blood reserve.
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br /> And when he ran out of money and excuses, he’d come home.
It was a good plan and he got as far as Sunburst and the Early Bird Coffee Shop before he turned around and drove the five hours back to Chinook without stopping, the memories of that night in the Buffalo Mountain Resort parking lot still vivid and alive.
Claire drugged and in the back seat. Oliver Parrish standing with his arms over his head, a smile on his face, knowing that his chances of walking away from the murders were excellent. Cruz lining up the front sight of his pistol on Parrish’s chest and squeezing the trigger four times.
Thumps hadn’t asked him how it felt to kill the man who had killed his lover, the man who had killed his child. There was a great deal written about revenge and how it wasn’t as satisfying as a person might expect, but Thumps had seen the look in Cruz’s eyes. There had been no confusion, no regret, and no hesitation. He had found Jayme’s killer and he had shot him in cold blood.
Thumps tried to imagine what he would do in a similar circumstance, what he would do if he found the man responsible for the Obsidian Murders, for the deaths of Anna and Callie.
It was after midnight when he crossed the Ironstone, and by the time he could finally see the lights of Chinook in the distance, he knew there was only one way to find out.
About the Author
THOMAS KING is the bestselling author of Green Grass, Running Water; Truth and Bright Water; The Back of the Turtle (winner of the Governor General’s Award); The Inconvenient Indian (winner of the RBC Taylor Prize); and many other works. A Member of the Order of Canada, King lives in Guelph, Ontario.
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Also by Thomas King
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Truth and Bright Water
Green Grass, Running Water
Copyright
Cold Skies
Copyright © 2018 by Dead Dog Café Productions Inc.
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COVER PHOTO: JILL FERRY/ARCANGEL IMAGES
EPub Edition: MAY 2018 EPub ISBN: 978-1-44345-515-2
Version 04282018
Print ISBN: 978-1-44345-706-4 (HARDCOVER)
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