Shadow of the Raven

by David Sundstrand

  When they had seen the reflective flash from someone’s equipment—binoculars? scope? camera? (he hoped not a camera)—he’d immediately set off up the canyon, leaving the guide to worry about hiding the head and rifle. He had climbed out by going around Telescope Peak and picking up the trail that led back to the road’s end. He had been fortunate enough to find a young couple at Mahogany Flat Campground who were only too glad to interrupt their weekend and give him a ride back to the airstrip at Trona for a couple of hundred dollars. Evidently, the Redhawk person hadn’t encountered any troubles going down the canyon. Nevertheless, better safe than sorry, better the Indian than him. What could someone like an Indian with bad teeth and worse breath have to lose besides the fee he hoped to collect? While he, Sorensen, had put his whole career at risk.

  He was sure he could figure out a way to get down the canyon from the top, especially since he would be unencumbered by equipment. Picking up the head and his rifle at the mine and getting them down would be a hell of an effort, although worth it, since this was a record head. Of that, he was absolutely certain. More than 190 points, he guessed. He would definitely have the head on the wall before Dennis Winthrop came to California to visit his perfect sister for the holidays. But he couldn’t do it alone. He needed the Indian’s help.

  13

  “So this is the famous caboose.” Jan climbed onto the front platform, ignoring Frank’s outstretched hand. He had noticed before that she was surprisingly agile for a woman of her age and build, stocky now, “full-figured” in her heyday. Sad to say, fashion dictated that the voluptuous be displaced by the malnourished. Linda’s figure missed the fashionable mark as well, lithe but sturdy, the muscles flexing under the tan skin as she followed Jan onto the platform.

  “Not exactly a dance floor.” Frank hesitated, shifting to one side to let them pass. “Step inside.” The front and rear platforms of the caboose were essentially identical. Steps led up to a small platform from both sides, a platform meant to provide room for one, two at most, of the train crew to pass signals or wrestle with the brake wheel. The door leading into the interior was flanked on the right by a large low window. An iron railing ran along the outer perimeter, the brake wheel opposite the window on the left; a ladder on the right led up to the roof. The door from the front platform opened into what had been the crew’s quarters; originally, padded benches had run down the sides, one long, one shortened to accommodate the stove. Now, it had become Frank’s combination kitchen/bedroom/ living room.

  “Well, this is it”—he gestured awkwardly with his hand—“but it serves the purpose.”

  Linda stepped through the larger of the rooms to the narrow passageway flanked by ladders leading up to what appeared to be a small attic with windows. “What’s this for?”

  “That’s the cupola. It’s where the brakemen sat to watch the train for hotboxes.”

  Linda raised her eyebrows.

  “On the old trains, all the way into the sixties, the wheels ran on journal bearings, metal on metal, not modern roller bearings. Oiled bundles of cloth lubricated the journals. If a piece of this packing slipped in between the surfaces, it wiped off the oil and the journal would heat up. Eventually, the axle could melt off from the heat. So the brakemen would watch for the smoke and the smell.

  “It’s not necessary now.” Frank’s smile was rueful. “You hardly ever see a caboose anymore. Most of the work brakemen used to do is automated.” He shrugged, accepting the inevitable. “This was my dad’s last caboose when he crewed for the Southern Pacific.”

  “How on earth did your dad get it up here on Sage Flat?” Jan gestured down the long slope that led to Highway 395 in the distance.

  “It wasn’t as bad as it looks. There was a spur track that paralleled the main track, the high line. It serviced the ranches along this side of the valley. They ran old ten eighty-seven up here and shoved it past the end stop and onto the ground. Dad called in a few favors, so they had a big old truck and winch up here. They were pretty well oiled up, so this is as far as they got—a couple hundred yards from the track onto Dad’s property. They figured that was good enough. Then the SP abandoned the Owens Valley and the track was torn up. So here she sits.”

  “Why did he want to live here, Frank? As a matter of fact, why do you?”

  “Oh, that’s another story.” He looked out the window for a moment. “It’s pretty hot in here. Why don’t we go sit around the pool?”

  “The pool? Oh come on.” Jan chuckled.

  “Nope. Really.” He led the way through the rear of the caboose, the area that served as the bathroom. Linda took in the small room, complete with claw-foot tub and shower surround. “I like this big old tub, Frank. Do you ever use it, or do you mostly shower?”

  Frank felt slightly uncomfortable discussing his bathing habits. He showered in the morning. But sometimes he’d sit in the tub with a good book and a glass of Jameson, or just the Jameson and memories of riding the high line with his dad and the crew. “Mostly shower,” he replied. “But it’s good for soaking out the ache of a hard day, when I have one, which isn’t too often. The hard day, that is.”

  He stepped onto the rear platform and down the stairs to a narrow path that sloped off into the sage. Huge boulders lay scattered about the landscape, remnants of upheaval when the back wall of the Sierras lifted up, up, and up to part the sky from the land with serrated teeth, several over fourteen thousand feet high. He waited for Jan and Linda to follow and then moved off toward an outcropping of rock a few hundred yards away.

  “Seems like when I’m with you, I’m always scrambling around rocks,” Linda remarked. She and Jan were following Frank through a narrow defile that twisted and turned among the boulders. Frank made no reply. He stepped softly onto a sandy shelf, followed by Linda and Jan. The tiny beach bordered a broad pool of water formed by a natural dam of boulders and driftwood, which had blocked the narrow channel between the rocks. The far side of the pool, where the water deepened, was lined by cottonwoods, the leaves perpetually stirring in the gentlest of breezes. A small waterfall at the head of the pool lay hidden by a tangle of stream willows, not the fisherman’s friend. The sound of the trickling water was only discernible in the periods of stillness when the leaves ceased their whispering.

  They stood in silence, taking in the place, an oasis in the desert, fed by one of the myriad snowmelt streams that flowed into the Owens River. The river itself ran dry below Lone Pine. It had been captured by the city of Los Angeles and fed into a huge pipeline. Now Owens Lake lay dry where once two small steamers had transported charcoal from the rock ovens shaped like beehives along the west shore to the smelters at Keeler. The parched lake bed was a plaything for the wind, which swept alkaline dust into corrosive clouds.

  On this day, the air was clear and the late-afternoon sunlight slanted into the cottonwood trees, the light flickering gold and green through the leaves and onto the pool’s surface. Trout lay along the bottom in liquid formations invisible in the play of water and light. Only if they were startled did they momentarily reveal their presence in a flicker of movement.

  Frank squatted in the sand, his back to the women. “So, how do you like my pool? All the amenities of a trailer park in Ridgecrest and no rent.”

  “Do you own the land?” Jan inquired.

  “It’s all Dad had when he died, twenty acres of abandoned railroad land. A caboose without tracks, and twenty acres of desert to run it on—my Irish patrimony.”

  “Oh Frank, you know you love it. You have to. It’s beautiful. Just look at this place.” Linda turned to Frank, the sun making a halo in her hair. At that moment, Frank knew that he wanted to be with Linda Reyes. He had never known a woman who shared his love of the land and the creatures in it in such an easy, unstudied, and unsentimental way. He determined to find the words, to speak in ways in which he had never been at ease. This time, the words would come.

  Frank lifted the lid off the Dutch oven and tipped the coals off to one si
de. The aroma of tamale pie filled the evening air. Ever since Linda’s father, Jack Collins, had mentioned tamale pie, he’d had a craving for it. It was something he used to help his mother make. A little different each time, but basically the same. Ground meat sautéed in onions and peppers, some jalapeños if guests liked it hot, the way he did. Jan and Linda were no problem on that score, so he had cut up a couple of jalapeños along with the dried, dark, and dusty-red pasilla chiles that had been soaking in Corona beer.

  He added three or four tablespoons of powdered cumin, measured in the cup of his hand, and a can of chopped tomatoes; then he simmered the mixture for an hour on the woodstove in the caboose. The stove had come with the caboose, and it served for heat as well as for cooking, just as it had when the caboose rumbled along the high line.

  He cooked up cornmeal into a sticky paste and lined the bottom and sides of the well-oiled Dutch oven with it. He added the meat mixture, a can of corn kernels, a can of pitted ripe olives, and some white cheddar. He topped the mixture off with more corn mush and cheese. He set the Dutch oven over medium coals, and covered the lid with hot coals to cook it from the top. An hour later, tamale pie, oh my.

  “Mmm. Smells good.” Jan rolled her eyes in appreciation. Linda sniffed the air expectantly. At Ralph’s Burritos, both Linda and Jan had demonstrated that they could tuck it away. Maybe there would be enough leftovers for breakfast, maybe not. Frank spooned the tamale pie into bowls and passed them around. Linda and Jan had set the old wooden table in the combined shade of a piñon pine and the caboose. The ice chest had been supplied with Dos Equis and Coronas. Tortillas wrapped in foil lay on the upturned lid of the Dutch oven to keep warm.

  “What could be better?” Jan smiled. “Good food. Good company, otra vez. Here’s to us.” She raised her beer and they clinked bottles.

  They concentrated on the food. Two ravens circled about on the updrafts, riding the wind, fooling about in aerial displays. Frank unconsciously fingered the raven fetish Mrs. Funmaker had placed around his neck for protection. He didn’t believe in fetishes any more than he believed in St. Christopher’s protection from mishap. His mother had given him the saint’s medallion that still hung from the rearview mirror of his truck. Maybe he was hedging his bets.

  There was a scrabbling sound by the fire. Frank looked up in time to see the furry shape of a fox dart off into the underbrush. He rose from the table and spoke softly. “Be right back.” He disappeared into the trailer and returned with a piece of bread. He had dipped it in the grease he had drained from the meat. He set it on the lip of the Dutch oven’s lid, still warm but not hot, and, returning to his seat, put his finger to his lips in a gesture of silence.

  “Wait,” he whispered. “She’ll be back.”

  They waited, unconsciously taking shallow breaths. As they watched, a tiny gray form materialized from the shadows and slipped across the open ground toward the lid, where it rested about a foot and a half above the ground on a flat rock. She momentarily disappeared in the dusky light, and then a small fox face rose above the rock. For a moment, the fox stared at the three humans sitting motionless and silent, and then she darted her head forward, grabbing the bread, and slipped quickly back into the brush.

  “She’s been coming around for about a week now. I think she’s got kits. It makes her brave about getting the food, so I give her scraps now and then. Soon they’ll be out of the den, and I’ll stop feeding her. But for now, I’m Frank the food-stamp man.” His smile betrayed a trace of embarrassment.

  “I didn’t think a good-looking young fellow like you could live completely alone out here, and I was right.” Jan grinned at Frank. “He’s got company, female company at that.” Jan leaned back from the table and produced a satisfied belch. “Well, let’s clean up and take a look at those pictures Linda’s been so excited about.”

  They adjourned to the inside, and Frank fired up the generator, explaining that he preferred the kerosene lamps but that they might need brighter light to get a good look at the pictures.

  Linda spread six photos on the table. The first had obviously been taken in haste: the figures of two men, one standing, holding a rifle, the other bent over something on the ground. The figures of the men, too small to be of much use in identification, were centered near the spring. The talus slope on the left formed the backdrop against which the figures could be discerned. For the remaining photos, Linda had used the telephoto lens. The figures had shifted slightly, the smaller man squatting on the ground apparently having turned to address the standing figure. Unfortunately, the taller figure’s head had been cut off. Linda had focused on the man on the ground, whose features could be plainly seen, but the standing figure was missing from the chest up. A rifle slanted casually toward the ground from the crook of the headless figure’s right arm. The third photo revealed an aristocratic profile of a man in his middle forties. The straw hat shaded his eyes; the sharp Nordic features, straight nose and strong chin, were thrust forward in casual assertiveness, bespeaking one of the ruling class. Only the top of his companion’s head—or, to be more accurate, the crown and part of the brim of a straw hat—was visible.

  The fourth photo framed them both, the standing man still a figure of casual repose, glancing down at the smaller man, who squatted beside what was clearly the body of a downed ram. There it was, the right picture. In the fifth photo, the two men seemed to be looking directly at the camera. In the sixth photo, the ram’s head was turned to face the camera, the full curl of the huge horns caught in morning light. The ram seemed watchfully alert, although somehow calm, a careful king of its domain. Not careful enough, Frank thought.

  He picked up the picture of the ram. “Can I have a copy of this one? Damn them all to hell.” He stared intently at the picture and reluctantly set it on the table. He touched the photo of the men, who seemed to be staring at the photographer. “I thought you said they didn’t see you.”

  Linda’s chin lifted in response. “I said I wasn’t sure. I don’t see a problem. We’re here with their pictures, and they’re wherever they are, maybe a bit worried if they think they were seen.” She pointed to the photos. “Usually, I do a better job than this, but you’ll have to admit there was a bit of pressure.”

  Frank didn’t seem to hear her. He was staring at the second photo. He picked it up and held it to the light. “Damn.”

  “What?” Linda inquired. Frank shook his head slowly. “Well, what, Frank? What do you see?”

  He turned toward Linda and Jan, who were seated at the small table folded down from the wall. “I know this guy, Eddie something. We were in school together. He was Shoshone, Timbasi Shoshone. They’re the people who’ve been trying to claim land from the government inside the park.”

  Frank sat down in the single straight-backed chair and sighed. “He was an angry guy at school. This stuff about losing their land, I guess he’d be mad about that, too. Didn’t know him well, but I always felt like we were in the same boat in a way. At school, there were mostly Paiute; the Shoshone were sort of out of it. Guys named Flynn didn’t have a tribe.

  “Eddie …” Frank paused, rummaging around in his brain. “Eddie Laguna, that’s his last name, Laguna. Anyhow, Eddie was always talking about how white people had cheated everyone. I seem to remember something about him becoming a medicine man, or at least calling himself one.”

  Jan had been looking at the photos. “What about this man? Anybody recognize him?”

  Linda and Frank both shook their heads from side to side.

  “Well, yes and no,” Linda said. “He’s a type. I’ve met him before, lots of times. He’s got the winner look. ‘I’m okay, and I’m not interested in much else.’”

  “Me, too,” said Jan. “He’s the PE department chair.”

  Frank and Linda laughed.

  “No, I don’t think so. Couldn’t afford the duds,” Linda said, looking more closely at the picture. “He’s dressed for the press.”

  “Or the rifle.” Frank picked
up the photo again and held it under the light. “I can’t really tell from the picture, but it looks like a customized sporting rifle with an expensive scope. Cost a bundle.” He squinted closely, adjusting the photo to the light. “I’ll bet it’s a Weatherby three hundred Magnum. I wish I had a chance to match it to the shell casings I found at the blind. There were two twenty-threes all over the place, but I found a couple three hundred Magnum rounds.”

  “How could anyone get a match?” Linda inquired. “There’s no bullet for a ballistics comparison.”

  “You’re right, lady reporter, but the federal Fish and Wildlife in Ashland, Oregon, has the equipment to match the indentation in the primer to the firing pin in the weapon. What I need is the weapon. What I really need is to know who the guy is.” He fell silent, thinking about it.

  “What’re you going to do about Eddie Laguna?” Linda studied the photo that Frank had returned to the table. “This is one of the photos I submitted for my story about the poaching.” She gestured at the photo of the two men near the fallen ram. The features of both men were recognizable.

  “Yeah, I know, but for now he won’t be recognized, at least by anyone who would talk to cops. The first thing is to talk to him. So that means talking to Jimmy Tecopa. He’s head of security at the Paiute Palace,” Frank said, not mentioning that Jimmy had been the one who’d pulled him from the crevice all those years ago.

  “Why him?” Linda asked.