“I wasn’t thinking about his short legs.” Frank gestured toward Jason with his head. “Hell, I’ve seen women jump it.”
Roy backhanded Frank across the mouth, knocking him off balance. He stepped forward and drove a short, hard left into Frank’s stomach. The first blow took Frank by surprise, but he tightened his stomach muscles in time to keep from having his breath knocked out of him, but not in time to keep from going down, scraping his right elbow through his shirt.
“Don’t be a smart-ass, Eddie. I don’t like wandering around out in the sun. I don’t like people who lie to me. This is a lie, Eddie.” He gestured toward the gap between the rocks. “Not a piece of cake.”
Frank led them back down among the broken boulders. It was more difficult going down than it had been coming up, feeling for footholds, slipping on the steeper faces, the granite slopes sandpapering their skin. By the time they had reached the trail that wound its way up the left side of the canyon, they were scraped and bruised, and it was past five o’clock. Frank hoped the Meecham/Reyes team would be in motion. Maybe not a team yet, but definitely wondering where the hell he was. By now, Fish and Game would have Eddie. Now if only his boss and Linda connected. Somehow he had to make it down from this mountain.
The trail ran steeply up the left side of the canyon. By the time they passed the midpoint, they were parched with thirst. Had it been midsummer, dehydration would have been almost a certainty. As it was, Hickey looked wobbly and exhausted. Jason still seemed relatively undaunted. No noises now, but the short piston legs seemed to pump with steadfast regularity, propelling his thick torso up the trail, kicking up dust into the still late-afternoon air.
Roy paused to rest, looking back at Frank. “Water up there, right, Eddie? Lots of water, a pool, you said. You better hope to fuck you’re right, or we’re gonna have to call you Deadhawk. Maybe give you a new Indian name, Takes a Long Time to Die.”
They crested the trail as the sun disappeared behind the back wall of the Sierras, throwing the canyon into a pale yellow light. From midmorning till its retreat behind the mountains, it had washed the land in a relentless glare that blurred the form of things. Now shades of color returned to the land, separating ridge from valley, and the shapes of things reemerged. Soon the yellows would turn to orange and pink and deepen into the blues and purples of the late-evening sky. Frank stood looking back at the mountain skyline, his heart lifting with the beauty.
“What’s holding you up there, Deadhawk? Praying to the great spirit for water?” Hickey’s voice was raspy with thirst.
“Right over there, tough guy.” Frank pointed to the dark green line of vegetation that followed the spring through the tiny meadow. “Nickel a gallon. I own the water rights.”
“Hey, that’s it, Roy.” Hickey flung up his hand, pointing wildly as he walked unsteadily across the dried grass that covered the floor of Surprise Canyon in a brown shroud.
23
Eddie was definitely going to keep his word to Frank and turn himself in to Fish and Game. Only not right away. There was no point in passing up fifteen thousand dollars. Besides, he’d gone to a lot of trouble hiking back up the canyon, lugging out the head and Smith’s precious rifle. And then he had spent the best part of a week making a perfect mount, the head turned slightly away and up, as if sniffing the breeze, the great horns curling back, easier to see from an angle. Not one of those straight-ahead deer-caught-in-the-headlights looks. It was a great piece of work, and he was hoping Smith, whoever he was, might toss in an additional bonus. After all, hadn’t he been the guide, done the work, gone back for the head and the rifle and thus saved the day? It was worth every penny he’d collect and more.
He pulled over to the side of the highway just south of Big Pine and got out, stretching his legs and arms. A couple of hours of driving, and it was time to unlimber. It was thirsty time, too. Time to add oil. The old flathead V-8 had just about run out of rings. Clouds of blue smoke puffed out the rusted tailpipe, choking the drivers in his immediate wake. He enjoyed clogging up the air-conditioning of the rich and white in their sleek trouble-free cars. It was especially good on the long grades leading up into the Sierras, with cars lined up behind him five or six deep. Cough! Cough! Cough! Welcome to Indian Country. He tilted in a can of fifty-weight Friction-Free Oil, recycled stuff, and very cheap. He traveled with a case in the truck bed. He was getting about a hundred miles to the can. A traveling case was about right, a drink for the truck, and now a drink for the driver.
He pulled a tall Bud from a Styrofoam ice chest, popped open the top, and took a long, deep swallow. Nothing like the first cold beer of the day. Better. Ready for Mr. Big Shot. It was perfect. Take his money and then turn him in. What an asshole. “Don’t touch the rifle.” Acting like Eddie was going to contaminate his precious rifle. And then putting his hand over his nose and breathing out in little puffs. “Your breath’s rancid.” There was nothing he could do about that until he got his teeth fixed. So thanks for paying for fixing my teeth, asshole. Now we can do lunch, golf it up.
He stopped again at the bottom of Walker Pass to put in some more oil for the climb out of the Owens Valley. Eddie was going to meet the man at six o’clock all right, but six o’clock Saturday evening in Jawbone Canyon, not six o’clock Sunday morning in Ballarat. Frank would be pissed, but when he had his money and the poacher had the head, then he’d call Frank, and he could pick up the poacher with the head and the rifle. Special delivery for Frank Flynn. Frank’d have to put in a good word after a bust like that. He frowned for a moment, thinking about the waste of the good job he’d done on the head. Then again, Fish and Game might donate it to a museum or something, maybe even with his name on it. He opened beer number three and propped the bottle between his legs.
A big semi ground up the pass on the right. A sign read PASSING LANE 1/4 MILE AHEAD. SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT. As the road widened to accommodate two lanes of uphill traffic, Eddie pulled out to go around the truck, which was going about twenty. Eddie had his pickup up to thirty, struggling in third, clouds of smoke choking the drivers lined up behind him, but he was losing ground, so he downshifted, deftly double-clutching into second. The synchromesh was on its way out. Now he was just barely going faster than the semi. The line of cars behind him zigged and zagged back and forth in futile frustration. He could hear someone leaning on his horn, music to his ears. As Eddie and the semi approached the end of the passing zone, he just managed to squeeze by, leaving the lineup behind him stuck behind the truck. He grinned. Things were really working out.
He’d left in plenty of time, and taking this road, he’d still be there well before six o’clock. He’d be able to see if the big-shot hunter was up to something. Watch him for a bit. Eddie didn’t entirely trust Mr. Big Shot. Eddie’s spirit voice told him to take heed, whispered in his ear. When he didn’t pay attention to his voice, he was sorry. Being small, except for his mouth, had taught him to listen to his voice. When he listened, he could tell who was going to take a crack at him before it happened, and this gave him an edge, an opportunity to get away or hit someone with a board, or rock, or whatever was handy, a chance to even things up. When he didn’t listen, he got the shit beat out of him.
Now this Smith guy definitely set Eddie’s voice to whispering. He wasn’t sure what the voice was saying, only that it was warning him about Smith, like a radio message with static. That’s why he had decided to take the back way into Jawbone Canyon, bringing his father’s old pistol, a single-action .44 long, Sam Colt’s equalizer. The steel on the muzzle, around the cylinder, and on the trigger guard was worn down to bright metal where the bluing had been rubbed away. The walnut grips gave off a deep luster. Eddie rubbed the wood against the crease of his nose, rubbing in the oil from his skin as his father had showed him. He kept it in perfect working order, lightly oiled, resting in the holster he had made for it, a soft doeskin sewn to a stiff cowhide cup. Eddie could draw it out with great speed, and up to a point, he could shoot pretty wel
l. At least he could hit a beer can at twenty-five feet or so—that is, if he took careful aim. He hadn’t mastered the drawing and shooting part, but he had the drawing part down pat. Just having this weapon would be enough to discourage any funny stuff. It was a big gun, a discouragement in itself.
He stopped again to add oil just before the road dropped down into Kelso Valley, where the blacktop turned into graded gravel. It was a beautiful valley. To the north and west, the foothills leading up to the high country were covered with piñons. A narrow dirt road, Garringer Grade, led up a series of steep switchbacks to French Meadow, intermittent grasslands surrounded by ponderosa. To the south, the land rose from the valley floor into hills covered with juniper and Joshua trees. Kelso Valley was a place where the desert met the mountains. The valley floor was green with the last alfalfa crop of the year. White-face range cattle dotted the hills. A Paiute owned this bottom land and the cattle. Eddie wondered what it would be like to own land and cattle. He would like to meet this man, but Eddie was Shoshone. Still, it would be good to know an Indian with land that was his own, not reservation land, and cattle, too. Someday he would meet him, but for now he had to take the dirt road that led up past the Joshua trees to the series of ridges that the graded gravel road followed before it dropped down to meet the Jawbone Canyon road near the junction to Dove Springs. He would pick a place well above the junction and wait to see what Smith would do.
Dr. Michael Sorensen had rented a shiny new Range Rover—lots of room, and the air-conditioning could make ice cubes. Satisfactory for the purpose at hand. The smelly chatterbox guide had saved him a lot of trouble by getting his trophy head before it rotted in the mine, and he had remembered to bring out the rifle, as well; the Weatherby was his favorite. But the man was particularly filthy and had breath like an outhouse.
Now, with the change in plans, it would make it difficult to arrange another accident. It had been remarkably easy the first time—actually, almost an accident in and of itself. In a fit of anger at the destruction of the first ram’s horns, and, to be perfectly frank, because of his fear of being caught, he had decided to put as much distance between himself and the dead bighorns as possible, leaving the incompetent guide to his just deserts. He’d made the foulmouthed cretin hand over his shoes, canteen, and rifle, promising to leave them just down the canyon. And he had, too, with the exception of the boots. Those he had tossed away. He’d drunk the water, of course. The canteen was empty. There was plenty of water at the spring. The idiot should have waited by the spring. Obviously, the man had made a very bad decision. For a person who claimed an intimate knowledge of the desert, he hadn’t done so well. There it was, natural selection working its immutable laws. Survival of the fittest was a fact of existence. The unfit perished, and the intelligent prevailed. The rest was bullshit.
He’d have to pay this smelly little creature some sort of fee. God, what teeth, what breath. He’d give him a thousand. That should do it. More money than someone like him had ever seen at one time. He ought to be grateful. If he gave the Indian cash, he’d be strapped for money on the way back. He liked to carry a couple of thousand in hundred-dollar bills. You never knew what might turn up, but he had his checkbook, and he always had plastic. After all, it was unlikely that someone like Redhawk, if that was his name, would complain about breach of contract. Considering his line of work, it was unlikely he had dealings with the police, or with lawyers, for that matter. Evidently, he didn’t have a pot to piss in. Sorensen smiled to himself. Still, it would be good if the desert did its work. It would, after all, remove any possibility of a connection to him. He planned to get there early, find a nice little side canyon in which they could transact their business without interruption, then head back over Angeles Crest Highway to Pasadena as fast as possible. Done. Done. Done.
Sorensen anticipated the look of suppressed envy that was bound to cross his brother-in-law’s face when he next came to visit and saw the magnificent horns. The doctor had been rehearsing the story of the hunt as he drove up. All the elements fit, the difficulty with the guide not wanting to walk around the ridge to remain upwind, refusing to continue the hunt. Then, of course, being unwilling to pass up the chance of taking such a magnificent animal, he had gone ahead on his own. His efforts to scale an impossibly steep ridge, and finally the shot, taken at six hundred—no, seven hundred yards, using a specially loaded 210-grain bullet. “Took the beast just behind the shoulder. I was lucky enough,” he’d say to Dennis, “that he presented a broadside for a moment. He dropped with the one shot. The most difficult part was controlling my breathing after the climb—pulse had to have been one-forty or more—and, of course, packing out the head. But God, it was worth it.” His oh-so-superior brother-in-law would be hunting one hell of a long time before he’d touch a trophy head of this size. Sorensen expected it to be in the top ten. A head with horns of this scale hadn’t been taken since the fifties. The condescending Dennis didn’t have anything in the top one hundred. So kiss my ass, Dennis, old sport. Perhaps I could write down a few hunting tips for you.
Eddie watched the big Range Rover work its way up the narrow road that clung to the side of the canyon. Frequently, it would disappear in a cloud of dust as the road turned back on itself. It was a remarkably windless afternoon, and the dust of the lumbering vehicle lay like a brown contrail across the land. He sipped beer number five. It was barely cool. The ice had melted, and the last two beers sloshed around in the tepid water at the bottom of the ice chest. Eddie decided to drink numero cinco before it got completely warm. Of course, he’d drunk a helluva lot of warm beer, but cool was better.
The Range Rover stopped near the mouth of a small side canyon. He watched as it backed up and then maneuvered around, going up the wash in reverse for about a hundred feet. It would be impossible for vehicles going up or down the road to see it until they were directly opposite the mouth of the wash. But Eddie could see it just fine. He wasn’t going up or down the road. He was watching the vehicle and its occupant through navy-surplus spotting binoculars from the opposite ridge. He smiled to himself. Okay, voice, I see him. I see the way he tries to hide. I wonder why. Perhaps because he doesn’t want to be out on the road, but I wonder why. He walked back to his truck, which he had parked just below the ridgeline. I think I’ll take a walk down the road and talk to this Mr. Smith. See how much he wants his head. Eddie slung a soft canteen across his shoulder, picked up the holstered pistol, and slid it onto his belt, threading it through the stiffer cowhide, which made it easier to draw. It looked good there, the fringe hanging down, the polished walnut grips picking up the light. Then he slung the rifle over his shoulder and walked down the road in the early-evening light. He wasn’t nervous a bit. Hey, cinco cervezas were good. And he had the equalizer.
24
Eddie worked his way along the ridge at the head of the canyon. Sorensen was sitting inside the Range Rover, so Eddie couldn’t see him. He made his way down the narrow wash until he was about fifty feet behind the vehicle. The engine was running, the metallic tang of exhaust from the catalytic converter smothering the smells of the creosote and the dampness from the recent rain. The quiet thrum of the big V-8 intruded into the desert silence. Smith was running the air conditioner. All the comforts of home. Eddie picked up a handful of loose pebbles and tossed them at the shiny red vehicle. After a moment, the driver’s window slid smoothly down. Eddie waited, scrunching down, out of sight. Smith stuck his head out and craned around, searching for the source of the gravel pelting down on the vehicle. Eddie tossed another handful of pebbles, five small rocks about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, big enough to make a racket. They struck the top of the car with a definite clatter and bounced onto the hood. The driver’s door flew open, and Smith stepped out, pistol in hand. It looked like a 9-mm Browning, an expensive handgun. Figures, Eddie thought. It went with the package—rich white guy, rich white guy’s car, rich white guy’s rifle, rich white guy’s pistol.
Eddie slowly ra
ised himself to a standing position back of the rear right side of the vehicle. “Hey, don’t be shooting up your guide.” He grinned his best crazy Indian grin, exposing the blackened stumps and jagged remainders of his teeth. Eddie’s grin turned genuine as he saw Smith’s expression transform from that of disbelief to disgust and then to anger. “How’re you doin’, Mr. Smith? You missed the turnoff by a quarter mile, but I guess you know that.”
“You scratched the paint. That will cost money.”
“Naw, they’ll be able to rub it right out. Besides, what’s a few bucks to a rich dude like you?”
“They’re not your bucks, little man. They’re my bucks.” He inspected Eddie with returning calm. “I see you’re carrying a sidearm”—his eyes moved appraisingly to the rifle slung over Eddie’s shoulder—“and my Weatherby, but I don’t see my ram’s head.”
“That’s because it’s still in my truck. The rifle here is part of a good-faith agreement.” He liked that “good-faith agreement” talk. Let Smith know he wasn’t the only one with smarts. “Now how about a little good-faith cash.”
Smith smirked. “Well, well, a legally trained mind. If the rifle’s not damaged, a ‘good-faith’ five hundred might be appropriate.”
Eddie unslung the rifle from his shoulder and handed it over to Smith. “Here you go.”
Smith took the rifle and pulled back the bolt. Eddie knew the magazine was empty. He’d taken out the last three rounds himself. Smith closed the bolt and dry-fired. The mechanism made a distinct click, metal on metal. Eddie saw a small frown flit across the calm facade of Smith’s face. Smith reached into the top pocket of his safari shirt and produced a money clip, from which he took five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. Then he handed them to Eddie. Things were looking up. He rarely saw hundred-dollar bills, especially crisp new ones. He folded them in half and stuffed them into his pants pocket. Then he deftly produced the .44. It fairly flew into his hand. “Whadda ya think of my big ol’ forty-four, Smith?” He flipped it around to hand it to Sorensen butt-first for his inspection. As Smith reached for it, Eddie did the border shuffle, flipping it back around, the muzzle pointed at Smith’s torso. Smith’s empty hand waved uncertainly in the air as he found himself looking down at the large-caliber gun pointed at his midsection. “Never seen the old border shuffle, Smith?” Eddie was enjoying the equality bestowed on him by Sam Colt’s patented step stool for little guys. No more Mr. Big Shot, no more Mr. Smith, just plain old Smith, equalized.
Shadow of the Raven Page 23
