by Simon Toyne
Solomon moved softly across the boards and peered around the edge of the wall.
The cemetery was small and densely planted with bodies. Simple boards bristled up from the ground, names carved into the white flaking paint and picked out in black. Most were over a hundred years old. The only stone tomb was in the center, close to where a large cottonwood offered some shade, its roots nourished by the graves. A pickup truck was parked under it, barrels of tools lashed to the back. A man in green overalls was working on a patch of ground a little way beyond it, shoveling stones onto a fresh mound of earth and patting it flat. Solomon watched him work, his back to him, his eyes fixed on the ground. It was the same man Mayor Cassidy had pointed out when the fire was still raging, the man who had given him the cap he had left in Morgan’s car and the sunscreen he’d been using. Useful man to know.
Billy Walker.
Solomon glanced back at the pickup. If there was an information sheet relating to the cemetery, it would be in there. Probably be a phone in there too. All of which was academic because what was also in there was a very large dog. It sat behind the wheel, its huge head pointing at its owner, its tongue lolling from its mouth, the half-open window next to it smeared with drool.
American bulldog, his mind told him. Powerful, loyal, known to form extremely strong bonds with their owners.
He glanced back at the office door. He could break the glass, but the man might hear. The bulldog would for sure. He leaned close to the door; it was fitted with security glass, a grid of wire running all the way through it. It was bound to be alarmed too, a building like this, isolated and out of the way. Hardwired to the local police. Smash the glass and a cruiser would show up. No good.
He studied the locks. There were two, both heavy-duty. He pictured the tumblers and barrels within, the dead bolt, the levers, the detainers.
Could he pick them?
Perhaps, if he had the tools. But he didn’t and the door would be alarmed too. He would need a key or a code to disarm that, and he had neither. He looked back around the edge of the building.
Billy Walker was finishing up now, scraping the last loose rocks into a pile on James Coronado’s grave. A triangle of sweat had soaked through the back of his overalls and the band of his cap. He must have been here for some time, tidying up, clearing away. Long enough that he might not have heard what had happened at the Tucker ranch. Hopefully. Either way, it was a risk he had to take.
He moved silently back to the trough where the horse was drinking, cupped his hands into the water, and rubbed at his face and hair to wash the ash from it. Then he grabbed one of the dog bowls and filled it.
The dog turned its head toward the sound of Solomon’s boots crunching across the gravel. Its ears pricked forward and it barked, a single deep cough that stopped Billy Walker working and made him turn around. He squinted at Solomon from beneath the shade of his cap and leaned on the handle of his shovel.
“Hello again,” Solomon said, waving a greeting and holding up the dog bowl. “Thought your dog might want a drink.”
Billy shrugged. “I guess.”
Solomon drew closer to the truck and looked in at the solid knot of muscle and teeth. “What’s his name?”
“Otis.”
“Is he friendly?”
“He’s friendly enough if you’re giving him food or sumpn’ to drink.”
Solomon placed the bowl down in the shade and opened the door to let Otis out. The truck rocked on its springs when he jumped down. He ignored Solomon and headed straight to the bowl, sniffed it, then started slurping it down.
“Tough to be wearing a fur coat in this weather,” Solomon said, stepping out of the shade and walking over to Billy. “Is that James Coronado’s grave?”
Billy turned and looked at the neat mound of stones as if he had only just noticed it. “You knew him?”
“Long time ago. I heard about what happened and was in the area, so I thought I’d come by. Then the fire happened and . . .” He let the sentence trail off. “Thanks for the hat, by the way. I left it with Chief Morgan to give it back to you. Didn’t figure on bumping into you again. He took me over to Holly’s house so I could pay my respects, only she wasn’t there.” He stared down at the grave. “Reckoned I’d come here instead.”
“You missed the funeral,” Billy said, dropping the shovel onto a tarp along with a rake and a pair of work gloves.
“I guess I did.”
Billy rolled his tools in the tarp and walked up the slope to his truck. The dog glanced up from his bowl then went back to drinking.
“You wouldn’t have any idea how I might contact the widow, would you?” Solomon said. “Be a shame to be here and not get a chance to say hello and offer my sympathies.”
Billy dumped the tarp in the back of the truck and turned to him. “You don’t got her number?”
“I lost my phone. Must have dropped it out by the fire line. Lost all my numbers too. Pain in the ass.”
Billy nodded then moved around to the driver’s seat and reached inside. Solomon tensed. If he did know what had happened at the Tucker ranch, now would be the moment he would pull out a shotgun.
“I saw what you did there at the fire line,” Billy said, pulling a phone out of a dashboard charger. “Taking charge and shifting the line like that. That was a ballsy move. I guess this town owes you something for that. You can use my phone to call Mrs. Coronado if you like.” He handed him the phone and pulled a folder out of the door pocket with a map of the cemetery pasted to the cover. “I got her number in here someplace.”
56
HOLLY CORONADO DESCENDED INTO THE COOL, POLISHED GLOOM OF THE town museum, a worn, stone block of a building that faced the church and filled one whole side of the town square. It had originally been the Copper Exchange, built to house all the offices and personnel who ran the mine and traded copper when the town was booming. Now it was part town hall, part museum, with the museum on the first two floors and the archive in the basement.
She caught Janice Wickens coming out of a pebbled-glass door with Archive Office painted on it and noted the look of sympathy that passed across her face.
“Mrs. Coronado,” she said. “I’m so very sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks.” Holly forced a smile. “I was wondering if I could check something.”
Janice already had the key in the lock. “Well, I was fixing to close up for the day.”
“It will only take a moment, please.” She held up the requisition. “Jim had this in his personal things. I wanted to pick it up for him.”
Janice Wickens was a metronome of a woman who lived in a house wrapped in plastic to keep everything clean and in perfect order. Precision was important to her, more important than friends even, and Holly could feel the turmoil her request had roiled up inside her. “Please,” she said. “For Jim.”
Even the plastic-wrapped heart of Janice Wickens couldn’t hold out against the wish of a widow invoking her dead husband’s name. “One moment then,” she said, turning the key and opening the door again.
Holly followed her into a room with oak panels and wide floorboards and a counter at waist height that made it feel like an old mutual savings office or a bar in an old hotel. Janice took the requisition slip, checked the number on it against a handwritten ledger, then disappeared through a door leading to the main archive.
Holly paced and waited. Checked the time on her phone and frowned when it started ringing. She didn’t recognize the number. She let it ring a few times, debating whether to let it go to voice mail. Then she answered. “Hello?”
“It’s me. It’s Solomon.”
“Hi,” she said and stepped away from the counter.
“Where are you?”
“I’m in the Cassidy archive.”
“Where’s that?”
“In town. Opposite the church.”
“What happened at the police station?”
“Nothing. They left me alone in a room for a while then let me
go.”
“Okay, you need to get out of there now.”
“Why?”
“Because Pete Tucker’s dead.”
“What! How?”
“It doesn’t matter. Listen, don’t go home. Don’t talk to the police. Don’t talk to anyone. I think you’re in danger. You need to get out of town as fast as possible. Don’t let anyone know where you’re going.”
Holly felt like the ceiling had started to lower and the walls were closing in. “Where are you?”
“Up at the cemetery.”
“I want to meet up.”
“Not here.” There was a pause and Holly turned to the door. She could hear Janice returning on the other side. “The place your husband died, is it easy to find?”
She knew exactly where he had died but hadn’t wanted to go there. Not now. Perhaps not ever. “Yes. All right, yes. It’s about three miles east of town on the Chinchuca road, the road that winds up through the mountains. There’s a stone near the road with a wagon-trail marker like an eagle on it.”
Janice Wickens walked back in holding an envelope. Holly smiled and Janice handed it to her then turned the ledger around so she could sign for it.
“Okay,” Solomon said. “I’ll get there as soon as I can. Be careful.”
She signed her name, feeling as if she was watching everything through the wrong end of a telescope. “I will.”
The phone clicked and she looked up. Janice was regarding her with concern. “You okay, dear?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” She placed the pen down on the ledger and started backing away, trying to remember what she’d said and how much Janice might have heard. Don’t talk to anyone, Solomon had said. She felt panicked. “Thanks for this,” she said, holding up the envelope. “I appreciate your time.” Then she turned and left the room, her boots sounding far too loud as she hurried away across the polished stone floor.
57
SOLOMON ENDED THE CALL AND STUDIED THE STONE TOMB IN FRONT OF HIM.
He had drifted away from Billy Walker during the conversation to keep him from overhearing and found himself beside the largest grave in the cemetery. Like the mansion in the center of town, it was bigger and grander than anything around it and had been constructed for the same man. He read the carved inscription on the stone:
REV. JACK CASSIDY
PIONEER. VISIONARY. PHILANTHROPIST.
Founder and first citizen of the City of Redemption
Dec. 25th, 1841, to Dec. 24th, 1927
The stone was white, like the church, imported. There were marks along the top and sides, jagged lightning bolts where the stone had cracked open and been repaired with cement that didn’t quite match the stone.
“What happened here?” he asked, running his hand over the cracks and feeling the edges of the broken stone.
Billy didn’t reply and Solomon felt a shift in the air. He turned to find himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun for the third time that day.
“Hands where I can see ’em,” Billy said.
He was holding a second phone in the same hand with which he was cradling the stock of the gun and Solomon guessed what had happened.
“I didn’t kill Pete Tucker,” he said, raising his hands and taking a step forward.
“Stay right where you are.”
“You’re not going to shoot me.”
“You want to find out? Keep on walking.”
“You ever killed a man, Billy?” Solomon took another step. “Ever stared into his face and watched the life leave him? You don’t want that on your conscience. Thanks for the phone, by the way.” Solomon lobbed it toward him and Billy followed it with his eyes, instinct telling him to catch it and stop it from falling to the ground.
Solomon used this moment of distraction, sprang forward, and grabbed the barrel of the shotgun. He knocked it aside and pulled hard, yanking gun and man forward. A boom crashed the silence as Billy’s finger triggered a shot and buckshot tore through the broad, heart-shaped leaves of the cottonwood. Solomon continued his spin, driving his elbow backward, aiming for the forehead and not the nose. A hard blow to the nose could drive bone shard back into the brain and kill a man.
How did he know all this? How did his body know the moves to disarm a man pointing a shotgun at him? How did he know what would kill and what would not?
His elbow connected with Billy’s head and it snapped back. Solomon yanked the barrel again, pulling it free from his hands.
“Otis!” Billy hollered. “Otis—kill!”
Solomon continued to spin, using his momentum. He felt the heat of his rage again, like an unstoppable urge, and he drove his other elbow hard into the side of Billy’s head, relishing the feel of the impact. Billy crumpled to the floor, eyes rolling up into his skull, and Solomon dropped down with him, his hand grabbing a stone from the ground, his anger like a physical thing now trying to burst out of him. He could feel the pressure of it in his chest and his hand squeezed the solid rock as he raised it over his head.
Bring it down, a voice inside him said. Bring it down hard on this man’s head. Break his brain out. That will ease the pressure. That will show you who you are.
He could picture it—the rock, the skull, the blood—the images so vivid he thought he must have done it. The stone came down, hard and fast, and struck the ground by Billy Walker’s head. Solomon wasn’t sure what had nudged his hand away from its murderous path. It might have been him or something else. Whatever it was, it had spared a life and Solomon let go of the rock and pushed himself away before something else made him pick it up again.
He was sweating and breathing hard but not from the effort of the fight. It was his rage boiling inside him.
There was a grunt to his right and he looked over at the bulldog, lying by the bowl, his great head resting on his front paws. He twitched, like he was trying hard to move, then grunted again, as much of a bark as he could manage before finally he gave up, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.
Solomon took a deep breath. Let it out slowly, then went to work.
He moved over to the truck and found a knife, some rope, and a pack of black plastic cable ties in a box in the back. He used the ties to bind Billy’s wrists and feet, then dragged him over to the trunk of the cottonwood and wrapped most of the rope around him, fastening him tight to the tree. He tied it, cut a twelve-foot length off, then tucked the knife in his belt and found a crate of bottled water in the truck. He pulled two bottles free, drank one straight down before unscrewing the cap from the second and carefully pouring a quarter of the remaining Ambien into it. He had taken it from Holly’s bedroom and already used about a quarter of it in the dog’s water bowl—enough to knock him out, not enough to kill him, he hoped. The dog was snoring loudly now so he must have guessed the dose right. He shook the bottle to dissolve the powder and left it next to Billy’s slumped form so he would reach for it when he roused and send himself straight back to sleep again. Then he emptied the shells from the shotgun and flung it deep into the cemetery where it couldn’t be seen.
The stallion raised its head from the trough when Solomon stepped onto the wooden porch, then lowered it again and continued drinking. Solomon glanced down the road and the pony track, checking to see that no one was heading his way, then moved over to the map by the door.
He found the cemetery marked on it and traced his finger along the lines of roads until he came to the one leading east into the Chinchuca Mountains. It curled and looped like the coils of a long, thin snake, following the contours of the land.
Solomon looked out across the town to the mountains beyond, his hands working the rope now, knotting and tying it quickly and expertly while his eyes studied the line of the road, calculating how he could get there without riding through town. The track he had arrived on continued in the right direction, but only for a while; after that he would be cross-country, which was why he needed the rope.
He tugged a final knot tight and walked over to the horse.
�
�Come on, Sirius,” he said, slipping the rope halter over his head. “We’re going for a nice evening ride.”
He secured the halter behind the stallion’s ears then jumped on his back, settled, then moved in circles around the parking lot for a minute, testing the new halter. It was good, it allowed him to sit up straighter and made it possible to steer the horse by the head. He would need that over the loose terrain he was about to cross. He wouldn’t be of any use to anyone lying in a gully with a broken arm. He wouldn’t be of any use to Holly.
Was that why he was here? Was he here for her and not her husband? He did feel a responsibility for her. That was why he had taken the Ambien. He didn’t want her to die. He knew if he let that happen, he would have failed somehow, though he couldn’t say why.
He moved away from the building and toward the track, glancing out at the burned desert stretching away to the northwest. The sun was sinking lower in the sky now, a burning disk of shining copper. He thought about the ranch beyond and the bloodied body in the barn. He thought about the man with the gun in Holly’s house. He thought about what else might be coming their way. Then he turned onto the track and eased the horse into a trot to make time over the easier terrain, his shadow leading the way, long and dark across the broken land.
58
MULCAHY STARED AT THE DIRT TRACK UNSPOOLING AHEAD OF HIM.
He was driving, the smell of gasoline clinging to his clothes and skin, the smoking barn getting smaller in his rearview mirror. The little execution-and-burn situation had disturbed him. He had always had Tío down as a fundamentally reasonable man, ruthless but reasonable. What he had just seen had no reason in it. And if you took reason away from the equation, all you had left was ruthlessness and that didn’t fill him with confidence, given his father’s current situation.
“What did they do?” he asked.
“Who?”
“Those human candles we left back in the barn.”
