It was a balmy, pleasant night. Here and there in the orchard, cheerful crickets chirped. From behind the willows, the burbling murmur of the stream soothed her weary ear. The old woman took a deep breath of night’s calming fragrance, exhaled it with a satisfied sigh. Those nasty witches must be gone.
Accepting this hopeful assertion as fact, Loyola concluded that she had put a big scare into them last night when she’d fired the pistol. They don’t know what I might do next, and they’ve decided not to hang around and find out. She could not resist a spiteful “heh-heh.” The old-fashioned soul was bolstered by the thought that her gun-toting adventure proved how well things could work out when a woman didn’t wait for other folks to solve her problems. It was like her grandmother’s favorite old saying: If you want your garden to grow, do the planting and hoeing yourself.
It occurred to Loyola that with the brujos’ retreat, the Ute tribal investigator would be making a long trip for nothing. And I’ll look like a fool when Charlie Moon shows up and witches are as scarce around here as pink giraffes. She playfully aimed her pistol at an inoffensive fence post. I suppose I ought to call the ranch and tell him they’ve packed up and left for a safer hiding place—there’s no need for him to drive all the way down here. On the other hand . . . Witches or not, it’d be nice to see my young friend again. She took a last look at the starry night sky. I might as well go back inside and bake some cookies; Charlie Moon really likes my oatmeal-walnut-cherry recipe. Which presented a problem. While Loyola had an ample supply of Quaker Oatmeal, she was all out of walnuts, shelled or otherwise, and there was not a cherry in the house—fresh, canned, or dried. But challenges were the spice of life, and she was always able to improvise. The lack of walnuts was dispensed with forthwith: I’ve got that little sack of piñon nuts I gathered last year. But what could a person substitute for cherries? As she mulled over what she had in the pantry, Loyola could not come up with a respectable solution, so she settled on deceit. If I just stir something red into the batter, I bet Charlie won’t even notice the difference. Like famished dogs, hungry men tended to gulp and swallow their food without appreciating the more subtle nuances of flavor. I could blend in some red pepper chips. She smiled. Or some chopped pimentos. But what would it be, peppers or pimentos? Having no time to dillydally over small decisions, the firm-jawed cookie maker decided to use both. And if the recipe turns out to be tip-top, I’ll enter a batch of oatmeal, piñon-nut, red chili pepper, and pimento cookies in the La Plata County Fair next year.
Surfacing from her culinary musings, Loyola noticed that the night-sounds were no longer soothing to her soul. The crickets had ceased their chirping; the stream’s happy gurgling had shifted to a malicious, gossipy whisper. A chill, dry breeze rustling crispy elm leaves produced a raspy, gasping sound—a drowning soul’s final breath.
Despite an involuntary shudder, Loyola reassured herself that the witches were long gone. Nevertheless, the prudent woman retreated into her house and closed the porch door behind her. Even in the familiar comfort of her kitchen, she did not feel entirely safe. What if one or two of those brutal goat slayers had remained behind with the intention of evening the score? I’ve got my pistol, but I can’t stay awake till Charlie Moon gets here. And while I’m sleeping, one of them rascals could slip into my bedroom and slit my throat!
She recalled that her grandmother had warded off the devil’s disciples by hanging a string of garlic cloves over every possible entrance to her home, including the fireplace. (Witches are notorious for slipping down chimneys.) Loyola searched her dusty pantry, but found only two cloves hanging from a rusty nail—not enough to prevent a witch from coming through even one door or window. But there was a more efficient way to use the stink: And it ought to keep those murderous rascals away from me.
Did she string the pair of pungent roots around her thin neck?
Certainly not.
Loyola Montoya ate both garlic cloves right on the spot.
Tough old lady.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EXCELLENT FRINGE BENEFITS
AFTER A BRIEF BUT DEEP AND RESTFUL SLEEP, CHARLIE MOON ENJOYED a mug of honeyed coffee on the headquarters porch. The rancher was serenaded by the song of an uproariously happy river splashing its way over a glistening cobblestoned highway to the faraway western sea. Yonder on a rocky ridge, a wily old canine raised her nose to commune with an unseen waning moon and managed a passable imitation of cowboy singer Don Edwards mimicking a yip-yipping coyote—and thus was the circle of mutual admiration closed. Pretty good stuff, and you’d think a man would be satisfied, but this was not enough for Mr. Moon. Never one to deny himself a lawful pleasure, he topped off the treat by filling his eyes with the eastern sky, which was aglow over the Buckhorns with a silvery-white phosphorescence. Exclusively for his benefit, the silver radiance melted into liquid gold, followed this with shimmering streaks of pink, then swirls of deep purple. Good things have a way of passing away too quickly, and this sterling performance was completed within a dozen heartbeats.
The tribal investigator drained his mug, went inside and strode across the parlor and into the hallway, where he stopped in front of a mirror mounted on a closet door. Knowing that Loyola would expect him to look his very best, Moon had dressed in his gray Sunday-go-to-meeting suit, matching gray bull-hide cowboy boots, and a dove-gray John B. Stetson. The tall man straightened his black string tie and checked the sharp-as-an-ax creases in his custom-made slacks. As a final touch, he pinned the gold Southern Ute tribal investigator shield onto the left pocket of his white shirt.
He evaluated the resultant image with a critic’s flinty gaze. Pronounced it not bad.
In a final adjustment to the strictly business portion of his outfit, Moon checked the .357 Magnum six-inch-barrel pistol holstered on his hip. No problem there. Loaded for bear. On a social call such as this, the sidearm was merely ornamental, but appearance was (by Moon’s careful reckoning) about 92 percent of getting a lawman’s job done, and Loyola expected a visiting cop to be suitably armed.
What a fine morning this was.
What an extraordinary day it would be.
LOYOLA’S TEN ACRES
The sun was hanging nine diameters high in a pale blue sky when Charlie Moon turned off the paved road and onto the rutted dirt lane that wound its serpentine way through a quarter mile of sage, piñon, and juniper before finally terminating at the farmhouse that Loyola Montoya had called home since the deepest, darkest years of the Great Depression.
Moon parked the Columbine Expedition in the scant shade of a sickly elm. A pair of inquisitive yellow jackets landed on the windshield and peered at the new arrival. Ignoring the winged, stinging insects, the tall, thin, gray-clad man got out of his automobile. He strode across the weed-choked yard toward the slightly awry front porch of a weather-beaten frame house, which had not felt the touch of a paintbrush since Loyola’s husband had died almost thirty years ago. Hopeful cottonwoods had sprouted here and there. Also sage and prickly pear. The invited visitor stepped onto the porch, hoped his bull-hide boots wouldn’t break through one of the rotted pine boards. He tapped on the front door, which opened under the pressure of his knuckle to exhale a musky scent of staleness. Moon took hold of the door, tapped harder.
Nothing.
“Hello inside—anybody home?”
He could hear the tinny tick-ticking of a small wind-up clock.
This did not feel right.
The lawman called out louder, “Mrs. Montoya—it’s Charlie Moon.”
A warm breeze rattled dry cottonwood leaves.
The lawman stepped inside. He stood in the gloomy parlor, waiting for his pupils to dilate. Little by little, the familiar interior of the widow’s home materialized. The small brick fireplace that featured a fancy wrought-iron grate. A sagging old sofa that reminded him of a swayback mule his grandfather had ridden to Ignacio every Saturday morning. A recliner flanked by a Walmart lamp with a plastic shade and a handmade maple magazine rack.
Though sensing that the effort would prove futile, Moon called again for the lady of the house. He was rewarded with the expected nonresponse.
Over the stale scents that inhabit any old, lived-in house, the Ute’s nostrils picked up something that commanded his attention. Or was it two somethings? No, three. He raised his nose, sniffed in a larger sample. The strongest of the scents was both familiar and oddly sweet. Roasted meat?
Yes. Pork, he guessed.
I bet she’s cooked up a big breakfast for me, then wandered off somewhere. Moon recalled that there was a root cellar under the kitchen. She’s probably gone down there to get a jar of preserves. The second, more stringent aroma, was kerosene. No surprise. Loyola cooked her meals on an eighty-year-old kerosene stove.
But what was that underlying, peculiar odor? He took another sniff. That smells a lot like . . . burned hair.
The lawman drew his sidearm and took five long strides across the living room, a shorter one into the kitchen’s twilight. The firearm hung heavy in his hand.
What he found there shall not be described in any detail.
Suffice it to say that the aged woman, whose body was on the floor, had expired in a localized fire. That the blaze had apparently started when a kerosene lamp had been knocked off the kitchen table. That Loyola’s gray hair was mostly burned off.
That her roasted flesh smelled sweet.
Feeling himself about to retch, Charlie Moon sprinted out the back door, off the porch, and into the edge of the apple orchard. He tried vainly to fight off an attack of dry heaves, and the nightmarish image and scent.
Sufficient for the day was this horror. Sufficient for a lifetime.
His lungs needed a breath of fresh air—his face, beams of heavenly sunshine.
Which blessings were promptly granted.
WITHIN THIRTY minutes of the tribal investigator’s terse cell-phone call, three Ignacio PD units and a La Plata County sheriff’s pickup had arrived. The four official motor vehicles delivered a total of seven uniformed cops.
While Moon was telling the town cops and the sheriff about the grisly scene in the old woman’s kitchen, they were joined by SUPD Officer Danny Bignight, who had gotten the word, as the Utes say—from the talking drums. Barely a minute later, a state policeman pulled up, with La Plata County ME Wilson Schmidt’s gray van trailing so closely behind that it might have been towed by the trooper’s low-slung Chevrolet sedan.
After a preliminary examination of the corpse and its immediate surroundings, the medical examiner’s tentative finding was that Mrs. Loyola Montoya had probably suffered a stroke or heart failure and collapsed. In the process of falling, the elderly woman had knocked a lighted kerosene lamp off her kitchen table, which had started the blaze. An autopsy would be performed on the blackened body and a detailed, official investigation made into the cause of the fire, but it was unlikely that these routine procedures would shed any new light on the widow’s final misfortune.
The tribal investigator reported Loyola’s complaint about “witches” and what he had discovered upon arriving at her home. While waiting for those with jurisdiction to show up, Moon had waded the creek and found evidence of a recently abandoned encampment. Judging from a quick examination of tire tracks and footprints, he estimated that four vehicles and at least ten persons had been camping on land owned by the Blue Diamond Natural Gas Company. An effort would be made to track down those trespassers who had hounded the unfortunate woman, but most of the lawmen were in agreement with the ME’s preliminary opinion—that Mrs. Montoya had died of natural causes.
The two Indians saw the matter from somewhat different perspectives.
SUPD Officer Danny Bignight had considerable respect for modern forensic science and didn’t doubt for a moment that the Apache elder had died more or less as the medical examiner theorized. The Taos Pueblo Indian didn’t know how they’d done it, but he figured that one way or another, the band of brujos Loyola had complained to Moon about were responsible for her death.
Charlie Moon also accepted the ME’s tentative finding of accidental death, but, like his friend Danny Bignight, the tribal investigator suspected that there was more to the fatality than met the medical examiner’s eye—contributing factors. Some bad guys had trespassed on Blue Diamond land and gotten crosswise of Loyola. One insult and threat had led to another until . . . Just for meanness, they killed Loyola’s goat and strung it up on her back porch. The stress of the angry encounter had probably led to Loyola’s stroke or heart attack. If that’s really how she died. He flexed long, lean fingers that could straighten an iron horseshoe, then fold it back into a U. I’d like to get my hands on whoever it was. Such a gratifying opportunity seemed highly unlikely—the thuggish half-wits would be far away by now, probably in another state. It bothered Moon that they would probably never pay for what they had done. Not in this world. What troubled him even more was an overdose of regret that was settling sourly into his gut. If I’d driven down here yesterday, right after I hung up the phone from talking to Loyola, she’d probably still be alive. And not only that . . . There’s a good chance I could have dealt with those so-called witches. He raised a sorrowful gaze to the pale blue sky. But I put off the trip. Why? Because I’m just a part-time lawman. And not a very good one at that.
The time had come for some serious soul-searching.
CHAPTER TWELVE
RETURN TO THE COLUMBINE
AFTER HE FINISHED HIS LUNCH, FOREMAN PETE BUSHMAN BIT OFF A BIG chaw of Red Man Tobacco and went to sit on his front porch and chew. While awaiting the boss’s return, he entertained himself by spitting at blackflies. By and by, he heard the Ute’s automobile. He got up from his straight-back chair and ambled slowly across the yard to flag Charlie Moon down as the rancher slowed for a clattering crossing of Too Late Creek bridge. The scruffy-bearded stockman had not heard about Loyola Montoya’s grisly death down in La Plata County, much less the discovery of the charred corpse. As the tribal investigator lowered the passenger-side window, Bushman leaned on the door and grinned at the owner of the outfit. “Glad to see you, Charlie. There’s some things I need to talk to you about, mainly—”
“Not now, Pete.” Moon turned away from the foreman’s intense, beady-eyed gaze. “Whatever it is can wait till later.”
“No it can’t.” Bushman jerked his chin to indicate his residence. “Dolly’s down in her back again and—”
“I’m sorry, Pete.” Moon steeled himself for a conversation he preferred to avoid. “Does she feel well enough to go into Granite Creek and see a doctor?”
“Oh, sure. Fact is, we just got back from town. Doc Martin prescribed some little red pills, said Dolly should take it easy for a week or two. Maybe a month.”
“I hope that’ll do the trick. Make sure your wife gets all the rest she needs.”
“Oh, I’ll do that all right.” Bushman turned his head and spat at a fuzzy brown caterpillar. “But I’ve got an awful lot to do, so I’d like to hire somebody to help look after my ol’ lady till she’s feeling some better. Kind of like a lady’s companion.”
Moon nodded. “See to it, then.”
Pleased by this easy victory, the foreman figured this was an opportune time to press a related issue. “And then there’s the new horse barn that needs to be roofed before winter sets in, and you know how that can happen here in September. But we’re shorthanded, Charlie, and—”
“Hire whoever you need, Pete.”
This was too easy. The cranky foreman glared at the boss. “Well I generally do, but only after you give me your okay.”
“Consider it given.” Moon nodded curtly, drove away.
Pete Bushman watched him go. Well don’t that beat all. He took off his tattered straw hat and scratched at his perpetually itchy scalp. Of all the people he knew, Charlie Moon was the most amiable. I wonder what’s gnawing on his leg.
MOON STALKED into the ranch headquarters parlor, mumbled an incoherent greeting to Sarah and Daisy, and headed upstairs—as h
is aunt would later say, “stomping snakes all the way.”
The women stared at the empty space in his wake, flinched at the slam of his office door.
Sarah’s unwrinkled brow came very near furrowing. I’ve never seen Charlie so upset. Well, except for that time Aunt Daisy got him so mad about . . . But such unhappy incidents were best forgotten.
Daisy Perika glared. I bet one of his precious cows fell over and died. But she knew how remarkably resilient her nephew was, and what a potent cure delicious food could be for a man who was out of sorts. When we sit down to try that green chili pork posole that me and Sarah cooked up, he’ll feel lots better and tell us all about his troubles.
Charlie Moon was not in the mood for pork.
But, as it happened, the meaty issue was academic. He would not come downstairs on that Saturday evening. Not even for supper.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ACUTE INSOMNIA
WHICH IS WHAT CHARLIE MOON WAS SUFFERING FROM. ALSO . . . GUILT.
About two hours before dawn, the restless man finally gave up, rolled out of bed, and dressed from his heels to the crown of his head. He stepped quietly out of his upstairs bedroom and onto the hardwood-floored hallway, made his way just as softly down the carpeted stairway, and eased himself out the front door without (he hoped) disturbing the ladies whom (he believed) were fast asleep in their downstairs bedrooms.
Both were wide awake, worrying about the most important man in their lives.
Tired of lying on her back, Daisy turned onto her right side. I’ve never seen Charlie so down in the mouth that he went into hiding and wouldn’t even come out for supper. And now he’s sneaked out of his own house. The old woman turned onto her left side and sighed. One of his friends must’ve died. But who? And then it came to her: Maybe something bad happened to Loyola.
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