Sad to say, Parris was not able to see what words of fond remembrance his pal had inscribed on the wood. As so often happens when we are just on the verge of finding out—a dark cloud slipped across the crescent moon. In an instant, Pine Knob was black as the inside of (this was the dreamer’s metaphor) a buzzard’s gizzard.
It was bad enough to be deprived of enjoying one’s epitaph. Worse still was the unanswered question that nagged at U.S. Marshal Scott Parris.
What did them black-hearted bastards hang me for?
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE FOLLOWING DAY
CHARLIE MOON WOULD NEVER HAVE THOUGHT OF MENTIONING THE family’s cold-blooded murders to Daisy or Sarah, particularly during their evening meal. His supper talk was limited to observations such as how welcome the recent rain had been, and that the moisture would help green up the bone-dry six sections north of Pine Knob. Happy tidings were gratifying to talk about; bad news could wait.
But, as it happened, not for as long as Moon had hoped.
Only two hours earlier, with Sarah at her elbow, the tribal elder had tuned in to the afternoon news on her semiantique tabletop vacuum-tube radio, which had been an anniversary gift from her third husband, whom Daisy praised as being “not nearly as bad as the first two.” They had been informed about the “Snyder Memorial Hospital Massacre,” right down to gory details of how the FBI was searching the grounds for a bloody ice pick, and that the no-show night nurse had been strangled with a piece of copper wire and stuffed into the trunk of her car. Daisy and Sarah were also informed about the tragic Widow Jeppson homicide. Now, the Ute tribal elder and the Ute-Papago orphan realized why Charlie Moon, Scott Parris, and the strikingly pretty FBI agent had held a private conference in Moon’s office the day before.
Under the trying circumstances, the old woman and the young one agreed not to bring up the subject. If the most important man in their lives eventually decided to say something about the killings, it would be something along the lines of, It’s a bad businesses, but it’s not ours. Charlie Moon would remind them that with hungry predators pulling cattle down, drunken Columbine cowboys starting fights in town, and expensive equipment breaking down left and right, there was more than enough trouble to deal with on the ranch without worrying about what went on in town. He would assure the ladies that Granite Creek PD, the state police, and the FBI were on top of it. Next time you turn on the radio news, the bad guys will be behind bars. Or, better yet, dead.
AFTER SUPPER
While a thin, gray twilight was settling in on the high plains between the blue-gray Buckhorn Range and the shimmering, mystery-shrouded Misery Mountains, the major characters at the Columbine headquarters had settled down, each to attend to his or her particular business.
Partly to keep his mind off the mounting murder count, but mainly because he was determined to take a hot shower before bedtime, Charlie Moon was inside installing a new thermocouple in the propane water heater, where the pesky pilot light kept going out.
A dark blue woolen shawl pulled snugly around her stooped shoulders, Daisy Perika was perched on the west-porch swing. Despite the fact that Mrs. P. was singing the few phrases she could remember from “Now the Day Is Over” with an expression of childlike innocence befitting a medieval saint, one cannot entirely dismiss the possibility that the enigmatic old soul was figuring out some new and interesting way to create troubles for her nephew.
Seated nearby in a form-fitting wicker chair, Sarah Frank was figuring out several new ways to make herself attractive to Mr. Moon. No. She shook her head. Attractive was not aiming high enough. The thin little slip of a girl smiled. Irresistible. That was what she would shoot for.
Napping in Sarah’s lap, Mr. Zig-Zag pursued his own fantasies, but that information is not available. Whatever spotted tomcats may dream about, they keep it strictly to themselves.
Sidewinder was stretched out on the plank porch between the hymn-crooning old woman and the hopeful young lady. His long muzzle rested between a pair of paws so large as to give him a comical appearance, but the sad-faced dog was a deeply serious personality who never went for laughs. And, unlike felines, those of the doggish persuasion are not at all reticent in sharing even their most intimate experiences. (At the moment, Sidewinder is enjoying a siesta fantasy where he stalks the most outrageously huge jackrabbit any canine has ever imagined. Big as a full-grown buck elk.)
As his happy dream of sufficient rabbit flesh for a nine-month winter began to deteriorate into something less pleasant, the hound commenced to snort. Groan as if suffering sharp pains. Shudder like a wolfish ancestor caught in a late-spring blizzard.
With the exception of a hungry coyote who had once aspired to have her cat for supper, Sarah adored all of God’s furry creatures. She observed the old dog with girlish compassion. “I wonder what’s the matter with him.”
The tribal elder, who had a ready answer for every question, snapped, “Indigestion.” That dumb dog’ll eat anything that can’t outrun him, from banana peels to watermelon rinds.
THE DOG’S EYES
Though tightly shut at the moment, they are known to be large, brown, and marvelously expressive. The anxious beast awakened abruptly to peel the lids off his eyeballs and stare intently toward an old-growth grove of giant cottonwoods. Like a company of furloughed old soldiers who refused to muster out after the war was declared lost, the woody brigade occupied a low ridge between the headquarters building and Too Late Creek. The hound got to his feet, lowered his head, and muttered a low, guttural growl. Hair bristled on the back of Sidewinder’s neck.
Sarah’s gaze followed the dog’s. He sees something. The girl saw nothing but shadows under the cottonwoods.
Then, the hound did the oddest thing. Without taking his gaze off the whatever-it-was, he sidled over to the old woman, pressed himself hard against Daisy’s leg—and whimpered like a frightened puppy. For a valiant animal who had never backed down from a confrontation, be the enemy a snarling cougar, diamondback rattlesnake, or grizzly bear, this was a peculiarly pitiful performance. Perhaps strangest of all, he was seeking comfort from a bad-tempered old woman who was not the sort of bosom buddy that a four-legged canine person would be inclined to share a meaty ham bone with.
Daisy scowled at the dog. Now what’s gotten into him?
A fair question.
And Sidewinder’s eccentric performance had only just begun. Just as Charlie Moon stepped onto the porch, the creature raised his head in wolflike fashion to let out one of those long, mournful howls that make neck hairs stand up and skin prickle.
Daisy’s neck hairs.
Sarah’s skin.
It took a lot more than a dog’s howl to spook Charlie Moon. Seating himself on a redwood bench, the man patted the dog’s head. “What’s the matter, old boy?”
Daisy answered for the animal. “He’s scared of something.”
As if to validate this assertion, the hound responded with another yowling howl, which was even eerier than the previous complaint.
Moon remained unmoved. “Sidewinder’s not scared of anything alive.” As it happened, this assertion was not only true—it was a highly relevant observation.
Daisy squinted at the cluster of cottonwoods. I can just about make out a fuzzy something or other out there. But only if I look to one side of it. It was, she thought, like trying to see a dim star. If the tribal elder looked directly at it, the fuzzy something vanished. As if it had a will of its own, Daisy’s right hand moved toward the hound’s bristled neck. When her fingers touched the animal, it was as if an electric current tingled its circuitous path through her hand, along her arm, up her neck, into her brain, and then—zipped along the optical nerves to her eyes.
Whether or not this was literally true, the shaman instantly knew that she was seeing what the hound saw—in what might be described in the current technical vernacular as “high-resolution black-and-white.” And at the instant she realized this, it seemed as if the thing knew it too, b
ecause it began to drift. But not away.
No such luck.
Daisy held her breath. Here it comes, across the yard, directly toward the porch!
Perhaps assured by the aged woman’s touch, Sidewinder did not flinch. He bared a set of formidable teeth, uttered a barely audible growl that Daisy felt rumbling in her own belly and throat. Seemingly sharing the dog’s sensations, the shaman had a sense of smell keener than she could have imagined. Be it the pungent scent of pine needles, oddly sour human body odors, the wildly fragrant perfume of a distant rainstorm—her olfactory experiences were almost overpowering.
Unnerved by the hound’s unseemly behavior, Sarah hugged herself and murmured to no one in particular, “This is scary.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of.” Moon’s assertion did little to comfort the girl. “I expect it’s just a hungry old cougar skulking about.” But, try as he might, the Ute’s keen eyes could find nothing amiss in the twilight, which was slowly thickening into night. Moon picked up Daisy’s sturdy walking stick and ambled out into the yard for a better look.
Appalled at this display of imprudence, Sarah went into the parlor to find a rifle.
DAISY PERIKA was barely aware of their departures; what the shaman saw froze her old bones to the very marrow. Coming ever closer was something that appeared to be the residue of a human being—the leftovers. A strand of rusty barbed wire was twisted around its neck, the eyes were goggled as if about to pop, and a swollen tongue protruded rudely from its mouth. That should have been sufficient, but no—the naked, flayed corpse was slathered in a mixture of clay and something oozy that smelled oddly sweet. And (Daisy thought) vinegarish.
This was more than enough to ruin an elderly lady’s peaceful evening, but what unnerved her most of all was—the hideous apparition was floating upside down, its head about a yard above the ground.
The shaman’s long, doggish ear flicked when someone whispered into it, That’s Wallace—my stupid grandson.
Daisy: Loyola—is that you?
Sure. A cackle of laughter. Who’d you expect, Cleopatra?
Daisy (sternly): What’s this all about?
Well what do you think? The spirit breathed a sigh. It’s about murder—mine and my grandson’s. I warned Wallace to stay away from those nasty brujos, but did he listen? Oh, no, he wanted to buddy around with that devilish lot—and look what he got for his trouble!
Though Daisy could not speak aloud—the shaman was limited to barks and growls—she thought the question: Where’s his body?
The dead woman’s familiar voice crackled in her ear: Go through the willows, wade across the creek, and follow the stink and you’ll find Wallace. That’s where those witches left him, to rot like a—
She had intended to say like a butchered pig! but the Apache ghost’s narrative was interrupted by the following:
Uurrrgle . . .
What was that?
It can best be described as a gurgling sound.
Aarrkle . . . ooble . . .
There it goes again.
The source of this unseemly disruption?
The upside-down corpse. Loath to be left out of the conversation, it floats ever closer to the porch where Daisy and the hound commune with Loyola. The bruised lips twist as the mouth attempts to speak around the swollen tongue. Orrrk . . . urrble . . . waaarrk!
Warning growls rattle in Daisy-Sidewinder’s throats.
The upside-down horror pauses. Jitters uncertainly this way and that. Edges a tongue’s length closer to the porch.
The shaman-hound amalgamation bares both sets of teeth; two pairs of hindquarters tense for attack. It looks like there’s going to be a great big brouhaha until—
The Daisy half of the duo hears Loyola say, Oh, go away, Wallace—you’re stinking the place up!
Hideous, odorous apparitions are not bereft of feelings. The rudely dismissed specter withdrew toward the cottonwood grove, presumably to sulk therein. Considering what occurred on the way, perhaps the shadowy presence was not looking where it was going. Or, the collision may have been deliberate.
AS SARAH Frank appeared on the headquarters porch with a loaded and cocked Winchester carbine tucked under her arm, Daisy-Sidewinder were watching the retreating residue of Wallace Montoya pass directly through Charlie Moon.
As would be expected, the sensible rancher caught neither sight nor scent of such an unlikely phenomenon. And if Mr. Moon did experience a sudden clammy coldness in his bones during the unseemly intersection, that sensation was undoubtedly due to a slight breeze stirring the chill of night.
CHAPTER THIRTY
PRELUDE TO BIG TROUBLE (IN D MINOR)
AFTER HER UNSETTLING ENCOUNTER WITH THE INVISIBLE LOYOLA MONtoya and the all-too-visible corpse of the Apache crone’s strangled grandson, it is hardly surprising that Daisy Perika did not sleep well. But the hardy Ute elder was up with the sun to help prepare a hearty Columbine breakfast. While tending to a dozen pork sausage patties sizzling in a sooty-black Tennessee Forge iron skillet, she said to her nephew, “I need to make a quick trip down to my house today.”
“I’ll be glad to drive you down to the res.” Charlie Moon was breaking brown-shelled eggs over a twin to the sausage skillet. “We can leave right after we eat.”
“Oh, you don’t need to do that.” She patted his arm in motherly fashion. “You being so busy nowadays, I wouldn’t want to bother you.” Even pretending to be nice rankled, so she dropped the pretense. “Seeing as how you’re a big shot who kills robbers in hardware stores and has his face on every TV screen in the country—you’re bound to have better things to do than drive an old woman someplace.”
He took the low blow with a grin. “That’s mighty thoughtful of you.”
“No matter how much I might need help from somebody, I always try to take the other person’s problems into account.” She smiled benignly at the third member of the breakfast club. “Sarah can drive me in her red pickup.”
The teenager, who was filling coffee mugs from a blue enameled percolator, responded with a cheerful, “Okay.”
Daisy gave her nephew a sly sideways glance. “I only need to pick up a few things, like that leather beadwork I’ve been working on for Myra Cornstone’s new baby.” How many kids has Myra got now? I guess I stopped counting at six. “We’ll be back before the sun goes down.”
Sarah stirred the first of two teaspoons of honey into Moon’s coffee. “I’ll take Mr. Zig-Zag with me.”
This was just the cue Daisy needed. “That’ll be nice.” As an apparent afterthought, she added, “We’ll take that flop-eared dog along too—so your cat will have some company.” The counterfeit Lover of All Creatures Great and Small sighed with feigned compassion. “That sad-eyed old hound never gets to go anywhere. A little trip down to my house will do him good.”
Busy scrambling eggs, Moon seemed not to hear.
Which pleased Daisy. Charlie’s got a lot on his mind and lots of things to do.
He did.
Immediately after breakfast, the rancher’s busy day began when Foreman Pete Bushman dropped by for a south-porch conference. At the top of Bushman’s list was letting the boss know that he’d hired a nice young woman to “help me look after Dolly.”
Moon expressed his pleasure at this news, but he had to be getting along now to take care of some other business.
Bushman was not finished. “And I hired some men to give us a hand while we’re raising the new horse barn. What with the hard times and so many folks out of work, there’s a better crop to pick from than most years.” The foreman spat tobacco juice through his beard and hit his target—a startled horsefly who had stopped to rest awhile on the porch step. “None of ’em are actual stockmen, but one of ’em worked for a year on a dairy farm and the other three are jackleg carpenters—or so they say.”
“Well, I expect they’ll be worth their pay.” Green Columbine hands drew low wages, slept on the hardest cots in the bunk house, and helped themselves to all the
high-calorie food and strong black coffee a hardworking man could get down his gullet.
Bushman watched the assaulted horsefly buzz away in search of a friendlier neighborhood. “If they don’t tow the line, I’ll send ’em packin’.” Looking vainly for another live target, the aggressive tobacco chewer aimed his surplus spittle at a lime-green cottonwood leaf that had just floated down from a lofty branch. Ready. Splat! Shoot—I missed the dad-blamed thing by a good inch.
During the foreman’s misfire, Moon had managed to slip away.
About a minute after that, Daisy and Sarah—the latter carrying her cat—appeared on the front porch, which faces west. The tribal elder paused to nudge the somnolent hound with her walking stick.
Without raising his muzzle from the porch, Sidewinder opened his eyes halfway. He glared at the old woman as if to say, Don’t bug me, Granny.
Exposing most of the peglike teeth she had left, Daisy presented the dog with the kind of smile that sends terrified little children screaming into their mothers’ clutches. “G’morning, pooch. You want to go for a nice little ride?”
The hound yawned, closed his eyes.
Sarah eyed the lazy dog. “I guess he’d rather stay here.”
“No he don’t, the old tick-mattress is just playing coy. Wants me to sweet-talk him.” Daisy pointed her walking stick at the red pickup. “Go on out there and lower that tailgate. Me’n Lassie’s ugly cousin will be along directly.”
Though doubtful of the predicted outcome, the girl did as she was bid.
As soon as Sarah had turned her back, Daisy nudged the hound more urgently. The precise location of her prodding was that tender orifice under the base of his tail.
Getting the point, the canine lurched to his feet. He turned to bare his teeth at the rude aggressor.
Pleased by this display of spirit, Daisy cackled a wicked laugh. “I like dogs with spunk, but don’t mess with me, you mangy old fleabag, or I’ll lay your skull wide open!” To demonstrate how that task would be accomplished, she raised her oak staff like the club it was. “Now go get your butt in that truck before I lose my temper.”
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