“Tell me about this,” Leaphorn said.
Brigham was standing at what had been the entry door to the little room—now a narrow gap into a roofless space. Behind him the sky was dark. The wind, which had fallen during the afternoon, was blowing again now. It blew steadily out of the northwest. Winter, Leaphorn thought. He kept his eyes locked with Brigham’s. The young man’s eyes were the same odd blue-gray as his father’s. Had the same intensity about them. Leaphorn looked into them, searching for insanity. Looking for it, he found it.
“This devil came,” Brigham said, speaking very slowly. “He dug up the bones, and sat on the ground there looking at them. One after another he would look at them. He would measure them with a tool he had. He was looking for the souls of people who never had been prayed for. He would suck the souls out of the skulls and then he would throw them away. Or some of them he would take away in his sack. And then one day the last time the moon was full—” He paused and his somber bearded face converted into an expression of delight. “When the moon is full, that’s when Papa comes and talks to me, and brings me what I need.” The smile drifted away. “A little after that, this woman came.” He nodded at Friedman-Bernal. “I didn’t see her come and I think maybe the angel Moroni brought her because I didn’t see her come and I see everything in this place. Moroni left her to fight with that devil. She had come to the old cliff house down below here where I keep my frogs. I didn’t know she was there. I was playing my flute and I frightened her and she ran away. But the next day, she came to where the devil was digging up the bones. I saw them talking.”
Brigham’s mobile face became fierce. His eyes seemed to glitter with the anger. “He knocked her down, and he was on top of her, fighting with her. He got up and was searching through her pack, and she jumped up and ran over to the edge where the cliff drops down to the streambed and then she fell down. That devil, he went over and pushed her over with his foot.” Brigham stopped, his face wet with tears.
“He just left her there, where she fell?”
Brigham nodded.
“You kept her alive,” Leaphorn said. “But now I think she is starting to die. We have to get her out of here. To a hospital where doctors can give her medicine.”
Brigham stared at him. “Papa said I could trust you.” The statement was reproachful.
“If we don’t get her out, she dies,” Leaphorn said.
“Papa will bring medicine. The next time the moon is full he will come with it.”
“Too long,” Leaphorn said. “Look at her.”
Brigham looked. “She’s asleep,” he said, softly.
“She has fever. Feel her face. How hot. She has infections. She has to have help.”
Brigham touched Eleanor Friedman-Bernal’s cheek with the tips of his fingers. He jerked them away, looking frightened. Leaphorn thought of the shriveled bodies of the frogs and tried to square that image with this tenderness. How do you square insanity?
“We need to make something to carry her on,” Leaphorn said. “If you can find two poles long enough, we can tie the blanket between them and carry her on that.”
“No,” Brigham Houk said. “When I try to move her, to clean her after she does number one or number two, she screams. It hurts too bad.”
“No choice,” Leaphorn said. “We have to do it.”
“It’s terrible,” Brigham said. “She screams. I can’t stand that, so I had to leave her dirty.” He looked at Leaphorn for understanding. Houk had apparently given him a haircut and trimmed his beard on the last visit. The old man was no barber. He had simply left the hair about an inch long everywhere, and whacked the beard off a half-inch under Brigham’s chin.
“It was better to leave her dirty,” Leaphorn said. “You did right. Now, can you find me two poles?”
Brigham nodded. “Just a minute. I have poles. It’s close.” He disappeared, making no sound at all.
Here is how it must have been when man lived as predator, Leaphorn thought. He developed the animal skills, and starved with his children when the skill failed him. How had Brigham hunted? Traps, probably, and a bow to kill larger game. Perhaps his father had brought him a gun—but someone might have heard gunshots. He listened to the sound of Eleanor Friedman’s shallow breathing, and over that, the wind sounds. Suddenly he heard a thumping. Steady at first, then louder. He leaped to his feet. A helicopter. But before he could get into the open there was only the wind. He stared into the grayness, frustrated. He had found her. He must get her out of here alive. The risk lay in carrying such a fragile load over such rough terrain. It would be difficult. It might be impossible. A helicopter would save her. Why hadn’t Houk done more to get her out? No time, Leaphorn guessed. His son had told him of this injured woman, but perhaps not how near she was to death. Houk would have wanted a way to save the woman without giving up this mad son to life (or perhaps death) in a prison for the criminally insane. Even Houk needed time to solve such a puzzle. He was too crippled to bring her out himself. If he did, she would talk of the man who had nursed her, and Brigham would be found—an insane triple murderer in the eyes of the law. The only solution Leaphorn saw would be to find Brigham another hideaway. That would take time, and the killer had allowed Houk no time.
The woman stirred, moaned. He and Brigham would have to carry her to the canyon bottom, then five miles down to the river. They could tie the kayaks together, put her litter on one of them, and float her to Mexican Hat. Five or six hours at least, and then an ambulance would come for her. Or the copter would come from Farmington if the weather allowed. It hadn’t been too bad for whatever had just flown over.
He walked out under the dark sky. He smelled ozone. Snow was near. Then he saw Randall Elliot walking toward him.
Elliot raised his hand. “I saw you from up there,” he said, pointing past Leaphorn to the rim of the mesa. “Came down to see if you needed help.”
“Sure,” Leaphorn said. “Lots of help.”
Elliot stopped a few feet away. “You find her?”
Leaphorn nodded toward the ruin, remembering Elliot was a copter pilot.
“How is she?”
“Not good,” Leaphorn said.
“But alive at least?”
“In a coma,” Leaphorn said. “She can’t talk.” He wanted Elliot to know that immediately. “I doubt if she’ll live.”
“My God,” Elliot said. “What happened to her?”
“I think she fell,” Leaphorn said. “A long ways. That’s what it looks like.”
Elliot was frowning. “She’s in there?” he said. “How did she get here?”
“A man lives out here. A hermit. He found her and he’s been trying to keep her alive.”
“I’ll be damned,” Elliot said. He moved past Leaphorn. “In here?”
Leaphorn followed. They stood, Elliot staring at Friedman-Bernal, Leaphorn watching Elliot. He wanted to handle this just exactly right. Only Elliot could fly the helicopter.
“A hermit found her?” he said softly, posing the question to himself. He shook his head. “Where is he?”
“He went to get a couple of poles. We’re going to make a litter. Carry her down to the San Juan. Her kayak’s there, and mine. Float her down to Mexican Hat and get help.”
Elliot was looking at her again, studying her. “I have a helicopter up on the mesa. We can carry her up there. Much quicker.”
“Great,” Leaphorn said. “Lucky you found us.”
“Really, it was stupid,” Elliot said. “I should have remembered about this place. She’d told me once she’d found the polychrome pattern she was chasing on potsherds in here. Back when she was helping inventory these sites. I knew she’d planned to come back.” He turned away from the woman. His eyes locked with Leaphorn’s.
“As a matter of fact, she said some things that made me think she had come here earlier. She didn’t exactly say it, but I think she did some illegal digging in here. I think she found what she was looking for, and she came back to get so
me more.”
“I think you’re right,” Leaphorn said. “She dug up that ruins on the shelf down below here. Dug up a bunch of graves.”
“And got careless,” Elliot added, looking at her.
Leaphorn nodded. Where was Brigham? He’d said just a minute. Leaphorn walked out of the ruin, looking along the talus slope under the cliff. Two poles leaned against the wall not ten feet away. Brigham had returned and seen his devil, and gone away. The poles were fir, apparently, and weathered. Driftwood, Leaphorn guessed, carried down Many Ruins all the way from the mountains by one of its flash floods. On the ground beside them was a loop of rawhide rope. He hurried back into the room with them.
“A very skittish man,” Leaphorn said. “He left the poles and disappeared again.”
“Oh,” Elliot said. He looked skeptical.
They doubled the blanket, made lacing holes, and tied it securely to the poles.
“Be very careful,” Leaphorn said. “Knee probably broken. Broken arm, all sorts of internal injuries.”
“I used to collect the wounded,” Elliot said, without looking up. “I’m good at this.”
And Elliot seemed to be careful. Even so, Eleanor Friedman-Bernal uttered a strangled moan. Then she was unconscious again.
“I think she fainted,” Elliot said. “Do you really think she’s dying?”
“I do,” Leaphorn said. “I’m giving you the heavy end because you’re younger and stronger and not so exhausted.”
“Fair,” Elliot said. He picked up the end of the poles at the woman’s head.
“You know the way back to your copter, so you lead the way.”
They carried Eleanor Friedman-Bernal carefully down the talus, then toward a long rock slide which sloped down from the rim. Beyond the slide—probably the cause of it—was a deep erosion cut which carried runoff water down from the top. Elliot turned toward the cut.
“Rest a minute,” Leaphorn said. “Put her down on this slab.”
He was fairly sure now what Elliot planned. Somewhere between here and the helicopter, wherever that was, something fatal had to happen to Eleanor Friedman-Bernal. Elliot simply could not risk having her arrive at a hospital alive. Ideally, something fatal would also happen to Leaphorn. If Elliot was smart, he would wait until they had climbed a hundred feet or so up the cut. Then he would push the litter backward, tumbling Friedman-Bernal and Leaphorn down the jumble of boulders. Then he would climb back down and do whatever was needed, if anything, to finish them off. A bang of the head on a rock would do it and leave nothing to arouse the suspicion of a medical examiner. Figuring that out had been easy enough. Knowing what to do about it was another matter. He could think of nothing. Shooting Elliot was shooting the copter pilot. Pointing a gun at him to force him to fly them out wasn’t practical. Elliot would know Leaphorn wouldn’t shoot him once they were airborne. He’d be able to make the helicopter do tricks that Leaphorn couldn’t handle. And he probably had the little pistol. And yet, once they started that steep climb, Elliot had simply to drop his end of the litter and Leaphorn would be helpless.
“Is this the only way up?” Leaphorn asked.
“Only one I could see,” Elliot said. “It’s not as bad as it looks. We can take it slow.”
“I’ll wait here with the lady,” Leaphorn said. “You fly the copter down here, land it somewhere where we don’t have to make the climb.” You could land a copter on this shelf if you had to, Leaphorn guessed. You’d have to be good, but someone who’d flown evacuations in Vietnam would be very good.
Elliot seemed to consider. “That’s a thought,” he said.
He reached into his jacket, extracted a small blue automatic pistol, and pointed it at Leaphorn’s throat. “Unbuckle your belt,” he said.
Leaphorn unbuckled it.
“Pull it out.”
Leaphorn pulled it out. His holster fell to the ground.
“Now kick the gun over here to me.”
Leaphorn did.
“You make it tough,” Elliot said.
“Not tough enough.”
Elliot laughed.
“You’d rather not have a bullet hole in me,” Leaphorn said. “Or her either.”
“That’s right,” Elliot said. “But I don’t have any choice now. You seem to have figured it out.”
“I figured you were going to get us far enough up the rocks to make it count and then tumble us down.”
Elliot nodded.
“I’m not sure of your motive for all this. Killing so many people.”
“Maxie told you that day,” Elliot said. The good humor was suddenly gone, replaced by bitter anger. “What the hell can a rich kid do to impress anyone?”
“Impress Maxie,” Leaphorn said. “A truly beautiful young woman.” And he was thinking, maybe I’m like you. I don’t want this to go wrong now because of Emma. Emma put little value on finding people to punish them. But this would really have impressed her. You love a woman, you want to impress her. The male instinct. Hero finds lost woman. The life saved. He didn’t want it to go wrong now. But it had. In a very little while, wherever and whenever it was most convenient, Randall Elliot would kill Eleanor Friedman-Bernal and Joe Leaphorn. He could think of nothing to prevent it. Except maybe Brigham Houk.
Brigham must be somewhere near. It had taken him only minutes to get the poles and return. He had seen his devil, recognized him, and slipped away. Brigham Houk was a hunter. Brigham Houk was also insane, and afraid of this devil. What would he do? Leaphorn thought he knew.
“We’ll leave her here for now and we’ll walk over there,” Elliot said, pointing with the pistol toward the edge of the shelf. It was exactly the direction Leaphorn wanted to go. It was the only way that led to convenient shelter. It must be the way Brigham had gone.
“It’s going to look funny if too many people fall off things,” Leaphorn said. “Two is too many.”
“I know,” Elliot said. “Do you have a better idea?”
“Maybe,” Leaphorn said. “Tell me your motive for all this.”
“I think you guessed,” Elliot said.
“I guess Maxie,” Leaphorn said. “You want her. But she’s a self-made, class-conscious woman with a lot of bad memories of being put down by the upper class. On top of that, she’s a tough one, a little mean. She resents you, and everybody like you, because it’s all handed to you. So I think you’re going to do something that has nothing to do with being born to the upper, upper, upper class. Something that neither Maxie nor anybody else can ignore. From what you told me at Chaco it’s something to do with tracing what happened to these Anasazi by tracking genetic flaws.”
“How about that,” Elliot said. “You’re not as dumb as you try to act.”
“You found the flaw you were hunting in the bones here, and over at the site on the Checkerboard, too, I guess. You were digging here illegally, and our friend here came in and caught you at it.”
Elliot held up his empty hand. “So I tried to kill her and screwed it up.”
“Curious about something,” Leaphorn said. “Were you the one who called in the complaint about Eleanor being a pot hunter?”
“Sure,” Elliot said. “You figured why?”
“Not really,” Leaphorn said. Where the devil was Brigham Houk? Maybe he’d run. Leaphorn doubted it. His father wouldn’t have run. But then his father wasn’t schizophrenic.
“You can’t get a permit to dig,” Elliot said. “Not in your lifetime. These asshole bureaucrats are always saving it for the future. Well, if a site is being vandalized, that puts it in a different category. Not so tough then, after it’s already been messed up. I was going to follow up later with some hints about where to find digs Eleanor was stealing from. They’d find her body, so they’d have their Thief of Time. They wouldn’t have to be looking for one and maybe suspecting me. And then I’d get my dig permit.” He laughed. “Roundabout way, but I’ve seen it work.”
“You were getting your bones anyway,” Leaphorn said.
“Buying some, digging some up yourself.”
“Wrong category, friend,” Elliot said. “Those are unofficial bones. Not ‘in site.’ I was finding ’em unofficially, so I’d know where to find ’em officially when I got my permit. You understand that?” Elliot peered at him, grinning. He was enjoying this. “When I get my permit to excavate, I come back and the bones I find then are registered in place. Photographed. Documented.” He grinned again. “Same bones, maybe, but now they’re official.”
“How about Etcitty,” Leaphorn asked, “and Nails?” Over Elliot’s shoulder, Leaphorn had seen Brigham Houk. He saw Houk because the man wanted Leaphorn to see him. He was behind a fallen sandstone slab, screened by brush. He held something that might have been a curved staff and he motioned Leaphorn toward him.
“That was a mistake,” Elliot said.
“Killing them?”
Elliot laughed. “That was correcting the mistake. Nails was too careless. And too greedy. Once the silly bastards stole that backhoe they were sure to get caught.” He glanced at Leaphorn. “And Nails was sure to tell you guys everything he knew.”
“Which would have been bad for your reputation,” Leaphorn said.
“Disastrous,” Elliot said. He waved the pistol. “But hurry it up. I want to get out of here.”
“If you’re working on what I think,” Leaphorn said, “there’s something I want to show you. Something Friedman-Bernal found. You’re interested in jaw deformities. Something like that?”
“Well, a little like that,” Elliot said. “You understand how the human chromosome works? Fetus inherits twenty-three from its mother, twenty-three from its father. Genetic characteristics handed down in the genes. Once in a while polyploidy occurs in the genetic crossover points. Someone gets multiple chromosomes, and you get a characteristic change. Inheritable. But you need more than one to do a trace which has any real meaning. At Chaco, in some of the early Chaco burials, I found three that were passed along. A surplus molar in the left mandible. And that went along with a thickening of the frontal bone over the left eye socket, plus—” Elliot stopped. “You understanding this?”
A Thief of Time Page 20
