That night, for the first time in months, the old man slept peacefully.
Chapter Three
Thunder Woman
Scarcely an hour after Ben Silver had hung up on his half brother, the curtain was about to rise on a second drama. This performance would be staged at the more densely populated end of Hatchet Gap, that narrow crevasse that had—according to a time-honored and lurid rumor—been cleaved into Big Lizard Ridge by Thunder Woman—who did it with her hatchet. According to sworn testimony, she was piqued off about something or other.
The moral here, if there is one to be discovered, is that only the most dim-witted males underestimate the inner resources of the gentler gender.
The Butterfly
Though the sun shone warmly on her back, Sarah Frank shivered in the slight breeze, pulled a faded denim jacket tightly around her gaunt frame. The fourteen-year-old was always cold, always hungry. Paying scant attention to the traffic, she crossed the busy highway. Mr. Zig-Zag—so named because of the jagged white lightning logo imprinted on his black head—was even more oblivious to the world than was his mistress. Sarah paused long enough to snatch up her cat, then trotted across the asphalt to evade a massive SUV that was bearing down on them like a charging rhino; the glistening behemoth did not slow. A backwash of whirlwind ruffled the cat’s fur, whipped the cotton skirt around her skinny legs. She paused in the vehicle’s wake, watched it vanish in a flurry of whirling dust. Why did I hurry? I could have just stood there in the road, held my arms out, and said here I am. That big car would never have been able to stop. I would’ve been smacked onto it like a moth.
She raised her gaze to Big Lizard Ridge and Hatchet Gap—and recalled the legend of Thunder Woman. When I die, I’ll fly away. But I’m not going to be a smudgy-brown moth—I’ll be a beautiful butterfly. But what she had in mind was not a fragile little rainbow thing with silken wings. Sarah’s eyes narrowed. I’ll be a stone butterfly—and when I pass by there’ll be earthquakes and thunder and lightning and whirlwinds and big trees will break and fall down! She squeezed the cat a little too tightly. And if somebody treats me bad, I’ll make him SO sorry. It was, if a somewhat extravagant stretch of adolescent imagination, still a rather grand vision. But in the meantime and prior to any such majestic metamorphosis, the wingless visionary was obliged to occupy her time with more mundane tasks than wreaking global havoc—such as running an errand for Marilee Attatochee, the elder cousin who provided her with food and shelter. Sarah’s Papago relative served as a sort of substitute mother. Sort of.
As the girl marched robotically across the graveled parking lot toward Oates’s Supermarket, her huge brown eyes gazed blankly at the flint-hard world. She had once overheard Miss Simmons (her English teacher) say that she thought the orphan’s face resembled those starved, haunted visages one saw in old black-and-white photographs of Holocaust victims. Sarah liked Miss Simmons. She had mixed feelings about the children at school. The boys were mostly stupid as bugs and hardly worth a thought. Worst of all were the pretty girls in their pretty dresses and always-new shoes. Initially humiliated by their smirks and giggles at her tattered old clothes, she had burned with shame. But if the burning had charred her soul, it had also ignited embers of hatred. For months, this had been enough. Hating them. Hating them to death! After a while, the little fire had gone out—the enmity crumbling into cinders. But there was a small something left among the ashes. Something hard, like a diamond. No one could make a scratch on her. The silly, cruel children could no longer hurt her. Sarah had almost ceased to care—at least during the harshness of day, when one was forced to see things as they really were.
There were other times though, during the long, lonely nights, when spring rains pelted the steel roof over her cot, or when west winds hummed sinister hymns in the chokeweed vines. This was when she drifted away, dreamed her dreams. Often, Sarah’s parents would come to embrace her, praise her, whisper encouraging words in her ear. Mommy and Daddy were young and strong and full of love and consolation. Sometimes, she would see bright visions of Cañón del Espíritu and Three Sisters Mesa. Daisy Perika was always there near the canyon’s mouth. Sometimes the wrinkled old Ute woman was standing in the door of her little house trailer saying “Come right in, Sarah—my goodness how you’ve grown up!” Or Daisy would be at her gas stove, stirring a pot of steaming posole. In these dream-fantasies, the Ute elder was always smiling, always eager to welcome the child she had sheltered before. And then there were the most special of all the dreams, even better than the ones with her parents. Charlie Moon would appear out of nowhere. Charlie tall as a tree, Charlie with his big cheerful smile, scooping little Sarah up in his arms, hugging her, teasing her, telling her silly stories about how “mink trout” in the cold Piedra grew their winter fur during the Month of Dead Leaves Falling and shed it during the Month of Tender Grass.
In these honey-sweet dreams, the aged teenager was as she had been in those olden, golden times—sometimes a mere toddler, or perhaps she would be six or seven years old. Whatever her age, she was always happy. Always perfectly safe and secure. As the amber-tinted dreams would fade to black, Sarah would drift up toward consciousness and think blissful thoughts. Someday, I’m going to have a closet full of pretty new dresses. Strings of silver and turquoise to wear around my neck and yellow ribbons in my hair. Seven pairs of shoes, a different color for every day of the week. And plenty of good food to eat. But not enough to make me fat. She would smile at that. I might even grow up to be pretty. Pretty enough that Charlie would want to marry me. Then she would awaken, stare at the dirty little window above her bed, promise herself that as soon as her cousin had gone off to work and Marilee’s boyfriend had wandered off to some bar, she would call the Southern Ute Police on the telephone and ask them to find Charlie Moon wherever he was, tell him to come and get her at Tonapah Flats, Utah. She had no doubt he would. In all of Sarah’s gray, uncertain world, Charlie was the one bright constant that she could depend on.
But always, the sun would rise over Frenchman’s Butte. And when it did, the pitiless white rays would evaporate the wispy remnants of her girlish hopes and dreams. Sarah’s mother and father had been dead for years and years. Dead as the whitened cattle bones in the Little Sandy Wash, dead as her hopes for a little happiness. The sunlight would also remind Sarah that Daisy Perika was a gruff, penny-pinching old woman who didn’t like anybody. Especially not children. Come to think of it, the old woman was a lot like Ben Silver—who was so grouchy. Anyway, Daisy might be dead and gone after all this time. And Charlie Moon would probably be married by now, to a smart, pretty wife who wouldn’t want a stupid, gawky girl in the house. Especially not one who was madly, madly in love with her husband. That would make things tense.
Unnoticed by Sarah Frank, a sleek, black Lincoln Town Car pulled into the parking lot behind her. The driver eased along the graveled surface, just keeping pace with the girl.
Before she did the grocery shopping, Sarah was compelled to follow the dual ritual.
Her first stop was in front of the Cactus Rose Pawn Shop. Showing no interest in hunting rifles, bone-handled sheath knives, or the various musical instruments on display behind the shatterproof window, she fixed her gaze on the single object capable of catching a young lady’s eye. The stunning pendant on the coin-silver chain was the most lovely thing she had ever seen. The oval of Australian opal was as large as a hen’s egg, and from deep inside, a thousand iridescent stars glittered with fire of every radiant hue. In the child’s fantasy, these were the fragments of a rainbow that had frozen over a snowcapped granite peak, fallen to earth, shattered at a Ute wizard’s feet—to be assembled into the present jewel by a flick of a red-willow wand, a muttering of magical commands. But never, not even in the wildest flights of her imagination, did the girl dare to imagine that she might wear such a piece of heavenly glory.
Her eyes filled to overflowing with opalescent radiance, she hurried away, pushed through the door at Canyon Country Newsstand
and Magazines. Feigning a slightly bored expression, she went up and down the aisles, idly glancing at enticing titles on paperback books, occasionally removing a volume to admire a lurid picture on the cover. Most of these featured an astonishingly beautiful woman and a ruggedly handsome man. Sarah finally approached the children’s section, ran the tips of her brown fingers along the colorful volumes, finally stopped at the one she loved the most. On the cover, there was a cunningly painted picture of a tiny little bug-woman with eight legs. Well, only two legs really; Grandmother Spider used six of her appendages for arms. When Sarah was certain the clerk at the counter wasn’t looking—the fourteen-year-old was embarrassed to be reading a book meant for small children—she thumbed through the few pages, became a companion of those archetypal animals from long, long ago, when the world was young and the little spider-woman stole the source of warmth and light from the monstrous Sun-Guards. As on all of her previous visits, she whispered the words, imagined herself to be Grandmother Spider, standing in the center of the circle with all the happy animals dancing around their heroine. Lost in the dream world, the young reader felt secure in her privacy. But of course, she was never alone in the store.
Today, the clerk was busy with a meek-looking man who was purchasing this month’s copy of Guns & Ammo. A chubby, freckle-faced little boy was sitting cross-legged on the floor, reading The Skateboard Life. A forty-six-year-old woman with stringy hair, stone-hard eyes, and a lout of a husband had selected a steamy romance (Young and Passionate Nurses) plus a pair of instructional volumes: How to Assume a New Identity and Common Poisons and Antidotes. She had no interest whatever in antidotes.
In addition to these few customers, someone was watching Sarah Frank. And with considerable interest.
Having finished with the charming little book, Sarah placed it back on the shelf, promised Grandmother Spider she would be back as soon as she could. And when I’ve saved up some money, I’ll buy you and take you home. Noting the clock on the wall, she left Canyon Country Newsstand and Magazines with Mr. Zig-Zag tucked under her arm, trotted along to the supermarket.
The heavyset man approached the clerk, placed the book on the counter. “Thelma, would you gift wrap this for me?”
The young woman smiled at the familiar face. “Certainly, sir. Won’t take a moment.”
Sarah pushed the supermarket cart along with Mr. Zig-Zag perched up front, as if he were in charge of navigation. She selected two cans of tuna so there might be some left over for her cat, three fifteen-ounce cans of store-brand pinto beans because they were the cheapest, a loaf of sliced pumpernickel rye because Marilee liked dark bread.
The man in the blue suit and red power tie watched the Ute-Papago girl move purposefully along the aisles stocked with canned goods, was pleased to see that the skinny child performed her shopping with an intense concentration that was unusual in one so young. For what he had in mind, it would help if the kid was smart. He grinned. But not too smart.
Sarah pushed her cart to the fresh produce section, paused to eye shiny apples and purple grapes, passed these by to select a half-dozen red potatoes. Her shopping completed, the girl looked around to make sure none of the children from school were nearby to witness her poverty. But even as she showed the cashier Marilee’s voucher from the welfare office, Sarah Frank’s face was warm with shame.
The redheaded woman rung up the sale, stamped the voucher, gave the little Indian girl a pitying look, said what she always said. “How’s your cousin and Mr. Harper getting along?” Thought what she always thought. Not that I care a damn about that bottom-feeder Al Harper. But Marilee’s a good egg.
The girl shrugged, mumbled her usual “Okay, I guess,” hurried away with her bag of staples. The cat followed his scarecrow mistress through the exit, into the parking lot.
Blue Suit was waiting outside. He emerged from a long, black automobile, removed a cigar from his mouth, presented the sort of frozen smile worn by used-car salesmen about to make their pitch. “Hey—ain’t you Sarah Frank?”
Startled to hear her name spoken aloud, she stared up at the clean-shaven white man, noticed that he had a shiny red parcel tucked under his arm.
Mr. Zig-Zag rubbed up against the man’s immaculate trouser leg.
The owner of the leg cringed, gave the cat a scowl, then reset the smile as he searched the thin girl’s face for some sign of recognition. “D’you know who I am?”
Sarah shook her head.
“I’m Raymond Oates.” He saw a flicker of interest in the Indian girl’s eyes. “I believe you know my brother Ben.”
A slight hesitation, then a nod.
“Well, ol’ Ben’s actually my half brother. We had the same momma, but different daddies.” He tapped off a clump of cigar ash, which landed on the cat’s head. “From what I hear, you do some housework for the old sourpuss.”
Sarah managed another nod.
Oates didn’t notice the nod; he had fixed his gaze on the Tonapah Flats Truck Stop, atop of which a twelve-foot-tall neon facsimile of a shapely Indian woman wielded an electric-blue tomahawk. (A passing tourist from Paducah—who had a half-dozen pink plastic flamingoes stuck in her flower bed and a husband who listened to every word she said—had offered the frank opinion that the sign was “garish.”) Oates looked down to smile upon the girl. “If you’re not in a great big hurry, why don’t we go into the café. I don’t know about you, but I could do with a bite to eat.”
Sarah glanced shyly at the huge sign blinking on the peaked roof.
Thunder Woman Café—Open 24 Hours
Having no sense of propriety, her stomach growled. “I don’t have enough money.”
“Hah!” Oates stuffed the cigar back into his mouth, it wobbled as he spoke. “You don’t need any money. Whenever me and my friends eat at the Thunder Woman, they don’t charge us a copper dime.”
She stared. He must be lying. Or maybe he’s crazy. Searching for an excuse to refuse the unsettling invitation, Sarah pointed at Mr. Zig-Zag. “I don’t think they’d let him in.” It was common knowledge that the café manager, a disreputable person (whose parents had named him Groundhog!) hated cats and dogs and what he called “snotty-nose kids.”
“Don’t give your kitty cat a second thought.” Oates tilted his head back, blew a fair-to-middling smoke ring, watched the wispy donut drift upward. “Fact is, I own the café and bar and the liquor store. And for that matter, the whole truck stop. Including the gas station, the Laundromat, the video store, even the ladies’ and gent’s toilets.”
She heard herself say: “Really?”
“Dang tootin’. I am what the common folk call stinkin’ rich.” He pointed the cigar over her shoulder. “I also own the Oates’s Supermarket. Which is why it’s named after me—Oates, don’t you see?”
Sarah gave the Thunder Woman Bar and Café a hopeful look. “Could I have a cheeseburger?”
“A-course you can, little lady. Double-meat cheeseburger. And crispy-curly cheese fries and a great big chunk of coconut-creme pie. Plus a soda pop.”
She stared at the man in the blue suit and red tie, watched him launch another smoke ring into the sky. Only this one wasn’t really a ring—it was a triangle. Maybe he’s the Devil. She wondered what he’d want her pitiful little soul for.
Chapter Four
The Proposition
Raymond Oates ushered Sarah Frank to his reserved booth in a corner, between a potted palm and the cigarette vending machine. The owner of the establishment gave his super-sized manager a drop-what-you’re-doing-and-come-here-right-now look. All 268 pounds of Groundhog came lurching and heaving toward the boss. He offered his employer a sly, submissive smile, but as soon as Oates’s eyes were focused on the menu, the manager of the Thunder Woman Café shot the skinny Indian girl a flat-eyed look that made Sarah’s skin prickle. If she had known about the occasional “odd job” Groundhog did for Boss Oates, the child would have certainly lost her appetite.
Oates ordered black coffee with a tablesp
oon of vanilla extract, a ham steak, three eggs scrambled with sautéed onions, a side of biscuits and white gravy. After consulting with the girl, he ordered Sarah Frank a large Cherry Coke, a Momma Bear cheeseburger, and medium crispy-curly cheese fries. Oates selected a fish and chips plate for the cat, hold the chips and tartar sauce.
Groundhog scribbled on his order pad, ambled away.
Sarah half-listened to the white man’s incessant chatter, which was mostly about how he and Ben had come to be half brothers, how Daddy Oates had made his money on land and cattle. Raymond also bragged about going off to the university where he got his law degree and made lots of important friends—which was how he got to be “stinkin’ rich” and now owned half of Tonapah Flats. The best half.
His narrative was mercifully interrupted by a sleepy-eyed, footsore waitress who nodded deferentially at Oates, unloaded her tray without comment.
While the feline and the famished Indian girl attended to their meals with civilized delicacy, Oates attacked his ham and eggs with savage enthusiasm—but between bites he stole furtive glances at his potential business partner. As she put away the final morsel of burger, the last greasy cheesy potato, he asked: “You ready for some pie?”
Stone Butterfly Page 3
