Stone Butterfly

by James D. Doss

  Charlie Moon cranked up the glare to nine hundred watts. His words came out in that no-nonsense monotone the Ute reserved for very serious business. “Pete, if I say that there ain’t but three horses here, that’s the way it is.”

  The crusty foreman shrugged. “All right. I’m just the old, feeble-minded straw-boss a this here outfit. You’re the Man. Hey, if you say two-plus-two is three, that’s fine by me.”

  Moon buckled the straps on the saddlebag. “I’m glad we got that straight.”

  Affecting a hurt expression, the foreman turned on his boot heel and stomped away. With his back to the Indian, Pete Bushman felt free to let a smile warm his face. That outlaw hoss has the boss right on the hairy edge. I wish I’d a drawed five days instead a six!

  The Call

  On his way back from the pantry, Moon was passing through the enormous parlor with two cans of peaches in his left jacket pocket, a jar of fried apples in the right, a sixteen-ounce bottle of tartar sauce in his left hand, a couple of extra Idaho potatoes in the right. On the list of the Ute’s Top Ten Culinary Proverbs was—and he lived by such sage sayings—You Can Never Have Too Many Spuds. He heard a pickup door slam outside. That’ll be them. The telephone rang as he was passing it. Having two too many spuds, Moon paused, secured the pair of root vegetables snugly under his left arm, picked up the receiver. “Columbine Ranch.”

  “You don’t have to say that every time I call—I know which ranch it is.”

  Moon smiled at Aunt Daisy’s caustic response. “Who’s calling?”

  “What do you mean who’s calling—you know as well as I do who I am!”

  He heard a familiar knock on the door, yelled: “Come in.”

  “Come in? Where do you think I am—standing outside under a tree?”

  Moon waved the jar of tartar sauce at his friends. “No, that was somebody else I was telling to come in.”

  “Who?”

  Moon was in a whimsical mood. “Scotch Parrish and—”

  The voice screeched in his ear. “Charlie Moon—have you been drinking hard liquor?”

  “Uh—no,” the AA member said. “Not even soft liquor.” Not for thirteen years, seven months, and four days. “Actually, it was Pete Bushman that said ‘Parrish’—”

  “That wasn’t Bushman, I know that fuzzy-faced white man’s voice.”

  “—and I guess it just got stuck in my mind.” The drowning man treaded water for a time. “Hasn’t that ever happened to you?”

  “No it has not.” The line went dead for a few heartbeats. “You’ve got me so mixed up I’ve forgot what I called about.”

  Moon smiled at his friends. “Have a seat over by the fireplace.”

  “I’m already sitting by the fireplace,” the tribal elder grumped.

  “I didn’t mean you.” He grinned. “You can stand up if it suits you.”

  “Well it don’t suit me!” Quite suddenly, the tribal elder recalled the purpose of her call. “I wanted to talk to you about something important.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Remember that dream I had?”

  The old woman had five or six dreams every night and told him about most of them. And the majority of these sleep-fantasies fell into the same category. The semicompulsive gambler went with the odds. “Uh—was this that dream about something scary?”

  “Yes.” He did remember—will wonders never cease! “Well, I had it again.” Daisy would not mention that she was napping in Spirit Canyon. “And I saw the little girl again.”

  What little girl? “Well, I’m glad to hear it.”

  In a wasted but necessary gesture, Daisy shook her head. “Well, you shouldn’t be glad—it’s bad news.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Seriously bad news.”

  Prepared for a pleasant afternoon with his best friend and his drop-dead-gorgeous sweetheart, Charlie Moon was not in the mood even for so-so news, and certainly not the seriously bad variety. Having already informed his foreman about his state of mind, he now proceeded to discourage his aunt from sharing her worries. “Uh, look—I have some guests here right now and we’re about ready to ride off on a combination fishing-picnic, so how about you tell me about this later?” Like sometime late next year.

  His aunt assumed her I’m-the-closest-thing-you’ve-got-to-a-mother tone: “Charlie Moon, forget about picnics and fishing. You’ve got no business having a good time when someone we know is in trouble.”

  Good-Time Charlie knew when he was whipped. “Okay. Who’s in trouble?”

  The tribal elder heard a woman laughing in the background. “Who’s that?”

  Moon’s head was starting to ache, but he strained to sort this out. “You said someone was in trouble. I asked you who. Then you said ‘who’s that?’”

  “When I said ‘who’s that,’ I wanted to know who’s with Scott Parris.”

  He chuckled. “You mean Scotch Parrish?”

  Daisy’s silence spoke volumes. Volumes that would not be shelved in the children’s section at the Quaker Day School library.

  Reading her meaning, Moon cleared his throat. “Lila Mae’s here with Scott. We’re going to ride over to Lake Jesse and drown some worms, then have us a fish fry and then we’ll—”

  “Lila Mae—you mean that FBI woman?”

  The planner of the picnic reset the potatoes under his arm. “Yup. That’s the one.” The “FBI woman” looked his way. Moon winked at her, as if to say: You’re my main squeeze.

  Miss McTeague winked back, as if to say: I’d better be your only squeeze, Big Boy.

  “Oh.” This was Daisy speaking in his ear.

  “Oh, what?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Never mind what?”

  “About the little girl in my dream.”

  It was coming back to him. “Are we talking about the kid with you-know-what dripping from her hands?”

  “I told you to never mind!”

  “Plop.” Moon felt entitled to a satisfied smirk. “Plop-plop.”

  “You—” his aunt informed him with the assurance of one who had reams of data on the subject, “—are a big jug-head.”

  “Sorry. I tried, but I just couldn’t hold it back.”

  “Well try harder!”

  “So did you see the kid’s face yet?”

  A brief silence. “Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.”

  In his mind, Moon carried a snapshot of his aunt. He grinned at the wrinkled, feisty-eyed face. “Well if you did, maybe you’ll tell me who she is so I can—”

  “So you can tell that fancy-pants FBI hussy you’re all hootchy-kootchy with? Hah!” There was a click in his ear.

  Hussy? Hootchy-kootchy? Moon wondered where his elderly aunt picked up language like that. Probably watching old movies on TV.

  Being in the off-duty mode, Lila Mae approached the object of her affections with hips swinging, spoke over her shoulder to the man she’d rode in with. “Turn your head, Scott.”

  “Yes ma’am.” Because his neck was stiff, the Granite Creek chief of police turned his entire body, and watched their reflections in a window. “It’s not like I’d care to witness whatever disgusting displays unchained lust might lead you two to.” He squinted to see better. Charlie needs to wash that windowpane.

  Being off-duty, Lila Mae was not packing. Her 9-mm Glock automatic, that is. Off-duty, she packed a .32. She wrapped a pair of arms around the tall Ute, planted a kiss on his mouth.

  Parris, who was a widower, sighed at the scene in the window. I should’ve brought my girlfriend along. Except that Theresa don’t like horses or fish or being out-of-doors.

  Lila Mae gazed at her man. “What was that all about?”

  “If you don’t know,” Moon grinned, “I guess we’d better do it again. As many times as it takes you to figure it out.”

  “I was referring to the telephone call from your aunt.”

  “How’d you know it was my aunt?”

  “The look on your face. Like you’d just stepped on a
two-by-four with a rusty nail in it. Pointy end up.” She flashed a smile that made his head spin. “That and the fact that you mentioned her by name.”

  “Oh. Right.” He held her closer. Wondered where she was packing the off-duty .32 automatic. Must be in her boot. “Aunt Daisy calls me whenever she’s got something on her mind.”

  “Well of course she does. Because you’re so sweet. And lovable. And full of empathy.”

  “That’s all right as far as it goes,” Moon said. “But you forgot to mention my sterling qualities of modesty and humility.”

  “No I didn’t.” Charlie is so cute.

  “Okay,” Parris muttered. “You two break it up. I’m hankering to hook me a yard-long trout.” Or three foot-long ones. Or six six-inchers. No, that’s going too far downscale. Anything less than ten inches, I’m throwing back. Well, maybe less than eight inches.

  McTeague gave Moon a worried look. “Charlie, would you mind if I asked you a personal question?”

  “Not a smidgen. Go right ahead.”

  “Okay. Why do you have two potatoes tucked under your left arm?”

  “Because three wouldn’t fit?”

  Lila Mae McTeague shook her pretty head.

  Charlie Moon gave it some serious thought. “Okay, try this. These dudes were kind of cold when I got ’em outta the box in the cellar, and it’s not a good idea to drop a chilly spud into hot ashes; that’ll split and pop ’em quicker’n you can say ‘who fired that shot!’ Under the arm is a good place to do a pre-warm.”

  Scott Parris nodded his hearty agreement.

  McTeague turned up her nose.

  Minutes later, the men and the woman rode off to the south of the ranch headquarters, up a rocky ridge, through a small forest of spruce and pines and ferns and vines, past a sturdy log cabin where a retired, reclusive priest was spending his twilight years, onto a high prairie where a glacial lake was set like a jewel on the Columbine’s grassy gown.

  The hound came along for the fun. And the outlaw horse, of course.

  Considering all the possibilities that might have marred their afternoon, such as tangled lines, broken rods, rattlesnake bites and the like, the outing went tolerably well.

  After losing a race with a cottontail, Sidewinder trotted off after a striped lizard.

  After watching Charlie Moon unpack the saddlebags, Sweet Alice began to munch the lush grass along the shore.

  Scott Parris, who was an inveterate fly caster, toiled and sweated like a coal-mine mule for three hours and reeled in a matched pair of nine-inch cutthroats. Being of that peculiar Midwestern culture which believes that one must work hard to have the least bit of fun, he was gratified with the results of his labors.

  The Ute preferred red worms to Parris’s fuzzy little artificial lures, and a working majority of the finned creatures cast their votes in favor of the live bait du jour. He would affix the wriggly creature to a hook, cast it upon the waters and wait. Which gave him ample time to gaze at the lady’s fine form.

  As she worked with her bait.

  No, fish bait.

  Parris watched the lady too, as Lila Mae awkwardly made her first cast of a beef-liver chunk. It landed within a yard of the shore. The woman simply don’t know how to fish. Though her second cast was only a marginally better attempt, she snagged something. A sunken log, the experienced angler surmised. Parris surmised wrong.

  Special Agent Lila Mae McTeague had hooked a famished trout. Sad to say, it was the only fish she subtracted from the vast community inhabiting the alpine lake. Sad from Scott Parris’s point of view, that is. There were two reasons for his ill-concealed dismay. First, because—remarking that this was really “too easy”—the rank amateur terminated her effort after making the catch of the day. Second because her rainbow was, as Moon whooped, a real “Jonah.” According to the Trusty Buddy spring scale, Mr. Jonah was a couple of ounces in excess of seven pounds.

  Parris grumbled under his breath about beginner’s luck.

  To add to his misery, Lila Mae set the magnificent trout free.

  And for each of the white man’s trout, the Ute caught three.

  The fishes were duly filleted and fried in the iron skillet. The picnic was uniformly appreciated by all partakers of the feast. But what with the trout and the baked beans and baked potatoes, none of the diners—not even Charlie Moon—were ready for dessert.

  As a rouge-faced sun fell low over the Misery Range, the trio mounted up. The horses, who seemed to have caught the carefree mood of the late afternoon, proceeded in a slow, ambling walk. The Ute—who never passed this way without paying a courtesy call on Father Raes Delfino—led the party toward a modest log cabin that was half-concealed in a grove of spruce. Of all of God’s servants, the priest was Daisy Perika’s favorite. And for that matter, Charlie Moon’s too.

  Having perceived their approach while they were still far away, Fr. Raes had put a bookmark in his leather-bound Imitation of Christ and set it aside. When he heard the horses’ hooves, he opened the door before they had a chance to knock.

  Having tied their mounts to an oak hitching post, the trio approached the saintly man, whose white hair formed a snowy halo around his head.

  Sidewinder sallied off to inspect the aromatic carcass of a ground squirrel.

  Sweet Alice followed Charlie Moon to the door.

  The horse’s peculiar attachment to the Ute had not gone unnoticed by the FBI agent. Neither had Charlie Moon’s apparent disregard of the animal’s fondness for his company. On top of that, the horse looked oddly familiar. I know I’ve seen that animal before. Lila Mae McTeague could no longer contain her curiosity, but knowing her man, she avoided the direct question, and went for the query-designed-as-a-comment. “Charlie, I think it is so cute, the way that horse follows you around.” She barely heard his muttered response.

  “There ain’t no horse followin’ me.”

  “I suppose she is a pet.”

  He repeated himself, loud enough for her to hear clearly.

  Mildly chagrined at his dismissive tone, she pointed at the animal. “If there’s no horse following you, then what do you call that?”

  Moon set his jaw.

  Scott Parris gave McTeague a cautioning look, and a whisper. “Let it drop.”

  She did, with a shrug. Men can be so peculiar.

  Parris whispered again. “That’s Sweet Alice.”

  The name, as names often will, instantly rang a bell. McTeague recalled where she had seen the homely little mare—it was only last year, in the corral over at the Big Hat, when Sweet Alice had used Charlie Moon to bust up a rail fence. Oh, so that’s it. The big, bad cowboy’s still mad at the horse he couldn’t ride. But the poor creature just adores him. She wanted to laugh, but well-bred ladies avoid unseemly displays of mirth.

  At the door, Parris and Moon exchanged greetings with the priest, who—having heard about Sweet Alice and Moon’s aversion to the four-legged man-killer—tactfully ignored the beast’s presence at his door. The woman was another matter entirely. Having not yet met the apple of Moon’s eye, and hoping the Ute might marry someday, Father Raes was delighted to be introduced to the strikingly handsome young woman, and thought: This is a very intelligent person. He invited his guests in, brewed a pot of black tea, another of coffee, produced a tin of Italian vanilla cookies, offered thanks to God for the food and drink, felt especially blessed to share the canned peaches and fried apples provided by his drop-in guests.

  While they ate, Sweet Alice stood at the window. Stared at the back of the Ute’s head.

  After the dessert and hot beverages, the elderly priest had a sudden recollection. He reached into his shirt pocket, removed a folded piece of paper. “Ah, I almost forgot. Your foreman stopped by this afternoon, left this message for you. I suggested that he deliver it to you on the lake shore, but Mr. Bushman intimated that he did not wish to disturb your picnic with your friends.” He offered it to Moon.

  Moon eyed the paper warily. “What’s it about?
”

  “I have no idea.” Father Raes raised an eyebrow. “I naturally treated it as a private communication.”

  The owner of the Columbine mulled it over. Pete Bushman never brings me any good news. And I’m not in the mood for the other kind.

  Guessing what was going through his friend’s mind, Parris grinned. “I think he wants you to read it to him.”

  Being a serious-minded fellow, the priest misunderstood the jest. “Shall I?”

  Unable to say yea or nay, Moon simply shrugged.

  Taking this as a yea, Father Raes unfolded the paper, adjusted the rimless spectacles perched on his nose. “Ah—it appears to be a transcription of a telephone message.” The foreman’s handwriting is atrocious. He cleared his throat and began: “Tell Charlie don’t worry about what I called about this morning. I’ll take care of things myself.” A frown. “Mr. Bushman gives no indication of who the caller was.” Father Raes passed the slip of paper to Moon.

  The Ute glanced at the message, stuffed it into his shirt pocket. “It’s from my aunt Daisy.” It was the last line that bothered him—whenever Daisy Perika made up her mind to take care of things myself, she was likely to stir up all kinds of trouble.

  Scott Parris was inordinately fond of the grouchy old woman. “Auntie-D doin’ okay, Charlie?”

  Charlie Moon nodded. The sensible part of his mind insisted that this whole business was nothing more than an old woman’s bad dreams. But a dark corner of the Ute’s imagination was chilled by the possibility that somewhere out there, a skinny little girl was in serious trouble. Maybe she did have blood on her hands. Or soon would. But until Aunt Daisy tells me who she is, all I can do is wait for the hammer to fall.

  He would not have long to wait.

  Chapter Seven

  Tonapah Flats, Utah

  After soul-searching her way through a long and mostly sleepless night, Sarah Frank had made up her mind to do what must be done. First, she would make her final trek to the far side of Hatchet Gap. After that, she planned to purchase a one-way bus ticket to Durango, Colorado, which was very near the Southern Ute reservation. And one way or another, she would make her way to Aunt Daisy’s home in the remote canyon country. She happily imagined that from time to time, Charlie Moon would drop by and take them to Ignacio for lunch at Angel’s Café. But a worrisome thought, always in the background, troubled the fourteen-year-old: I hope Charlie isn’t already married.