A stubborn person herself, Daisy recognized the determination that had hardened the girl’s thin face. She made an instant decision that would shatter lives in ways that could not be repaired. “Go hide in Spirit Canyon. When you get to that pointy red rock on the Three Sisters side—the one that looks like a stubby carrot—take about a dozen more steps until you see a deer trail going up the slope. Up near the top, in a place where the rock is dark brown, there’s a shelf along the cliff—and a little cave. When I was a little girl, I used to hide up there.” She put the leftover biscuits into a plastic bag, gave this to Sarah Frank. “If you’ve got to go, do it—don’t stand there gawking at me like some pie-eyed heifer!” Daisy waved both hands. “Hurry, now.”
The deputy saw the pair of figures emerge on the far side of the Ute woman’s home, adjusted the focus on his telescope. Though Tate Packard knew it was bad luck to boast—even to oneself—he couldn’t help smiling, and whispering: “I knew it—just wait long enough, and she’d have to show herself.” He watched the girl wave good-bye to the elderly woman, then hurry away toward the mouth of the big canyon. A man with less self-control might have gotten up and followed her immediately. Deputy Packard did not move. He watched Sarah Frank through the telescope as she entered the chasm. Only when she had begun the trek up the rock-strewn slope did he get to his feet, brush the dust off his jeans. Five’ll get you ten the kid’s gone to hide what she took from old man Silver’s house. A smug, little-boy grin lit up his face. I bet she’ll be plenty surprised to see me.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Dead-End Kid
As Tate Packard paused to wipe beads of sweat off his forehead, he could feel the pulse throbbing in his neck. The slightly built, boyish-looking young man was breathing hard from his ascent up the steep, rocky trail. Must be the altitude. The Utah cop smiled at this cop-out. Whatever it is, I need to get into shape. After ascending another few paces, he found himself on a narrow shelf that appeared to be about fifty paces long. Above his head, a sheer cliff wall rose up to the crest of the mesa; it was streaked rusty-brown from seeping rainwater. Below his boot heels was a hundred and fifty yards of rocky slope. He marveled at his good fortune and the teenage girl’s poor judgment. Aside from the trail, there’s no way out—I’ve got her cornered. After these self-congratulations, there was a moment of misgivings. But where is she? After a long, thoughtful look at the shelf, Packard decided there was only one possibility. His gaze rested on a spot near a dead ponderosa with sooty-looking bark. Almost hidden by a tuft of sage, there was a small, vertical slit in the sandstone wall. There’s no other place she could be. A sigh of resignation. Might as well get this business over with. He approached the miniature cavern, cleared his throat. “Sarah, it’s Deputy Tate Packard—from the Tonapah Flats Sheriff’s Office.” He flashed the disarming grin. “You remember me—I’m the good-lookin’ one. Bearcat, he’s the Choctaw deputy that looks like Alley-Oop’s big brother.” He waited in vain for a response. “Look, kid—I know you’re in there. You might as well come on out.”
Above him, a fresh breeze swept across the mesa top, through the piñon trees. A pungent fragrance spilled over the edge of the vertical cliff.
“And I know you’re scared.” He inhaled an invigorating whiff of the descending pine scent. “Hey, if it was me on the run, with a thousand cops and all the wild-eyed gun-totin’ bounty hunters in a half-dozen states lookin’ to collect a big reward for my hide—I’d be scared too.” Assuming she could probably see him from her hidey-hole, the deputy squatted so he wouldn’t look so scary to the fourteen-year-old. “But listen—and this is the honest truth—I’m not here to take you back to Utah on a murder charge.” He maintained the grin. “Fact is, I’m not even on official duty. I took a few days off work so’s I could track you down on my own time. See, all I want to do is collect the reward from Ben Silver’s half brother. And all Ray Oates wants is what you took from ol’ Ben. As far as Oates is concerned, you can hide out ’til doomsday.” He stared hopefully at the dark cleft in the wall. “So whatta you say, kid?”
The kid didn’t say anything.
He heard a low roll of thunder, glanced uneasily at the graying sky. “I sure hope you ain’t gonna make me hang around out here and get rained on.”
Still no response from the girl.
But there was a whining meeeooow from Mr. Zig-Zag.
An urgent sshhhing sound.
Sarah made an ineffective grab for her cat.
The curious feline came strolling out of the slit in the wall.
“Well, well,” Packard said. “What’ve we got here?”
Mr. Zig-Zag approached the off-duty lawman, rubbed his head on the squatting man’s knee.
From her place in the darkness, Sarah watched the deputy pick up her cat, get to his feet.
He rubbed a finger along its knobby spine, felt a returning ripple of feline pleasure.
Barely above the mesa top, a flash of lightning illuminated a black cloud’s soft underbelly. This unseemly display was quickly followed by a cracking of thunder that threatened to split the earth. An acrid scent of ozone charged an atmosphere already tingling with hair-raising electricity.
The deputy’s eyes narrowed. “Sarah, I ain’t gonna stand out here all day long, waitin’ for you to make up your mind. So listen to me. Here’s the deal—you come out, give me what I come for, and I’m gone.”
Another flash of electric fire, an almost simultaneous crash of thunder.
When he was eleven years old, Tate Packard had seen his cousin Teddy get struck by lightning. That had been almost twenty years ago, but some nights he still dreamed about blackened skin, sinew stripped from bone, and worst of all—the sweetish smell of cooked human flesh. The young man’s jaw tightened; he wrapped his fingers around Mr. Zig-Zag’s neck. Having lost the boyish grin, his lips were hard and thin. “You come out or I’ll come in. But not before I’ve pulled this mangy old cat’s head off!”
Sarah Frank hesitated, but only for a heartbeat. She shot out of the cave, a cannonball with flailing arms and legs.
She’s makin’ a run for it! The startled deputy dropped the cat, made a desperate grab for the girl—
Flight
A half-hour later, Deputy Tate Packard’s blue-and-white Bronco was lickety-splitting it along the rutted lane through a driving rain, kicking up mud in its wake, putting miles and minutes between here and back there.
The driver’s white-knuckled hands gripped the steering wheel as if the hard plastic circle was a life-preserver in a storm-tossed sea. Under his breath, the unrepentant sinner alternately cursed and prayed. Above his head, the heavens flashed and grumbled.
Guilty thoughts were a heavy yoke on his neck. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it but I did. And what’s done is done—there’s no turning the clock back. A deep breath as he considered the bright side. I’ve got what I wanted. Nobody saw me come, and nobody saw me leave. He smiled grimly, nodded. And there’s no way to go now but straight ahead.
Alas, as the heavy vehicle approached the Piedra bridge, straight ahead was not its manifest destiny. There was a sudden skidding, a vain attempt to brake, an impotent turning of the steering wheel, a gut-twisting realization—I’m going into the river. The driver-become-passenger closed his eyes, gritted his teeth so hard the enamel cracked. I’m a dead man.
The Bronco went sliding inexorably toward the steep, slippery bank.
And down it went, tumbling end-over-end.
Into the roaring waters.
Having received a 911 call from a passing trucker, the Southern Ute Police Department immediately dispatched the officer nearest to the scene of the incident. Danny Bignight—a Taos Pueblo man—had been with the SUPD for almost thirteen years. Unless he discovered a mangled corpse in the wreckage or someone who was severely injured, an auto accident rarely caused his pulse to rise over its normal resting rate of sixty-eight beats per minute. Bignight prayed he would not encounter a grisly scene. He prayed even harder that th
ere would be no children involved. By the time he arrived at the Piedra bridge, a gathering of motorists had stopped to gape.
Oblivious to the peppering rain, a big-shouldered truck driver approached the SUPD unit, introduced himself as Sosteno Martinez.
Bignight grabbed a five-cell flashlight, got out of his unit. “Did you witness the accident?”
Martinez shook his head. “I got here right after it happened.” The good Samaritan pointed at a soaked-to-the-skin man who had gratefully accepted a blanket from a kindly passerby. “But that guy saw it happen. He even tried to rescue the driver, but no dice.”
Bignight trotted down the highway, aimed his flashlight at the half-submerged automobile, made mental notes. No headlights or parking lights on. Internal dome light on—probably because both doors are open. No sign of anyone inside. The Bronco was bumping its way downstream with lurches and jerks.
Returning to the bridge, the SUPD officer approached the eyewitness. “What’s your name, sir?”
“Yadkin,” Blanket-Man mumbled, and coughed.
Bignight had pad and pen in hand. “First name?”
“Yadkin is my first name. Last name’s Dixon.” In case the uniformed cop could not put this together, he explained: “Yadkin Dixon.”
“I understand you were first on the scene.”
“That’s a fact.”
Bignight jerked his chin at an old Chevy pickup parked nearest to the bridge. “That your vehicle?”
Yadkin Dixon shook his head, raised a dirty digit. “This thumb—and my feet—that’s how I get around.”
“So you were hitchhiking?”
“Trying to.” The chilled vagrant shivered. “I’d walked all the way down from that little pond up by Route one-sixty—”
“Capote Lake?”
“If you say so. Back where I come from, a lake is something you can launch a sixty-foot yacht in.” Y. Dixon noted that his audience showed no particular interest in how big lakes were back where he’d come from. “Anyway, I’d stopped here by the bridge, figuring that if somebody was to drive across it toward the main highway, they wouldn’t be about to break the sound barrier.” Seeing the bewildered expression on the Indian cop’s face, the experienced hitchhiker explained: “If they’re going slow, you get a chance to look ’em straight in the eye. And once you make eyeball contact with the driver, five times out of four, he—or she as the case may be—will stop and give you a lift.”
Bignight liked the 125 percent odds. I’ll have to remember that.
Dixon pointed in the general direction of the Bronco, which was still moving downstream. “But when I saw this car coming, it must’ve been doing a good sixty miles an hour. What with it being so dark from the thunderstorm and all, I s’pose he didn’t even see the bridge—not until it was too late. Poor devil ran right into the river.” He wiped a corner of the blanket across his mouth. “I did my best to get him out, even managed to grab his hand in mine.” The almost-hero shuddered. “But you can see how the water’s rippin’ right along—it pulled him loose, swept him away.” Dixon clasped his hands, closed his eyes. “Until the day I die, I’ll hear those awful screams.”
Bignight grimaced. “Aside from the driver, were there any other passengers in the vehicle?”
“Nope.” Yadkin Dixon looked at the churning river and blinked. “If there was, I didn’t see ’em.”
“Can you describe the driver?”
“I didn’t get a good look at him; it was pretty dark.” After a series of hacking coughs, he eyed the cop. “You got a cigarette?”
“No.” The SUPD officer made a hurried note in his pad. “Mr. Dixon—when you saw the vehicle approaching the bridge, did you notice whether or not the headlights were on?”
The eyewitness scratched at a stubbly crop of beard. “Now that you mention it, the lights weren’t turned on. I’m sure of it.” He grinned at the clever cop. “That must be why the driver didn’t see the bridge.” He stared at the distant form of the Bronco, which was now almost out of sight. “If he hadn’t missed the bridge, he might’ve run me down—and to think that I risked my life to save his!” The hitchhiker heaved a heavy sigh. “If I ever come upon anything like this again—and I hope I never do—I won’t even bother to get my feet wet!” He emphasized this decision by spitting, which—according to his ethical code—was the equivalent of engraving the oath in granite.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Worry, Worry, Worry…
Daisy Perika had spent her day entertaining anxieties about Sarah Frank, who had fled with her spotted cat. As the tribal elder watched the mouth of Spirit Canyon swallow the slip of a girl, a thunderstorm was rumbling down the slopes of the San Juans, avalanching its way into the arid wilderness where her little home stood all alone, the last tomb in a deserted, tumbledown cemetery. All afternoon, furious winds wolf-howled around the eaves, sprightly lightning-legs danced to booming thunder-drums, windowpanes rattled. The aged woman watched and listened and wondered; is the End finally at hand? Was this deranged old world finally ripping itself asunder? She thought not, and felt a mild disappointment. I’d like to live just long enough to see that last day.
Though it was warm and cozy in her sturdy new home, the Ute elder pulled a woolen shawl over her shoulders. She was sitting close to the fireplace, where a few hungry flames licked voraciously at their meager supper—a half-dozen spindly sticks of split juniper. As she had done every few minutes, Daisy got up from her rocking chair, approached a window which, in fair weather, provided a magnificent view of Cañón del Espíritu with Three Sisters Mesa looming majestically above like a great stone battleship. Now, the trio of Pueblo ladies were discreetly veiled behind a smoky gauze of mist, whose gray vapors spilled over the crest of the sandstone cliff, filling Spirit Canyon, flowing out of its mouth like the apparition of a long-dead river. She strained to see a particular location where the boulder-strewn slope met the vertical bluff. If Sarah had taken the old woman’s advice, that’s where she would be—sheltered in the small cave. The spot was marked by a black, lightning-scarred, fire-charred ponderosa that had patiently stood as decades passed. As Daisy watched, a long finger of white-hot fire reached out to touch a gnarled limb on the dead tree. The branch shattered into flinders; the remains flashed into flame, only to be extinguished by a sudden torrent of rain. After this brief display, the heavy curtain was drawn; she could see no more. She hoped the girl had sense enough to stay inside the cave, where the storm’s mindless wrath could not find her.
Daisy’s wrinkled face twisted into a frown that mirrored her inner annoyance. Sarah should’ve stayed right here, depended on me to keep her safe. And whatever I can’t handle, Charlie Moon can. If I was to call him on the phone and tell him there was trouble at my place, Charlie would drop whatever he was doing and head down here in that big car of his doing ninety miles an hour. And if her nephew was not available, there was always the Southern Ute police. True, the officer who patrolled this section of the reservation wasn’t a Ute—Danny Bignight was one of those peculiar Taos Pueblo Indians that Daisy did not entirely trust—but he was a sure-enough tough cop and all it would take was a 911 call and Danny would show up in nothing flat. Of course, even if he was in the neighborhood, nothing flat might amount to about half an hour.
Daisy went back to sit by the fire. Rocked in her rocking chair. Tried not to think about Sarah Frank. She was successful for about six seconds.
Sarah went to hide in the canyon because she was afraid somebody was coming here to hurt her. Well, any fool could see she went up there for nothing. It’s almost dark now, and nobody’s showed up all day. And nobody will. Silly girl. The old woman closed her eyes, sighed, cycled back into the endless loop of troubling thoughts: I hope she’s inside that little cave where she’s safe from the storm….
Several dazzling flashes of lightning were followed quickly by the crispy-crackling cannonade that is Nature’s way of shouting: Get under the bed, Daisy—Grandfather Thunder is about to kick your doo
r in!
The Ute elder was in no mood for these hoary old proverbs that percolated up from her childhood memories, and stated her opinion out loud and firmly. “No he’s not.”
Bam!
Evidently, she was wrong.
Bam—Bam!
The old woman jumped up from her chair, turned to stare at the front door. Maybe I was hearing things.
If she was, she was hearing them again.
Bam—Bam—Bam!
She hurried to the closet nearest the front door. The same closet where she kept her always-loaded, double-barrel, 12-gauge shotgun. “Who’s that?”
“It’s me. Open up before I get blown into Conejos County!”
Thankful that her caller was not Grandfather Thunder, she flung the door open to admit Charlie Moon.
The lanky man, one hand clutching a water-logged black Stetson that was about to be carried away by the wind, erupted into her house. He removed his favorite hat, inspected its pitifully drooping brim. I hope it ain’t ruined.
She followed as her nephew clomp-clomped a beeline to the fireplace, shrugged off a soaked denim jacket, hung it on a hook that had been screwed into the mantelpiece for just such a need. He held his soggy hat out to the drying warmth.
“What brings you out in the storm?”
Moon explained thusly: “When Danny Bignight called me at the Columbine, it wasn’t storming.” Not storming up at the ranch is what he meant to convey.
“Oh.” She digested this tidbit, felt a tinge of heartburn. “Why’d Danny call you?”
“Some guy missed the bridge, ran his car into the Piedra.” He attempted to push an unsightly dimple out of the Stetson’s crown. “According to Officer Bignight, an eyewitness reported that the vehicle in question—which was going way too fast to make the turn—had just come off the dirt lane and onto the gravel road, and was heading toward the paved highway.” He waited for her to absorb this information.
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