English Lessons

by J. M. Hayes

  Some local kids had invented a computer game of their own with links to WOW. It had evolved to include real bombs, fixed elections, and a professional hit man. Mrs. Kraus had shocked him when he found she had become an aficionado of massive multiplayer online role-playing games—MMORPG to insiders like Mrs. Kraus. Or she had been until those kids started threatening her avatar with their online super demon.

  “Got to admit I’ve missed it. I must have complained to your brother and his girlfriend. Anyway, I was opening my packages this morning when I discovered they sent me the latest upgrade.”

  Pam and Mad Dog had been playing WOW and gotten targeted by the same kids. As a direct result, Mad Dog’s house had been blown off the face of the prairie by a rocket propelled grenade.

  “I don’t think Pam and Mad Dog are playing anymore.” Mrs. Kraus said as the sheriff got a folder out of his drawer, wrote “Walker” on it, and stuck his notes inside. “But they told me to just transfer my character to a new realm and rename her. I shouldn’t have any problem. Tens of millions of people play this game. What are the chances I’ll run into wackos again? Anyway, I couldn’t wait to try it. Which is why I was here when Don Crabtree called. Said he was going to murder one of the Conrad boys, soon as he figured out which one deserved it, unless you get right over there and arrest the pervert in question.”

  “And what did this pervert do?” the sheriff asked as he put the new folder in their file cabinet.

  “Sacrilege. Foul, evil desecration of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

  The sheriff closed the drawer and raised an eyebrow.

  “That’s pretty near word for word what Crabtree claimed,” Mrs. Kraus said.

  “He get any more specific?”

  “No, sir,” Mrs. Kraus said. “I couldn’t persuade him to explain. But I think you should go right over. By the time he hung up, Don Crabtree had about convinced himself it had to be Bub, the oldest Conrad boy. You know they’re right across the street. And Don said something about taking a gun and….”

  The sheriff missed what came after because he was out the door and halfway to his vehicle before she finished.

  ***

  Mad Dog staggered back across the living room and steadied himself against one of the loungers facing the TV. The severed hand couldn’t be real. He looked down and noticed a drop of blood on his foot, an elegant argument for a different conclusion.

  He felt an overwhelming sense of unreality, followed by a not-in-Kansas-anymore moment. What the hell were you supposed to do when someone hand-delivered a…?

  Argh! That wasn’t the way to phrase it.

  He supposed the normal response to an unattached human hand showing up in the branches of your Christmas tree was to call 9-1-1. But Mad Dog had a thing about cops, even if his half-brother had been the sheriff of Benteen County, Kansas, for most of their adult lives.

  When your physical appearance was so obviously Anglo and yet you’d legally changed your name to Mad Dog and proclaimed yourself a Cheyenne shaman, cops tended to look at you funny. And they tended to start thinking of you as the killer even if there were no bodies. This time they’d find part of one.

  There were four cops in the whole world Mad Dog trusted. First, his baby brother, Englishman. Englishman because you had to have one of those when your last name was English and everyone had started calling your high school football-hero brother Mad Dog. But Mad Dog couldn’t think of a good reason to contact Englishman. His brother was half a country away. And his sage advice would be to call 9-1-1.

  Heather English, Englishman’s daughter and Mad Dog’s niece, was second on his list. She had the advantage of being nearby, a member of the Sewa Tribal Police. But she was working today. If he called, she’d have to treat it as official. Besides, she probably wouldn’t have any more idea of what this might be about than Mad Dog did. She hadn’t been in Arizona all that long and, from what she’d told him, wasn’t exactly benefiting from chit-chat around the water cooler at headquarters. She had few meaningful contacts among the powers that be who might help him handle…er, cope with this bizarre situation.

  Sergeant Parker of the Tucson Police Force’s bomb squad had been a deputy for Englishman once. Mad Dog trusted her, and she’d been in this part of the country long enough that she might have some insights. But Three Points was in the county. Not her jurisdiction.

  That left Captain Matus. The man had blamed a murder on Mad Dog right after Mad Dog arrived in Arizona. Someone who leaped to conclusions like that wouldn’t normally have made Mad Dog’s list, but Heather had persuaded the Captain to see the light and then Mad Dog and Matus had saved each other’s lives while trying to bring a professional killer to justice. When it was over, Matus persuaded Heather to come work for him. And helped Pam find a job at the Sewa casino after she lost her Las Vegas piano-bar gig because she’d rushed to Tucson with some crazy idea about saving Mad Dog from the psycho murderer who was after him. Mad Dog realized how crazy it seemed for a beautiful girl to risk herself for him, but he wasn’t about to walk away from luck like that.

  No contest, Mad Dog decided. He found his cell and dialed Matus. Three Points wasn’t in Matus’ jurisdiction, either, but the man knew his way around county law enforcement. If anyone would help a Cheyenne shaman decide how to handle this, it was the Sewa warrior at whose side he’d fought once before.

  “Matus,” the captain answered.

  “It’s Mad Dog. I’m sorry to call on Christmas but I need a hand…Actually, I’ve got a hand. That is, an extra one. Not mine, you see. Unattached and….

  “Shit,” Matus said. “Why is it, if anybody else called and said something like that, I’d just think they’d misspoken? From you, I’m not even surprised.”

  ***

  “Where are you?” Matus asked Heather.

  She told him. She was only about a hundred yards up the trail from where she’d left her unit, an elderly Toyota Land Cruiser so scratched and dented that the Sewa Tribal Logo was almost unrecognizable. She’d had to hike that far to get enough bars on her cell.

  “You’re absolutely sure it’s Hyde?”

  Heather was, and told him why.

  “Damn!” he said. His voice began breaking up but she understood the exclamation clearly enough. She continued downhill toward the Jeep. Maybe if she plugged the phone into the car she’d get a little more power and a better signal. Or she could use the radio.

  “…can’t wait. How soon…get to your uncle’s place?”

  What he said came to her like random pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. She tried to put it together but didn’t like the way it fit. It sounded like the Captain wanted her to go to Uncle Mad Dog’s. Why? The letter? But she couldn’t. With the death of a well known politician like Joe Hyde, she needed to get back up that trail and make sure the crime scene remained secure until half the law enforcement personnel in Southern Arizona descended on the spot.

  “What?” Heather said. “I couldn’t understand.”

  The phone did Rice Krispy imitations in her ear and then reception was suddenly clear as a bell. “…so I’ll come take Hyde, but you’ve got to get to Mad Dog’s place as fast as you can.”

  “Why?” Her one word question demanded multiple answers. Why should she leave what was probably the highest-profile crime scene in southern Arizona since the OK Corral? What was going on at Mad Dog’s?

  “…called 9-1-1. Promised…sheriff’s deputies. You know how Mad Dog is with cops. Get there quick.”

  And then his signal was gone. Completely, this time. No sound. No bars. Another dropped call. She still didn’t understand. But apparently Captain Matus was coming here to cover the investigation of Hyde’s hide. And, apparently, there was trouble at Mad Dog’s. Something that required law enforcement—in this case, Pima County deputies. If she understood, the Captain had been on his way to help Mad Dog deal with th
at. Now, he felt he had to deal with Hyde’s high-profile case.

  Heather ran the last few yards to her unit. She considered the radio, then decided it might not be a good idea to broadcast any of this to the rest of the on-duty officers, to say nothing of people monitoring their channel. She plugged her cell in and tried Matus again. Nothing. She tried Mad Dog and didn’t do any better.

  She could wait here. The captain was on his way and could explain fully when they were face to face. But he’d said get to Mad Dog’s as soon as possible, hadn’t he? If that was the case and she didn’t….

  Heather remembered the last time Mad Dog got involved with police officers. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. Mad Dog ended up the target of a Tucson-wide search with orders to shoot him on sight.

  Heather started the Land Cruiser, turned it around without adding new dents from a host of convenient boulders, and headed for Three Points. She probably could help her uncle. She was a cop and she had a law degree. She’d even passed the Arizona bar. If Mad Dog was in trouble, she could assert his right against self-incrimination and start pushing a judge to set bail. Not that Uncle Mad Dog was a criminal. But Joe Hyde had been flayed and Captain Matus would have to get that word to every relevant law enforcement agency in the state. And Mad Dog was mentioned in that letter. With her uncle’s luck, the governor’s car would turn up under Mad Dog’s ramada and Mad Dog would be sitting on the porch reading a book about skinning animals for fun and profit.

  Heather decided Captain Matus was right. She hurried.

  ***

  Don Crabtree hopped up and down in the empty Kansas street like a kindergartner in need of a potty break.

  “Well, what are you going to do about this?” he said.

  Crabtree lived on the north side of Buffalo Springs, his back yard ending in a wheat field. Like everyone in town, he made his living from farming and ranching. But after years of scraping by on half a section, he’d sold out and taken a job with the local co-op. It didn’t pay big, but it paid steady. That made Crabtree more cash-rich than the average county resident.

  When Crabtree moved to town, he bought a red-brick ranch-style at the edge of the city limits. It was a nice place, attractive from the street, except near Christmas time. Then the house disappeared behind Crabtree’s passion—Christmas decorations. Santas, reindeer, elves, flashing light displays, toys, action figures, and his pride and joy, a life-size crèche. The Baby Jesus had been stolen nearly every year until Crabtree began chaining the infant to its cradle—not a customary way of depicting the arriving Prince of Peace. That was why the sheriff’s first glance, after making sure Crabtree wasn’t carrying a gun, was at the manger. Jesus in chains was right where he should be.

  “Do about what?” the sheriff asked.

  “Don’t you see it? My God, man, right there.”

  And then the sheriff did see it. Yellow snow, just in front of Jesus’ crib. The sheriff walked down the street to get a better angle.

  “I want somebody hung up by the nuts for this.”

  “For what?” the sheriff said. “Pissing in the snow?”

  Crabtree reached in his pocket. For a bad moment, the sheriff thought the man might pull a gun. He was that angry. What Crabtree filled his hand with, however, was a pair of glasses. He stuck them under the sheriff’s nose.

  “Are you blind. Look at it. Read what it says.”

  “Guess I am.” The sheriff dug out his own glasses, the bifocals he tried to avoid wearing. When he put them on, the yellow pattern in the snow finally made sense. Someone, with a very full bladder, had let loose in front of Crabtree’s Christmas crèche. That, by itself, would have been enough to heat the man’s temper to broil. But the culprit hadn’t been satisfied with such a simple sacrilege. He’d left a message in “flowing” script. The sheriff just managed to suppress a smile as he sounded it out.

  “Gold, Frank n ¢, & Coors.”

  ***

  “Nice doggy,” the Pima County deputy told the hundred-pound silver wolf that stepped from behind a shaggy tamarisk to block his path to Mad Dog’s porch.

  “She’s a hybrid and mostly wolf,” Mad Dog said. “Not a dog.”

  The officer nodded but Mad Dog noticed the man drop his hand to the butt of his service weapon.

  “She doesn’t bite,” Mad Dog said, “unless someone deserves it. You’re perfectly safe.”

  “Good,” the officer said. “But would you mind putting her on a leash or in a pen or otherwise securing her?”

  “You ever try to put a leash on a wolf?” Mad Dog didn’t address the other possibilities. He didn’t have a leash or a pen. He’d never found a way of locking Hailey up anywhere she didn’t want to stay. He shrugged. “I’m sorry. This is her yard. But she really is no danger to you. Unless you draw that gun.”

  Hailey ignored the conversation. After giving the deputy a thorough inspection from a respectful distance, she trotted to the porch, jumped up and put her feet on Mad Dog’s shoulders. She slathered him with a kiss that wet him from chin to forehead, then dropped to lie at his feet where she could keep an eye on the nervous stranger.

  Was this going to cause trouble? Mad Dog could see the officer considering his options. Hailey had all her shots and Mad Dog could prove it, but she wasn’t wearing the required tag. She didn’t do collars.

  “How can we help you?” Mad Dog decided to just move past the issue. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a bigger problem waiting in his Christmas tree.

  The officer came no closer and his hand stayed on his weapon, but he didn’t argue about Hailey.

  “I’m supposed to lend support to the Sewa Tribal Police. I was asked to meet Captain Matus at this address.”

  “Yeah,” Mad Dog said. “I was hoping for that, too. But I guess he won’t be here after all. Apparently something bigger came up.”

  “Yes,” the officer nodded again. “I just heard. Is Matus sending someone else? Do you know why he wanted us to lend a hand?”

  Mad Dog winced at the phrase. He chose to answer the first question instead of the second. “Sewa Officer Heather English should be here any minute.”

  “Good. But that thing that came up. It requires as much of our attention as possible. I can’t hang around waiting. Do you know what Captain Matus needed?

  “Well….” There didn’t seem to be a way of putting this off. Mad Dog backed up to the door and opened it. Hailey got to her feet and went in. Mad Dog hoped she wouldn’t chew on the evidence. “Maybe you should come inside.”

  The officer didn’t move, obviously no more comfortable with the prospect of following a wolf into a house than Mad Dog was with trying to explain the severed hand in his living room.

  Another car pulled into Mad Dog’s yard. A silver Mercedes, trailing a cloud of dust. Until he realized it was a Mercedes, Mad Dog thought Heather might have arrived in the nick of time. She owned a silver Honda. Instead, the door opened and a spectacular woman got out. A rope of black hair was coiled at the back of her head. Obsidian eyes matched her conservatively cut suit and leather attaché case. Her face looked like it belonged on an Aztec goddess. She went straight to the deputy and handed him a card.

  “Anjelica Grijalva,” she announced, “of Castillo, Villareal, and Debowski.”

  An attorney. The law firm she represented meant nothing to Mad Dog, but it obviously impressed the deputy.

  “I’m sorry, officer, but my client won’t be answering any questions at this time.”

  ***

  Since her father was a sheriff, Heather knew all the reasons she shouldn’t use her cell phone as she drove to Mad Dog’s. Englishman had told her and her sister often enough, citing statistics and even providing vivid descriptions of the bodies and cell phones he’d pried out of car wrecks. In one case, he’d found a cell phone literally inserted in the corpse’s ear,
all the way into the brain cavity.

  It was good advice, but it didn’t stop her. It wasn’t every day you stumbled across a governor of Arizona, skinned and tacked to a wall. And then she’d gotten pulled off the crime scene of the century because her uncle had some kind of emergency. That Captain Matus had ordered her to leave the governor before anyone replaced her must mean Mad Dog had a real problem.

  Once on the highway, Heather got bars back on her cell. She punched the button that auto-dialed Uncle Mad Dog’s home number. No answer. When she tried his cell, it went straight to voice mail. That was so like him. Call for help, then not answer your phone. And not stay near it while you kept your cell turned off so whoever you’d asked for help wouldn’t be able to get in touch with you. Argh!

  Heather dropped her phone in her lap and just drove after that. She might have been able to get a decent connection with Captain Matus before he lost his signal as he climbed into those mountains, but that would mean both of them were driving too fast while using phones. Heather didn’t want to put her boss at risk. And she didn’t want him to know she was the type who dialed and drove at the same time, either. Not unless she had a clearly urgent situation that required it.

  The doublewide Mad Dog and Pam had rented was on the south side of Three Points. The points were created by the junction of Arizona highways 86 and 286 at what was also known as Robles Junction. Ajo Way, aka 86, came out of the south part of Tucson on its way across the Tohono O’odham Reservation aiming toward the pleasures of Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. Or to tiny desert outposts like Why, Arizona, or the turnoff to Kitt Peak with its crown of astronomy observatories. It was a sad highway, lined with broken bottles and flowered crosses.

  Three Points was twenty-five miles southwest of downtown Tucson. Highway 286 began or ended there. Its ribbon of asphalt ran south to the border crossing at the village of Sasabe. Ran beside the Sewa Reservation, too, recognizable because of its Flowers of Gold Casino. Heather made good time. Route 286 was never heavily traveled. On Christmas Day it was practically deserted.