SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 29, 2007
WALKER WINKED AT THE SECURITY guard, pushed his hip against the metal bar on the EXIT door and pranced out of a two-year stint at the Central New Mexico Low Security Correction Facility, head back, yipping, imagining folks in Dax County reacting to his release. They’d grin, hands reaching inside their back pockets to confirm the location of their wallets.
First thing, after Edgar came to collect him, they stopped at Palms Trading Post in Albuquerque where Walker picked out a silver bracelet inlaid with turquoise and coral for his big sister, Lee Ann. Next stop Walmart, for a Coleman cooler and bag of ice. At Save-on Floral he had the girl cut the stems on a long bouquet of glads (Mother’s favorite) to fit that cooler without crimping a single bloom, leaving enough room for a six-pack of Corona. He ordered Edgar to spread his legs and set another six-pack between the old ranch hand’s boots, caressed the hood of the ’84 pickup, beat it like a bongo drum, and climbed into the driver’s seat. Destination: Alibi Creek.
Whooee! Blue September sky. BIG sky. Bigger than the ocean, ’cause even though the ocean was deep, it had a bottom. Using snorkeling gear, a man might study sea life spawning beneath the water’s surface, but a space ship hadn’t been invented that could scope out the heavens. The sky owned the sun, stars, and clouds. Its moon pulled tides, its winds churned up waves. Every single person’s hopes and dreams flew up there and the sky held them all, with still room for more. God lived there.
Speaking of God, he was sorry. At this moment, he truly was. He did “borrow” that jewelry from Harry Simmons’ wife to cover the debt on some land he’d bought. And although he’d needed the money in a hurry, he’d been a fool to take the stuff to Gallup, hockshop capitol of the United States of America. No sooner had he got Chase Cummings off his back over the late real estate payments, state police had come a-knockin’, asking about the origin of the turquoise rings, bracelets, and necklaces at Big Boy Pawn. He explained he had every intention of buying back each item as soon as he raised the money. That didn’t go over with the cops.
But, hey, he was out. He’d lost the Cummings place, but he might get his hands on Ross Plank’s piece, a prize two sections not far from Mother’s ranch, and turn it over to a prospective buyer in Arizona, the name given to him by Pat Merker, his cellmate.
Man, look at those harmless, cotton-ball clouds scattering shadows over the Plains of San Agustin. Sunflowers bowing and waving on each side of the black highway. Bordering Arizona and encompassing the west central mountains and high plains, Dax County happened to be the most isolated region in New Mexico—seven thousand square miles of wilderness, three thousand people, ten thousand elk, and not one traffic light or fast food restaurant. In the last several years, retirees from Arizona and California had started creeping into the area around Brand, the county seat, voicing their opinions at commissioners’ meetings, organizing a Health Council, and instructing folks on how to conduct local events, their ideas on “improvement” upsetting old timers. Tucked in a fold of the Mariposa Mountains, Brand had been overrun by unfamiliar faces, the locals showing their disapproval by shunning greetings, refusing to indulge in small talk, and forgetting names. Walker, however, saw this small, steady influx of newcomers as Opportunity for Lucrative Creativity. He’d have a close look at Ross Plank’s 1,280 acres, figure an angle to get him to part with it. The old skinflint had moved to Sierra Vista, Arizona, twelve years ago. What did he want with it, anyway?
Skinny as a pencil line, flexible as a wet strand of spaghetti, Walker seated his hat so far back a sneeze might knock it off. He never strolled, but scampered, took steps two at a time, three if he wasn’t hung-over, swung around porch posts, jumped off fence railings and landed easy, lips sculpted in a permanent smile, no matter what the circumstances. Modus operandi: never allow a lady to open a door or struggle with a bag of groceries. Never let a man finish a sentence without topping his story.
At birth, his parents called him Gaylan, after his maternal grandfather, the name originating from ancient Greek, meaning “calm.” After six months, they admitted their mistake, for he never kept still. Green eyes darted. He scooted across the floor like a wind-up toy, pulling himself up on any object within reach. At eight months he took his first steps and never stopped going, into the next room, onto the porch, across the yard, around the barn, and down to the creek. Edgar, watching his father chase him around the place, tipped his whiskey glass and said, “Well, you got half his name right,” and dubbed him Walker the Walker, then just Walker Walker. Now a man of forty-two with ropey limbs, cantaloupe head, big ears, and long nose, Walker wore two-inch heels to add to his height (5’ 10” with the boots). Extra tall hats, straw in summer, felt in winter, shaded silky hair the color of caramel candy. His presence seemed innocuous until he moved, then folks watched out. He jerked, leapt, hopped and sprinted, stirring up a mini dust devil all his own.
After three hours heading southwest, Walker turned the pickup north onto Highway 34, past a row of empty chairs on the Alibi Creek Store porch. Ahead, lumpy Bruja Mountain rose behind the west mesa, the Randall Range sprawled to the east. He checked the sun’s position—one o’clock, too late for the morning coffee crew, too early for the mail. Taking the corner, he leaned on the horn and waved anyway.
“Ain’t nobody there but Shelley and she’s probably out back,” Edgar said.
“When they hear I’m home, they’ll be hanging around all day tomorrow until I show up.”
A mile north he swung left onto the dirt road leading to the Walker Ranch. The pickup splashed across Alibi Creek, low after the seasonal monsoons, cottonwood roots like straws sucking up moisture, the water a silver thread looping through rugged mesas covered with piñon, scrub oak, and pine. Cattle grazed on strips of lush bottomland. An eighty-year-old weeping willow draped its limbs over the dark cedar-sided house he shared with his mother, partially concealing a black walnut loaded with nuts just outside the back door. Directly south, the chalk-white stucco walls of Lee Ann’s place bounced off the landscape, assaulted by early afternoon light.