“Are you going to get out of the car?” Donnie hiked back along the fence line after backtracking to cover the tracks where the car left the road.
“I’m deciding.” Karyn sat in the passenger seat with the doors open on both sides. The car glittered dark green in the sun like some giant beetle.
It was hot, and Donnie could feel the sweat causing his shirt to stick to him as he bent to open the trunk. He got out the metal detector and the bolt cutters he’d brought. “Least you could do is carry the backpack with the water.”
When she didn’t answer, and stayed sitting in the car, Donnie slowed and bent forward until he could drop the tools to the ground with as little noise as possible. He had pulled the car all the way in at the corner of the Hoel estate, where the fence line turned and ran up into the tallest hills on the property. The vegetation was sparse here, and he’d had to use a mesquite limb and be careful of its thorns as he wiped out the tracks of the Dodge that led back to the patch of chaparral where he’d tucked the car. Where he walked now was loose dirt and sand, too dried for growing anything but occasional prickly pear cactus, yucca, a solitary mesquite, and strings of the hardy buffalo gourd vine. Occasional tumbles of rock here and there looked like great spots for rattlesnakes, and he watched for those as well, glad he’d slipped on his Red Wing boots this morning.
He turned and went back to the car to lean in on the passenger side. She sat with her arms folded, staring straight ahead.
“Look, we came out this far,” he said.
She didn’t say anything, nor did she look at him.
“You were fine at the library, even insisted on coming. What is it?”
Her head turned to him slowly, and though her father hadn’t caught up to them yet, her expression was one worthy of Logan. “I’m having second thoughts. Diving at night by the dam was one thing. Stupid as that was, it’s nothing compared to this.”
“There’s nothing stupid here. We’re just going to check.”
“The other wasn’t very smart, Donnie, but this is illegal. You’re talking about trespassing on someone’s land, someone who specifically doesn’t want you, of all people, on it.”
She didn’t have to point out all the posted No Trespassing signs that stood out with their fluorescent letters at regular intervals along the fourteen-foot-high fence with its razor-coiled top. If ever a property had “Stay out” written all over it, it was this one.
“I’ve told you, this used to be Spurlock land.”
“Until the River Authority bought it up when they had to recompense Bill Hoel for his valley land, and he wouldn’t take a cash settlement. I’ve heard the whole thing, Donnie. That doesn’t change anything. It’s still his land, and he’s fussy about it. I’ve heard there’re guards and everything. This is the kind of thing Esbeth Walters was warning us against. It’s okay to dig into the history, but you’re crossing the line here.”
“I wish you wouldn’t bring her up.”
“I wish she was here to talk to you.”
“Come on, Karyn. I just want to check, look around a bit. You know I have to do it, with or without you. Don’t make me do it alone. Help me take just a short look, then we’ll get off.”
“You’ll promise that?”
“I told you what Dad said. What he figured out by reading between the lines of the journal made him think the first pick was underwater. But his second choice was up here on the former Spurlock land.”
“I haven’t even seen any journal. You have, and I have to believe what you say. But have you stopped to think some of that might be the ranting of a lunatic?”
“Dad was no lunatic.”
“No, but what got under his skin and maybe caused his death was listening to whatever his dad had to say. You never even met your Grandpa Hank Spurlock. What’s to say he wasn’t a little off? Why do you have to do anything, just because he said?”
“What’re you saying? You think there’s a vein of madness in my family?” There was some of the glitter of that old obsessive light in Donnie’s eyes before he looked up and away from her. High on one of the fence posts, above the sharp wire, a mockingbird stood gray and black and white in the sun with its chest thrust out and tail cocked up at an angle. It made a haunting and repetitive cry.
“You’ve got the money from the insurance. What do you care about a bunch of diamonds? Can’t you leave all that alone, consider the whole thing over?”
“It was a charge. It’s all I was ever asked to do by my family. I believe Dad was killed because of it.”
“It’s what’s killed everyone else in your family. You’re what I care about. I don’t want to lose you.”
He looked back at her, at the shine of tears on her cheeks. “Look, it wasn’t your father who was killed. Will you just do this? Come with me, look around. If we see nothing, or learn nothing, we get off the land and never come back. Will you do that one thing for me?”
She looked at him without blinking, though there were small wells of tears at the bottom of her eyes and her head was making tiny jerks. “You know I will. But just this once. Please? I understand a quest, but this’s got to end. Agreed?”
He held out a hand. She wiped at her eyes and reached for it. “Yeah. You’ve got it. But just this once. Okay? I need to at least check, or I don’t feel like I can ever sleep again.”
* * * * *
Tillis got back in Logan’s truck and slammed the door, grateful for the air-conditioning Logan had left on while he waited. “She’s not there.”
“How did you expect that old coot to help us?”
Tillis turned to Logan. “You know, you’ve got some other problems to work on when this locking your eighteen-year-old daughter in her room business clears up.”
“Don’t you . . .”
“Give you a lot of crap about your parenting skills? Hell, Logan, you’ve been so damned wound up you haven’t noticed that most of your people skills in general have gone to hell on a roller skate. How the devil did you get in this shape?”
“I . . .”
“There isn’t a single excuse you can make. So get off that. Let’s just focus on Karyn here.”
“You’ve been a bit fast and loose yourself. Cost you your star.”
Tillis’ eyes narrowed at Logan. Whatever was on his face made Logan blink and clamp his mouth shut. “Just tell me that you care more for getting in the last word than you do about finding Karyn.”
Logan didn’t even try to speak.
“Okay.” Tillis felt the warm heat rippling across his face ease a bit. He gave Logan new directions, and Logan eased the truck away from the curb in front of Esbeth’s house without another word or glance.
* * * * *
The sun was blistering hot in Esbeth’s borrowed car that had no air-conditioning. Sweat had soaked through the back of her blouse, where it pressed against the cracked vinyl seats. The car rattled and jangled through the back roads, as if at any minute it might give up the whole business. It may have been maintained well once, but it had been let sit a long time.
She had never been up this way before, but had heard about it, so she wasn’t too surprised to come to the green posts of Old Bill Hoel’s fourteen-foot-high deer fence. She went slow by the front gate, and saw no one there, though she did spot an armadillo and a porcupine beside the road, both of which would have to be buried in pizza boxes.
Then she was surprised, and pleased, to see a roadrunner trotting along in its distinctive high gait on the other side of the road. She always thought it good luck to see a roadrunner, and this one had a small snake in its mouth, which was even better. Not that she was superstitious—far from it. But it made her think the world was working right, if only this tiny natural piece of it.
Esbeth wasn’t sure what to expect or look for, so she kept a slow pace as she went along the long stretch of fence, watching for any little indication. It was too much to hope that she would just spot the car. If she had been the one looking to get into the Hoel spread, she would have sought a spot across the road to hide her car. But Donnie was too direct for that, and much of the area across the road from the fence was too wide open, except for occasional tree-lined drives leading back to other, smaller ranches. She even saw “Hurley” on one mailbox and remembered that Pudge Hurley had his horse ranch out here, somewhere across from the Hoel Spread.
Her slow pace was taking a toll on the car. Steam was starting to come out from the edges of the hood as she started up the sharper slope where the corner of the property climbed up into the rocky hills. That couldn’t be good. She was one of the many people who, if she looked under the hood and didn’t see something visible hanging loose or otherwise wrong, was out of ideas about how to fix a car. But even she knew what she’d see under the aged T-Bird’s hood this time. It needed water, and, in her haste, she hadn’t even brought any along for herself.
Paying attention to the car almost made her miss the spot. But she looked to her right as the corner of the property line came up, and at first there was nothing. Then she peered closer, saw the grass bent back funny, like a cat’s fur when you’ve rubbed it the wrong way.
She drove on for a few hundred feet, then made a turnaround in the edge of an old lane where there was a wider gravel stretch on the other side of the road. That would leave as little trace as possible. She eased up until she could pull the T-Bird off to the right of the road. It tilted at an angle, with its right wheels down part of the way into a ditch. She had to struggle with the weight of the door to get it open and herself pried out of the car. Then she tied a spare handkerchief to the door handle, went around to the front, and opened the hood. Steam rolled out from around the radiator cap. It looked very much like a disabled car, which, in fact, it pretty much was.
Esbeth tugged on a pale green ball cap she used for gardening. It didn’t fit all that well, and perched on top of her topknot of stiff, white hair. But it kept some of the sun out of her eyes. She trudged back to the spot where she’d noted the attempt at covering tracks. When she got there, she nodded. If she’d been going at regular speed, she probably would’ve missed it. A small holly-like agarita bush had been crushed, but was propped back upright with a small forked stick to look almost as it had before a tire had pressed it down. She could see where someone had worked with a branch like a broom, and someone who wasn’t perfect at it. That, she figured, would be Donnie.
She skirted the repaired bit of flora and went along close to the fence, following back from the green corner post. The ground rose steadily, dipped, and rose higher. Behind the second swell, tucked away in the chaparral, she saw the antique green car that had once been Denny’s and now belonged to Donnie. No one was in it. She took out a handkerchief from her pocket, wiped her brow and neck, and forced herself to keep moving.
She was watching for footprints, although the ground was too hard in most spots, when she came to the place where a small door had been cut in the chain link fence. The bolt cutters that had done the job lay along the outside of the fence, and the flap that had been opened had been closed by two bits of wire, wound from the inside to call as little attention to the hole as possible.
“Lord love a duck,” Esbeth muttered. She reached for the wires holding the door closed and began to undo them. “And I thought at my age there was nothing left to learn the hard way.”
* * * * *
The usual noise of a hospital hallway spilled in through the partially-closed door, but it was otherwise quiet where Selma stood in the dim light of the pulled drapes and looked at her two boys. They’d been given a room together and, though Rocky had been awake, he was sleeping now, and Stone had been given a strong sedative after being brought down from the ICU not too long ago.
Out in the hallway on a chair, the deputy Rudy sat, soaking up taxpayer dollars, though it was pretty clear to Selma that neither boy was going anywhere for a while.
Though they were both still as out as the cross-eyed mackerels to which she had referred earlier, she spoke to them as if they were awake, as if it would make any difference.
“Sandy’s out in the car. We’re packed up and out of here, and I’m selling what there is of the ranch to get the best mouthpiece I can for you, but it doesn’t look good. I might as well tell you that. They may be able to pin Thirsty’s death on you, probably will, and will no doubt try to pin Denny’s on you too.”
Stone’s formerly handsome face was wrapped in gauze, and there was still some question if he had any brain damage from a seeping skull fracture they’d had to go in and work on. Rocky was never going to be much brighter than he’d been.
“Can’t hardly run a spread without you two. Maybe Ol’ Hoel had the right idea after all. I know I wish I’d thought of it. Lot of us knew, but wouldn’t say. None of it all’s gonna matter now. Everything’s gone topsy-turvy on all of us with change. Hard to believe that when the Texas Rangers were first formed, that their whole job was to run the Indians and even the damned ol’ Mexicans off of here. Now look at ‘em.”
She glanced toward the closed door. “Gotta keep my language down or I’ll have every spic, wop, mick, kike, and chink in the place thinkin’ I’m a bigot.” She chuckled to herself. “Folks can’t hardly talk plain no more, but I can to you two.
“I’m sick and sad and disappointed, boys, with myself more than you two. I love you both, but I don’t think we’ll be able to get you off, though we’ll spend what we have to trying. Me and Sandy and Pebble are going away—not too far, just far enough away that I don’t wake in the night with no more cold, damp dreams about the likes of Morgan Lane, nor none of the rest of all of it. I guess I’m the only halfway smart one left of us, and I sure don’t intend to stay here and let the area wear me down a day more. If I was spiritual at all, I’d say the place is cursed. But I don’t much care. I’m beaten down all I care to be, and I’m out of here.”
She looked at each of the boys a last time, then went out of the room and softly closed the door behind her.
* * * * *
“Wait right here.” Tillis hopped out of the truck and started in a run across the sheriff’s department parking lot. Logan sat in the truck, with the engine idling, watching him.
Halfway across the lot, he saw Gala tossing her bag into the back of her gold Chevy Tahoe. He spun and jogged up to her.
She turned, and he saw she’d already taken off her tie, hat, and gun belt.
“Out getting exercise? How admirable,” she said.
“Esbeth in there?” He was panting slightly.
“No. Why?”
He looked over at the building. “You going to be around later?”
“Can’t.”
“Why?”
“Just busy.”
“Doing what?”
“I’m just busy, Tillis. I have other plans. What’s the matter? Why am I having trouble getting through to you?” She looked up into his face.
He looked back down at her, feeling like it was some poker game, with neither of them trying to share a thing.
“Just dense, I guess.” His face burned with a warm flush. He was mad, first at Logan, then at himself, then, maybe, at her. He wasn’t thinking as clearly as he’d like; he knew that.
“What is it?” Her words were chipped ice this time. “Why don’t you say what’s on your so-called mind?”
His breath was just about back to normal. “I would really like to believe you’re everything you say you are.”
“And you can’t?”
He glanced back at the truck, where Logan was waving through the windshield for him to come on.
“Tillis, you don’t have all that many bridges left. I’d be careful with your matches, if I were you.” She slammed the tailgate and walked around to the driver’s side, and got in without looking back.
He had to hop out of the way, as the Tahoe snapped out of the parking spot to throw a bit of gravel on its way out of the lot.
He walked back to the truck more slowly and got back in.
“Now what?” Logan’s voice threatened to hop an octave. “We’ve checked the library, and half a dozen other places. Have you got any idea what you’re doing?” He clenched the wheel like he wanted to tear it in half.
Tillis had his window open and arm on the sill, looking more comfortable than he felt. He was thinking about the old white car he’d seen outside Esbeth’s house. “There’s one other place that makes sense.” He gave Logan more directions.
To Logan’s credit, he just gave Tillis a sharp glance, then drove.
They pulled up to the small house with the uncared-for lawn, and Tillis was out of the car and walking briskly toward the door before Logan could speak. He piled out of his side and sought to keep up.
Tillis, though walking quickly, was thinking that all this was so much like one of those Chinese puzzles where you open the man, find the smaller man inside, open it, find an even smaller one. But there was never a short cut. You had to follow all the steps, even if time was no longer on your side.
The door finally opened a good two or three minutes after Tillis had pounded on it twice, after Logan, sensing some of the urgency, had pounded too.
Floyd Bettles blinked at the bright light coming from behind them. He was in a nightshirt, though it was midday.
“What is it? What is it?” He saw them looking at his nightshirt. “I take naps. You woke me. What is it? Who are you?”
Tillis nearly said he was a Texas Ranger. But he wasn’t just then. Instead, he said, “It’s about Esbeth.”
Floyd looked about in a distracted way, then said, “You gents want coffee?”
“No,” Logan said.
“Sure we would,” Tillis countered.
Floyd looked at Tillis, nodded, and padded off to the kitchen.
“What’re you doing? I thought we didn’t have much time?” Logan whispered as they went on into the living room.
“First you give the rug, then you pull it,” Tillis said softly.
“Do we have that kind of time?”
“It won’t take all that long. He comes from that older school, where being host to us might make him a touch more beholden. We may need any edge we can get.”
A few minutes later Floyd came in with a mug in each hand. He held one out to each of them. Tillis sat in the rocker, while Logan stood over by the window that looked out over the back yard. Floyd went back to the kitchen to get his own mug. None of the mugs matched. Tillis’ mug advertised farm equipment. He couldn’t make out the writing on Logan’s mug.
“You have a car, don’t you, Floyd? It’s an older T-Bird, isn’t it? White?” Tillis sipped at the instant coffee. It wasn’t very strong, and was slightly bitter, so maybe its weakness was a blessing of sorts.
“How would you know that?”
“I’ve got an interest in any cars almost as old as I am.”
“What’s this about? Why d’you want to know about it?”
“I already said. Esbeth.”
“What makes you think . . .”
“Where’s your car, Floyd?”
“I don’t drive much anymore.”
“But you do have a car. She might be in trouble. Did Esbeth borrow it?”
Floyd glanced around behind him at nothing. Though he held his coffee mug, he hadn’t taken a sip so far.
“She would want us to know. We’re friends.”
Floyd looked down.
Logan snapped a little louder. “Come on, you’ve got to . . .”
Tillis held up a hand and Logan stopped. Tillis said, “We aren’t going to tell anyone what you told her about the diamonds, Floyd.”
“She told that?”
“No, but you just confirmed who did tell her. But trust us, Floyd. Neither Logan nor I intend to tell anyone. I mean that.”
“They’d kill me, like they done Denny.”
“We don’t know that. But I want to help Esbeth, and Logan’s daughter may be in trouble.”
“My life isn’t gonna be worth spit.”
“Floyd, tell us. Where did she go?”
Floyd’s head drooped, but he still looked reluctant, and stubborn.
“Her life may be in jeopardy,” Tillis said, pitching it a little stronger than he thought he needed.
Floyd’s weathered, long face lifted. “She said . . . she said my old heap might have to take her as far as Old Bill Hoel’s place. You gotta know I tried to stop her.”
“But you loaned her the car anyway.”
“She’s a sweet lady. She’d never tell on me. I hope I haven’t let her down.”
Logan was already heading for the door while Tillis stood up. “You haven’t, Floyd. Let’s hope you’ve helped her.”
* * * * *
Donnie was ahead of her, and she let him be. Though he carried the metal detector, the pack on her back felt as if it were full of bricks. The sun beat down on them, and the way Donnie stopped and stared every now and then on the climb told her he was watching for snakes. They’d seen only one diamondback so far, and it was far enough away that Donnie could comment calmly that he thought it had ten or twelve buttons. She’d seen enough snakes to know he was talking about the rattle, but that didn’t mean she wanted to see one up close just now.
Rocks were all around in profusion; most were sandy, reddish-yellow-looking rocks, with occasional darker slabs of what might be shale sticking up at odd angles out of the ground. Cacti and scrub weeds added a bit of dusty green to an otherwise dreary setting. But Donnie seemed to be getting more excited.
“You see how this path kind of weaves up like a big S? That’s it, just like in the journal.”
Karyn didn’t feel she should share any of her thoughts about that damned journal just now. The dive at night, in the black water, had scared her like she’d never been scared before. But that was over. She couldn’t help now feeling a worse sense of creeping willies at being on someone’s land, someone who hated everyone named Spurlock, from all she’d heard.
“And if we can see the three peaks, we can even get a triangulation.”
Karyn’s long red hair felt heavy, as it clung to her. She stopped and took the pack off her back, lowered it to a flat rock shaped like a big yellow t-bone steak. The light breeze coming up the hill behind her made the damp back of her shirt feel cool. At first that felt good; then she gave a brief shudder and reached for the pack.
“It’s here. It’s here. Come’re, Karyn and see—just like they said.”
She sighed to herself and trudged up the last few feet to where Donnie had disappeared over the ridge. When she finally pulled herself up over the rim, she dropped the backpack, which didn’t seem near as heavy now that they were here, and bent to take out a bottle of the water. She took a deep drink, and though it wasn’t cool, it was as good as she’d ever had. She held out the bottle to Donnie and walked past him to see his perspective.
The top of this hill opened into a flat, rounded table, with a ridge of smaller points that rose around its edges. It did make the whole thing look like the dead top of a volcano, and in the distance she could count out the three peaks of other hills Donnie had said would be visible from here.
Donnie rushed over to a pile of loose scree and rubble along one edge. He dug beneath the loose rocks on top until he found something. “And look.” He held up the broken oak handle of some kind of pick or shovel. “This is where I think they camped and mined.” In this climate, old oak spokes of stagecoach wheels had lasted for years, and, buried like that, there’d been no reason for Hoel to find something like a broken pick handle.
In spite of herself, Karyn felt the same hope welling up in her she’d experienced during the first part of their dive. In her calm moments, all she wanted to do was get on with her life, and that included being with Donnie. But it was hard to deny the bubbling excitement of maybe being truly rich. Just as that thought got a firm hold, she dashed it away by thinking that this wasn’t Donnie’s land, and even if they did find something, that didn’t mean it was theirs.
Donnie, though, had the metal detector out and was carefully sweeping the whole surface of the hill. He had the headset on and was intent on watching the dial.
She looked around for a shady spot and saw none, so she went over to where there was a slim darkness along the edge of one rim of rock. She lowered herself into it, and though the sun fell full on her face, at least her hands and waist were in a bit of shadow. From here, she could turn her head and look out across some of the miles of the estate. Except for the rocks and other hills, there wasn’t much to see. There was the sound of birds, many out of her sight, and a few flying from cover to cover. High in the distance she could see three dark birds with deep-vees in their wingspans, circling and circling in a thermal. A tiny wisp of smoke led down to a spot, where if she leaned she could see a small cluster of buildings far away, low between distant hills, like a small village out where she knew there were no villages.
Donnie had covered most of the hill, and she could see his frown as he swept his way back, checking even along the sharp spikes of the ridge that rose around the hilltop. She’d already asked him how he expected to find diamonds with a metal detector. But he wasn’t after diamonds yet. He was after the box.
She had to get up and move once while he swept where she sat. She moved to a spot that was even a bit more shady, though it wasn’t much cooler than where she’d been.
He made another thorough sweep or two, with sweat soaking through his shirt, turning it dark. Then he finally took off the headset and put down the metal detector. He took the pick handle he’d found earlier and began to dig in several random spots with a new desperation.
Karen leaned her head back and looked up at a single spray of white wisp of cloud in all the blue of the sky. It was so still. Too still. Over the top of the sound of Donnie’s digging, she heard nothing. Where were the birds she’d been hearing a few minutes ago? She’d heard the scurry a minute ago of a lizard, then nothing. The air around them seemed so suddenly still, and all too silent.
“Donnie.”
He kept digging.
“Donnie.” Louder this time. He looked up.
“What?”
“Listen.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“That’s just it.” But as she said it, she heard the scratching, slow steps, climbing the side of the hill, coming closer.
Donnie started to put the pick handle down, then he turned it like a club and started to ease his way over closer to Karyn, staying in a crouch as he did.
There was a snap of a twig, then another soft rustle of brush. Donnie held a finger up to his lips, though he didn’t have to; Karyn was frozen to the rocks where she leaned, and icy fingers had begun to slowly crawl up and down her spine.
* * * * *
Logan drove his game warden truck hard, hands pale-knuckled white on the wheel at the ten and two position, the light truck sliding through the outside gravel of some of the back road curves, straightening as he goosed the gas pedal while giving the road a straight-ahead stare. They were racing along the tall fence with green posts along Bill Hoel’s property, on the same road where earlier Esbeth had putted, when Tillis yelled, “Logan. Stop.”
“What?”
Up ahead the gate was being opened and a car was waiting to come out.
“Can you get this off the road? Back there, where we saw that stand of live oaks.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
Logan spun the truck in a U-turn and went back to the spot, eased the truck off the road at a long gravel lane. He went down a ways, then turned and came all the way back until his truck was nestled in the shadows of the trees, pressed as far over against the fence there as he could get.
“Now what?”
Tillis waved a hand for him to be quiet.
They sat and waited. In a minute, a car went zipping by.
“That was Eldon Watkins,” Logan said. “In his personal car. Why’d you have us hide from him?” He looked over at the expression on Tillis’ face, then said, “Oh, shit. It’s like that, is it?”
“I’m afraid so. We can go now,” Tillis said.
“How long have you suspected?”
“Almost from the first.”
* * * * *
Karyn moved closer to Donnie, and gripped his hand. She could feel a small tremor in him now, though he held the broken handle like a club firmly enough in the other hand. They both stared at the spot where they’d come over the lip of the ridge themselves moments ago.
They could clearly make out shuffling steps now. Donnie let go of her hand, gripped the oak handle with both hands, and moved closer to the rim, with the handle poised back and ready to strike.
Karyn wasn’t ready for the green ball cap on top of a white head of hair that popped over the edge, nor was Donnie.
“Good grief, Esbeth, you scared me out of a year’s growth,” Karyn said, as soon as she recognized her.
“What about me?” Esbeth puffed. “I lost at least a year of retirement time by climbing up here.”
“No one made you. You shouldn’t even be here.” Donnie lowered the handle and glared at her.
Esbeth stood huffing, and looked around at the metal detector lying on the ground, and at where Donnie had dug his random holes. “So this is where the famous diamond mine was,” she said.
“What do you know about that?” Donnie was as defensive as Karyn had heard him so far.
“I know there never was a diamond mine. Old Bill Hoel salted an area, probably right where we stand, and all to fool Old Hank Spurlock.”
“That’s not true.”
“Let her talk, Donnie. Shouting her down doesn’t prove much, at least what you want to prove. Esbeth, you’re absolutely dripping. Can I get you some water?”
“It would save my life.”
Karyn got her one of the plastic bottles from the pack, and they waited while she drank almost half of it. Donnie sulked and waited.
When she lowered the bottle, she looked at Donnie and said, “In all likelihood, he gathered the diamonds back up and sold them back to where he got them—cheap industrial-grade stones for the most part, but enough to stir up interest and an increase in the value of his property—that is, until he decided not to sell after all. It’s all turned into some kind of cruel joke on the hopes of the Spurlocks for three generations.”
“That’s just lies,” Donnie shouted. “Why don’t you go back down where you came from? Why’re you up here bothering us, anyway?”
Esbeth glanced around. “I came, hoping to get you down off here before there really is a problem. But it looks like I’m too late for that.”
All Donnie’s anger washed from his face. He was looking past Esbeth, while Esbeth could see some of the men popping up on the far side of the rim.
Karyn reached for Donnie’s hand, and he seemed as eager for hers. He lowered the hand holding his makeshift club, and opened his fingers and let the broken wooden handle drop to the ground. Each of the more than a dozen men they could see held an automatic weapon, and their dark Latino faces looked eager for the chance to use them.
The one Karyn fixed on seemed to be the leader. He was closest to them, and appeared to direct the others into place. The men surrounding them slowly climbed over the lip of the rim and moved closer. The leader had a face to remember—the skin of it was as dark as the others, but looked like it had been pulled off his skull, crumpled like a piece of stiff paper, and then put back in place, badly. And he didn’t look happy.
He said something to the others. Karyn glanced at Donnie, then Esbeth. “Did you understand that?”
“I think they’re trying to decide what to do about us. He’s telling them not to shoot, yet.”
Karyn felt her own knees buckle, and she leaned against Donnie, and though he looked calm, she could feel him quivering now that she was against him.
Esbeth said something in halting Spanish, and the man with the wrinkled face tilted his head a quarter inch while he stared at her. Then he spoke to the others.
“What’d you tell him?” Donnie whispered, though the guards were all close enough to hear even that by now.
“I said they have us for trespass, at worst. They ought to let Bill Hoel decide what to do. That one,” she indicated the man with the strange face, “is Estaban. He’s the leader of this group.”
Some of the men with guns argued back. It didn’t look good to Karyn. Something had the men stirred up, and one or two were waving their guns and had the look of people who would rather act than think.
“Basta,” Estaban yelled, and he waved and started off. The ring of other men formed around Donnie, Karyn, and Esbeth and started herding them off the top of the hill.
“Looks like we got lucky,” Esbeth said. “They’re going to wait.”
“How come I don’t feel lucky?” Donnie said.
Esbeth nodded. “Yeah, it’s only a relative kind of luck, at best, and is temporary, at worst.”
* * * * *
“There.”
“I see it. Is that Floyd’s car?”
“Yeah. Hold on a minute.” Tillis got out of Logan’s truck and walked along the side of the road where the fence led up to the corner of the property. He’d barely gone ten feet when he saw the grass bent the wrong way as Esbeth had. He waved for Logan to follow. He took off along the trail Esbeth had made following the one Donnie had tried to hide.
Logan pulled off the road and drove along the fence line while Tillis trudged ahead. Then Tillis paused and climbed back into the truck when Logan caught up with him. They drove through the brush until they spotted the dark green Dodge tucked off in the only slightly lighter green brush.
“There’s the little sonuva . . . pea thrasher’s car.”
Tillis took a deep breath and turned to Logan. Whatever he saw there discouraged him from speaking. He reached and opened the glove box, began to dig around.
“What’re you after?”
“This.” Tillis held up a box of 9mm ammo. “Do you have any spare clips for your piece in here?”
Logan blushed an even deeper red than he had a moment before. “There’s something we maybe better talk about.”
“I’m not sure how much time we have. And if you’ve got a spare civvies shirt, I’d get it on. I don’t think your uniform shirt’ll help where we’re going. I’ve seen armed men on the other side of the fence, and they seemed stirred up, ready to do something rash. Ditch what you can of the uniform, but you’d better bring along your sidearm.”
Logan tugged off his uniform shirt, which gave Tillis a twinge of jealousy at how fit Logan had stayed. He rummaged around in the extended cab of the truck and came up with a flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off as a ragged-edge short-sleeved shirt now. “This do?”
“Yeah, I don’t expect the fashion police, or anything. Look, see over there where the fence’s been cut and wired back into place. They’re inside.”
“Esbeth too?”
“Probably. She’s not the type to sit back and wait.” Tillis took his own gun out of the small of his back and jacked a shell into the chamber, eased the hammer back down, and flipped on the safety. He looked over at Logan. “What?”
“There’s . . . there’s something I should probably tell you.”
“Go ahead.”
“You know how I’ve hunted all my life?”
“Is this the short version?”
Logan frowned at him, and it was the kind of frown someone might make while passing a kidney stone. “The last time I went out hunting, I shot at a squirrel with a .22. I missed, hit the tree, but bark flew up and hit the squirrel. It didn’t kill it, but the squirrel came down the tree and limped off, holding one back leg in the air. Another squirrel came out and ran along beside it.”
“And?”
“I felt just awful. The whole thing made me feel mean. I went around for a week feeling mortally sad about the whole thing.”
Well, this was something. Tillis had seen Logan kill men, dress out deer as slick as anyone, and live the life of the outdoorsman’s outdoorsman. This wasn’t good, wasn’t good at all.
Logan took out his sidearm, a 9mm Browning, and held it flat in one hand, looking down at it as if wondering which end to hold.
At first, Tillis didn’t know where to begin. He glanced at the fence, where the door had been cut, then looked back at Logan. “I think there’s something probably admirable in all that, Logan. But this is about Karyn. You going to have trouble if someone’s trying to hurt her?”
Logan slid the gun back in his holster and looked up, not happy, or eager, but resigned. “Let’s go.”
Tillis was bending back the cut section of chain link to go through when Logan caught up. Tillis paused. “Let me ask you something. How can you feel that way about a squirrel, and act the way you do about Donnie?”
“The squirrel isn’t trying to screw my daughter.”
“I’ve got a late flash bulletin for you on that, Logan. Neither’s Donnie.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“She’s, in all likelihood, as virgin as the day she was born, and maybe not altogether happy about that. But the Spurlock boy hasn’t done a thing, yet. He’s trying to be honorable about it.”
“Why didn’t he say so?”
“Oh, come on, Logan. You know the kid. And you’re not all that easy for even me to talk to sometimes. He wouldn’t tell you if his pants were on fire. He only told me because he loosened up for a moment when he didn’t feel directly threatened.”
Logan didn’t say anything, but Tillis thought there was just a shade more hop to his step as he went through the gap in the fence and they both entered Old Bill Hoel’s spread by its new back door.
They’d only gone a few hundred yards, with Logan on point, when Logan signaled back for Tillis to stop. It was a bit too close to some of the times they’d shared in Korea. Tillis kept quiet, but eased up until he was beside Logan.
“Up there, ahead. I saw a flicker of something.” Logan nodded.
Tillis was watching a bush off to their left wiggle in the opposite direction of the small breeze.
“These guys have automatic weapons,” Tillis whispered. Now something was moving to the far right.
Logan and Tillis eased closer and turned so their backs were almost touching.
“There,” Logan whispered.
But he didn’t need to, since all of the men stood up at once, with their weapons pointed. There was at least a dozen of them, and Tillis quickly picked out Jorge’s angelic face leading them.
He heard, rather than saw, Logan’s hand shoot down for his sidearm.
Before Tillis could say, “Don’t,” one of the Latinos started firing his automatic weapon.
Tillis and Logan both dove for cover behind the nearest clump of rocks. Logan had his gun out and was firing before Tillis could grab his arm and stop him.
“Wait.” The shooting had stopped, and Jorge was yelling at his men.
A couple were impatient, or excited by the blood lust of the moment. They had crawled closer and began to shoot again.
Over the sound of shots and ricocheting bullets, Tillis could hear Jorge screaming at them. Logan rose enough to fire a couple shots back before Tillis could pull him back to the cover.
The shooting abruptly stopped. Logan was panting.
“For a guy who didn’t want to shoot anyone, you’re sure on the prod,” Tillis muttered.
“Why’re they shooting at us?”
“I told you, there’s a lot of tension here. These guards seemed all wound up, expectant.”
“But why?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe you can ask. Here comes their leader.”
Down the trail they’d been following walked Jorge, his automatic held low, but where he could swing it up and shoot if he had to. He stopped when he was a dozen feet from them. His eyes glittered at them in black intensity.
“Lo siento. The men were no supposed to shoot. I stop them. You trespass. Let’s go now. You follow me.” He waved for them to stand and go with him.
Logan stayed low, as did Tillis.
“You trust him?” Logan whispered.
Tillis was remembering the smile on the toe of Jorge’s boot. “No.”
He heard soft footsteps coming up the trail behind them now. “You keep an eye on him.” Tillis swung around to watch the other direction. He was just in time to see Gala come up the trail. She wore jeans, boots, and a silk blouse of the same dusty green as the cacti around them. Her right arm was down at her side, and she was holding her automatic pistol in it.
Gala looked down to where Tillis and Logan were huddled close to the outcropping of rock. “Well, don’t you two look cozy.”
She spoke in Spanish to Jorge, and a lot of it was too fast for Tillis. Jorge answered. Then they went back and forth a bit. What Tillis could make of it was that Gala was insisting Jorge let them go, that she’d escort them off the land. He claimed she was trespassing too and should put down her gun and come along.
Tillis turned to look at Jorge, to see how he was taking it, and was just in time to see his hands tighten on the gun and swing it up toward Gala.
She had her gun up and fired before Jorge had the automatic level. One of his eyes, the one that remained, registered surprise as the gun dropped and he tottered backward slowly, then fell.
Gala dropped to the ground and the shooting around them broke out in earnest this time.
She crawled up to them and shouted, “Back this way.”
Then she turned and took off low. They scrambled after her, keeping as close to the ground as they could.
After they’d gone a few yards along the path Gala had used getting to them, Tillis saw one of the guards tucked into a knot on the ground. They kept up with Gala until she was through the fence. She waved toward the truck, and Logan didn’t need detailed instructions. He got in and had it fired up while Gala and Tillis clambered in. He started to back it up, but Gala said, “No. Forward. Keep close to the fence. You can get through up that way.”
“Was that other guard . . .”
She interrupted Tillis. “He’ll have a headache, but he’s fine.”
“Can’t say as much for Jorge.”
“It was his call to make, and he made it,” Gala said.
“Karyn?” Logan asked.
“They have her, the other bunch, and Esbeth and Donnie too. But they’ll have this whole side sealed off now.”
“What’s got them so trigger-happy?”
“Keep driving up along this fence line, as fast as this truck’ll go. I’ll tell you when.” She glanced at Logan, then looked at Tillis. “This’s been building a long time. How much have you figured out?”
“Let me guess. There’re two factions out here, the guards and hit men loyal to Bill Hoel, and a whole population of formerly illegal Hispanics that have been cooped up for up for at least the last generation or two here on Hoel’s place. The guards can’t come from the families here, or they might have split loyalties. Sound close so far?”
Gala patted him on the leg, something Logan didn’t miss.
“That fence. It’s not there to keep people out, it’s there to keep people in,” Tillis said.
“Very good,” Gala said. “I’ll reward you later.”
Logan glanced at Gala. “Then what’s all this crap about diamonds?”
“It’s just about that,” Gala said, “a short-time ruse that was snuffed the minute it wasn’t needed.”
“Let’s see, you probably even found where the diamonds were bought and returned.” Tillis didn’t look at her; instead, he watched the green poles whiz by as the truck rattled along beside the fence line.
“Antwerp. The deal took almost all the spare cash Hoel had then. So I could find out just when it happened. The Hoels didn’t own the bank. Once I had the date, the travel came next, and tracing the tickets Bill bought led to Antwerp. It took over a week to find someone who remembered selling the diamonds, and their return a year later. Hoel took a bit of a loss on the deal, not counting the travel.”
“But finding a new source of labor’s what really put the ranch back right, isn’t it?”
Gala patted him on the thigh again. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Why isn’t the INS on it?” Logan asked.
“La Migra tried, and were stymied or bought off,” Gala said.
“You seem to’ve done a lot of digging for one person. Did you find out all that on your own?” Tillis asked.
“How much farther?” Logan interrupted.
“Better slow down, we’re almost to it.”
“To what?”
“Okay, stop here.”
The edge that ran along the fence line ran out in a few more feet. If they’d kept going, the truck would’ve shot over the edge of a cliff that led down to the lake.
“What now?” Logan looked at Gala.
“There’s a place along the other side of the cliff here where we can get in,” she said.
Logan didn’t move right away. “We should call for some kind of backup.”
“Who? The Rangers? Or Eldon? Think about it.” Tillis was already at the corner of the fence line, following Gala as she scrambled over the side.
Like Tillis, Gala kept her gun tucked at the small of her back. Tillis’ left jeans pocket bulged with spare ammo, but it didn’t slow him as he followed her careful steps down along the lip of the cliff, where they could only keep their footing by hanging onto the bottom of the fence. Logan brought up the rear this time, and Tillis didn’t hear as much huffing from him as he seemed to be making himself.
Another few feet along the fence line, Gala came to a spot where a shallow depression had been scooped out beneath the fence. A fine black rope was attached to the nearest post and coiled beside the hole.
Gala slipped through first, and Tillis followed. When he stood, he looked around, then examined the hole as Logan was coming through.
“That’s not new,” he said. “How long have you been expecting things to pop loose out here?”
“There’s been some tension building for years. As you were so clever to realize, there’s quite a Latino population here on the Hoel place, even though you don’t see but a few of them come in and out of town for supplies. Other than the handful of guards who’re loyal to Jorge and Estaban, which translates as loyalty to Bill, a lot of the others would like to have a normal life. But the ones born here can’t make too much of a beef, or Bill could make it tough on all the ones who don’t have citizenship.”
“The late Jorge, you should say,” Logan corrected. “I still want to know why someone official isn’t looking into this?”
“Someone is. Come on, we’d better get moving if we’re to see what’s happening to Karyn and the others.” She turned and hurried off down a trail she seemed to know well.
Tillis had been worried about Logan. But the shooting had seemed to help—the need for action over words. Being around Gala had helped too—her being so calm under pressure. Logan had accepted her now, in a way that had been harder for him before. Tillis glanced at Logan’s face—nothing but grim determination.
Let someone else worry now.