7:21 A.M.
The phone woke me, but when I fumbled the receiver to my ear, I heard only a dial tone. As soon as I replaced it, the ringing sounded again and I identified it for what it was: the call of a mockingbird, probably perched in the leathery-leaved manzanita bushes that crowded up against the cabin walls. Now it segued into more of its repertoire, the shrill whistle Mr. Easley used to call his little terrier.
The bed felt empty and cold without Hy there, more so because I still carried the tactile memory of his hands and body on mine. I reached tentatively outside the covers, found the air was frigid; I’d neglected to turn up the heat when I returned late last night from dropping him at Newell. After lying there for around ten minutes more, I rushed to make coffee and get into the shower. Then I dressed except for my shoes, grabbed a cup and took it back to bed to sip while I made my morning calls.
First the Cattleman’s Cafe. Angela, the waitress, answered. When I asked for Jimmy, she said, “He ain’t here, and I’m havin’ a devil of a time findin’ a replacement cook to help me get the breakfasts out. Who’s this?”
“Sharon… Ripinsky. He was supposed to show my husband and me a house last night. His truck was there, but we didn’t see him.”
“Oh, shit. What’s he got himself into now?”
“To tell you the truth, we were kind of worried. That remark he made about him or a couple of other people getting whacked—”
“That was just some of Jimmy’s bullshit. Ain’t nobody gonna whack him, except for his bad cookin’.” Someone called out in the background. “Hold your horses, Al.” To me she added, “This was the house off County Road Thirty?”
“Right.”
“Well, one of the fellas who’s in here now lives out that way. I’ll ask him to swing by. Jimmy likes his sauce and he likes to wander. Ten to one he got drunk, forgot all about you folks, and took a stroll. I hope to Christ he isn’t laying around in a ditch someplace.”
Which was more or less what I’d predicted the sheriff’s deputies would have said, had we reported him missing.
After I hung up, I went over the events of the night before and remembered the 408 area code number on the piece of paper I’d found in Jimmy’s jacket. My cell phone didn’t work here in Sage Rock, either, but it displayed the 408 number, the last one I’d dialed. I called it again on the cabin’s phone and got a recording that said Agribusiness’s hours were from nine to five, Monday through Friday. The firm’s name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
It was too early to call most people on a Sunday, but at least one individual on my mental list was used to me bothering him at odd hours. I dialed Mick’s condo, heard Keim groan at the sound of my voice.
“It’s her,” she said to my nephew.
“Okay, that’s it!” he exclaimed. “Let’s order the T-shirts tomorrow. What d’you think? Ten dozen?”
“Try a hundred dozen.” Keim’s voice was muffled now, as if she’d handed him the receiver and put a pillow over her head.
“Where the hell are you?” Mick growled at me. “Some time warp?”
“Nope. Those checks I asked you to run—”
“Sorry, I was working overtime on that case Ted assigned to me. One of Glenn Solomon’s. He—Glenn—is upset you’re not handling it personally.”
“When you talk to him, tell him I’ll take him to lunch and explain when I get back. But those checks for me—can you run them today?”
“Sure, if you want Sweet Charlotte here to kill me. We’ve got plans.”
“Tell her I’ll make it up to the two of you—dinner at whatever the new hot spot is.”
“Deal.” An appeal to Mick was sure to succeed if it involved food.
“Run them after you make a couple of more-important checks. I’ll give you the details on those.”
“But you won’t tell me why you need them done.”
“What does that mean?”
“Mom called. I had to learn from her that you’re adopted. You could’ve let me in on the secret yourself.”
“I’m sorry. I should have, but I thought you had enough to handle, what with Pa dying.”
“And I thought you’d agreed a long time ago to treat me like a grownup.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Well, you’d better be. And you’d better tell me the whole story when you get back to town. Now what about these checks?”
“I need more information on Jimmy D. Bearpaw. Exactly who he is. What’s his role in the Modoc Tribal Council? Does he have a criminal record? Where was he born? If not in Modoc County, when did he come here? And anything else you can turn up.”
“Check.”
“Next I need information on a town up here that turned into a ghost town in the fifties: Cinder Cone. Who lived there, when they left, who the land belonged to before it was bought by the Department of the Interior.”
“I’ll see what I can find, call you back this afternoon.”
“Thanks, Mick.”
It was an hour later in Boise. I called the Blackhawk house, got Robin. “You still in Modoc County?” she asked.
“Yes. How’s Saskia?”
“Better. She’s having moments of lucidity, and last night she recognized me. When’re you coming back?”
“As soon as I can. Is Darcy okay?”
“Darce is… Darce.”
Which meant he was still obsessing. “Have the police made any headway on the case?”
“Not that they’re willing to discuss with me.”
“Maybe I should talk with them. I speak their language.”
“Well, if you do, call Detective Castner. Willson doesn’t like private investigators, but he’s impressed with you because you were written up in People.”
The average American constantly amazes me: you can do a thousand good deeds, plus discover the cure for cancer, but nobody’s impressed unless you get your face in a magazine or on TV.
“I’ll try that. Robin, does the name Cinder Cone mean anything to you?”
“No. What is it?”
“Just a town. When Saskia’s able to answer questions, you might ask her about it.”
“Why don’t you come ask her yourself? She’s going to want to see you.”
“And I want to see her. Let me wrap up things here, and I’ll be there.”
I ended the call, tried Detective Castner, left a message. Then I took another cup of coffee out onto the porch to sit in the warming sun. A woodpecker was tapping industriously at a nearby ponderosa pine; I wondered how such a small bird could make so much of a racket. The tree’s butterscotch scent put me in mind of food—
The phone rang. I went inside and picked up. Uncle Jim. “You’ve been chatting up a storm this morning,” he said.
“And you must’ve remembered something about that town.”
“You bet I have: an argument between Fenella and Katie. I’m getting old for sure, otherwise I’d’ve remembered right off the bat. It was the only time I ever heard them fight.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Was the year Kennedy was shot. August or September. I’d stopped by the house to see Andy. He was in the garage, as usual, and to get there I had to pass under the kitchen window. Fenella and Katie were in there, talking loud. Katie was telling Fenella it wasn’t right to take the money, even if it was for somebody else. And Fenella said yes, it was right, considering what the girl had gone through.”
“What girl?”
“Neither of them named her. Anyway, Katie told Fenella, ‘It’s never right, not under those circumstances.’ And Fenella really got mad then. She said, ‘If you’d been at Cinder Cone, you’d think differently.’ But when Katie asked her what Cinder Cone was, Fenella got quiet, told her to forget she ever mentioned it. Your mother said Fenella was keeping too many secrets, and she and Andy were sick and tired of it. Then Fenella stormed out of the house and didn’t come back till Thanksgiving, when your folks gave her a very chilly reception.” He paused. “Sharon, whatever this town was to Fenella, it’s important. Like I said, it was the one and only time I heard her and Katie go at it that way.”
It wasn’t right to take the money, even if it was for somebody else.
I remembered the deposits into Fenella’s bank account and the checks in the same amount written to Saskia Hunter. Checks whose dates roughly coincided with the start of a new college semester. My aunt had put my birth mother through school—using someone else’s money.
If you’d been at Cinder Cone, you’d think differently.
Something bad had happened in that little town—something involving Fenella and Saskia.
Katie said, “It’s never right, not under those circumstances.”
Not right under what circumstances?
Blackmail?
Fenella was blackmailing someone over what happened at Cinder Cone?
Who?
But Fenella, a blackmailer? Saskia, a willing recipient of the proceeds? No, it wasn’t right.
If you’d been at Cinder Cone, you’d think differently.
Maybe I would.
9:47 A.M.
The Modoc Tribal Council’s storefront was open, and a youngish man in a cowboy hat with a long feather plume and a silver band was hunched over a laptop at the desk. When I asked for Jordan Stump, he said, “Not here today. He had to drive his granddaughter and her kids to Alturas.”
So she’d decided to leave her abusive husband after all.
“I’m Carleton Westley,” the man added. “Can I help you with something?”
I explained that Stump had volunteered to ask about my relatives, and Carleton Westley said, “Oh, yeah, he left a note for you.” He rummaged through the papers on the desk and held it out to me.
As I’d expected, the note said no one knew of any Tendoys in the area. I pocketed it and got down to the real reason I was there. “Do you know Jimmy D. Bearpaw?”
“Sure, everybody does. You looking for him?”
“Yes. He was supposed to show my husband and me his house off County Road Thirty last night, but he never turned up. Have you seen him?”
“Not since the last time I had lunch at the café, maybe two days ago.”
“We’re kind of worried about him.”
“How come? Jimmy ain’t terribly reliable; he probably forgot.”
“That’s what Angela said, but yesterday Jimmy was talking about some woman lawyer who almost got killed. He said he, you, and Jordan Stump might be next.”
“Oh, horseshit! Excuse me, ma’am. But what does he think? Some developer in a suit’s gonna show up here and take us all out with an Uzi? That was an accident, what happened to Mrs. Blackhawk.”
“Maybe not.”
Westley frowned at me. “Don’t tell me you’re like Jimmy, seeing a conspiracy behind every tree.”
I shrugged.
“Jimmy’s problem is he gets too many channels on his satellite dish. Did Jordan look scared? Do I? Hell, no. We’re not important enough to kill. If that developer’s got a murderous side, he’ll go after our backers—if he can even find out who they are. And I don’t see how that’s possible, since we can’t. Besides, you know what? We’re gonna lose the friggin’ suit. Modocs always get the short end of the stick.”
“Whose idea was it to sue?”
Carleton Westley pushed back his chair and propped imitation snakeskin boots on the corner of the desk. “Jimmy’s, of course. Like everything else.”
“What else?”
“Well, who’d you think was behind the Modocs coming back here? Jimmy. Who sent the letters asking people like Jordan and me to move all the way from Oklahoma? Jimmy. You know why I came?”
“Why?”
“Because Jimmy said land was cheap here. I thought I’d buy me a ranch, raise some cattle. The tribal council promised to help out with loans, that kind of thing.” His mouth twisted in disgust.
“So what happened?”
“Until he put the rest of us to work, the tribal council was Jimmy D. Period. He don’t know nothing about loans. Plus this is California. Land’s cheap here in the north counties compared to other parts of the state, but it’s still way too expensive. So now I’m doing the same thing I did in Oklahoma, which is pretty much anything anybody’ll hire me for. This month it’s driving the tow truck for Vern’s Garage.”
“You going to stay?”
“Who knows? Being here on my ancestors’ land kind of appeals to me, even though I don’t know much about the Modocs yet. For a while I thought things’d get better after that resort went in—that it’d create jobs for us. But then Jimmy had to go and decide to sue the developer. We’re gonna lose, and not a single Modoc’ll ever be hired there.”
“Saskia Blackhawk’s got a good reputation as an attorney. Maybe you’ll win.”
“Our luck, she’ll die on account of this accident, and we’ll never even go to court. Anyway, she probably lied about our chances. You know how it goes: lawyers, developers, politicians. Indian or not, they’re all alike. Lie to us every day of the week.”
Jimmy D still hadn’t surfaced by the end of the lunch shift, and the man Angela had sent to the house off County Road Thirty reported that his truck was gone. “I’m worried,” the waitress told me, “and I suppose I oughta go to the sheriff, but if Jimmy’s just off on one of his binges, he’ll have my ass when he comes back and finds out I’ve sicced the law on him. Besides, the deputy’d probably laugh me outta the substation.”
“Why? A missing man isn’t a laughing matter.”
“Well, Jimmy likes his whiskey, and he’s been known to drop outta sight before.”
“All the same, somebody should do something about this.”
“I’ll think on it. I don’t want to cross Jimmy. He’s mean as a snake and twice as poisonous.”
The phone was ringing when I got back to the cabin. Mick, with the results of his checks.
“Pretty slim pickings, Shar. Sunday’s a bad day for this kind of thing; I can’t get hold of most of my contacts.”
“Well, give me what you have.”
“Bearpaw was born June seventh, 1946, in Alturas. Parents were Vida Warren and Travis Bearpaw. County property records show they owned land on Sky Road.”
I unfolded my map and began looking for it. “Go on.”
“The only other record for the parents is their death certificates—Travis in Alturas, December of ’eighty-seven, Vida in Salinas, August of ’ninety-two.”
I placed my finger on Sky Road; it wasn’t far from Cinder Cone. “What about a criminal record for Jimmy?”
“It exists, but isn’t much of one. I asked your friend Adah at SFPD to run his name through CJIS. Mostly it’s DUIs and D and Ds. Did some time in Monterey County jail for petty theft in ’ninety-one. I checked property records down there—nothing. He’s owned the café up there since ’ninety-two.”
“No marriages or divorces?”
“None that I could find.”
“So we don’t know if he’s got children.”
“Uh-uh. And I drew another blank on that town, Cinder Cone. It doesn’t show on any maps, past or present.”
I sighed. “It was only a wide spot, and not much of one at that.”
“Anything else you need?”
“A lot, but nothing you can give me.”
I was back at the café when it reopened for dinner. “Still no Jimmy?” I asked Angela.
“No, and business is falling off because of that damn Harry’s cooking. Most Sundays, the old folks’re pouring in here right away for their early-bird dinners.” She held up the carafe of coffee, looked questioningly at me.
I shook my head. “I’ve been thinking—maybe I can get a line on Jimmy for you.”
“Oh yeah? How?”
“Well, I used to know this cop, and he told me that the key to finding a missing person is usually in his background. Have you known Jimmy long?”
“Most of my life. We went to school together. Jimmy quit as soon as he could, joined the Navy. Was stationed someplace down south and stayed there a long time before he came back and bought the café with his mom’s life insurance money.”
“Where down south?”
She frowned. “I’m not sure. Maybe one of his mom’s old cronies could tell you. After she left old man Bearpaw—he was a worse drunk than Jimmy—she moved down there to be near him.”
Salinas area, then.
“Was Jimmy in the Navy the whole time he was away?”
“No. After he got out he had a lot of different jobs. Commercial fishing. That he liked till he wrecked his back and had to quit. And he worked for some company that did soil testing for farmers. I guess he must’ve been a fry cook, too. How else would he’ve learned?”
“That company that did the soil testing—do you know its name?”
She shook her head.
“Agribusiness? Does that ring a bell?”
“Not really. I don’t see how any of this is gonna help you find Jimmy.”
“Don’t worry. You’ve steered me in the right direction.”
Back at the cabin, I sat down on the porch facing the distant Warner Mountains with a glass of wine in hand and began isolating the facts that bothered me. Examined each one and began asking myself the questions that I should have asked others much earlier. Finally I went inside, took out the picture of Saskia, Fenella, and Austin and studied it.
Yes, there was the thing I’d overlooked.
Quickly I changed to a heavier sweater, grabbed my flight jacket as fortification against the encroaching night, and went to take another look at Cinder Cone.
7:18 P.M.
The dilapidated cluster of buildings was wrapped in shadow. I drove past the gas station and store and parked in the yard of the house beneath the pines. It crouched under their wind-whipped branches, lonely and forlorn. I got out of the truck, located the flashlight at the bottom of my purse, and went inside.
Immediately the feeling of wrongness that I’d experienced yesterday overwhelmed me; it was in the walls, the floors, the air. I stood still, shining my light around and trying to identify its source, but there was nothing to see here except the shell of what had once been a home. As I crossed to the bedroom, I tried to shake off the feeling. It wouldn’t shake.
The cardboard suitcase lay under the bed as I’d left it. I pulled it out, raised the lid, removed the hair comb. Neither plastic nor ivory, as I’d originally thought, but buffalo bone. Like the frame of the photograph Elwood Farmer had given me. I took it from my bag and compared the comb to the one Saskia wore in the photo; they were identical.
I put the comb and the picture into my bag and set out to search the house inch by inch, looking for a clue to its owner. Most of its contents had been trashed or stolen, but in a handful of receipts caught behind a kitchen drawer, I found one made out in July of 1956 by Alturas Hardware to Ray Hunter.
Hadn’t Austin referred to the favorite uncle whose home he and Saskia had fled as Ray? True, Hunter was a common surname, but given the presence of Saskia’s comb—and most likely her suitcase—in this house, it was where they’d come. Why hadn’t Austin told me he knew the area because of that visit? And what had happened to Ray Hunter?
Maybe Mr. Easley at the Wilderness Lodge would know.
I hurried out to the truck and started back the way I’d come, but when I passed the volcanic crater across the road from the old gas station, I remembered something I’d seen there the day before. I backed up, pulled the truck close to the crater, and got out, shining my flash around. Its beam highlighted the overgrown dumping ground at its base, and I made out the rusted nose of a truck protruding through the vegetation.
I went over and pushed the vegetation aside; the vines, scrub trees, and sagebrush were brittle, dead or dying. Miscellaneous debris was piled around the truck as if to hide it: boards, the remains of a mattress, an oil drum, some furnishings. Rodents had eaten the stuffing from the mattress, and the oil drum had corroded and leaked—which probably accounted for the vegetation dying. One more hazardous waste site on the planet.
I pulled some of the debris aside and clambered over to the buried truck. Its license plate was nearly unreadable, but it looked to be the type issued in California in the fifties. I squatted down, ran my finger over the raised date. 1958.
Pulling aside some boards, I went around to the driver’s door. It wouldn’t open, so I smashed the window, removed most of the glass, and leaned inside. On the steering column was a registration card encased in plastic, as owners used to display them. When I held the flash close to it, I could make out faded letters: RAYMOND T. HUNTER.
Why had he abandoned both his home and a truck that, from the looks of it, had then been relatively new?
Of course. He hadn’t.
I backed through the window and straightened. Looked around. My eyes moved to the volcanic dome looming some dozen feet above me. Its mouth wouldn’t be large enough to accommodate a vehicle, but…
I left the thicket and began climbing the side of the dome, leaning forward on the steep slope, hands braced on the ground. The newly risen moon’s light gleamed off patches of rippled obsidian among the rough basalt. I moved slowly, counting each step, breathing at a measured pace. Tried not to think of what I might find or what might have happened here over forty years ago. When I reached the crater’s rim I stood for a minute, taking in the clean night air. Then I shone the flashlight beam down inside.
A bottomless spiral of darkness. Black walls, glassy in some places, broken and eroded in others. Moss, lichen, small plants that thrived in dank places. And, farther down, a ledge protruding where part of the crater’s wall had caved in. On it I saw a flash of white. Bat droppings?
I lay down on my stomach and extended the arm with the light as far into the pit as I could. Stared at the ledge with squinted eyes. The white blur took on definition, as if a man were lying prone there.
Not a man, a skeleton. Perfectly formed because no predators could disturb it in its volcanic tomb.
I drew back too quickly and my hand smacked into a rock. The flashlight flew from my grip. I watched its beam flare off the crater’s walls as it bounced and clattered into the depths.
I was driving past the part of the lava beds where the formations stood the thickest when the truck’s left rear tire went flat. It had felt out of alignment all the way to Cinder Cone, and now I knew why. I braked, got out to check it. A nail was driven straight in and had caused a slow leak. Normally I’d have thought little of it, just changed the tire and gone on my way, but in light of my discovery and yesterday’s fan-belt incident, it struck me as suspicious.
I crouched next to the tire, looking around. The warped rock formations hulked against the moonlit sky; the chill wind whistled among them. My imagination conjured up a band of fleet-footed Modocs darting across the stubbled plain and vanishing as if the earth had swallowed them. I heard faint sounds as they signaled to their comrades with words and gestures I couldn’t comprehend. They were—
Don’t fantasize, McCone. Change the tire.
That wasn’t going to be easy to accomplish in this darkness, without a flashlight. I went down on one elbow and looked at the braces where the spare was supposed to ride. Empty. I scrambled into the pickup’s bed, saw the lockbox was too small to hold a tire. Checked it anyway for a can of that gunk that temporarily inflates one and plugs the leak. No quick fix here, just extra motor oil, spark plugs, miscellaneous parts. Pete Silvado had prepared for every emergency except this one.
Or had someone taken the tire? The same someone who had cut the fan belt and driven the nail in?
I slipped from the bed, watching and listening. Nothing moved except the wind. How far to Sage Rock? Ten miles or so—a long hike, but I’d walked farther. The moon’s light was strong enough to show the way. I took my flight jacket from the cab and shrugged it on, removed my wallet from my bag and stuck it in a pocket, leaving the bag on the seat. Then I unlocked the glove box and lifted out Hy’s .45. He’d left it with me because he’d be connecting to a commercial overseas flight at SFO and wouldn’t be able to take it along. It was heavy, unwieldy, but I maneuvered it into the jacket’s deep slash pocket. Much as I disliked carrying a gun I didn’t have a permit for, its weight was a comfort.
The road had once been paved, but now it was mainly dirt, pumice, and cinders. I could feel the latter through my shoes, hear them crunch. It was growing colder, the wind gathering strength. I kept to the side of the road, scanning the darkness for someone who might be hidden nearby. Listening for a footfall—
A whining noise, and then a stinging on my left ear. The shot boomed as I dove for the roadside ditch and burrowed deep into the tangled vegetation. Blood dribbled down my temple; the bullet had grazed the tip of my ear.
Jesus, another fraction of an inch and I’d’ve been dead, same as in Boise!
In the distance a man’s voice shouted something unintelligible. I burrowed deeper, hoping he hadn’t seen me go into the ditch. The man didn’t shout again, and for a while all I heard was the whistle of the wind among the rock formations. Then other sounds whose origins I couldn’t place filtered through: a rustling, a crunching. Coming closer.
The gun was useless. It was too dark and the shooter was probably out of range. I had to make a move quickly. But what? And to where?
The lava beds. The Modocs used the ones over by Tule Lake for survival. I can use these.
I began inching up the side of the ditch. The vines around me rustled, but that could have been caused by the wind. My head cleared the top and I took a look around. I couldn’t make out anyone, anything, except the twisted forms scattered across the barren plain.
The man yelled again. Again I couldn’t make out his words.
I pushed up, scrambled to my feet, and ran.
Another bullet whined, another shot boomed. Gone wide.
I dashed for a formation that was shaped like a gigantic hunchback, slipped around it, and took shelter, panting. The ground gleamed black and shiny; fissures stretched jaggedly in all directions. The man remained silent now. He was out there, stalking me.
One of the fissures zigzagged toward a huge outcropping—jagged hunks of rock hurled high against the sky. I crouched down, followed the crack. Touched the formation and found an arch—the mouth of a cave. I ducked inside.
Cold basalt walls and a sudden respite from the wind. I leaned beside the opening, aware of my rasping breath and the distant drip of water. At first the darkness was total, but gradually I made out details that were highlighted by moon rays coming through cracks in the cave’s ceiling: black blobs and dribbles on the walls where the lava had flowed and hardened; white calcium lace where water had dripped and evaporated; a tree root reaching down thirstily from above.
Another shout—close by.
Keep going. In as deep as you can.
The cave’s floor sloped steeply. An eroded column divided it like a pillar in a classic building. I slipped around into total darkness, moving with my hands outstretched like a blind woman. They touched smooth glass, rough rock, insubstantial and repellent things like slime and bats’ nests. The sound of dripping water came closer, receded. The ceiling sank lower, until I was crawling on my hands and knees. Then it rose again, but the walls narrowed and became a lava tube. I squeezed through its twists and turns.
The floor sloped uphill then, uneven and fissured. My foot lodged in a crack and I twisted my ankle. The blood on my cheek had caked, was sticky under the jacket’s collar; my ear throbbed painfully. The air was close and cold; the walls were rimed with tiny icicles.
One step. Another. Stop and listen for sounds. Step, step, listen. On and on for what seemed like hours—
A dead end.
No! I haven’t gone far enough.
I pawed frantically for an outlet. Solid rock wall. Dark subterranean trap, so dark I could feel it, hear it, smell it. Taste it, even. Now I knew what hell was like: not fire and brimstone, but complete, endless darkness.
Get a grip, go back, see if you can find another lava tube.
I retraced my steps, fighting back tears of rage and frustration. Then, to my right, I caught a faint glimmer of light. Turned that way, crawling over a two-foot obstruction, and followed this secondary tube to another dead end. Except here there was no ceiling.
I looked up. Stars. The moon. Fresh air. Freedom.
Relief made me lean limply against the cold rock. But not for long.
Where’s the shooter?
Gone by now, or keeping a vigil at the cave’s mouth. If he’d blundered inside, I’d’ve heard him. Better to surface now while I still had hours of darkness to protect me.
The wall was smooth and glassy. I took a few steps back, felt around till I found spaces that I could use as hand- and footholds. Started climbing.
A foot, two feet, slip back one. Two feet, three, four—slip all the way to the bottom.
I closed my eyes, trying to convert despair to anger. When I’d built enough heat, I used it as fuel to start climbing again.
Three feet, four feet, rest.
Five feet, six—and my head was level with the ground.
A little more. Slow and careful.
I shoved up, braced my arms on the hardscrabble earth. Rested again, gathering strength. Then I pushed off the wall behind me and rolled onto the surface.
A voice behind me said, “About time. I been waiting for you.”
The chill that took hold of me was colder than the wind. I raised up and slewed around—a cornered animal.
Jimmy D. Bearpaw stood over me, legs spread wide, a rifle trained on my head. He was grinning, as if somebody had just complimented him on his bacon and eggs.
“Didn’t count on me knowin’ these beds like the back of my hand, now, did you?” he said.
I didn’t say anything. Tensed, waiting. Feeling the weight of Hy’s .45 pulling at my pocket.
“Stand up,” Jimmy said.
I stood slowly, trying to counterbalance the gun. But Jimmy noticed. He reached forward, patted the pocket, snagged the .45’s butt. “You’re well prepared, I’ll give you that.”
I watched as he tucked my last hope into the waistband of his jeans. He was still grinning. I relaxed slightly. Asked, “Where’ve you been since last night?”
“Watching you.”
“Why’d you disappear from your house before we got there?”
“Idea was to separate you from your husband, but the two of you stuck like glue. I was kinda wasted, anyway, so when you left I knocked off for the night. Where is he, by the way?”
So he thought Hy was still here. “At the lodge, sick. We think it’s food poisoning.”
He frowned. “Not from my café.”
“Truck stop south on the highway. He was better when I left him, though, and by now he’ll be worried enough to call the sheriff.”
Jimmy shrugged, unconcerned. “What were you doin’ out at Cinder Cone?”
“Just poking around. I like ghost towns.”
“Bullshit. You’re a private dick, come up here from Frisco, and you got somebody real important interested in you. That wasn’t no sightseeing trip.”
“Who’s this somebody?”
“You can’t guess, I’m not tellin’.”
“Were you watching me at Cinder Cone?”
“Not up close.”
“Why not? You could’ve grabbed me there.”
“I got bad memories of the place. Figured I’d wait, snatch you along the road when the tire went.”
“You lived near Cinder Cone when you were a boy. And your father was an abusive drunk. No wonder you didn’t want to go close.”
His mouth twitched. “Somebody’s been tellin’ tales they oughtn’t’ve. I’m gonna kick Angela’s tail but good.”
“So what happens now? Were you hired to kill me?”
“Kill you?” His astonishment seemed genuine.
“You almost did a while ago.” I touched my ear, showed him the smear of blood on my neck and fingers.
“Oh, jeez, did I do that? I was just tryin’ to get you to stop, is all. You must’ve got in the way.”
“Yeah, I must’ve. Did I also get in the way in Boise?”
“Boise? Idaho?”
“Boise, Idaho. Saskia Blackhawk’s house. Upstairs, in the middle of the night. Three days ago.”
The moonlight accentuated his puzzled frown. “Blackhawk? Lady lawyer who was workin’ on our case till she got run over? What’s she got to do with you?”
“You didn’t break into her house and shoot at me?”
“Look, I ain’t been to Boise in, what? Ten years.”
“And you didn’t run her down?”
“Why the hell would I run over my own lawyer?”
“Jimmy, I honestly don’t know.”
“Well, I ain’t no killer. No way, not me!”
“So why all this skulking and chasing?”
“All I’m tryin’ to do is make a delivery.”
“A delivery?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
His truck was parked off the road about a mile away, tucked in under some scrub oaks. “You do the driving,” he said, and motioned me inside. When he was situated in the passenger’s seat, Hy’s .45 aimed at me, he handed me the keys.
“Where to?” I asked.
“House where you was last night. Don’t try any stupid driving tricks, okay? You do, I guarantee you’ll come out of it worse off than me.”
I started the truck, eased it into gear. “Is this important person who’s interested in me at the house?”
“Not yet. Be a while.”
“Where’s he coming from?”
Jimmy grinned and shook his head. “Did I say it was a he? Turn here, down this road. And don’t ask no more questions.”
“Here you go.” Jimmy D shoved me through the bedroom door. “You want something to eat or drink?”
“No.” The thought of either made me want to gag.
“Suit yourself, but I warn you: it’ll be hours before you’re let outta here.”
I didn’t reply.
“That door there, it goes into the bathroom. Water’s drinkable—”
“Oh, for God’s sake, it’s not as if you’re checking me in to the Four Seasons!”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
“Whatever. I’ll be right out there in the living room, so don’ get no ideas about tryin’ to escape.” He withdrew, locking the door behind him.
The bedroom was empty except for a square of stained and matted gold carpet. I avoided it, sat down on the dusty brown linoleum, my back against the wall. No way was I going to try to escape, even though I could easily have pried open the window. Not with Jimmy only yards away. He had the keys to the truck, two weapons, and was a lousy shot. I didn’t want to chance “getting in the way” of another of his bullets.
LISTENING…
“It isn’t right to take the money, even if it is for somebody else.”
“Yes, it’s right, considering what the girl went through.”
“It’s never right, not under those circumstances.”
“If you’d been at Cinder Cone, you’d think differently.”
Of course Ma wasn’t there—but were you, Fenella?
“Fenella was a relative of Saskia’s.”
“Distant, but she was very fond of her. I’ve always suspected she had a hand in your adoption. Kia hadn’t known her long, but she told me she knew she could always turn to her in an emergency.”
Did you, Saskia?
“In 1958 I was traveling around the country with a friend. We were both sick and tired of the Valley, and my father and I hadn’t been getting along. He wanted me to learn the family business so he could retire and ranch, but I couldn’t see myself traveling from office to office to check up on how the plant-tissue analyses were going.”
What family business, Austin?
“He worked for some company that did soil testing for farmers.”
Agribusiness, the name scrawled on the paper in Jimmy D’s?
Agribusiness, the name on the window of the agricultural consulting firm in the alley where Saskia was run down?
“We decided to skip Nevada and go to northern California, where Kia’s favorite uncle lived… but my father traced us, busted into his house a few days later. Kia wasn’t there, she’d gone to the store for some groceries. My father sent me home with his ranch foreman, said he’d take care of things. And… I went. I never even got to tell her good-bye.”
“Where my father’s concerned, I’ve never been a strong man.”
“I’ve known about the area for a long time, and a few years ago I heard that the lake and acreage were available for purchase from the Department of the Interior.… But now everything’s blocked by this damned lawsuit, and the Modocs’re being backed by a powerful consortium of environmentalists.… This… consortium has deep pockets, and Jimmy D’s burrowed into one of them. He’ll do anything they tell him to.”
“I’ve had a lot of years to think on the subject. A lot of time to plan for the day this might happen. So here’s what you’re gonna do: get off my ranch and leave my boy alone.”
I got off your ranch, Joseph, but I didn’t leave your boy alone.
And that was my big mistake.