Ah. “But you’re separated now?”
“No!” He turned from the wheel, his ruddy face outraged. “What makes you think that?”
“I thought she lived out here.”
“Just temporarily.”
“Oh.” Sounds like you two need to have a conversation.
“She’s an artist, you know? She says she needs the light.”
Then they were coming into Taos, passing through an area of big-box stores, headed for the older section of galleries and inns. Dominick turned right and followed the signs to the Pueblo. “The inn’s owner was telling me that real adobe—not just plaster painted dark red—has to be resurfaced every year or so. And because the flat roofs get destroyed by standing water, that’s a major industry too.”
Was he thinking of changing professions?
“I think this is real adobe,” Fiona said, pointing at the buildings as they stopped at a gate house.
“Oh, I’m sure.”
“No photographs in the chapel.” The young man was stocky and solemn.
They assured him they would not take any.
There was an entrance fee of sixteen dollars per person, which shocked Fiona. Dominick handed over a credit card.
“Park over there.” The attendant handed an instruction sheet to Dominick, who passed it on to Fiona. She studied the rules governing their visit. They were advised to stay within the Pueblo walls and not wade in the water or pet any dogs.
“This is amazing,” Dominick said enthusiastically as they crossed the dusty ground. He gestured appreciatively at the adobe structures set in a horseshoe around the open plaza, dwellings recessed back into two or three stories. The doors and windows were rectangular cutouts, the walls punctuated by the round ends of vigas. The deep russet of the clay was broken occasionally by a green or turquoise wooden door frame. “Who knew there was something like this in America!”
Fiona tried to concentrate on the architecture and ignore her spreading feeling of desolation. Through the gray filter, all she could see was the grassless plaza, several skinny dogs lying in the dirt, and a sign that read, “Private—Keep Out!” “They don’t have running water or electricity here,” she told Dominick. “It’s against tribal regulations.”
“Thank God for that. Can you imagine TV antennas sticking out of these buildings?”
“No, but they’re people too, wanting what everyone has. They aren’t just here to look picturesque.”
“Maybe not, but they’re making a buck off it.” He patted the pocket where his wallet was, and Fiona laughed.
“Let’s try over there.” She pointed to an open doorway that had a sign, “Fry Bread,” taped outside. Tourists should be welcome.
As they stepped into the tiny room, dark in the corners where the sunlight did not reach, Fiona noticed that canned goods, strings of silver necklaces, and children’s handmade moccasins were also for sale. Near the door was an old-fashioned red metal Pepsi cooler. A woman in a navy cotton shift with a sailor collar looked up from a newspaper and smiled.
“Hi. Can we have two fry breads, please?” Fiona asked. She watched as the woman stood up and dropped twin circles of dough onto a griddle. The bread soon puffed into fragrant pillows. When the woman slid the bread onto white paper plates, she set a clear plastic teddy bear filled with honey in front of them. Fiona drizzled some over her bread, then took a bite. “Wonderful!”
The woman ducked her head as if pleased.
“You wouldn’t happen to know a Black Arrow family here, would you?”
The woman frowned. “No,” she said, drawing her answer out. “Not that name. I am Sylvia Black Hook.”
Black Hook, that was it. But Fiona could not think what to say next.
Dominick rescued her. “We’re looking for a Black Arrow or Black Hook who was on a flight from Taos to Denver last Sunday.”
Fiona winced at what had to come next.
“Clayton?”
“It could be,” Dominick said. “My daughter was on that plane, and she got upset when she found she hadn’t brought any money with her. He gave her ten dollars, which was a kind thing to do. I wanted to repay him.”
Fiona stared at him.
“Oh!” Sylvia Black Hook did not look at the bill he had placed on the counter. “I am pleased to know that he is generous.”
“He didn’t tell you about it?” Fiona asked, forgetting that it had probably not happened.
The faintest cloud crossed the woman’s face. “I have not heard from him yet. He went off to the university in Boulder. Jackson said Clayton got off the plane and found the bus for Boulder.”
“Who’s Jackson?” Fiona worked to keep her voice steady.
“Jackson works on that plane. It was Clayton’s first time to fly. I made sure that Jackson would be with him.” Her round face creased with remembered anxiety. “I told him, take the bus, take the bus, don’t go so far from the ground. But he said, ‘No, Ma, it’s time.’ ” She reached behind her and pointed to an 8 x 10 graduation photo, held by a red clothespin to a wire of photographs. “Clayton.”
“He’s so handsome,” Fiona said softly. With his clipped hair and engaging smile, Clayton looked like the kind of young man who would give ten dollars to a girl in need.
“He even got a scholarship!” Then she reached behind her and unpinned a smaller photo of two smiling young men. Fiona recognized the young one as Clayton. But the other, with his delicate mustache . . .
“Is that Jackson?” Keep calm. “And you saw him after Sunday’s flight?”
Mrs. Black Hook gave her a puzzled look.
“It’s just—he was on my flight down here Tuesday, and I thought I recognized him. Does he live around here?”
The woman smiled at her enthusiasm. “He lives off-Pueblo now. He and Amanda have a house on the Taos Pueblo Road.”
Fiona took a last bite of bread and turned to Dominick. She had found out what she wanted and needed to leave before she said something that would upset Clayton’s mother.
Dominick got the message. Moving toward the door, he gave Mrs. Black Hook a warm smile. “Good luck to your boy in college.”
“Thank you. But why doesn’t he call me?”
When they were out of earshot, Fiona exploded. “Shit, shit, shit! Why do these things have to happen? Life is hard enough for people, but when they try to do something to make it better, they get killed.”
“What are you talking about?” Dominick grabbed her arms tightly, and they faced off in the center of the square. “Why do you think he’s dead? You’re the most negative person I know. Maybe, just maybe, this Jackson did see Clayton get on the bus to college.”
“Maybe. Anyway, we have to find Jackson! He can tell us what happened to everyone.” The thought of an eyewitness, someone who could answer their questions, seemed like talking to someone who had died and come back with tales of the afterlife.
They started walking toward the parking area, but Dominick veered toward the adobe chapel, its steeple raised to the sky in a striking scalloped design. “Coral sent me a postcard of this. I want to take a look.”
Fiona tamped down her impatience and followed him. As they skirted the chapel, she saw they were heading for the small churchyard. At one end, sunken into the earth was a mission belfry, a metal bell still enclosed in the center of its cutout arch. A few of the graves had upright white slabs, but many more were simply marked by wooden crosses painted white, standing guard over mounds of earth. Here and there small blue flowers grew over them.
She and Dominick stared silently.
Chapter Thirty
FIONA REMEMBERED THAT Jackson’s name had been near the end of the alphabetical list. So when she saw Redhawk on a silver mailbox on the Taos Pueblo Road, she signaled Dominick to stop. The name had been neatly created by black vinyl letters, but the foundation of the small white house was covered with only a few scraggly shrubs that had succumbed to exhaustion.
She and Dominick climbed the worn brick stoop. When no one answered th
eir knock, Fiona looked in the front window and was surprised to see that the living room was filled with cardboard cartons instead of furniture. “It looks like they’re moving out.”
“Really?” Dominick, holding her shoulder for balance, looked in too. “Or moving in.”
“Do you usually put your name on the mailbox before you unpack?”
“You do if you want mail.”
“Oh. Maybe we could ask the neighbors if it’s Jackson’s house.”
They walked back to the Sentra. Across the road a very old man was sitting on a wooden chair in his yard. A worn panama hat was pulled down to his eyes and he sat upright, so still that Fiona feared he might be dead. A black dog, as bony as those on the reservation, lay at his feet. But when she and Dominick crossed the road, the dog’s ears went up and he began to whine.
The ancient man lifted his head slowly.
“Excuse me,” Fiona said, then remembered that in many cultures it was rude to ask direct questions. “We’re wondering where to find Jackson Redhawk, who works for Day Star Airlines.” Please make it Jackson.
The man looked across the road. “His car is not there.”
“No . . . No one came to the door.”
“She walks to work at the muffin shop.”
“The muffin shop. Thank you.” She motioned Dominick back to the car. As they drove away, she said, “How many muffin shops can there be? I don’t even know of one at home.”
“We have bagel shops.”
“True.” She glanced automatically in the side-view mirror. This time she saw a black sedan behind them. It looked the same as the one from Santa Fe. “Slow down! I want to get that car’s license. I think it’s the one that was following us before.”
Dominick made an amused sound, but slowed. The car kept its distance, too far away for her to decipher its plate.
She was so intent on the license that Fiona almost missed the small, shingled house with a pink sign, “Mandy’s Muffins.” Dominick had to brake abruptly and make a U-turn. He waited in the car while Fiona went in.
But it seemed to be the wrong muffin shop. There were only two young women, both Anglo, working behind the counter, surrounded by a fragrant pastry cloud.
Fiona started to back out. They had no time to waste.
“Can’t we help you?” The blonde straightened up from restocking the case. She was taller and thinner than her coworker but had on the same gingham pink-checked smock.
“I don’t think so. But thanks.” The fry bread had settled into the pit of her stomach.
“Twenty-seven varieties,” the young woman teased, tossing her short clipped hair. “Mango pineapple to chocolate pecan chip. A muffin for every sign.”
Fiona grinned. “Actually, I was looking for a Mrs. Redhawk. But I think I’m in the wrong place.”
“Why?” The woman stepped around from behind the case. Beneath the smock she was wearing white capris.
“I don’t see anyone who looks like her.”
“What does she look like?”
Damn. “I’m not sure.”
“I guess you aren’t. I’m Amanda Redhawk.”
“You look so . . . young.” But it was fatal. Why had she assumed that Jackson’s wife had to be Native American? “I—actually, I was trying to locate your husband.”
“He’s working.” She was already less friendly.
Fiona damned herself for her stupidity. “I know. I mean, I know he works for the airline. Is he on a flight?”
“Why?” Cool blue eyes appraised her.
“I need to talk to him.” Close. You’re so close. Don’t blow it now. “I need to find out about something.”
“Who are you?”
Fiona knew she was losing it. “I just have to ask him one question.”
Amanda stepped back behind the counter. “I don’t have time to talk to noncustomers.”
“Okay, give me something. Pineapple mango. Listen, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m not from around here. Can’t we talk or something?”
“No.”
“It’s really important that I talk to Jackson.”
“But he doesn’t want to talk to you.”
Fiona felt her temper rising. “How do you know? You don’t even know who I am.”
Amanda Redhawk smiled at someone behind her. Although Fiona hadn’t heard the door, she realized other people must have come into the shop.
“Please. Will he be home later?”
“Not to you.” Her eyes shifted. “You here for your blueberry fix?” she teased someone else.
Die of heartburn. Fiona stormed out.
Dominick looked over and smiled as she climbed into the car. “You find out?”
“No. She wouldn’t talk to me.” She was too embarrassed to tell him what had happened. It was her own damn fault for making assumptions. Why did she have to pay for every last mistake? And yet—hadn’t Mandy or whoever she was overreacted? As soon as she knew Fiona was looking for Jackson, she had practically ordered her out of the shop. Not all my fault.
“We have to go to Eve’s. That neighbor knows more than she’s telling.”
“Okay, but we’ve still got to find Jackson!”
It was a silent ride until they turned onto Valverde, and Dominick said, “I can’t believe Eve’s living like this. In a slum!”
“This isn’t a slum. You’ve been doing pools in the Hamptons too long.”
YET COMPARED TO their home by the water in Patchogue, Dominick thought, this neighborhood was grim. Before he came out here, his image of Taos had been of a gracious artists’ colony, the kind of place to which Eve would aspire. Didn’t a lot of movie stars live around here? Another postcard Coral sent showed the interior of Kit Carson’s homestead. That was the type of place he had pictured Eve living in, a picturesque log or adobe house with azaleas and grass.
There was still no car in the driveway, but he went up the wooden stairs again. He knocked, then poked at the chile ristra. It was not doing well.
Nobody came to the door and it was still locked, so he turned and moved across the yard to the house next door. It was a dull brick square, smaller than normal but without the charm of a playhouse.
The woman he had spoken to last night opened the door so quickly that she might have been waiting for him. Today she was wearing a cotton housedress with turquoise and gold cattle-branding symbols printed on brown. She had poor people’s hair, straggly and already turning gray.
Dominick smiled at her. “I’m back with more questions.”
She grinned back and held open the metal screen door.
The inside of the house was as depressing as the yard, mostly overstuffed furniture under bedspreads. He identified the smell as collard greens and bacon. “You said Eve didn’t leave you a phone number where you could reach her,” he began.
“No, but I may know where she’s staying,” she hinted. “I’m the one who told her about the place.”
Why didn’t you tell me this last night?
“I stayed there once, before I was married.” She winked at him. “When I was still a dish.”
A dish of what? “You mean in Puerto Vallarta?”
She nodded her raggedy gray-brown head.
Last night he had been jet-lagged. Today he knew what to do. “I wanted to give you something for taking care of the cat.” He extracted his wallet from his jeans and removed two twenties. “Buy him a treat.”
The woman grinned confidingly. “I wasn’t sure I should tell you, but since you’re family and all . . . ” She palmed the money. “It’s called Casa del Dega.”
“Casa del Dega. You wouldn’t happen to have a phone number?”
“Sure! I still got the folder.”
She moved back into the dimness and reappeared holding a creased brochure, white lines where it had been unfolded and refolded many times. Dominick looked at the photos of a small and charming hacienda. The woman wouldn’t let him keep the brochure, of course, but he knew he could get the number from Siri.
“You’re sure she’s coming back after next week?”
“Sure I’m sure. She’s got to get back to her job.”
Her job? What was she talking about? “What kind of job?”
“Over at that Honda dealer. Secretary stuff, I think.”
He sat frozen on the faded couch. Admit it. Eve isn’t coming back.
When she had returned from her artists’ residency in June, she arrived at Islip-MacArthur looking like a waif—skinny in black jeans and a black leather jacket, her long scraggly hair dyed a deep maroon, and those ridiculous emerald contact lenses. But Coral had scolded her for having three earring holes in each lobe. “That’s so yesterday, Mom. Nobody does three holes anymore.”
“They do in Taos, honey chile.”
Eve had checked through two large paintings—“So that I can show you guys what I’ve been doing”—and brought a small carry-on filled with presents for Coral: a turquoise and silver bracelet, tooled cowboy boots, a pottery woman covered with children that Eve said was called a “storyteller.” She had brought Dominick a silver bolo tie clasp in the shape of a coyote’s head, something he could not imagine putting around his neck.
It turned out the paintings had actually made the trip so she could leave them with her gallery in Sag Harbor.
After they had made vigorous love—at least that hadn’t changed—he’d asked, “What about your stuff? Are you having it shipped?”
“My stuff?”
“Your clothes and art supplies. I know you have more than you brought!”
“Oh. My stuff.” She rolled away from him then and stared at the ceiling. “It’s in Taos. In a house.”
“In a house?”
She had given a kick with one leg, as if annoyed she had to spell it out. “I’m going back next week for a little while longer. I’m not finished out there yet. And I want Coral to come for a visit while I’m still living there.”
He never should have let Coral go.
Back in the Sentra he took out his phone and requested the number for Casa del Dega. A moment later it was ringing.
A voice answered in Spanish, a language he knew from the day laborers he hired for big jobs.
“Hola? I’m looking for a guest, a woman named Eve.” He hesitated. What last name would she use? “A woman with long reddish hair? From New Mexico?”
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