“Why would anyone bother destroying old ruins?” Gault said.
“It must have something to do with the story Matt was after.”
“I already talked to Matt’s editor. He claims he doesn’t know what Matt was up to. It’s probably true. Matt always said, ’If you talk about your exclusive before it’s in print, it won’t be exclusive anymore.’ ”
******
Thank God for small favors, Wiley said to himself, as he listened in on the headset. He signaled Voss, who was perched at the top of the telephone pole, monitoring the conversation on a second headset after finishing their phone tap. The tap had been an added precaution, a backup for the high-tech bugs already planted at Gault Aviation, but worth its weight in gold, considering what Wiley was hearing at the moment.
“Are you still coming to Salt Lake?” Gault continued.
We’re already there, Wiley answered to himself. He and Voss were working out of a genuine phone company truck parked on 22nd West, the eastern perimeter of Salt Lake’s International Airport.
“As soon as I get my father settled in at home,” the Scott woman replied.
“Don’t be too long,” Gault said. “I’m about ready to start work on the Lady-A.”
“I won’t. Did everything go all right in Phoenix?”
“I had them double-check the dental records. It was Matt, all right.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I brought him home. That’s all that counts now.”
“I’ll call you as soon as I know when I’m arriving,” she said.
“I’ll look forward to it,” Gault answered.
The moment the line went dead, Wiley could hear Voss singing at the top of his lungs. “I hear you singin’ in the wires, I can hear you thru the whine.” The tune was barely recognizable as “The Wichita Lineman” and Wiley didn’t think it was particularly appropriate.
As soon as Voss hit the ground he stopped singing and said, “Shit! I told you we should stick to guns and not explosives.”
“Sure, Voss,” Wiley said. “We should have all listened to you.”
Wiley eyed his own hands with disgust. God how he hated digging in the dirt. It was no job for a professional with standards. If you don’t hold to your standards, you don’t get the desired results, he thought. His expertise was guns and that egomaniac up on the mesa had made him go outside his area of expertise and look what it had got them, a botched job. The Scott woman was still alive.
“You heard the bit about the helicopter, didn’t you?” Voss asked.
Wiley nodded. “That’s the Director for you. The man couldn’t leave well enough alone. He had to have one last look, a moment of triumph, before pushing the button. He blew that broad and her father right out of our kill zone.” Wiley shook his head in disgust. “All our hard work for nothing.”
Voss drew the new .357 their contact at the airport had supplied. “Maybe now we can really go to work. This baby’s still untested.”
Chapter 19
John Gault had just hung up the phone when his mechanic, Theron Christensen, entered the office. Christensen, unshaven, looked as tired as Gault felt. In fact, Gault suspected that his mechanic hadn’t shaved since Matt’s plane crashed. The mechanic was haunted by the thought that the crash had been his fault, that mechanical error had brought down the Cessna.
“1 saw you through the window talking on the phone,” Christensen said. “Was it something about Matt?”
Gault shook his head. “I was talking to the archaeologist I told you about. Now stop second-guessing yourself. We have work to do. As of now, I want you to start work on the Lady-A. I want her rebuilt and ready to fly as fast as you can do it.”
Christensen looked shocked. “For God’s sake, John. The Lady-A’s an old woman. Her engines will have to be completely overhauled. Do you have any idea how much that’s going to cost?”
“If anyone can make her young again, you can, Theron.”
“You’re not listening to me. Sure, Matt wanted to see her fly again. So do I. But—”
“Think about it, Theron. Think about bringing the Lady-A back to life.”
“I don’t know if I’m up to it,” he said doubtfully.
“You’re the best mechanic I know.”
“It’ll take me forever.”
“Hire help, then.”
“Jesus. You’re talking big money.” Shaking his head, Christensen began writing on a legal pad. “A hundred thousand dollars minimum, maybe more.”
Gault nodded. If rebuilding the Lady-A took every cent he possessed, so be it. He couldn’t take it with him, and there was no one to save it for now that Matt was gone.
“I’ll mortgage the house,” he said. “Sell it outright if I have to. The business too.”
Christensen put down his pencil. “These figures are rough. It could go to a hundred and twenty thousand to get the Lady-A airborne. More, if we have to fabricate some of our own parts.”
“We’re going to take Matt on one last flight, so do whatever it takes.”
“Even if I can bring her up to specs, we’ll need help to fly her. It’s sure as hell not a one-man job, and I’m no pilot.”
Gault nodded. In a pinch, one man could handle a B-24 if all its systems were working. But you couldn’t count on that in a bird as old as the Lady-A, “I’ve been thinking about that,” Gault said. “I’m going to invite the old crew to come along.” Those who are still alive, he added to himself.
“You’re all older than the Lady-A,” Christensen pointed out.
Gault shrugged.
The mechanic threw up his hands. “They can’t all be crazy like you.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Gault smiled, remembering Vic Campbell, his bombardier. Vic lived in Nevada and was the letter writer among the old crew, the professional journalist, the one who kept in touch with the others. He was the man to contact first.
Chapter 20
Vic Campbell, who hadn’t been drunk in years, was swaying so badly he lost his balance and spilled his drink.
“Shit!” Blaire Foster bellowed from the next bar stool. “You got that all over me. I’m going to smell like a drunk when I get back to work.”
“Sorry,” Campbell muttered. “My aim used to be better.”
As a deputy sheriff of Ellsworth, Nevada, Foster wasn’t a man to be messed with.
“Sorry,” Foster mocked. “Not as sorry as that rag you publish.”
“There was a time I could hit targets from twenty-five thousand feet.”
“Sure you did, old-timer.”
Campbell opened his mouth to explain, then thought better of it. Nobody, especially an asshole like Foster, was interested in ancient history. Or an old fart who still thought of himself as a bombardier in his more nostalgic moments. An old fart who’d kept his old uniform until last year, when he made the mistake of trying it on.
Of course, he’d be losing weight soon enough, considering the doc’s prognosis, delivered only an hour ago, of terminal cancer. Until that moment, Campbell—survivor of twenty-five wartime missions, more than half of them over Germany without fighter cover—had thought he’d live forever.
Campbell smiled at his own stupidity.
“What’s so fuckin’ funny?” Foster demanded.
The fact that he’d been coming to a place like the Crazy Horse Bar for twenty years, Campbell answered to himself. His only excuse was location. The Crazy Horse was next door to his newspaper, the Ellsworth Gazette.
“I said I was sorry,” Campbell repeated, concentrating to keep from slurring his words.
“You love pissin’ on the rest of us, don’t you? You and your kind, Mr. Editor. You think you’re better than us. To you, me and my friends are just hick cops.”
Without warning, the deputy punched Campbell in the stomach. Air exploded from his lungs. He couldn’t catch his breath. His knees gave way, and he collapsed onto the barroom floor.
“Too bad you don’t have any witnesses,”
Foster sneered, looking around the Crazy Horse to make his point, that everybody present had damn well better mind their own business. “Print anything about me and I’ll finish the job.”
Whiskey rushed up Campbell’s throat. He swallowed it down again and sat up. He’d been wanting to print the truth about Foster for a long time. The man was the worst kind of bully, one in a position of power.
Campbell grabbed the bar with both hands and pulled himself to his feet. To hell with Foster. He was probably as drunk as Campbell was.
Which isn’t drunk enough, Campbell decided. He intended to drink himself into oblivion. It was either that or cry on his ex-wife’s shoulder. Certainly Frieda would do her best to comfort him. She always did. But Campbell didn’t want her seeing him this way, wallowing in self-pity. During the war, getting drunk was the only time you weren’t afraid.
He took a deep, painful breath.
“Hey, Vic,” Foster said, “why don’t I buy you a beer? Or are you too good to drink with the likes of me?”
Campbell looked around the bar. He knew most of the faces. Probably they hated Foster as much as he did, but they’d never back anyone against the deputy. Even Bob, the bartender, was looking the other way, pretending to be busy.
“I was drinking straight whiskey,” Campbell said, “but what the hell! I might as well switch to boilermakers.”
“That’s the spirit.” Foster pounded him on the back hard enough to hurt. “Come on, Bob, pour a couple of shots to go with the beer.”
Bob poured Wild Turkey, which Campbell had been drinking for the past hour.
“That’s too rich for my blood,” Foster said.
Campbell nodded at the bartender. “Put it on my tab.”
Foster shook his head. “I don’t know. People might think you’re trying to bribe me.”
“Shee-yit,” Campbell said, words forming inside his head and coming out of his mouth against his better judgment, “everybody in town knows you come cheaper than that.”
Foster’s eyes changed from mean to crazy.
Backing up, Campbell glanced side to side, looking for a weapon. Foster didn’t need one. He had his fists.
Foster offered his chin. “Go on. Take the first shot. That’ll make it self-defense when I beat the shit out of you.”
To hell with caution, Campbell told himself. He was a dead man anyway, and he’d always wanted to take a swing at Foster.
The punch took the deputy by surprise, catching him on the cheekbone.
The next thing Campbell knew, he was in an ambulance on the way to the emergency room.
Chapter 21
Once Nick got her father settled at his house in Albuquerque, she had to endure one of his well-worn harangues on the incompetence of modern medicine.
“You’d think they could come up with something better than a plaster cast in this day and age,” he said. “This thing weighs a ton.”
“It’s a bad break.”
“Your driving didn’t help it any.”
“If I thought you meant that,” she said with a smile, “I’d break your other arm.”
The drive out of Ophir had been hellish. God knows what kind of pain Elliot must have endured before they got off the washboard road and onto a decent highway. All the while, he just sat there, belted in, teeth clenched, saying nothing. Then he’d had to wait in Mescalero while she reported the landslide to the authorities and endured their red tape.
Nick felt Elliot’s forehead but couldn’t tell if he was feverish or not. Certainly, he was full of enough antibiotics to take care of most complications. In addition, they’d both gotten tetanus boosters.
“Don’t fuss over me,” Elliot said.
“The doctor said you should get some sleep.”
“I set my own broken arm once on a dig in southern Utah, and did a better job of it too.”
Nick sighed. “You’re full of painkillers, among other things.”
“Is that your way of saying I’m out of my head?”
“You’ll feel better when you’ve gotten some sleep.”
“I’ll feel better when you’ve given up airplanes and gotten yourself tenure somewhere.”
“That refrain is getting tiresome. Could you humor me just this once?”
Elliot closed his eyes and pretended to snore. That was more like him, she thought. When his eyes opened again, they looked slightly glazed. Thank God. Maybe the painkillers were taking hold.
“I’ll go fix something we can eat for dinner when you wake up.”
“No you don’t, Nick. You have work to do.”
“You’re not listening, Dad. I’m nursing you for a while.”
“The Benson sisters will get you tenure.”
“They can wait for a while.”
Elliot smiled mischievously. “Did I forget to tell you that I found another hatbox in the basement at the university? It’s labeled the same way as the others, in Lillian Benson’s own hand.”
“What’s in it?”
“I took a quick peek, that’s all.” He was speaking more slowly now. “It’s mostly newspaper clippings, some from the Ophir Post and the Bisbee Sentinel.”
“And?”
“I know better than to rain on a colleague’s parade. The box is sitting on the desk in my office, its contents unread, by me at least.”
******
The moment Nick entered her father’s office she felt like a child again. Elliot’s rank and reputation could have commandeered something more grand, but he didn’t care about trappings. As a result, his office was little more than a glorified cubicle crowded with shelves stacked with artifacts.
His desktop was relatively clean, with only a beautiful conical Anasazi basket made from willow so tightly woven that it would hold water, sharing space with Lillian Benson’s hatbox. Classic Basketmaker II period, Nick thought as she reverently moved the fifteen-hundred-year-old basket back into its humidity-controlled glass case. She was touched that Elliot had rushed off to Ophir, leaving the precious artifact exposed.
She eagerly slid off the string holding the box together and lifted the lid. Just as Elliot had promised, Lillian had been a collector of newspaper clippings.
The first few stories out of the hatbox, each handled with care, were routine and didn’t tell Nick anything she didn’t know already.
Then she came across a story that started her pulse racing. One week after the 1922 fire that destroyed his town, Ophir’s sheriff, Scott Robert Manlove, asked for help in seeking the whereabouts of Pearl Benson. His plea had been published in the Bisbee Sentinel, twenty miles away. Pearl hadn’t been seen since the night of the fire, though her sister, Lillian, had assured friends that they’d both escaped unhurt from their burning house. “Pearl seemed dazed,” her sister was quoted as saying, “and may have wandered off into the desert.”
Nick checked her notes. Lillian’s diaries covered the period up to 1934, but Pearl’s had stopped in 1922. Yet Lillian had said long after the fire, “But what we miss most are the few treasures mother passed on to us.” Nick had quoted that passage to Elliot when she’d shown him the buttonhook. Surely that meant that Pearl was alive after the destruction of Ophir? In fact, Lillian’s habit of saying “we” had led Nick to presume that both sisters were still alive until 1934, at the very least.
Strange, Nick thought, she certainly didn’t remember Lillian mentioning even a temporary disappearance on Pearl’s part. She checked her notes one more time. Nothing. Diary life had gone on after the fire, a steady stream of comments on day-today events.
Nick had always assumed that Pearl was the younger sister, although there’d been no facts in the diaries to confirm her belief. Certainly the writing had led Nick to assume that Lillian was the stronger of the two, the more mature woman. So Nick had concluded that Pearl had outlived her sister. For that matter, she’d assumed that it had been Pearl who had donated the diaries to the University of New Mexico.
Eventually, Nick would have to go over the diaries again t
o make certain she’d hadn’t missed some obscure reference to Pearl. Perhaps it had been too painful for Lillian to mention.
Nick continued reading until she’d gone through all of the yellowed newspaper clippings. According to the last one, Pearl was never found by the sheriff, or questioned. At one point, there was some speculation that Lillian had been mistaken about her sister’s survival of the fire.
Nick shook her head at that. Lillian’s diaries were proof that Pearl had survived, so what kind of reporter would write such crap? No doubt, the same kind who were writing for the tabloids these days.
Nick read every clipping, but no answers about Pearl were to be had. Frustrated, Nick began pacing her father’s office. Had Pearl Benson been an arsonist? Had Lillian known about it and protected her?
Feeling suddenly weary, Nick settled into her father’s chair and leaned back. Staring at the mementos that covered his office walls never failed to evoke memories of childhood. This office had been Nick’s sanctuary, her destination each time she ran away from home. She didn’t always reach it, but that had never stopped her from attempting the five-mile trek.
Had the Benson sisters found such a comforting sanctuary after the fire? The diaries really gave no clue.
Chances were, Nick might never discover the answer to that or any of the other puzzles surrounding the Bensons and their pioneer life.
Ophir, too, might remain a mystery. She might never know what really happened, whether or not the cliff had come down on its own or had help. And what about the old man fenced in out there in the desert? Or the black helicopters? Would she ever have answers?
Probably not, she decided. But then archaeology was no different. It was a hunt for answers that usually came down to educated guesses. Well, by God, that was her job, and she’d better get to it.
Nick left the office and walked out into Albuquerque’s 100-degree afternoon. Ten minutes later she was at an air-conditioned carrel in the stacks of the university library in pursuit of the Bensons. But where to begin? Women’s lives had been so circumscribed in the Benson’s time, though Nick sometimes wondered how much had actually changed since then. Lillian Benson had lived to be at least eighty-six, but the diaries dealt with the minutiae of domestic existence, not the larger philosophical issues. Lillian hadn’t even mentioned women being granted the right to vote. That was something Nick would have to check out, in addition to the mysteriously missing Pearl. Did Lillian even exercise her right to vote? Nick certainly wouldn’t be able to tell that from a buttonhook.
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