The Sixteenth Man

by Thomas B. Sawyer

  There, just ahead, beyond Miller Furniture & Appliance – a payphone. Charlie’s attention was drawn to the Day-Glo orange sign in Miller’s window. He craned in order to read it over the top of a car parked at the curb: “PRE-XMAS SALE.”

  Shit. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet.

  If it weren’t for his curiosity about the sign, he might have failed to notice the car that impeded his view. It was the black Fleetwood Caddie that had brought the Vegas boys into town. One of them was seated behind the wheel, eyeballing everything that rolled past.

  Charlie quickly turned his face away, decided it would be wise to wait till he was clear of Moab before trying to phone again.

  Okay, that means they’re expecting me to head north on 191. Waiting for me. Probably other roads too, but it’s gonna be dark in less than an hour. Sooner with this snow and cloud cover.

  Due to the weather, the predictably light Thanksgiving Eve traffic was almost nonexistent. A southbound Greyhound, a brace of semis and, fifty yards distant, a pickup truck. Which meant that private cars would stand out. Not good. Charlie continued north, relieved that the Cadillac wasn’t following him. After a mile or so, the highway bridged the Colorado River. Just short of it, Route 128 forked off to the east, paralleling the river’s meander. The last serious turnoff for miles. Charlie made his choice, checked his mirrors. No cars in sight. He slowed, swung to the right onto the two-lane river road, but on the thin, wet snowcover the sedan’s rear wheels broke loose anyway, sending him into a long, gentle-but-unnerving skid. Fortunately, he managed to regain control, pull back into his lane. But it was cautionary, the need to drive more slowly, heightening his anxiety about warning his family, and Dorothy. The snowfall was thickening. Charlie spread his roadmap across the steering wheel, flicked his eyes between it and the road. A place called Cisco was a good 25 miles away. Or, he could hang a right turn about five miles ahead, take the La Sal Mountain Loop Road, which would bring him back onto 191 south of Moab. Plenty of phones down that way. And he’d be headed away from Reno – which they hopefully wouldn’t expect. Okay. But the loop road was probably steep, the snow heavier. Charlie was grateful for the set of chains the salesman had thrown in. He’d have to use the damned things before he was out of this.

  He increased the wiper speed, switched on his headlights, began looking for a stretch of fairly level shoulder onto which he could pull the car. At that point the wind-weathered, nearly vertical cliffs on his right came down almost to the edge of the pavement. On the left, equally unsuitable, the bank sloped sharply downward through thick scrub to the river. He rounded a long right bend, saw that the road ahead, like the river, made a sweeping leftward arc, probably a half-mile in length. Through the snow-swirl there appeared to be a place where the sandstone walls retreated for a distance.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Present Time

  Thursday

  “Okay, it’s snowing. Cold. Windy, probably...” Packard, with an equally exhausted, dispirited Kate at his side, stood near the entrance to the burial cave. And brightened slightly. “Ice. Kate, that’s how one man – this McTeague character, if that’s who it was – could’ve moved that rock. There was ice under it.”

  It was a tiny insight. A minor success that did little to counter their profound discouragement. Since speaking to Fran, they had traversed the ridgetop till finally they were looking down the other side, at the point roughly four hundred yards west of Slakes Canyon where the Chevrolet had been abandoned. From there, they tried to imagine the route Charlie might have taken. They eliminated several paths because even absent snow or ice they were too steep, or else dead-ended. But it quickly became apparent that the alternate possibilities were far too numerous for two hungry, very tired people to cover in the fading light. In fact, it was overwhelmingly clear that a thorough search would require many hours – even days – and a number of well-equipped climbers.

  And again, it was a virtual certainty that over the years all the routes had long since been combed and re-combed.

  Packard wondered again at the conceit they’d sold themselves, that in all of this natural fastness they might actually find a ridiculously small item – or items – others had sought for decades, items no one could say with even semi-reasonable confidence had not been destroyed by Charles Callan, or, ravaged by time, disintegrated, or devoured by an animal, or – or – or...

  And yet, obviously, the others were operating from the same conceit. He squatted, idly picked up a fist-size rock, tossed it in his palm.

  “The prospector – you think that’s who killed him?”

  “Kate, I said I---”

  “Sorry.”

  He regretted his snappishness, but he wanted to be right, to figure it out, to know. He glanced at the open shaft. “Your grandfather’s standing here. Freezing his ass off. Wounded, beat, and the bad guys are coming – for him and this little can of film – which he may or may not still have.”

  “And a few minutes later he’s in there, dead, stripped almost naked, and he definitely doesn’t have it.”

  “Not definite. But let’s assume...”

  “And – they don’t have it.”

  “What did I – I mean he – do with it?” For a moment, Packard had lost himself inside Charles Callan’s head.

  “How about nothing? Maybe McTeague took it. Maybe dumped it?”

  Packard shrugged acknowledgment. Kate’s hands pushed deep into her pockets. She looked down, away from him. “I hate it – that he never warned my grandmother, or his mother...”

  Her disillusionment saddened him. He wanted to say something positive, but everything that came to mind would’ve sounded like bullshit. Packard looked at the rock he was holding. And felt butterflies. “What if it’s somewhere he wasn’t...?”

  “Say again?”

  “This McTeague – he had a baseball.”

  “Yeah...”

  “Why? I mean suppose it was Charlie’s. The guy had his clothes, bag... Your mother ever say he was into baseball?”

  “I – sort of remember, yes. But---?”

  “He play, or was he just a fan?”

  “Played, I think. But before. When he was younger. I - I’m not sure.”

  “You recall what position?”

  “No. Why...? Pitcher? She might’ve said...”

  Packard stood, looked across the shadowy canyon. From their position it was a good two hundred fifty feet to the other side.

  A film canister wouldn’t weigh as much as the rock he was holding, wouldn’t have the heft, the density. Hard to throw something light that far.

  And if I’m Charlie Callan, and I’m going to throw it, it won’t be someplace easy for them to find. No, I’ll heave it to where, if I get lucky, I can come back for it.

  Packard peered down at the canyon-bottom, where twilight sky reflected dim sparkles off the rain-swollen creek. Too obvious. Then he looked up. There seemed to be a small ledge about thirty feet up the rock face, barely visible in the fading light. In that second, he was the wily, half-dead private eye, looking up into vortexing snowflakes, his reckless stunt gone unsalvageably awry. Packard leaned back, hurled the rock. It arced upward, then down toward the canyon face. He lost sight of it, heard it clatter – then, silence. It did not fall back down.

  Kate touched his arm. “Jesus...”

  Abruptly, Packard started to climb, groping a handhold here, a foothold there. He knew it would have been wiser to hike back up to the motor-home for his climbing gear, but he didn’t want to lose anymore of the fast-diminishing light. Or go back there at all. Along with trying not to fall, and wishing he hadn’t declined Rudy’s offer to teach him rock-climbing, he was wondering what might have happened if Charlie had gotten away. Would the same people have been killed? Would the truth about Dallas have ever come out? Random events. Causes. Effects. Paths crossing, tangents briefly met, then curving away. All of it so incredibly random, and yet – what – fated? One thing certain, Packard would not be where he was. He l
ooked down, over his shoulder. Kate was following his route, gaining on him.

  And he would not have met Kate Norris.

  He made rapid progress at first, but about two-thirds up the steep wall – it couldn’t really be described as a slope – his hand slipped while he was looking for his next grip, throwing his weight onto his aching left arm and the toe of his right boot, which was narrowly perched on an already-cracked shard of rock. It broke. He lost his precarious toehold, sending a cascade of gravel and stone tumbling at Kate before his clutching hands could stop his slide. “Sorry. You okay down there?”

  She spat some dust, laughed. “If you want me to go, just tell me, all right?”

  When Packard finally scrabbled onto the more-or-less flat shelf he saw that it widened at its west end, into a promontory, the creek a sheer two hundred feet below, the cliff at his back extending upward for another seventy or eighty feet. Lying flat, he boosted Kate onto the ledge. Panting, she surrendered to her own exhaustion, allowed herself to collapse beside him. They were still for a few seconds, then the phone buzzed them to semi-attention. Apprehensive about who the caller might be, he answered guardedly. “Yes...?”

  The voice on the other end was male, terse. “Who’s this?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Don’t fuck with me, buddy. This is Grand County Deputy Sheriff Lovett. Who the hell are you, and where are you?”

  “How’d you get this number?”

  “Hey, mister, I don’t think the judge is gonna care much for your attitude. It’s called obstructing justice.”

  Packard considered it for a moment. “I’m Matthew Packard. What’s this about?”

  “The guy found the bones?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hold on.” There was a pause.

  Another voice, this one solemn, with none of the previous speaker’s anxiety. Packard recognized it immediately. “Dr. Packard, this is George Quinn. We’re in Fran Jeeter’s kitchen. The Deputy punched redial. I guess you were the last person she called...”

  The wind was rising, temperature dropping. Packard and Kate were already well beyond cold, punchy, hungry. Their knees were sore, hands raw. Both of them shattered by the news.

  More questions. What if he hadn’t dislodged that boulder...taken the ride...bought the bike...found the artifacts...? How many people would still be alive? No, that way madness lay.

  He had refused to give Quinn their location, more than half certain the call was being monitored. And truly, at that juncture, more reluctant than ever to trust anyone. After they disconnected, he turned off the phone.

  Packard was fairly certain they hadn’t been followed from Colorado, but it was conceivable – no, a virtual certainty – that they had come under surveillance since their arrival. He forced that from his mind as well. Instead, he hung onto his vision, his increasingly detailed, almost motion picture-like reconstruction of what had occurred there in Muleshoe Canyon that November evening in 1963, one that he’d edited then re-edited, adding new shots, cutting others as he’d learned more about the sixteenth man. Logic – and all the laws of probability notwithstanding, Packard was already flushed. He knew they would find it. No more doubting. He believed it. But there, on his knees, clawing at another graceful fan-spread of pebbly rubble accumulated at the foot of a crevice in the rock wall over god-knew how many years of rainstorms and spring thaws, he was unable to block an insistent, ugly image. The one Quinn described. The three bodies in the Jeeter kitchen. And the question.

  Why them?

  To Santo DiMartini, one of those deaths was of great importance, as necessary as that of Wayne Moffat, who on November 22, 1963 was the sniper on the grassy knoll. Since early the following year, Norwood Jeeter had been DiMartini’s eyes and ears in Moab. It was Jeeter who made the phone call to Humble House several days ago, informing DiMartini that Charlie Callan’s remains had been found. The call that was monitored in Washington, D.C.

  But there was an another, earlier connection between DiMartini and Jeeter. Had Packard or Kate seen Fran’s father in person, they might have recognized him – despite his age – as the third rifleman in Charlie Callan’s photo blowups.

  In Dallas, Jeeter had been positioned on the railroad bridge that crossed Dealey Plaza. One of his bullets pierced the windshield of the Lincoln, and was observed on the floor near the front seat a few minutes later by several journalists while the vehicle stood in the ER parking area at Parkland Hospital.

  “Omygod! Matt! Matt! Omygod!”

  Packard turned, squinted. Kate was silhouetted against the sunset, for some reason rushing toward him across the broad part of the ledge. Then he saw it; she was holding up a small object. Energized, he stood, moved to her. And carefully – eggshell gently – took the little gray canister from her outstretched hand.

  Kate brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Ogod, I almost knocked it over the edge.” The container was weathered, grainy to the touch, but only slightly dented. Corrosion made the cap difficult to unscrew – Packard was afraid the badly oxidized aluminum would collapse if he gripped it too hard, damaging what was inside. And then it was open. Kate grabbed his hand, peered into the cylinder. “Yesyesyess!”

  Packard sat on his emotions. It wasn’t easy. He carefully wiped his fingers on his jacket, gently poked one inside, nudged out the coil of 35 millimeter film. Several strips of six exposures each, wound one-within-the-other. Holding the edges, he carefully unrolled the first one, held it up to the sky. Negatives. He and Kate scanned them, then the others. None of the shapes were familiar. Until the next-to-last. There they were, three frames in a row – and on the final strip, all six – that bore the reverse images of the unforgettable prints they’d seen in Dorothy’s RV. Even in the limited light, without magnification, it was not a leap to make out the compositions – the grouped figures in the foreground, and half-concealed just behind them, another pair. The shape of a Stetson on a slender figure.

  History.

  Kate leaned her head against his shoulder.

  Packard carefully re-rolled the strips, placed them in the canister, twisted the cap, pocketed it. “C’mon. Maybe we can get out of here before it’s too dark.” He gripped her upper arm, moved her toward the narrow part of the ledge, the point where they had climbed.

  Packard went over the side first. In spite of the near-numbness of his bloodied hands, the wrenching ache in his left arm, his descent to the trail was quick and sure. He reached up, assisted Kate the last few feet.

  “Hey.”

  A few yards up the trail, a dark-haired young man brushed dust off his designer jogging outfit with the hand that wasn’t pointing the .45 automatic at them. Thomas Vercelli stopped dusting, extended the empty hand. “Give it to me.”

  “What?”

  “Now, professor. The film.”

  “I don’t know what you’re---”

  “Ow!”

  Packard snapped a look to his left, at Kate. Emile Beauchesne was behind her, an arm hooked tight around her neck, a pistol jabbed against her temple. Just beyond Beauchesne, Packard recognized Desi Matanza, hands buried in the pockets of his zipper-jacket.

  The piece of shit that knifed him, and killed Meg.

  In that instant, Packard was filled with the most intense rage he had ever experienced. Vercelli touched Packard’s shoulder, warning. “Cool it, professor.” And more emphatically: “And you, Desi – back the hell off.”

  Packard fought to control himself, to not blow whatever minimal chance he and Kate had. “The Sheriff’s going to be here in about two minutes.”

  “Bullshit. Give me the fucking goods. Now, or we do the lady.”

  “Let her go, and I’ll tell you where they---”

  Kate twisted loose from Beauchesne, kneed him in the groin.

  “Oooo-o-o-h.” Beauchesne doubled over in pain. His gun clattered on the ground.

  Vercelli aimed at Kate, saw that he might hit Beauchesne. He quickly swung the pistol back toward Packard, but Mata
nza, closing, was in that line of fire. Packard couldn’t see Matanza, but he read Vercelli’s eye-shift, blind-swung his right arm sideways, caught the advancing Cuban hard under the jaw. Matanza made a gagging sound, staggered backward, grabbed at his crushed windpipe, fell against the canyon wall. Kate took advantage of the sudden distraction, scooped a handful of sand-and-gravel, hurled it at Vercelli’s face. Beauchesne, partly risen on knees and one arm, stretched for his gun with the other. Packard kicked at his supporting arm, knocking it out from under him. Kate lunged at Vercelli who furiously struck at her with his pistol. Fortunately it was only a glancing blow to her temple, but enough to send her reeling toward Packard as Beauchesne collapsed face-first onto his gun. It fired, muffled. His body convulsed once, then collapsed, gut-shot with his own weapon. Packard grabbed a pineapple-size rock, was about to go at Vercelli, instead saw Matanza struggling to rise, smashed the stone straight against the Hispanic’s forehead. Packard’s pleasure at seeing the Cuban’s eyes roll upward, blood pouring into them, was much too brief. Still clutching the rock, Packard whirled, found himself looking into the barrel of Vercelli’s gun. The young Italian was holding Kate by her hair, her head yanked back. He glared at Packard. “Drop it, asshole.”

  Packard crunched his options, released the stone. As he did, Kate reached behind her with both hands, clawed at Vercelli’s face.

  A primitive howl, then: “You fucking bitch-cunt!” Still holding her by the hair, Vercelli hurled her aside. At the same time, Packard knocked Vercelli’s gun-arm away, threw himself at the man’s midsection.

  Kate stumbled backward toward the edge, fighting to keep her feet, but hopelessly off-balance. Packard, wrestling with the heavier Vercelli, watched in horror, disbelief, as Kate, arms waving helplessly, fell over the side. So sudden and deep were Packard’s rushing emotions – hatred for these people, impotence, and most desperate of all, loss, that he only dimly heard the seemingly endless, decaying, echo-clatter of stony debris that plunged with her into the blackness. Nor could he separate those sounds from the pounding in his ears. Or even the gunshot. He felt a brief, sharp spasm in his shoulder which, in that nanosecond he checked off as muscle-strain. With no real awareness of his rage-driven actions, Packard slammed Vercelli’s gun-hand aside, pummeled his face, his body, wildly, repeatedly, with both fists. Vercelli lost the weapon, managed a few ineffective blows, but he was overpowered by Packard’s fury. The younger man’s knees buckled. He sagged against Packard, ineffectually tried to remain upright. Packard sidestepped, allowing the Mafioso to fall face-first to the ground, one arm dangling over the trail-edge.