Jack Del Rio: Complete Trilogy: Reservations, Betrayals, Endgames

by Richard Paolinelli

  “Will do,” Tso said, getting behind the wheel. “Take care out here.”

  Del Rio watched his friend drive off before heading over to tend to his four horses. After finishing up his daily routine with them Del Rio got into his pickup and headed out for what had become his once-a-week routine.

  A two-hour drive east to Ganado brought him to a small cemetery south of town. Carrying a small orange moon cactus and a small garden spade with him, he walked over to Lucy Chee’s grave. There were a dozen similar cacti of reds, oranges and yellows arrayed around her grave marker. He very carefully carved out a hole in the red dirt – there wasn’t a single blade of grass in the cemetery – placed the cactus he’d brought into the new hole and spaded the loose dirt back into the hole and around the little plant. What little rain and snow that would fall on it would be more than enough to sustain it.

  Del Rio brushed away the loose dirt and debris from the marker, letting his fingers linger for a bit over the letters of her name. They had known each other for so little time, yet Del Rio could recall with perfect clarity almost every moment they had spent in each other’s company.

  After a moment, he did the same cleanup of the marker next to Lucy’s. This one belonged to her grandmother, who had died two years before and had been the last living relative of Lucy’s. He’d taken it as his own duty to see to both graves and made sure he came out at least once a week. His routine had not gone unnoticed over the two years.

  “I see you have a new addition today.”

  “Needed to replace one,” Del Rio replied without looking back at his visitor, the now retired, but once Chairman of the Hopi Council, Leroy Sinquah. “Looked like someone’s dog had taken a liking to it for some reason.”

  Del Rio stood up, dusting off his jeans before turning to face Sinquah, who studied the younger man for a moment. When they had first met, five years before, FBI Agent Jack Del Rio’s attire of choice had always been black trousers and a white shirt. But in his incarnation as John Rivers, he always wore a denim shirt and blue jeans with brown cowboy boots. He’d been out in the sun long enough, and let his black hair grow longer so that he could pass as an Indian to most of the white folks that passed through the Res. He looked very little like the Agent Del Rio of old.

  “I never pegged you as a horticulturalist,” Sinquah said.

  “As I recall a few years back you said you never pegged me as a horseman either.”

  Sinquah’s old eyes twinkled in merriment. The old man’s weathered face and bone white hair told of his advanced years. But the mind behind those eyes was as active and alert as one belonging to one half his age.

  “You’ve managed to surprise us in many ways these past four years,” Sinquah allowed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’d lived this life for decades. You’ve done quite well.”

  “Well enough,” Del Rio allowed, looking back down at Lucy’s grave.

  “But alone.”

  “You’re not going to try to set me up with a date again, are you?”

  “No, no,” the old man said quickly, raising his hand up in denial. “It just seems a hard life to choose for a young man, to be alone for so long.”

  “Sometimes it’s not by choice,” Del Rio said quietly, still looking at the ground. “You notice people that get too close to me end up down there.”

  Sinquah merely nodded, knowing Del Rio’s history all too well. He could not argue the point, nor was that his purpose here today.

  “So what brings you out here today?” Del Rio asked, as if divining Sinquah’s purpose, or perhaps wanting to change the subject. “You don’t often wander off the Hopi Res these days.”

  “Looking for you,” Sinquah replied. “I knew you’d be out here and it’s a closer drive than going out to your place. There’s been a couple of white men asking around the Res for you, they…”

  “Have Irish accents?” Del Rio finished. “Frank Tso told me they were spotted in Window Rock the other day. I don’t suppose you can describe them or managed to catch a name?”

  “I wasn’t the one they talked to,” Sinquah said with a shake of his head. “Do you know them?”

  “No. Don’t have a clue who they are or what they want.”

  “I was afraid of that. What are you going to do?”

  “Not much I can do for now, other than keep an eye out for strangers and hope they approach someone who can find out why they asking about me.”

  “My people will do just that,” Sinquah promised. “Provided these two come back around. For what it’s worth, they didn’t seem to know your current whereabouts or name or that you were even alive. Just asked about when you were here as Del Rio five years ago.”

  “Damned if I know why,” Del Rio remarked. “It doesn’t sound like they’re actively looking for me, but they don’t strike me as reporter types or anything like a researcher. It’s maddening as hell.”

  “I can imagine,” Sinquah said. “I’m sure Tso could provide some security…”

  “He could, but I’m safe and sound at the Fortress from any unwanted visitors and I can take care of myself out in the open.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “I am, besides no need to worry, I’ve already survived that storm you said was coming my way.”

  “I’m not so sure you’ve faced it yet.”

  For the first time in years, Del Rio began to worry.

  * * * * *

  The Independent’s satellite office in Flagstaff wasn’t much to speak of. Its primary purpose was to serve as advertisement sales to the local businesses for the statewide publication. But in the back was a few desks, one each for the local beat reporter and photographer and a third for Independent reporters from Phoenix to use when in Flagstaff covering stories.

  Covering Native American affairs in the state’s many reservations was Sanders’ beat so the sight of her walking in and taking command of that third desk had become commonplace over the past eighteen months.

  “Miss Hannah,” Cory Blake, the photographer, greeted Sanders as she walked into the small news area. “How’d the presser go in Window Rock this morning?”

  “About as expected,” Sanders said, dropping her bag on the desk and logging in on the computer linked to the main office in Phoenix. “They caught the killer, it was a lover’s quarrel, the guy confessed and the trial should be soon and pretty quick.”

  Sanders quickly typed out the story and sent it off to the copy desk to be edited and posted to the paper’s website. While she waited for any possible questions from Phoenix she accessed her personal folder on the system and accessed the notes she’d compiled on the mystery man on the Navajo Reservation.

  “You still working on that guy?” Blake asked, looking over her shoulder at the screen.

  “Yeah. There’s something about him, I know I’ve seen him somewhere else. Before he started showing up on the Res. I just can’t place where though…”

  Her voice trailed off as she called up the best photo of him she’d been able to locate and studied it intently.

  “Well,” Blake said as he gathered up his equipment. “I’ve got a game to shoot at NAU and I want to have lunch before I go over there. Catch ya later.”

  Sanders mumbled a goodbye, lost in the subject of her study. Fortunately, the copy desk in Phoenix never sent any inquiries up as she wouldn’t have noticed them anyway. She was still sitting at the desk two hours later when she came across another photo in the Independent’s archives. The picture might have been the answer to her search and, depending on that answer, might just lead to many more questions. And one hell of a story too.

  “I’ll be damned,” she said aloud. Then she grabbed her bag and dashed out the door to her car.

  FIVE

  “I’m going to start charging a toll if this rate of traffic holds up, Terry,” Del Rio quipped as he rode into the open area between his house and the corral. He was astride his favorite, a dusky grey quarter horse with white stockings that ran halfway up each of it
s legs. “I think I’ve had more people here in the last week than in all of the last year combined.”

  Shirley walked up and gently stroked the neck of the horse, Del Rio refused to name any of his horses, before addressing its owner.

  “You should probably set up a booth then. You’re likely to get another visitor before the day is over and you probably won’t like her much.”

  “Her?” Del Rio asked as he dismounted. “You don’t mean that reporter Frank told me about?”

  “The very same. She showed up in Window Rock yesterday and rummaged through property records. Then she tackled me first thing this morning asking about you again, only this time she used the name Del Rio, not Rivers. I think she’s on to you, Jack, and I’m pretty sure she knows where to find you now.

  “She hit Frank up for an interview after me and I followed her out to Sinquah’s house,” Shirley continued. “She’s probably trying to pry something out of him before she heads here. I figured you’d appreciate a heads up. Maybe even run her off before she gets here?”

  “It would probably just make her dig deeper and you can’t post people on every road just to keep her from coming back out forever,” Del Rio replied after a moment’s thought. “No, let her come out and I’ll do what I can to convince her she has the wrong man.”

  “And if you can’t?” Shirley asked. “You could always shoot her I suppose.”

  “You know I didn’t run around shooting everyone,” Del Rio said, giving his friend a look as his only response to the jibe. “Well, at least not the innocent ones anyway.”

  “You may want to revisit that policy.”

  “How much can she have that her paper would publish? I appreciate the concern but I doubt she’ll be more than a nuisance.”

  “Your call, Jack,” Shirley relented, turning to head back to his car. “Give me a call if she doesn’t buy your story. Maybe the President can put in a call to the paper to kill any story she writes.”

  Del Rio watched his friend drive away before leading the horse back to the corral to strip off the saddle and blanket and then rub it down after the morning ride. His thoughts were in turmoil, belying the indifference of his words to Shirley, and earlier to Tso, regarding this unknown threat to his new name and life. If this reporter was good enough to connect him with his former life, she was likely good enough to keep digging, no matter what story he came up with.

  He was still working on his horses and how he would respond to her when she did show up when he heard the sound of a car coming up the dirt road through the gap in the canyon walls that served as his driveway.

  Closing the corral gate behind him, Del Rio walked toward to the newcomer’s car just as the driver opened the door to get out. She was about half-a-foot shorter than he was and probably about his age or maybe a year or two younger. Pale and blonde she was quite attractive, even though he tended to lean toward the brunettes when it came to the other sex. As he caught himself checking her out, he realized just how long it had been since he’d last been with a woman and returned his focus to the matter at hand. This had to be the reporter who threatened to burst his carefully constructed bubble away from the world.

  “Hello,” he called out as he approached. “Can I help you with something?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “I’m looking for a John Rivers.”

  “I’m Rivers. And you are?”

  “Hannah Sanders,” she fished out her badge to show him. “I’m with the Arizona Independent.”

  “What brings you out here?” Del Rio asked, making a show of examining her ID as well as having no clue as to her reason for visiting.

  “Well,” she began carefully, trying – and failing - to keep Del Rio from noticing her hitting the record button on her digital recorder. “There’s not too many non-Native Americans that live on a Reservation.”

  “There’s some that have married into families here,” Del Rio replied.

  “True. But you’re not married into a Navajo family and you bought this land directly from the tribe.”

  “Correct on both counts but I’m not sure what makes it newsworthy.”

  “It just seems an oddity and I was curious what brought you here and why the tribe would let you buy land from them?”

  “I was looking for a quiet place where I could raise horses and live my life in peace,” Del Rio explained. “No one wanted this land, I made an offer and they accepted. I don’t have any legal heirs so when I die the land reverts to the Navajo Nation. The arrangement works out for everyone’s benefit.”

  “Is that why you give away water for free?”

  “You’re very well informed.”

  “It’s my job to be,” she retorted.

  “I see. When I sank the well, no one expected to find such a large source of water out here. There’s a lot of people out here with land that’s bone dry and need water. So I made it available to anyone who wanted it. I’m not a greedy man and I have all I need. Why take advantage?”

  “It seems a little too altruistic.”

  “It’s the truth. Not much of a story, but still the truth.”

  “And was part of the deal for this land for you to put in appearances at crime scenes on the Res as well?”

  Sanders had been watching Rivers’ face closely when she asked that last question and discovered the man must be an expert poker player. There was absolutely no change of expression. Not surprise, not shock, not anger or any sign of emotion at all.

  “I saw you myself just a few days ago at the murder scene in Kayenta,” she said when Rivers remained silent. “There’s been reports of a white man in plain clothes at more than one murder scene in the past three or four years with no apparent connection to any law enforcement agency. The descriptions of that man match you pretty closely.”

  “You’ve asked the Navajo police about your mystery man, I assume?”

  “I have and they gave me the run around. So now I’m asking you, why are you called in to these crime scenes?”

  “Maybe I was asked to identify the bodies?” Del Rio quipped.

  “You know seven Native Americans, scattered all across the Res, who just so happen to get themselves murdered since you moved here? It sounds more like you should be a suspect and not some kind of consultant.”

  “Perhaps. But fortunately for me, the actual killers have been caught.”

  “So you are some kind of consultant then? What is your expertise? Forensics or criminal investigation?”

  “Miss Sanders,” Del Rio tried the one gambit he thought might work. “Clearly, the NNPD have decided I could prove to be of help in certain cases. When they call me, I oblige. And yes, it is partly because the Navajo Nation has allowed me to call the Res my home. As for the reasons why, they really don’t matter and I have to say it’s really no one’s business but mine and the Nation’s.”

  “Even if that help is coming from a former FBI Agent named Jack Del Rio, who supposedly died a few years ago?” she accused. “And that was about the same time that a John Rivers moved onto the Res. You are Jack Del Rio aren’t you?”

  Del Rio wasn’t that good of a poker player. A flicker of some combination of despair and anger shot across his face as he realized he wasn’t going to bluff her off of the story. Still he had to try.

  “Never heard of the guy.”

  “You’re lying. Would you like to see a copy of a file photo of Agent Del Rio? You could be twins if you cut your hair.”

  “They say everyone has a look-a-like somewhere, Miss Sanders. And it’s not very friendly to call someone a liar, especially in their front yard.”

  “I wouldn’t call lying to someone being friendly either.”

  “Miss Sanders,” Del Rio said with a sigh, realizing he’d lost this battle. “You say this Del Rio person is dead. I’m very much alive and my name is John Rivers. As for why the NNPD calls on me for help is not something I’m allowed to discuss. I’m afraid I have nothing further to tell you. If you will excuse me, I have horses to tend to.�
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  “Agent Del Rio,” she called out as he walked away. “I’m going to run the story that you are alive and well and being sheltered here by the Navajo Nation. Any comment?”

  “Have a nice day, Miss Sanders,” he replied without breaking stride as he walked back into the corral and never looked back.

  Out of sight, he stood just inside the gate and listened to the engine growl to life and the car drive back out along the dirt road. The horses in the corral ignored him as they grazed on some of the hay he’d set out for them earlier in the day. He stood there thinking about what his next move should be for a full two minutes before he suddenly swore aloud and hurried over to the garage. Jumping behind the wheel of the pickup, he raced out of the garage and headed off in pursuit of Sanders.

  Unaware of her pursuer, Sanders replayed her tense interview with the man she was certain was Jack Del Rio. Did she really have enough to run with? She should have tried to get a better photo of the man to compare with the good official photo of Del Rio that ran a few days after his alleged death after President Arthur’s first inauguration. Something rock solid and undeniable.

  As she drove she began to wonder why the man had gone into hiding to begin with. Perhaps there was an even bigger story than a mysterious white man on the Res? Could this be a major national story she’d stumbled onto?

  It was getting late in the day by the time she got back to Flagstaff. With no actual story to file, she decided to go back to her Flagstaff hotel room and check in with her editor in Phoenix from there. She could tell Mark what she had and see what he wanted to do from there. No sooner had she made it into her room, before she could dig her phone out and make the call to Phoenix, there was a knock on her door. The last person she expected to see standing on the other side of the door when she looked out the peephole was the man she saw standing there.

  “Agent Del Rio,” she said as she opened the door.

  “Miss Sanders,” Del Rio replied, impressed she opened the door and seemingly without fear. “Can we talk? Inside in private, preferably?”