“Water’s down quite a bit,” I said. “I think it’ll be simpler to wait here until we can walk back up the wash than to try to make it across country.”
Especially without a compass. It would be too easy to get off course dodging the huge boulders above. The streambed was our best bet. I sat down beside Rusty and put an arm around him.
“Got any food with you?” Willie asked. “I’m gettin’ hungry.”
I shot him a look and he closed his mouth.
He paced the sandbar restlessly. I kept an eye on him, worried that he’d set off again into the water. The sun beat down, drying our clothes quickly. A mosquito discovered me and wouldn’t stop buzzing around my face. I waved it away for several minutes until it finally landed on the exposed skin of my forearm and I dispensed with it with a slap. I wanted nothing more at this moment than a hot shower and clean clothes. Preferably in my own shower at home.
An hour went by, according to my dirty but waterproof watch. The rushing water receded from the edges of the wash, running now in a ribbon about ten feet wide down the center.
“Let’s try it,” I said. “Stay close to the edges.”
I soon discovered that the earth at the edges was dense clay that stuck to the bottoms of shoes in a thick muck. We moved onto the sandier portion, scuffing the clay off as we walked. Rusty trotted ahead. I noticed that his fur had dried now in crusty pointed tufts. He’d need a bath too as soon as we got home. Willie and I walked separately, neither of us speaking. All I could think about was getting packed up and getting home.
“Want to see my gold mine?” Willie asked. He pointed across the wash at the wooden cross on the hillside.
The stream of water in the center of the wash was now no more than five feet wide and probably only ankle deep.
“I want to check on things up there,” he said. “Make sure none of my stuff washed out. You can come if you want to.”
I knew it was his way of saying he trusted me and hoped I wasn’t still mad at him.
“Thanks, Willie, but I think I’ll start packing up my stuff. You go ahead.” I watched him approach the running water. “Be careful there. Make sure you have a firm footing.”
He stepped into the water with a lot more respect than he’d shown the first time. It only took him three steps to cross to the dry side and he turned to wave at me. I waved and continued until I came to the narrow path that led to our campsite.
The small clearings looked as though nothing had happened. Both tents stood in place, the horse and mule were standing contentedly at their tethers. Last night’s fire was long gone, so I poked around in the ashes, laid out some brush and kindling, and struck a match to it. Soon I had enough flame to heat a coffeepot.
Last night Willie had made some strong concoction full of coffee grounds but I didn’t have his recipe. I decided to just heat clean water in Willie’s battered pot and use my little packet of instant coffee from last night’s MRE. While the water heated I disassembled my tent and rolled it into its carry bag. Among my stash of food were two more Twinkies and a packaged fruit pie, the kind loaded with fat and calories. I opted for that.
I rinsed my hands with a little of my drinking water, wishing for soap but there was none. With most of my gear stowed in the duffle and my pot of water boiling, I sat on my rock and drank my instant coffee with my nutritious breakfast.
Call it delayed reaction, call it post-traumatic something . . . I don’t know. I just know that as I sat there on that rock seat by a campfire somewhere in the mountains of Arizona I was hit by a sudden case of the shakes. The morning’s harrowing ride down the rapids came back at me full-force. My hands began shaking first, sloshing coffee out of the mug and onto my already-crusty jeans leg. I set the mug in the dirt and hugged myself. My shoulders picked up the shiver and it traveled throughout my body.
Rusty came over to me and I hugged him while he licked my hands generously.
The tremor passed finally, leaving me feeling wrung out and depleted.
I wondered if I could reach Drake by phone. We hadn’t touched base in three days and he’d probably tried to call me. He would be worried by now. I pulled the cell phone from my bag and turned it on. No service, the little symbol read. I looked around. I was fairly well surrounded by rocky mountains. I’d try it again when I reached higher ground.
Willie came walking up the path as I was putting my phone away.
“Want to see what gold mining’s all about?” he asked, holding out something in the palm of his hand.
It was a small bag made from an old sock with the top cut off and a drawstring added. He gently loosened the string and dumped the contents into his hand. There were four gold nuggets, the largest about the size of a lima bean.
“This here’s my little stash,” he grinned. “My rainy day money.”
Unfortunate choice of words, I thought, considering the last rainy day could have well ended his life.
“Those are pretty neat, Willie,” I said. “They come from your mine here?”
“Yep. Don’t tell nobody though.” He tucked the nuggets back into the bag and the bag into his pants pocket.
“I wouldn’t do that,” I assured him.
He started to pour from the coffeepot into his mug. “What the hell’s this?” he asked when the liquid came out clear.
I explained what I’d done. “You’ll have to do your magic to make it coffee,” I told him.
He rummaged through his box of supplies muttering something that contained the word “women.”
“I ain’t goin’ back with you, ya know,” he said once we were seated again on our rocks with real coffee to drink.
“I didn’t expect you would,” I told him. “Had a feeling about that.”
“Well, you expected right.”
“What shall I tell them?” I hadn’t yet thought through a good way to explain this to Dorothy.
“Tell ’em you never found me,” he said.
“What about Melanie? And Bea? They’re both really worried.”
He set his mug down and fidgeted with the fire. I watched him for a good five minutes, giving him the raised-eyebrow question whenever he glanced my way.
“Well, all right. You can tell them two. But do you have to tell ’em where I am?”
“What am I going to say? That I found you but I didn’t know where I was at the time?”
He looked all around. “Well, that’s pretty close to true, ain’t it?”
He had a point. In fact, with his little sketch of a map now nothing more than a wad of pulp in my back jeans pocket, I wasn’t sure I could find the place again no matter how much time I had.
“What about the law?” I asked. “You confessed to me that you’d killed a man.”
For a minute he looked almost panicky.
“Willie, it sounds like it was an accident.” I rinsed my mug and packed it away. “I’ll have to think about it.”
I saddled Molly and strapped the duffle and sleeping bag behind the saddle. Willie watched but didn’t move from his seat by the fire.
“What about your place in Albuquerque?” I asked. “Don’t you ever plan to go back there?”
“Back to the loving arms of my family?” He grinned and adopted the same tone I’d just used. “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”
Chapter 24
From my purse down in the bottom of my duffle I scrounged up a business card and handed it to Willie.
“Next time you go to town for supplies, call me,” I told him. “I’ll let you know how things worked out.”
I thought he’d want to know what I ended up telling his family and how they took it, but he simply shrugged and stuck the card into his pocket. I rechecked my saddle cinch and mounted.
“Now that I’ve lost my map to get myself out of here, refresh my memory for me,” I asked.
“Down the wash to the white rock,” he said. “You didn’t see it on the way up here, cause it’s only visible from this side.”
&n
bsp; “I go past the wooden cross . . .”
“ ’Nother half mile or so. On your left you’ll see a big rock with a white heart painted on it. Under the heart is W+C.”
I opened my mouth but he interrupted.
“Right there’s where your trail leads you up the canyon side.”
He reviewed the other markers. I remembered them anyway.
“What’s the significance of the white heart?” I asked.
He grinned widely, his grizzled face crinkling into a roadmap of wrinkles. “Hunh-uh, ain’t telling that story.”
He slapped Molly on the rump and I guided her carefully down to the sandy wash. The water flow had stopped now, leaving only a damp strip down the center of the gully. The sand at the edges was completely dry where there had been a rushing torrent scarcely two hours ago. No wonder people don’t believe stories about flash floods.
I spotted the white heart easily enough and followed the trail. The other markers weren’t difficult to find and by mid-afternoon I was approaching the horse’s home stable. She knew we were getting close and her gait picked up to an all-out gallop in the last quarter mile. I reined her in, not wanting to return her to Bert all coated with lather. She trotted peacefully the final few hundred feet.
There sat my Jeep in the parking area and there came Bert to greet us. Everything looked absolutely normal.
“Have yourself a good time?” Bert asked, coming to take Molly’s reins as I unstrapped my pack.
“Sure did. Quite an adventure, the desert.”
He eyed my muddy clothing and Rusty’s caked fur, then inspected Molly’s clean legs and coat. He didn’t say a word.
I stowed my gear in the Jeep, assured myself that my bill was settled with Bert, and opened the back door for Rusty. My hands were a little shaky as I inserted my key in the ignition. Back in my room it was all I could do to peel off my crusty clothing and stuff it into the freebie plastic laundry bag before turning on the hot water tap and indulging myself in a steamy shower. I shampooed my hair twice then decided I might as well get the other fun chore over with. I called Rusty into the shower with me—not a difficult task since he loves water—and dumped half the remaining shampoo on him. After a good scrubbing and thorough rinse we both felt better. We indulged ourselves by using every one of the room’s towels. I even re-rinsed the tub twice to remove all traces of the sand we’d brought back with us. I slipped into my last set of clean clothes and debated whether to call Drake.
Knowing the firefighter’s schedule I guessed he wouldn’t be in his room for another couple of hours at least. I decided that meanwhile I’d get some food and try to unwind. After two days of packaged, powdered, non-tasty grub on the trail I wanted something substantial, but I couldn’t make myself face going out in the traffic. I ended up calling a pizza delivery place and lounging back on the bed with the television on until my dinner arrived.
Once I finished eating I found myself fighting the drowsies but knew I better call Drake before I was completely out of it for the night.
“Where have you been?” he demanded when he heard my voice.
“Didn’t you get my message that I was coming back to Arizona?”
“Yeah, but you didn’t say where you were staying or what you were doing there.”
“I found Willie McBride,” I said, not wanting to get into the minutiae of reporting every little detail. I related the story, skipping over the scarier details, making it sound more like I’d just ridden out to Willie’s camp and had a nice little visit with him.
“I don’t know what I’ll tell Dorothy. He really doesn’t want to face her again,” I said. “And I can’t really blame him, knowing that she really didn’t care about whether he made it to the reunion or not. She’s really just after his money.”
“What about the other situation, back in White Oaks?” he asked.
“Well, that’s changed a bit too,” I told him. “I told you about the explosion at the mine? Turns out one victim was involved with drug dealers—Willie and his friend Bud saw them—and the other victim was Bud’s daughter Sophie. Rumors are flying all over town that Sophie was romantically involved with Rory Daniels. Sheriff Buckman says they’re close to solving all three deaths out there but he won’t say how. I tried to warn Willie that he’s probably still a suspect as far as Buckman is concerned.”
He filled me in on his adventures for the day which almost sounded tame compared to mine. Everything was catching up with me and by the time we hung up I was blinking to stay awake. I pulled my jeans off and crawled between the sheets wearing my T-shirt and undies.
By the next morning I was feeling much better—clean and refreshed. My thighs were still tender from the unaccustomed time on horseback but the other adventure seemed well behind me. After helping myself to a bagel and coffee from the continental breakfast spread and feeding Rusty his usual nuggets in the room, we were ready to head for home.
The morning air was warm already. Within a month or less, Phoenix would probably be hitting the hundreds during the day. Good time to head back to our much cooler elevation. The desert flora was crisp and green this early in the morning as we passed through the little towns of Globe and Superior.
Rusty settled into the back seat and I leaned back in my seat getting comfortable for the long drive. At Show Low, a small town in a pretty mountain setting with lots of pine trees, I stopped to top off the tank before starting into the long stretch where it would be eighty or more miles between stations. The small town buzzed with everyday activity, pickup trucks parked in front of the feed store, women with small children walking across the parking lot at the grocery. I clipped Rusty’s leash to him and led him to a dirt lot at the back of the station. As we came around the side of the building after he’d done his business I caught a glimpse of a dark blue car cruising slowly past the station. My muscles tensed. I hung to the side of the building and peered toward the street. The road curved so the car was out of sight by the time I might have gotten a look at the license plate. I stood there a minute, unsure what to do.
Rusty had reached the end of the leash now and my arm yanked forward as his weight pulled at me. He turned a questioning look my way.
Probably wasn’t the same car at all, I rationalized. What were the odds?
Rusty climbed back into his seat. On an impulse I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Randy Buckman’s number.
“Know a guy with long wavy hair, sometimes wears it braided, who might have a reason to be following me?” I asked without preamble when he came on the line.
“Charlie? Where are you?”
I explained that I’d come to Arizona looking for Willie McBride and told him about my encounters with the dark blue car.
“Normally I wouldn’t have thought much of it, but it was way too coincidental that these people would have taken the same route to Arizona and then ended up at the same motel where I was. That’s when I decided to check my vehicle.”
He let out a sharp Whew when I told him about finding the transmitter.
“Well, I don’t know about the dark blue car,” he said. “But by your description of the man he could be Geraldo Rodriquez. He’s a known drug dealer out of El Paso. We’ve suspected that he might’ve been involved with Rory and whatever lab he was supplying the chemicals to. Did he have a real thin mustache?”
“I think so. Didn’t really get close enough to tell.”
“This guy does—or he did in his mug shot. Guess he could have shaved it. But he’s pretty proud of that thick, wavy hair. Doubt he’d change that.” He backed away from the phone and cleared his throat. “Watch out for him, Charlie. This guy’s bad, bad news. The kind who’d probably kill you just for the fun of it.”
“Why would he be after me?” I shuffled the cell phone to my other ear, staring at the streets around me.
“My guess is that he’s really after McBride. We think he and Bud must’ve seen the druggies up there at the mine. It’s probably what got Bud shot and the reason they’d
want to silence McBride too. Just be careful and don’t let this guy get near you, especially alone.”
I clicked off and locked all my car doors.
Thin mustache. I knew someone else with a thin mustache who definitely wanted to know where Willie McBride was. Someone who could have worn a wig as a disguise. The thought flitted through my head, even though I felt sure Buckman was right. Felix drove a light colored car, anyway.
Anyone can rent a car, Charlie.
And Felix had a lot more reason to want to find his father.
I shook off the feeling and started the Jeep. Drove slowly through town, watching every parking lot and intersection for a dark blue car with a bright yellow plate. Nothing.
North of Show Low the road straightened out, through the little town of Snowflake, where I saw signs for a turnoff to Heber, where Drake was fighting the fire. A big part of me wanted to turn off and find him and allow myself to be enfolded into his comforting arms. It only took a minute to get back to the reality that he wasn’t in snuggling position, flying over a raging fire with all his powers of concentration needed there. I drove through, eager now just to cover the miles and get home. There was about fifty miles of two-lane empty road ahead before I’d come to Interstate 40, then a good four hours among eighteen-wheeler traffic before I’d reach Albuquerque. And, I still had to figure out what I was going to tell Dorothy about her father’s whereabouts.
It was about twenty miles into the fifty mile stretch of nothingness that the blue car caught up with me.
Chapter 25
I hadn’t even seen him coming.
He’d done a good job of staying out of sight while sticking right with me. I was probably forty miles out of Show Low, where I thought I’d spotted the car, and although I was still checking my mirrors regularly I had to admit I’d relaxed just a touch. An oldies station on the radio was right in the middle of a favorite Fleetwood Mac song and my head had probably even started bobbing in time to it when I glanced back and there was that distinctive blue, filling my rearview. I actually jumped and, with my move, swerved just a touch.
Reunions Can Be Murder: The Seventh Charlie Parker Mystery Page 20