Always Time to Die

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Carly sighed. “I’m very ordinary.”

  Diana shook her head and said distinctly, “No, Ms. May. Nothing intelligent is ordinary.”

  Carly’s stomach growled even as she said, “Please call me Carly.”

  “She’s starving to death,” John said, “and Dan was sending her to Joseph’s Table.”

  “An excellent place,” Diana said, “but my kitchen is less crowded. Sit down, Carly. How do you feel about carnitas and beans?”

  “Predatory.”

  Diana’s laugh was as incredible as her smile. She kissed her husband’s cheek. “Thank you for bringing her. Now let’s get the poor girl some food.”

  Grinning, John warmed a colorful plate, put carnitas and beans and steaming hot tortillas on it, and set it down on the table in front of Carly. Diana put a bowl of mixed salad greens next to their guest and sprinkled homemade herb dressing over it.

  Carly looked at the fresh, fragrant food and almost drooled.

  “Eat,” Diana said. “There will be time enough for questions later.”

  Carly ate and listened to John and Diana talk about the Indian children in Taos Pueblo, which ones were learning well and which weren’t, and how to reach the ones who didn’t want to learn. The conversation was normal for a teacher’s household, the camaraderie of husband and wife was unusually deep, and the food was incredible.

  As the slow, sweet heat of New Mexican cuisine spread through Carly, she learned that Diana had been born and raised in Taos and John hadn’t. Diana knew the parents and grandparents of the children she worked with. Sometimes even the great-grandparents. John was at home in the area, but not a lifelong resident. Both husband and wife shared the common concerns of parents for their grown children, and relished the chance to hold and love their grandchildren.

  Several times Carly tried to get Diana to talk about the Taos of her childhood and of her parents’ and grandparents’ childhood. Each time, the conversation gently parted around Carly’s words and flowed on, following its own course while she was urged to eat, there would be time for questions later.

  She took a third tortilla from the warmer, told herself that she wasn’t hungry, and filled it with carnitas anyway. If the first day had been any example, she’d be fending for herself when it came to mealtimes at the Quintrell ranch house. The only one who seemed pleased to have her around was Winifred, and she wasn’t feeling very frisky at the moment.

  So Carly enjoyed her late lunch, mentally compiled questions to ask Diana when there was a break in the conversation, and enjoyed the byplay of a man and a woman who were thoroughly pleased to be with each other.

  Not until John gave Carly directions back to the building holding the newspaper archives did she realize that, despite the repeated promise of time for questions later, there hadn’t been a real opportunity to ask Diana about the Taos of her childhood.

  As she drove into town, Carly thought about all that had been said and not said during lunch. Most people were happy to talk about themselves. Diana Duran definitely wasn’t, which made Carly curious.

  Was she an adoption, like me? Is that why she avoids talking about her parents?

  Carly parked in an alley and walked through the old building that housed the newspaper, still thinking about Diana. As she let herself out the back door, she wondered if Dan would talk about his mother’s childhood, or if he would ignore Carly just like his mother. Frowning, she walked over the courtyard’s weedy, frozen earth without noticing the man who stood across the courtyard, waiting for her.

  Motionless, Dan watched her approach the old building. There was grace in her walk and worry in her expression. He wondered what had gone wrong during lunch.

  Damn it, Dad. Why’d you have to take a professional busybody home to Mom?

  Even under the best circumstances, his mother wasn’t exactly outgoing with anyone other than family—unless they were under six. With young kids, she was another person entirely, laughing and giggling and transparent as sunshine.

  “Indigestion?” Dan asked mildly.

  “What?” Carly jumped, startled. She’d almost walked right into him. “No, the food was fabulous. I was just, um, thinking.”

  “And frowning.”

  “Talk about the pot and the kettle,” she said, too low for him to hear.

  He heard anyway. “You have salsa on your mouth.”

  Automatically she licked her lips. A spicy taste rewarded her. “Mmm, your mother sure can cook. Did she learn it from her mother?”

  “No.”

  To anyone with more sensitivity than a rock, the tone of Dan’s voice closed off that avenue of conversation.

  Irritation flared in Carly. She made her living asking questions about the past, and she was real tired of running up against roadblocks in the present. Especially with Daniel Duran.

  “Did her father like to cook?” Carly asked.

  “No.”

  “Grandmother? Grandfather? Aunts, uncles, elves?” she asked sarcastically.

  Dan wondered if she’d somehow found out. “Why do you care? She’s not part of Winifred’s project.”

  Carly blew out a frustrated breath. “You’re right. But your mother has the kind of kitchen that looks like it was handed down through generations, yet there weren’t any pictures on the wall of parents or grandparents. Kids, yes, the living room was lined with their school photos. Some babies, too.”

  “She and Dad put the kitchen together themselves from swap meets and secondhand sales. He built the greenhouse in back and the two bedrooms where the girls and boys slept. It was crowded, but a lot better than where the kids who were placed with us came from. Nobody shouted, nobody raised a fist, and nobody did drugs or sexual brutality.” The line of Dan’s mouth twisted when she flinched. “You see, Ms. Nosy, not everyone has a family they want to remember and record.”

  “Are you saying your mother didn’t?”

  “Ask her.”

  “I wanted to.”

  “And?”

  “Somehow I couldn’t get a word in edgewise without being rude.”

  “That’s your answer,” he said.

  “What?”

  “A very polite way of saying ‘None of your business.’”

  QUINTRELL RANCH

  MONDAY EVENING

  12

  AT THE BACK OF THE QUINTRELL HOUSE, DAN PARKED HIS TRUCK, GOT OUT, AND closed the metal door. The sound carried like a shot through the darkness. Dogs barked but didn’t rush out. The air was clean, sharp, an icy knife blade against his nostrils. He breathed deeply, savoring the moment. Snow swirled around his head and gently bit his cheeks.

  It was a far cry from the toy-cluttered intimacy of Gus’s home, warm with love and the smell of the garlic chicken Dan had made for the Salvador family. The salad he’d carried in along with dinner was from Diana, as were the various herbal medicines she’d made to help them fight the flu.

  Usually Diana made her own deliveries, or had John do it for her, but tonight Dan had volunteered—even though half of the packages had been destined for the Quintrell ranch. His willingness to drive miles over a rough road on a cold night had surprised everyone, including himself. Like attending the Senator’s funeral, Dan didn’t know why he’d acted on the push of his instincts and taken the herbs from his mother; he only knew that he had.

  Maybe it was simply the full hunter’s moon overhead that made him restless, unable to sit in the small adobe house he’d rented on the edge of town or in the warmth of his parents’ kitchen or in the gentle chaos of Gus’s home. Outside of the buildings there were pastures glistening with snow and moonlight, dark fences and tree shadows where hunters waited in ambush, the soundless flight of an owl seeking a warm mouse. Dan had needed the living night in a way he didn’t question.

  But even now, standing in the midst of it, he was still restless.

  As he walked toward the kitchen entrance, scents from the packets of dried herbs he carried tickled his nose, bringing memories of hiking the
valley and mountains with his mother during the snow-free months, gathering plants and seeds, shoots and roots and leaves. Some were used fresh, in teas and tinctures. Some were dried and pounded together with various fats to make salves, like the one weighing down his left jacket pocket right now. Others were tightly wrapped and stored for future use.

  He’d never asked about the source of his mother’s countless recipes for easing the pain of daily living among people who were too poor to be able to afford—or who didn’t want to use—Anglo doctors and pills. Probably he hadn’t questioned simply because he’d learned by the time he was six that his mother appreciated silence more than chatter. As for questions, they’d better be about the present, not the past.

  A stranger opened the back door in answer to Dan’s knock. The way the man moved and measured Dan told him that this was one of the unobtrusive bodyguards who kept the nutcases away from the governor of New Mexico. Just part of the price of being a public figure.

  “I’m Dan Duran,” he said. “Miss Winifred is expecting me.”

  “I’m new around here,” the man said, “so if you don’t mind, I’d like to see some photo ID.”

  The bodyguard’s soft Georgia accent didn’t fool Dan; he could show ID or he could stand outside until he froze solid. And if he wanted to make an argument out of it, there was another bodyguard just inside the door, watching.

  “No problem,” Dan said easily. He pulled out his wallet and showed his driver’s license.

  The guard compared Dan’s face to the one on the license, nodded, and stepped aside. “Come in out of the cold. The cook left some coffee if you’re interested.”

  The combination of no-nonsense bodyguard and Southwest hospitality with a southern accent almost made Dan smile. “Thanks, but I want to catch Miss Winifred before she goes to bed. I hear she’s feeling a little under the weather.”

  “You know the way?”

  “Is she with her sister?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I know the way.”

  Dan went through a kitchen that could have been in a medium-size restaurant. The ranch had always been a popular place to host contributors, supporters, reporters, fellow politicians, and anyone being wooed for money or votes. The place went from nearly deserted to overflowing with little warning. Folks in town could always tell by the helicopter traffic when there was something going on at the Senator’s—now the governor’s—ranch.

  Tonight the kitchen looked like it hadn’t been used for much more than coffee and a light dinner for the family. Dan wondered if Carly had been included, or if she’d settled for a snack scrounged from the bottom of her big purse.

  Sooner or later she’ll get the message that no one but Winifred wants her here.

  He hoped it would be sooner, before anyone got angry enough to hurt the pretty woman with light in her eyes and laughter in her voice.

  Though it had been years since Dan had been inside the ranch house, he hadn’t forgotten the turns and hallways and doors separating the kitchen from Miss Winifred’s suite. He didn’t meet anyone along the way. Melissa and Pete had probably already retired to their apartment. The maids had gone home. During the summer, the hired hands lived in the bunkhouse or in one of the house trailers tucked back in the trees along a curve of the hill. In winter, the buildings were empty.

  When Dan had been younger, he’d spent the summer tending sheep and cattle on the ranch and learning to hunt with the Snead brothers. They’d been barely a decade older than he was, yet they’d been great teachers. Like their mother and grandfather, they were “wolfers,” hunters hired to keep predatory animals in check. Even as an adult, Jim managed to scratch out a living in the high country. Blaine had ended up in prison for armed robbery.

  Long ago, far away. But, damn, those men could shoot.

  At least, Dan had thought it was long ago and far away until he’d seen tracks on Castillo Ridge yesterday. A man’s tracks, and a dog’s. He couldn’t be certain who else had hiked several miles to watch from afar while the Senator was buried, but Dan knew that only someone with Jim Snead’s skill as a stalker could have gotten within fifty yards of Dan and not given himself away. Since Jim was the best man on the stalk in northern New Mexico, it figured that he was the one who left the tracks.

  Wonder why he didn’t say hello.

  Wonder why he was there, period.

  Maybe that’s why he didn’t show himself. He didn’t want to answer questions.

  Dan knocked lightly on the wide double doors that had been put in to accommodate a hospital bed. In the warm months, Winifred rolled her sister outside. If it made any difference to the patient, only Sylvia knew.

  “Who is it?”

  “The curandera’s son.”

  The door opened slowly. Winifred’s black eyes looked Dan over. “Heard you were back. And busted up.”

  “A little accident, that’s all.”

  She made a sound that said she didn’t believe him, but she stepped aside. “Well, come on in.”

  The heat of the room brought sweat out across Dan’s back. His glance went around the room, missing nothing, including a surprised Carly sitting on the floor surrounded by photos of all ages and sizes. He nodded coolly to her.

  He didn’t like discovering that he’d driven forty minutes over frozen ruts because he hoped to catch a glimpse of a busybody’s smoke-and-gold eyes.

  “You’re looking well, Miss Winifred,” Dan said. It was a lie; she looked tired, pale, and unusually gaunt.

  “Wish I could say the same about you.” Despite her curtness, Winifred smiled. “I was hoping you’d come around to see an old lady. About time you remembered your manners.”

  He shook his head. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

  She gave a bark of laughter. “What did you expect, a miracle? God has better things to do than transform me. Give me a hug and I’ll forgive you for waiting so long to see me.”

  Carefully Dan hugged the woman who was old enough to be his grandmother and tough enough to be Satan’s sister. Winifred was all sinew and bones and attitude. The realization that he’d missed her amazed him. Like the Snead brothers and the warmth of his parents’ kitchen, Winifred was part of a childhood that he only now was coming to value instead of simply accepting as a given.

  “How is Mrs. Quintrell?” Dan asked.

  “Winters are hard on her,” Winifred said, looking toward the bed.

  Dan nodded as if he thought Sylvia noticed the difference in the view out her windows from spring to summer, fall to winter. But the changing seasons mattered to Winifred, so they had to matter to Sylvia.

  Sometimes he wasn’t sure what Winifred believed in the silence of her own mind, but he knew that those beliefs made it possible for the old woman to face another day of caring for a sister who would never care about anything in this life.

  “Well, what did your mother send me?”

  “I’m an errand boy, not an herbalist,” Dan said. “All I know is the package with the red tape is for fever and cough. Mom said you’d probably be needing that if you have the flu that’s been working its way through the valley.”

  “Let’s see what you have,” Winifred said, stifling a cough. “I can’t afford to be sick. Sylvia needs me. Without me, she’d die.”

  Dan believed it. Certainly nothing else was keeping Sylvia alive.

  He began pulling paper packets from his jacket pockets. Next came small baked-clay containers, plus one larger one, until finally his pockets were empty. He peeled off his jacket and hung it over his arm. The room was way too hot for anyone healthy.

  Which explained why Carly was wearing a loose T-shirt and jeans, bare feet, and a sheen of sweat on her forehead. Her feet were narrow and high-arched. Bright purple toenails struck a note of rebellion. Something Celtic had been tattooed on the inside of her right ankle. He wondered what the design was, and if it would feel or taste different from the rest of her skin.

  Deliberately he ignored that line of thought and lo
oked back at Winifred. She picked up each package and container in turn, sniffed, and nodded approvingly.

  “No one equals your mother,” Winifred said, “except maybe my mother’s grandmother, and there were whispers about the unfortunate state of her soul.”

  Dan saw that Carly had quietly come to her feet and was standing nearby, close enough to catch what he and Winifred said.

  Recording every word, I’ll bet.

  He tried to be irritated, but whatever scent Carly was wearing smelled better than everything else in the room.

  Innocence and spice. Hell of a combination.

  “Don’t let me interrupt,” Dan said. “Like I said, I’m only a delivery boy.”

  Winifred laughed huskily. “You stay put and let me see you. Thought we’d lost you this time for sure.”

  “Just a climbing accident,” he said. “Those volcanoes are tricky.”

  She snorted and gave him a look that told him she knew what had really happened. Somehow, someway, she knew.

  It has to be the Sandoval family, Dan decided. Smugglers’ grapevine. Drug runners’ grapevine. Curanderos’ grapevine.

  Shit. I’d really hoped it wasn’t the Sandovals.

  And he’d known it was.

  That was why he was on “vacation” leave in northern New Mexico, where Sandoval men had been devils and their women had been patient saints for three hundred years.

  Winifred nodded once, abruptly, and turned back to Carly.

  Message delivered, Dan thought. Too bad I’m not sure which side of the law Winifred lives on.

  “We were talking about my childhood memories,” Winifred said to Carly.

  “Yes,” Carly said eagerly.

  “My grandfather and grandmother were both Castillos.” As Winifred spoke, she sorted through the herbs and potions and salves Dan had brought. “They weren’t close enough in blood to bother the church, and not distant enough to divide up the Oñate grant even more. My grandmother died giving birth to her first child, my mother María. María was fourteen when she married the son of a blue-eyed Anglo bandit. Not that we thought of our father that way, a bandit. Hale Simmons came from a long line of men who’d lost one war after another, either the Civil War or older wars in Scotland. Those men didn’t have much use for governments and laws that took what a man earned.”