Firestorm

by Nevada Barr

  Joseph Hayhurst was an activist, if not for the environment, then for the rights of Native Americans to preserve their cultural heritage. It was not inconceivable Josh and Joseph’s paths had crossed before. The information Frederick had unearthed about Hayhurst fighting the oil leases provided a motive for Nims’s murder. Much as she didn’t like it, so far Joseph was the only one who filled all three requirements for a self-respecting murderer: means, motive and opportunity.

  Light marred the soupy darkness on the far side of the ridge and Anna tensed. The yellowing beam of a headlamp moved across the snow.

  “Anna!”

  The shout came in Joseph Hayhurst’s voice. Speak of the devil, Anna thought, considering whether or not to answer. The loneliness of the place was suddenly threatening.

  “Anna, where are you?” The beam poked here and there, a dirty finger trying to scrape her from hiding.

  “By the truck,” she said, and flashed her light once. Joseph might be a murderer but at least, this way, Anna would know where he was during the long walk back to camp.

  Footsteps crunched over the snow as she got to her feet, reassured herself she still carried Howard’s Buck knife and could get to it easily if she had to.

  “Got your radio off?” Joseph asked as his headlamp picked a path to her.

  “Battery,” Anna said.

  “John’s is almost dead.” He was beside her now and Anna rocked on the balls of her feet, waiting to see what came next.

  “The crowds got to me. All of us packed in like sardines, that shelter’s beginning to smell like a locker room. John sent me up the hill to see what Base had to say.”

  Anna couldn’t see his face but his voice was relaxed, conversational. Her defenses dropped a notch, the clutch in her belly loosened.

  “Good news. Tomorrow—late but still tomorrow—they should get to us. They cleared over two miles of road today.”

  “It could be better,” Joseph said. “We could be sitting in front of a fireplace somewhere entertaining our friends with tales of our harrowing adventure, but I’ll take it. This has been a long couple of days.”

  For a minute neither of them spoke. Fatigue was pooling in Anna’s joints, filling her lungs like poison.

  Joseph laughed suddenly and it scared her. “What?” she demanded.

  “Everybody is flipping out,” he said. “Neil’s reliving his glory days in high school football, Lawrence is waxing erotic over his mother’s enchiladas, and John’s ready to kill for a cigarette.”

  And Paula was ready to kill for a roll of toilet paper. A hot bath might motivate Anna to murder, if not today then tomorrow. People said they’d kill for one thing or another all the time. Mostly it was just a figure of speech but now and then a child was beaten to death for his sneakers, a baby smothered because it cried, a man killed for an empty wallet.

  Society maintained the illusion that human life was of great value but more often than not it was taken cheap; a matter of convenience or whim. Len or Josh could have been killed for toilet paper or cigarettes. Digging for deeper reasons and complex motives was a sign of respect for one’s fellow man, elevating even a murderer to a plane where life was too precious to snuff out casually.

  Suddenly it took all of Anna’s strength just to keep on standing. She must have sighed or, worse, whimpered, because Joseph said: “Worn out?”

  “Plumb tuckered. You?” she asked, to return the favor. If he said anything but yes she wouldn’t believe him.

  “Fresh as a daisy. Shall we head down?”

  Anna slipped the elastic band of her headlamp around her forehead where it was designed to be worn so her hands would be free. “You go first. My lamp’s burned out,” she lied. She didn’t relish the idea of him walking behind her. He led off and she followed at a discreet distance. She was so tired she was stumbling. Christmas Eve, she thought. They only had to hold things together one more day then Santa was coming with the cavalry.

  When they’d passed the heli-spot, gotten close enough to camp Anna calculated if she screamed she’d be heard, she brought up the subject of murder. Or of oil leases. In her mind and possibly Joseph’s the two were linked.

  Under better circumstances, with plenty of food and rest shoring her up, Anna might have found the energy to employ a little tact. As it was she chose the Bigger Hammer method of investigation.

  “The FBI agent down at Incident Base ran a background check on you,” she said bluntly. “You were working with the Navajo nation to stop the BLM from granting an oil lease near the Bisti. There’re just a handful of us up here. Pretty nearly everybody’s got an alibi but you. Once Forensics gets up here it won’t take long to sort out who killed Nims.” That was not precisely true but Anna thought it sounded convincing. “If you did it to stop that lease, tell me now. I can’t promise anything but I’ll tell the district attorney what a swell guy you are. It might make the difference between life without parole and life with at least a shot at an early out.” She’d said her piece in one breath and found herself faint and shaken at the end of it. She needed food.

  Joseph stopped and turned, shining the light in her eyes. Anna sidestepped the beam but she’d already been blinded. “Get the light off me,” she barked.

  “Sorry.” He moved the lamp to the ground at her feet.

  “All the way off,” Anna said. He clicked it off. The darkness was so absolute even without being night-blind Joseph had thrown away his advantage.

  The Buck knife was in Anna’s pocket. She eased it from its sheath and let her arm fall to her side.

  “You’re asking if I killed Mr. Nims?”

  Disembodied, Joseph’s voice had a sinister ring though there was nothing in his tone to warrant it. That was the problem: there was nothing in his tone, not incredulity, outrage, curiosity, malice, shock, amusement. He spoke almost in a monotone. Because it gave nothing away, it made Anna nervous.

  Her hand strayed toward her headlamp but she didn’t switch it on. Light would be of little value and it would pinpoint her whereabouts. One step at a time, she eased carefully back up the trail. On the packed snow her boots made little noise. “Leonard Nims was the one who would say yea or nay to the lease application,” she said to cover any sound she made.

  “No,” Joseph replied. “Nims was the one who would say yes to the lease.” Color returned to his voice, bitterness from the sound of it.

  “It was a done deal?” Anna asked. Frederick had assured her it was pending. She was fishing for a lie. Lies, when one knew they were lies, could reveal more than the truth.

  “In a sense,” he replied. “Len was taking bribes from the oil and gas companies. In return he marked the Environmental Impact Statements ‘No Significant Impact,’ letting them drill wherever they wanted to.”

  Anna waited for the rest of the story but Joseph had done talking. Silence stretched, thickened. Anna’s nerves stretched, grew thin. Finally she could stand it no longer. She reached up and turned on her headlamp and screamed.

  Joseph Hayhurst had moved soundlessly up the trail and stood less than two feet from her.

  “Old Indian trick,” he said. “I learned it in Boy Scouts.”

  Anna stepped back and pulled the radio from her belt. “John, come up toward the heli-spot. Now.”

  “John’s radio’s off. Saving batteries, remember?”

  Anna remembered. She was hoping he hadn’t. “Okay,” she said reasonably. “We’re alone, no radio contact, I’m accusing you of murder and you’re sneaking around scaring the pants off me. Before I start screaming my head off just to get some company up here, do you want to level with me?”

  “Isn’t this where they say ‘I’m not talking without my lawyer’?”

  “No. They say that in warm comfortable interrogation rooms.” Anna began walking backward, careful not to trip. “I’m putting distance between us. It’s all I’ve got—”

  “Besides Howard’s knife.”

  “—besides Howard’s knife. Respect it please. I’m
too tired and this is all too creepy for you to play any more games with me.”

  “No more games,” Joseph said. “Someone could get hurt. Maybe even me.” He smiled his Mona Lisa smile.

  Anna didn’t smile back. She was remembering his quickness and his strength. She kept her light trained on his face. He stood perfectly still and made no attempt to dodge the glare. Apparently he’d grasped the fact that her fear made her dangerous despite the fact that he was younger and stronger than she.

  “If Len was taking kickbacks, why didn’t you report him?”

  Joseph laughed without humor. “You don’t think the BLM had figured it out? Why do you think Nims got bumped out of his last job? Kickbacks for timber leases. The government had no proof and, if you ask me, no white-hot desire to find any. Scandal, don’t you know. A lot of career bureaucrats might look the fool, land on the wrong side of the party line. Our guess was they intended to handle the oil lease problem in the tried and true method. John might wonder why they were so anxious to promote Len into that fire management slot but I don’t. They want him out of temptation’s way.”

  “You knifed him to stop the lease,” Anna said.

  “Au contraire. I wish Len was alive and well. True, the lease will be on hold briefly, but then a new cog will be put in the machinery and we’ll have to start all over. Find out if he can be bought and by whom, if he’s ambitious, if he has any sense of responsibility toward the land. By the time that’s untangled some antsy supervisor will have knuckled under to the considerable public pressure to okay the lease and the drills will roll in.

  “We had nearly enough to hang Mr. Nims. In court, in public, in the media. Nims dead is a bad thing. We needed Nims.”

  Anna studied him. It sounded plausible and it would be easy to check. For tonight she’d let it go. As if she had much choice.

  “Why did you sneak up and scare me half to death?” she growled.

  “Why do children play with scorpions?”

  FOR ONCE EVERYONE was present and accounted for, and the shelter was crammed with bodies. The fire pit was gone, raked over to make more space. Morale was low. When Anna and Joseph squeezed themselves in nobody even bothered to speak.

  “Tomorrow, Base said,” Anna told the others. “We’ve only got to get through tonight.”

  “Everybody cuddle up,” LeFleur told his crew. “I don’t want anybody freezing to death.”

  Anna squashed herself between Stephen and Lawrence as the lesser of the bundling evils and felt some small warmth from their closeness.

  Headlamp on and pushed down in the sand so it shined upward casting a faint and shadow-filled light over the group, Hugh Pepperdine was wasting batteries. No one remarked on it. They only had to survive one more night and they were all glad of the light. By its feeble glow Anna studied her companions.

  Lindstrom had his gloves off and was sucking on the little finger of his left hand where rough leather had worn it raw. Lawrence had his hands and arms pulled inside his brush jacket and the sleeves tucked behind his back in the classic style of a straight jacket. Jennifer had set herself slightly apart. Knees hugged tightly against her chest and her face buried in her folded arms, she sat near the shelter’s opening.

  “Jen, it’s too cold where you are. Move in.” Anna sounded harsh but there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

  “I’m fine,” Jennifer mumbled against the fabric of her sleeve.

  “John?” Anna pleaded.

  LeFleur was seated between Joseph Hayhurst and Neil Page, his legs stretched over the cold fire pit. “Shove over,” he said to Joseph. Half crouching, he reached out, grabbed Jennifer by the upper arm and pulled her across the Apache’s lap, stuffing her into the space between them.

  “They want your body,” Lindstrom said.

  Jennifer made no reply but allowed herself to be arranged in the relative warmth between the two men.

  To Anna’s left was Stephen, then an open space, then Howard Black Elk propped against the yellow packs. On his far side, against the thin fabric of one of the fire shelters that made up the tent, was Paula Boggins. Shivering in an oversized NoMex shirt, she squeezed her hands between her thighs for warmth. Pepperdine sat apart, like a leper.

  Boggins was somehow changed and it took Anna’s tired mind a moment to figure out what was out of place. The brush jacket: Paula had taken it off and spread it over Howard’s legs.

  “Put your coat back on,” Anna ordered sharply. “And move over here between Stephen and Howard.”

  “Howard’ll get the draft,” Paula protested as she struggled into the jacket.

  “No he won’t,” Anna said. “Hugh, move up beside Howard, between him and the shelter wall.”

  “Why can’t Paula stay where she’s at?” Pepperdine asked sullenly.

  “Because she’s little and hurt and you’re big and fat,” Anna snapped. “You’ll block more draft.”

  Hugh opened his mouth, noted the eyes on him from the others, closed it and moved. As if for spite, he turned out his lamp.

  “Snug as bugs in rugs,” Stephen said when they’d all done stirring. His words were light but the fun had gone out of him. It had gone out of all of them, Anna guessed.

  Tucking her hands in her armpits for warmth, she leaned her head back against the boulder and closed her eyes. Bodies were piled together like puppies in a basket. One would have thought that would engender a sense of safety. Not in Anna. The dark was absolute, fatigue clouded everyone’s mind. No one was farther than an arm’s reach away. Black Elk was unconscious, Jennifer half comatose with grief. A knife, sudden and well placed, a heart stopped, who would be witness to it? Likely not even the victim.

  Someone began to snore. Not the rip-snorting variety that destroys marriages and sets dormitories to warring, but the soft purring snore of a contented child. Out of deference to her sex, Anna guessed it was Paula or Jennifer but it could have been anyone.

  The purr was soporific and Anna could feel a welcome sea of sleep lapping at the shores of her mind. Lest she give in to it, she marshaled her thoughts, laid out what facts she had.

  Nims had been killed during the burnover. Eight shelters, nine survivors; the man or woman who didn’t have one at the firestorm’s end had shared with Nims. Paula had seen Page with his, Pepperdine had seen Lawrence, she and John could vouch for Howard, Jennifer saw Stephen. That left John, Joseph, Paula, Hugh and Jennifer.

  Hugh’s cowardice cleared him in Anna’s mind. He’d turned Len out to die. The only motive Paula had, viewed from the perspective of business economics, ceased to make much sense. Joseph needed Nims alive so he could hang him later.

  That left only John LeFleur and Jennifer Short and neither one of them had a motive that amounted to anything.

  Threads of thought began unraveling. Anna let her mind drift. Dimly she was aware of the rock, unrelenting against the back of her head, the earth icy beneath her rear end, the faint warmth of the men at thigh and shoulder.

  Nims: why had he needed killing? He blackmailed a young woman for sex and tried to blackmail a high-school boy into committing arson. He took kickbacks for oil and lumber leases, abandoned Hamlin to the Jackknife. The warden in Anna’s mind was quick to remind her they had all abandoned Newt and she amended the thought; Nims had been quick to abandon the boy. The rest of them had dithered humanely for a moment or two.

  Nims was divorced. He’d left a wife and half a dozen kids in Susanville. Single mom to six? Maybe the ex-Mrs. had a reason to do in Leonard.

  Without Mrs. Nims at hand, Anna was inexorably brought back to Short and LeFleur. LeFleur and Short. Short and LeFleur. Despite her best efforts, sleep crept up, not in a slow drift but in a sudden fall, as if she had been pushed off a cliff.

  CHAPTER

  Twenty-Six

  ANNA WASN’T SURE what woke her. In the impossible dark beneath the shelters, down in the wash, under the fog, it was difficult to be sure that she wasn’t still sleeping or, better yet, dead. Cramping in her legs
penetrated the swamp of dreams. She was awake and alive. However short her nap, her body was somewhat revived. Her brain remained a questionable resource. Too long without light or food, dreams tangled unpleasantly with reality and she doubted the reliability of its workings.

  Butt and heels were numb with cold and her knees ached from being too long straight. Sandwiched as she was between Lawrence and Stephen, movement was almost impossible. Breathing enveloped her, the deep even breaths of Gonzales’s young healthy lungs, the uneven exhalations from Stephen’s uneasy slumber, rasping from Black Elk.

  The purring snore had stopped. In its place was a faint whispering, gentle and all-encompassing, the sound of feathers sweeping powdered snow. Wind, she realized with a rush of gratitude, high distant wind. The weather was breaking. Fog would be blown from the canyons and they could go home. Better than reindeer stamping on the roof.

  Furtive sounds, then something nudged her boot. Feet and legs were so numb it felt as if someone had kicked a block of wood on which she stood. It was touch that had pulled her from her dreams. Not because it was violent or unexpected, but because a woman waiting to be knifed is sensitive to these things.

  The bump triggered the uneasy musings that had preceded sleep and a spurt of adrenaline was loosed in Anna’s bowels. Resuming her rest became out of the question. Were she not called upon to defend her life, she would still have to crawl outside to go to the bathroom—euphemistically speaking: no room, no bath.

  To prepare for either event, she began wiggling her toes in an attempt to wake them. Excruciating tickles from toe to hip rewarded her as nerves practiced their signals.

  Another stealthy sound; Anna stopped the toe action the better to listen. She thought to unsheathe Howard’s Buck knife but in the dark and crowded confines of their bivouac an accident was practically guaranteed. Finding herself to be the dreaded night slasher would not be a good joke.

  The creepings and sneakings leaked from the darkness to her right. Closing her eyes—as if it made a shred of difference—Anna tried to remember where everyone had been when the lights went out. Right: Lawrence, then John, Jennifer, Joseph and Neil. Anna opened her eyes again and listened till her head swelled with the effort. Or so it felt in the dark. Neil was on the end, nearest the foil tent wall. Unless he moved in instead of out, the noise wouldn’t fit. Joseph, like Page, was close to the outside.