Trouble at the Red Pueblo

by Liz Adair

  He wanted to pound his fist into the wall or throw something across the room, anything to relieve the pressure inside his chest. The plastic-wrapped glasses and room service brochure on the counter warned him he wasn’t on home turf. No wall punching allowed.

  His eye fell on the pillows stacked decoratively on the bed holding Laurie’s saddle and guitar. He snatched one of the pillows. Holding the open end of the pillowcase, he swung the puffy missile around in an arc and brought it down on the other bed. Thwack. He did it again. Thwack. That didn’t do anything to dissipate the coiled-spring tension inside. He needed to hit something hard.

  He spied a wooden armchair in front of the desk and moved in to attack. Swinging the pillow around in a mighty blow, he struck the back of the chair with such force that both the case and the ticking ruptured. Feathers filled the air, and downy wisps floated on air currents, drifting to the far reaches of the room.

  The white feather-storm only tightened the knot in his chest. Tossing the empty pillowcase on the chair, he strode to the door and wrenched it open. Slamming it behind him, he marched to the elevator and stabbed at the button until the lift arrived. When he reached the main floor, he ignored the stares of guests and headed to the Yugo, stiff-arming the swinging doors as he exited the lobby.

  Finally in the car and ready to back out of the parking space, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw what people had been staring at as he had bulldozed his way through the lobby. Tiny white feathers nestled in his hair, hung on his eyebrows, and blanketed his shoulders. He stuck out his bottom lip and blew, dislodging a flurry of fluff that wafted around the interior of the Yugo. “There’s no way I’m going to get out of this with any dignity,” he muttered. He backed up, put the car in gear, and peeled out of the parking lot.

  Turning north, Spider sped along the winding two-lane highway through a dramatic, wind-hewn canyon of red sandstone. The sun, low on the horizon, shadowed cracks and crevices in the towering walls. After ten miles of listening to the whine of the tightly-wound engine, Spider saw a sign pointing left to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes. At the last minute he decided to take the road and turned sharply. The back wheels broke away, and he felt the car skidding. For a moment, he had his hands full, keeping the Yugo on the road and upright.

  When he finally had the car straight and heading west in the right lane of traffic, the corners of his mouth lifted a notch. “Better than punching a hole in the wall,” he muttered.

  He drove to the state park, pulled into an empty parking lot beside an immense sand dune, and got out. The dune was perhaps a hundred feet high and had obviously been climbed by several people recently. Spider followed their tracks, his feet sinking in with each step as he ascended.

  Breathing hard, he finally reached the top. The setting sun intensified the coral color of the dunes, and long shadows etched knife edges onto the tops, creating a crisp-lined black and orange landscape stretching as far as he could see. Spider sat on the ridge and dug his hands into the warm sand beside him.

  “Okay,” he said aloud. “So what’s the problem?”

  The problem was that he suspected his wife of teetering on the edge of an affair with Jack. The other side of that problem was that he knew it was impossible. Duplicity was hardly in Laurie’s vocabulary, much less in her nature. He picked up a handful of sand and let it drain between his fingers. Karam had likely been right, and he, Spider, should have paid more attention. The result was that Laurie was mad, and the hotel room looked like a herd of molting ducks had passed through.

  Spider remembered what Laurie had said about his own feelings about Jack. Was he jealous? Did he covet Jack’s ranch and Angus and car? No, he did not. He just didn’t want Jack to have them to wave in front of Laurie. All right, maybe he was jealous. Maybe it did sting that he had lost his job when the mines closed, and they had been barely scraping by since then.

  The sun had set, but the horizon still had a lavender band around it. Spider dusted off his hands and stood. Time to go face Laurie and apologize. Only this time it would be a real apology. To prove that he was in earnest, he would be kinder to Jack from here on out. He spit on the ground to seal the deal and turned to go.

  At the bottom of the dune, he brushed off the remaining feathers before he got in the Yugo. Then he drove back to Kanab, stopping at Big Al’s Junction for take-out burgers, sweet potato fries and chocolate shakes. Laurie loved chocolate shakes. He hurried back to the hotel, his apology well-rehearsed.

  The room was in semi-darkness, lit only by a shaft of light that fell through the half-open bathroom door. Spider stood for a minute to let his eyes adjust, and then he walked across the room, puffs of white feathers rising each time he placed a foot. He blew a dusting of down away before he set the aromatic sacks from Big Al’s on the desk and looked around for Laurie.

  What he saw made his heart stop.

  The bed they had shared last night was empty. Laurie had pushed the saddle over to the wall on the other bed and was curled up beside it.

  He would sleep alone tonight.

  Spider woke the next morning at seven. He turned over to check the other bed.

  Empty.

  He listened but heard no sound of movement in the room. Lifting up on an elbow, he saw that the saddle had disappeared. Laurie was gone.

  The Big Al takeout bag still sat unopened on the desk. Spider wondered if the emptiness in the pit in his stomach was because he hadn’t eaten since yesterday noon or because he needed to resolve this thing with Laurie. Probably a little bit of both.

  Throwing back the covers, he disturbed a layer of feathers and sent them into the air. He contemplated them from flat on his back. They were a metaphor for his life right now. Scattered. Directionless. When things weren’t right with Laurie, nothing made sense. But how to get all those feathers back where they belonged?

  This wasn’t getting anything solved. Anyway, he couldn’t do anything about it until evening when Laurie was home from her ride and he was back from St. George. He got up, showered, shaved, and dressed. After leaving a note saying he was sorry about the pillow and a five-dollar tip for the maid, he tucked the instruction booklet for his phone into his pocket and headed out to breakfast. By eight o’clock he was pushing open the door of Houston’s Trail’s End Restaurant.

  “Hey, Spencer!”

  Curiosity, along with a niggle of voice recognition, made Spider look around at the person calling from the adjacent dining room. It was Laurie’s cousin.

  Jack’s smile widened when he caught Spider’s eye. “Come on over. Rest your bones in my booth.”

  Spider took off his hat, threaded his way through tables filled with tourists, and slid into the seat opposite.

  Jack raised an eyebrow. “Anything wrong? You look like you’ve been drug through a knothole backwards.”

  Spider set his hat on the seat beside him. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.” He caught the eye of the waitress and raised his hand.

  Jack reached over and picked a feather off Spider’s shoulder. He set it on the table and chuckled. “Must have been some night.”

  Spider was grateful the waitress appeared at that moment with a place setting and a glass of water. He ordered ham and eggs over easy and then turned to Jack. “I thought you were riding this morning with Laurie.”

  “Didn’t she tell you? She’s going out with Amy. Something came up, and I have to go out of town.”

  Spider shook his head.

  “Too many other things on your mind, I guess.” Jack blew the feather off the table and chuckled again.

  Spider gritted his teeth and tried to remember that he had committed to himself to be charitable towards Jack. “She was looking forward to going out to Inchworm,” he said.

  “It’s a great ride and a great arch. Big one with a little one right by it. Looks like an inchworm.”

  “Huh.” Spider couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Jack took a piece of toast and mopped up egg yolk from his plate. “
It’ll take the greater part of a day to get there and back. She’ll be tuckered out when she gets home.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Jack pushed his plate away. “I’ve got to get going. Sorry I can’t stay and chew the fat.”

  “No problem.” Spider watched him slide to the edge of the bench and use his arm to lever himself to a standing position. “You hurt your back out there yesterday?”

  “Nah. I just got a hitch in my getalong. Takes a minute to get loosened up after I sit a while.”

  “Well, take it easy.”

  “I aim to.” Jack gave a half-wave and walked toward the cash register.

  Spider stacked the empty dishes at the edge of the table as a busboy came by to pick them up, and then he fished his phone and the instruction booklet out of his pocket. He propped the pamphlet open with his water glass and hunched over the instrument, reading the directions under his breath and then trying to replicate the sequence on the phone. His muttering grew increasingly exasperated, and the taps on the screen gained in force with each failed attempt. “Great suffering zot,” he said, sitting back in defeat.

  “Excuse me.”

  Spider looked up to see a young Asian man dressed in a tee shirt and cargo shorts, sporting fashionably square glasses. He bowed slightly and spoke in crisp, well-enunciated English. “May I be of assistance?” He pointed to Spider’s phone.

  “I’m an old dog,” Spider said, poking the phone with his index finger. “I’m not doing too well at learning new tricks.”

  The young man smiled. “Even an old dog can learn if he has a good teacher. What is it you wish to learn?”

  “I’m trying to learn how the GPS works. I can’t figure it out from the instructions.”

  “May I?” The young man pointed at the phone.

  “Be my guest. Have a seat.” Spider indicated the bench opposite. “My name’s Spider Latham.”

  The young man bowed again and introduced himself as he slid into the booth. “Daisuke Ito.”

  Spider tried the name on for size. “Dai-su-ke.”

  “It means ‘great helper,’” he explained as he picked up the phone and began pressing buttons with both thumbs.

  “The instructions are here.” Spider pushed them across the table.

  Daisuke didn’t look up from his task. His eyes moved back and forth as his thumbs flew, and after a few minutes he shifted from across the table to the bench beside Spider. “I have downloaded a new app. I will teach you how to use it.”

  “Remember, I’m an old dog,” Spider said as he took the phone from Daisuke.

  His companion smiled. “Yes, but remember, I am a good teacher. My advice is, do not over-think it. The program is very intuitive. Now, where do you wish to go?”

  Spider took the card that Neva had given him from his wallet and pointed to the address on the bottom. Daisuke walked him through the process, explaining it in a way that was perfectly clear.

  “I’ve got it.” Spider grinned. “You are well-named. You’re a great helper, Daisuke.”

  At that moment the waitress arrived with Spider’s ham and eggs. Spider turned to the young man. “Will you have breakfast with me?”

  He shook his head and slid out of the booth. “I have already eaten, and my companions are waiting for me.” He gestured toward two young Asian men standing at the restaurant entrance.

  “I’ve kept them waiting. I’m sorry.” Spider stood. “I don’t know how to thank you.” He offered his hand to Daisuke.

  “I was glad to be of help.” He shook the proffered hand and then bowed.

  Spider wished he could offer more than thanks. “Are you going to be in town for a while?”

  “We’re on our way to the Grand Canyon,” Daisuke said, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “My friends are going to be jealous that I have been talking to a real cowboy.”

  Spider almost denied that he was a cowboy. Before the words got out, he glanced at Daisuke’s friends, standing wide-eyed by the door. Instead of a denial, he picked up his Stetson, put it on, and hooked a thumb in his belt. “It’s been mighty fine talkin’ to you this mornin’, and I take kindly to your helpin’ me out like you did.”

  Daisuke bowed again and walked toward his companions with a grin on his face.

  “Happy trails,” Spider called after him and sat down. Happy trails? That sounded like a B movie. Apparently, it didn’t ring false, though, for each young man caught Spider’s eye and waved through the window as they walked past on the sidewalk.

  When the boys had disappeared beyond the frame of the plate glass, Spider attacked his breakfast. The eggs were cold, but his mind was on other things as he ate. He tried to focus on what he wanted to learn in St. George, but he kept returning to the question of why Laurie didn’t tell him last night that Jack wasn’t riding with her today. With that question still unanswered, he paid his bill and left. Soon he was on his way south to Fredonia. From there it was 75 miles of desert across the Arizona Strip with only the polygamous village of Colorado City before his destination.

  Spider ignored the electronic instructions from his cell phone until he got into Hurricane, twenty miles from St. George. Then he started listening. The disembodied voice led him to a tiny, business-on-a-shoestring storefront on North Main Street in St. George, just up the street from the pioneer-era tabernacle.

  Spider parked the Yugo and walked half a block to the correct address. There it was on the door, Earnest Endeavors. The sign was surrounded with the same floral motif as the one on the business card Spider carried. Wondering what this could have to do with the trouble at the Red Pueblo, he pushed the door open and entered.

  A MIDDLE-AGED LADY with copper-colored hair, thick eyeliner and clumpy black eyelashes sat at a desk in the middle of the room. The desk faced the door, and the nameplate read Leona Rippley. A copy machine was the lonely occupant of the wall beside her, and a scattering of scrapbooking supplies made a sad showing on the opposite one.

  As Spider took off his hat and approached, Leona looked up and flashed a wide smile. “How may I help you?”

  Spider held up Leona’s business card. “Some people over in Kanab got a letter from you offering to buy their property,” he said. “They’ve asked me to come over and talk to you about it.”

  Leona’s smile didn’t diminish in size, but it seemed to Spider that it grew rigid. “What was the name?”

  “The letter would have been addressed to Martin Taylor.”

  Leona keyed some information into her computer, her long, boutique nails adding an extra layer of noise to the process. She frowned as her eyes moved across the screen, and she turned to Spider. “What did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t. Name’s Spider Latham.” He put the card in his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and opened it to his badge. “I’m a deputy over in Lincoln County, though I’m not here on county business.” He laid the wallet on her desk, so she could get a good look.

  The smile was gone now, and Leona had turned so pale that her eyeliner and mascara stood out like black slashes on the white oval of her face. She pointed to a chair with a trembling hand. “Will you bring that over here, please?”

  Spider obliged, dragging the chair to the place she indicated by her desk. He picked up his wallet and stuffed it in his back pocket before sitting when she motioned him to do so. He held his Stetson on his lap.

  She swiveled her chair around to face him and leaned forward, her knees perhaps two feet away from his. Clasping her hands, she looked into his eyes and said, “I prayed to Jesus.”

  Someone walked by outside, and Leona grabbed her keys, sprang out of her chair, and went to the door. She locked it and turned the open sign around to say closed. Then she returned to her chair and assumed the same knee-to-knee, eye-locked position as before.

  “I didn’t know where to turn,” she said. “My son has muscular dystrophy and has such needs.”

  Spider didn’t have any idea where this was leading. He shifted in
his chair

  “I opened this shop. I do bookkeeping, and I’m a notary. I sell some scrapbooking things, but it’s hard when you’re a single mom and—” Her eyes welled up.

  “—and your son has such needs.” It was easy to finish her sentence because of her obvious desperation, but Spider didn’t want to get sucked into something that was going to take time and energy away from today’s mission.

  “So when he came in, it was like my luck had finally turned.”

  Spider sat up straighter. “When who came in?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I signed something. I can’t talk about any of it. What he asked me to do or what I did or any of it.”

  “Was it illegal?”

  “No.”

  “But you can’t talk about it.”

  “No.”

  Spider pointed to her and then to himself. “And yet, you prayed to Jesus, and you’ve got us here in a conversation position. What are we going to talk about?”

  Leona’s eyes filled with tears again. She opened the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out a folded copy of The Spectrum, the local newspaper. She gave it to Spider and pointed to an article. “Read that.”

  Spider set his hat on her desk and read the suicide story of Mary Defrain, daughter of Frank Defrain, owner of Defrain Construction. Mary had worked in the estimating department of her father’s business but had recently been thrown into a depression when they lost a crucial bid that would have saved the overextended development company.

  Spider finished the news item and looked at the date at the top of the paper. It was two months ago. “Okay,” he said, handing the newspaper back. “I read it. Now are we going to talk?”

  Leona cleared her throat. “I think I need to go back to the beginning. You know how, when something is too good to be true, it usually isn’t?”