She remembered coming home to an empty nursery, remembered locking its door securely against her sorrow. She remembered the months that followed as she lay in bed and did nothing but try to wrap her mind around the unthinkable reality of it all. And even more months that had to pass before she regained the will even to venture outside and once again feel the warmth of the sun against her face. And the dark year that passed before she went back to work.
She could still see the quickly averted looks from those who couldn’t find the words to speak to her, and the uninvited questions from others who brought it all back. The few whom she counted as friends had held her as if they understood, but even they couldn’t fathom the loss. Sharon moved a trembling hand from under the blanket and wiped away the silent tears. Perhaps, if she survived this ordeal, they could once again hold the possibility of a child within their grasp. A new way. A new life. A new beginning.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Eight hours, Arthur reflected. Four hundred eighty minutes. Twenty-eight thousand, eight hundred seconds. He took a deep breath and let it out. With more than a thousand miles of mountainous terrain ahead of him, it still didn’t seem like enough time. He had begun to feel the heavy weight of his role in this game he was being forced to play. A game that he must engage in fully, because the grand prize was Sharon’s life.
He began moving through the maze of possibilities, trying to pursue each forking pathway to its logical end. Kanesewah was running. Keeping out of sight and moving with purpose, making his way north to some unknown destination. Had he already reached wherever he was going, and taken refuge? Or had he been smarter than the average runner and succeeded at misdirecting everyone? Arthur rocked his tired head back on his broad shoulders. If he had learned anything about the patterns of runners during his years of tracking them across the desert, it was that he should continue north until his gut told him differently. And he had always trusted his gut. Just as he had that time when he discovered six UDAs packed like sardines beneath the rubber mat in the cutout bed of a pickup truck. He had chuckled at the sight of their astonished faces as the mat was peeled away from their claustrophobic hiding place.
He filled the Bronco’s tank in Moab and crossed the Colorado River at Lion’s Park. Driving over the split highway bridge that spanned the roiling green water, he saw the Moab Canyons Pathway walking bridge off to his right. Normally, it was alive with vacationers and hikers, but on this rain-soaked late afternoon, it stood empty. Back on solid land, he followed the highway’s gradual turn past the tall, reddish canyon cliff on his right and the campground on his left, then the small power substation and the western entrance to Arches National Park.
His parents had taken him there when he was fifteen. Arches Scenic Drive snaked past majestic towers and into the vast primeval splendor of petrified sand dunes, where dusty arteries had been carved into the red rock by fifty million years of rain. He remembered gazing at Balanced Rock and marveling at its harmony. If only he could achieve such balance.
He remembered almost losing the sight in his right eye after aiming his camera into the opening of North Window. The optical magnification of the sun through the lens had temporarily blinded him, scaring his young body into trembling as he managed to wander through the blurred surroundings to a place where he could sit down and whisper his prayers. After a short time, the Sun Father answered his earnest prayers, and his vision slowly returned. He had vowed then and there never to look at Jóhonaa’éí again while he was making his journey across the sky. He never told his parents.
Ten miles out of Moab, he passed a resort with its log-cabin souvenir shop, campground, mock-up schoolhouse, and gas station. They had even thrown in two spurious-looking Native American tepees for good measure. Still, he had to hand it to the creators of this whole tawdry spectacle for backdropping it against a magnificent red sandstone butte.
Twenty silent minutes later, the winding snake of Highway 191 met with Interstate 70 at Crescent Junction. Ak’is, apparently tired of the rain and wind, decided to hop into the back seat and curl up for a nap as they drove on. Thinking had become wearisome for Arthur, so he tried not to think. His brain was tired of pondering, tired of concocting, tired of imagining scenarios that hadn’t played out anywhere but in his exhausted mind. Letting go of his frenetic thoughts, he pushed on through the heavy rain.
Now, as the Bronco rolled beneath the expansive bridge deck of I-70, Arthur spun the steering wheel and felt the tires drop off the end of the pavement. He guided the truck into a spot in the dirt lot of Papa Joe’s Stop & Go to consider his options. Pulling a tattered road atlas from the overhead shelf above the windshield, he propped it open against the steering wheel. He quickly located the page assigned to Utah and pored over it, noting every road, every path of escape.
Kanesewah would have thought twice before heading east into Colorado, because that would mean staying on the busy interstate and increasing his odds of being spotted by any tourist, long-haul trucker, or watchful state trooper he might stumble across. The only way to keep a low profile would have been to head west a few miles and get himself back on 191 just past Green River. After that, it would be easy enough to roll past Elliot Mesa and Mount Elliot and get across the Price River. From there, Arthur followed his finger north through Helper, deeper into the mountains. It would be another almost three hours to Flaming Gorge. Once Kanesewah passed the ranger station at Dutch John, he could easily wind his way deeper into Wyoming. He nodded to himself. That was the route he would use if he were on the run.
Arthur closed the atlas and shoved it back onto the overhead shelf, getting the eye from Ak’is the entire time. It was the look that meant the waves in his bladder were cresting. Arthur let him out to water the mud and then hit the head in the Stop & Go before pointing the Bronco back onto the blacktop and up the I-70 entrance ramp. He would make Rock Springs, Wyoming, in about four hours.
As the rain beat steadily on the roof and hood, he found himself slipping into past mornings on the mesa, with Sharon lying beside him while the rain tapped out its rhythm on the ribbed steel roof. More times than not, he would wake to the tinkling of her wind chimes in the morning breeze. In summer, it meant that the hot, dry winds had made their way east across the high desert to White Mesa. In the fall, however, it represented the cool, bracing air that crept in and heightened the sweet scent of the black and silver sage surrounding their home.
He would turn his attention past the wafting curtains to be greeted by the clear, bright azure sky that often canopied their corner of the world. Sometimes, framed like a moving portrait in one of the windows, a pair of red-tailed hawks could be seen floating effortlessly on the wind in the near distance. He would watch them sail, their wings spread in enviable freedom, before they spiraled out of sight. Then he would roll onto his left side, prop his head in his hand, and gaze at the sleeping face of his wife. Sometimes, a lock of black hair would have fallen across her face during the night and come to rest near the corner of her mouth. As he’d watch her sleep, a soft breath might lift the errant lock into mystical flight, then let it float down and fall gently back into place.
Grudgingly, he would roll back over to look at the time on the docking station. Ever since building their house on the mesa, one of his private joys had been to rise while darkness still covered the high desert, dress comfortably, and pad quietly downstairs to make a pot of coffee. He would shrug on his long Pendleton coat and go out into the morning twilight, his hands warming against his coffee mug.
He had his favorite spot, too: a long ledge of sandstone that curved away from him and disappeared down the canyon wall at the end of the mesa. There he would sit, overlooking the canyon floor, his back against the sloping wall behind him, the mug of coffee warming his hands, and wait. Wait for the tranquil silence to be given life while the sun climbed over Hooded Mesa’s six-thousand-foot spine and spilled its light as if molten gold were being poured from a crucible into th
e canyon before him. Sometimes, the cry of a hawk would echo on the dawn breeze. He would then glance toward Spirit Lake and watch the newborn light dance on its shimmering surface, turning it into a glistening mirror on the canyon floor. Then, as the land began to come awake, he would stand as his father had taught him, facing east, eyes on the horizon, and slowly turn clockwise until he had completed a full circle.
“This is who I am,” he would say aloud. “This is who I am.”
He also remembered those rare mornings when Sharon would join him. He would speak the early morning blessing that told of how the mountains were their spiritual home and how, in the middle of this home, would be a warm fire. Of how thoughts would be good and plans would be made. Of how life would be blessed in this home where hope resided and where, together, they would sing as the morning unfolded.
Arthur’s mind quickly jumped back into reality when the large green 191 exit sign loomed above the interstate ahead. As he peeled off from the superhighway, his body began to feel the toll from the early start to his day. And if that weren’t enough, the drag of the afternoon tugged relentlessly at his tired, overworked mind. Add in the melancholy of unrelenting rain, and the choice became clear: at Rock Springs, he would pull off for some welcome shut-eye.
Unless he found that he couldn’t sleep. Then he would find the biggest pot of coffee he could, drain it, and keep going, hoping that his calculating guesswork had not been flawed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The snow had been falling steadily for the past two hours, covering Jackson Hole with an almost Thomas Kinkade–like glow. Leonard Kanesewah drove the Buick slowly past the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar in all its garish electrified splendor. It was just after midnight. Gloria was staring out at the glowing marquee and the crimson-outlined saddle bronc and rider balanced precariously on the rooftop.
Sharon Nakai scanned the crowd of pedestrians for a familiar face, not knowing what she would do if she were to find one, but hoping nonetheless. Recognizing no one, she gazed out her side window and watched helplessly as the happy, laughing crowds carried on, blithely unaware of their presence.
Kanesewah’s eyes, however, were busy roaming the crowded street, searching for the next vehicle for the final leg of their journey. It was somewhere in this town, among the rustic-looking restaurants, art galleries, and boutique shops of North Cache Street. The black facade and white-trimmed windows of the Anvil Hotel seemed to catch his eye, and the Buick slowed to a crawl as they passed. But nothing in the parking lot interested him, so he continued up Cache Street.
Sharon sat quietly in the back seat, remembering her college days, when she and a few of her friends had driven up to Jackson for a long weekend away from their New Mexico State University studies. They spent their days hiking the trails of the Tetons, and their evenings in the bar, shooting pool on any of the four red-felted tables while rebuffing thinly veiled attempts at conversation from drunken boys and horny middle-aged men. Funny, she thought, the kinds of things you thought about when trying to control the fear and focus your reeling mind.
Kanesewah tapped the brakes and turned in between the twin stone pillars of the Wolf Moon Inn. Moving slowly past the parked cars, he took the alley exit at the end of the first building, circled around, and turned south on Cache again. After circumnavigating the town square, he headed north again, back to the Wolf Moon’s crowded parking lot. Something had caught his eye.
A Jackson police car pulled onto the crowded street from its blind under a darkened gas station portico. Sharon saw Kanesewah stiffen and his hands tighten on the steering wheel.
“Don’t even think about it,” he warned, peering into the rearview mirror at Sharon.
She watched in nervous silence as the police car drove slowly past, saw it blend into the crowd of cars and people behind them and vanish just as quickly as it had appeared. Her heart sank. Not so much as a glance from the officer behind the wheel. They may as well be invisible.
Kanesewah rolled into the Wolf Moon’s parking lot again, toward the two-story block of rooms in back. He was eyeing a mocha-colored newer-model GMC Yukon with Minnesota plates. It sat high enough to be four-wheel drive, but in the snowy night, he couldn’t be sure. He parked the Buick in an empty space across from the Yukon, turned off the headlights, and put it in park with the engine idling. He adjusted the rearview mirror to keep a watchful eye on the motel office behind them and to the right.
“What do we do now?” Gloria asked.
“We wait,” he replied.
Gloria turned in the front seat, rested her left thigh against the seat back, and glanced at Sharon before staring out the windshield. No one spoke. Sharon, too, was looking out the windshield at the GMC, hoping it wasn’t some vacationing senior citizen. If she were lotto-winner lucky, it would be an off-duty cop on some well-deserved R&R, and this nightmare would be over when Kanesewah tried to carjack him. Either way, her situation was about to change. But how it might change remained to be seen.
A few minutes into their vigil, a figure stepped out of a ground-floor motel room across from them—a tall man, wearing a shearling leather coat and dark cowboy hat. She watched as he stepped away from the weak light of the doorway and strode toward the mocha GMC. He stopped briefly in front of it to light a cigarette, then continued past it through the parking lot and toward the motel office. He paused outside the office door, beside a large smokers’ receptacle resembling a chess pawn, and took a drag from his cigarette. Sharon breathed a quiet sigh of relief as the man finally crushed his cigarette on the pavement, ignoring the receptacle, and went inside the motel office.
More quiet time passed before another motel door opened. This time, it was a room on the second floor, near the left end of the long balcony, making it difficult to see the shadowy figure. She watched intently as the silhouette of a medium-size man walked away from the room and along the balcony to the stairs at the end. When he came down to the parking lot, she could see he was wearing a forest-green wool rancher’s coat and a dark ball cap. He fumbled with something he took from one of his coat pockets, and the lights of the GMC blinked twice, accompanied by two brief chirps from the alarm. The man opened the driver’s door and leaned in as if searching for something.
“Keep an eye on her,” Kanesewah said, getting out of the car.
Gloria rested the .38 on the top of the seat back, pointed at Sharon. Sharon stared at it, then into the woman’s eyes.
“How long have you been with him?” Sharon asked.
Gloria snorted. “Why? We girlfriends now or something? You want to paint our toenails later?”
“Just curious.”
Gloria looked briefly behind her, through the snowflakes melting as they hit the warm windshield, at Kanesewah walking toward the Yukon and its unsuspecting owner. She turned her attention back to Sharon as Kanesewah stopped the man, produced a cigarette, and said something.
“Eight years.”
“That’s a long time,” Sharon said. “And he hasn’t asked you to marry him?”
Gloria smirked. “Leonard isn’t the marrying kind. He’s the fuck-you-hard kind.
“Then why do you stay with him?” The man produced a lighter and struck a flame. “He doesn’t seem to treat you very well.”
The first drip of doubt.
Gloria’s irritation manifested quickly. “Shut up!” she barked. “He’s good to me. You don’t know a fucking thing about him! Sure, he’s rough sometimes, but he’s good to me.”
Sharon measured out another drip.
“I just meant that I’ve known a lot of women whose husbands or boyfriends have treated them badly, and it never gets any better. They never change or they never commit.”
Gloria craned her neck around toward the GMC and saw no one. Her eyes searched the parking lot before she answered. “Just shut the hell up, will you? You don’t know a fucking thing!” The figure of a large man eme
rged from the shadows at the left end of the two-story inn. The long hair blowing in the snowy breeze told her it was Kanesewah, and that seemed to calm her anxiety. More snowflakes self-destructed on the warm windshield, running together to form droplets of water. “Once we get to Canada,” she said, turning back to Sharon, “we’re going to start a better life together.”
Sharon said, “Is that what he promised you?”
Another measured dose.
“You don’t know him,” Gloria repeated, keeping the barrel of the revolver across the top of the seat back. “You don’t know shit, Miss all-high-and-mighty TV Girl. He loves me.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Drip.
“Shut up, I said. Just stop talking!”
Kanesewah opened the door and got in.
“I’m gonna pull up next to the GMC. You get the shit from the trunk, and I’ll move her. And be quick about it. We can’t afford to waste time.”
“Sure, baby,” Gloria said, handing over the .38 to Kanesewah.
Sharon had watched it all unfold during her conversation with Gloria. It was all she could do to keep her poker face on. After the man had lit the stranger’s cigarette, she saw Kanesewah whip his left arm around the man’s left shoulder as he stepped away, his large hand covering the man’s mouth and nose, stifling any chance to scream. The man had struggled briefly while Kanesewah pulled something from his coat pocket and thrust it repeatedly into the man’s torso. After the fourth thrust, the man’s body wilted and Kanesewah hurriedly dragged him into the shadows of the motel. Sharon concluded that what was now in Kanesewah’s coat pocket was either a bloodied switchblade or one of those folding knives that opened with just the flick of a thumb. And if they were indeed heading to Canada, she would have to use every moment alone with Gloria, no matter how brief, to drip more water on her newly planted seeds of doubt. Seeds that she hoped would grow into an impenetrable hedge of mistrust.
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