Daniel Hecht_Cree Black 02

by Land of Echoes

  But Donny had come out of the trailer again and this time went toward a green and white company Jeep. He got in, started it with a roar they could hear even this far away, and pulled out quickly. The Jeep headed west, away from them, trailing dust behind it.

  "He's headed for one of the ramps on this side," Julieta said. All the hardness had returned. "Brace yourself. We're about to have company. And it's lousy company, let me tell you."

  17

  THEY'D REMOUNTED the horses by the time the McCarty Energy Jeep nosed its way out of a shallow draw to the west. Julieta had put on her hat and sunglasses again and waited in perfect composure with her hands folded on her saddle horn. She was gorgeous, armored with unapproachable beauty. The horses stamped nervously as the Jeep approached.

  When Donny McCarty got out, Cree was surprised at his appearance. Somehow she'd expected a businessman cowboy aristocrat out of a Dynasty rerun: sharp suit, bolo tie, cowboy hat and boots, contemptuous sneer. But he was tall, with narrow shoulders and thinning red-blond hair, dressed in pleated khakis, a nylon jacket parted to reveal a polo shirt, lightweight leather hiking shoes. Something about his face reminded her of William Hurt—pale, troubled, the touch of injured sensitivity.

  He stood next to the Jeep's open door. "Spying, Julieta? I hope everything meets with your approval." A soft voice with only a hint of the laconic cowboy twang.

  "Looks like business as usual, Donny," Julieta said, gazing out over the mine. Then she looked down at him and Cree was startled at the intensity of the antagonism that leaped between them. "Nice of you to come up here to say hello, though."

  Donny's eyes glinted at the acid in her tone, but his face remained resigned, almost bored or sad. He stared back at Julieta for a moment and then swiveled his gaze to Cree. "How about you? You're trespassing, you know. Which one are you from? I'll file a complaint after I throw you off my property."

  " I—I'm sorry," Cree stuttered. " Which—?"

  "He thinks you're from an environmental watchdog group," Julieta explained. "Donny doesn't like scrutiny. He likes to break the law and just gets all bent out of shape when anybody finds out and takes exception to it."

  Donny's eyes glittered again, but his face remained controlled. He took out a cell phone, thumbed a button, and put it to his head. He turned to look down at the headquarters building. "Nick? Yeah. Listen, send Buck and Marty and a couple boys up here. We've got some trespassers, I think we'll need to hold them while we wait for the sheriff to come. South rim, just step out and turn around, you'll see me." He snapped the phone shut and put it away.

  "Legal nuance, Donny," Julieta said scornfully. "You gave me permission, you didn't specify where, nobody's spying on you. You touch either of us, I'll have you for assault or kidnapping or something problematic for you. And you're always such a loser in court, aren't you."

  Donny just made a small, unhappy smile.

  "This is a misunderstanding, Mr. McCarty," Cree said. "And it's my doing—I asked Julieta to bring me here today. I was hoping to meet you. I'm. sorry I didn't call you myself, but I thought Julieta would have explained everything when she talked to you. I had no idea it would be a problem. I didn't know you two were—"

  "Such good friends?" Donny finished. "Well. That does take some getting used to, doesn't it." He checked his watch and glanced down at the parking lot. "And you wanted to meet me because—?"

  "I'm not from an environmental organization. This'll sound weird, but I'm a parapsychologist. I study paranormal events. I was in the area to give a lecture at UNM, and I was doing some research out this way when I heard there were some . . . interesting things taking place on McCarty property. I'd hoped—"

  "The mutilations? They were nowhere near here. You're about five miles off target, Ms.—?"

  "Black. Lucretia Black. Actually—"

  "Bunch of bullshit anyway. I've looked at half a dozen mutes over the years, and I can guarantee you it's just scavenger activity. That, or some druggie Navajo trying to play Skinwalker and scare people. Nowadays, every time somebody's cow dies and the critters get at it, it's space aliens. Simple fact is, scavengers go for the easy parts first—eyes, lips, tongue, the organs." Cree was scrambling to adapt. When Donny had first pulled up, she'd had no idea how to explain her presence in a way that wouldn't imperil future contact. Now this unexpected tangent had provided the way, and she seized it gratefully: "You're probably right. Still, I've never personally seen one, and I'd very much like more information from people who have. When I heard there'd been some on your property, too, I asked Julieta to introduce us. I was hoping you and I could schedule a meeting to talk about it."

  A couple of men had arrived at the front of the office complex and stood waiting, occasionally looking up toward the rim. Donny watched them thoughtfully for a moment.

  "So when I call the university and ask if anyone's ever heard of you—"

  "Call Dr. William Zentcy, head of the Psychology Department at the Albuquerque campus." Remembering suddenly, Cree groped in the pockets of her windbreaker and found that, yes, there was a crumpled Psi Research Associates card among the tissues and miscellany there. She fished it out, blew the lint off, and held it out to him. "Here's my business card. You're welcome to visit our Web site, too."

  Donny walked over, took it from her, looked at it with minimal interest. From above him, she could see the pink scalp through his sparse, pale hair. Down at the parking lot, another company Jeep pulled in and its driver began conferring with the men who were waiting. Binoculars flashed from the passenger-side window, and Cree caught another glint from something held by one of the standing men. A rifle?

  "Seattle? You're a long way from home, Dr. Black." Donny pocketed the card and looked up at Julieta. "So I take it you've found mutes on school property, too?" The thought seemed to give him some wan satisfaction.

  "We've had some disturbing activity, yes," Julieta said flatly.

  "If I can call you sometime soon," Cree told him, "I'd be very grateful . . ."

  Another man joined the group, and the three of them got into the back of the Jeep, which pulled out and headed toward the south rim ramp Donny had used. Outwardly, Julieta maintained her scornful calm, but Cree felt her tension rising.

  Donny turned to watch the truck's dust, then gave a resigned sigh and took out his cell phone again.

  "Nick? Forget it. I can handle it . . . No, more of a bullshit exercise in community relations. Yeah. I'll see 'em off the property myself Send the boys back to work. Yeah." He snapped the phone shut. Ignoring Julieta, he took the bridle of Cree's horse and turned her around, facing away from the valley. "We can't have people coming this close to mine operations, Dr. Black. It's not safe—you could take a fall. Might be weeks before anyone found you, and you'd end up looking like one of those mutes. Now it's time for you to leave."

  "Is there any chance we can meet? At your convenience—"

  He regarded Cree briefly, and she sensed an analytic mind at work behind the weary gray eyes, some calculation of value or opportunity. "We'll see. Possible. Call my secretary." He appeared to give Breeze a shrewd once-over, stroking her cheek and neck and haunches. Then he spat and thrust the horse's head away from him. He started back to the Jeep. "Your horses, Julieta— not the quality you were once used to, are they?"

  Julieta's eyes shot daggers. "Screw you, Donny! How dare you!"

  He ignored her but paused at the Jeep's door to look at Cree again. "Another piece of advice—don't associate with the wrong people. Get off on the wrong foot around here, people don't forget. Bad reputations kind of rub off on you."

  Julieta wheeled Madie around and led the way back toward the open desert, deliberately holding the horse to a slow walk. Cree rode next to her. Donny McCarty trailed a hundred yards behind for several miles, making a point, before finally pulling the Jeep around and speeding away.

  18

  "'MUTES'?" Cree asked. "I had no idea livestock mutilations were so common they'd earned a vernacular
term."

  Julieta's jaw had been clenched for the first ten minutes or so, but her rage had gradually given way to exhausted despondency. Now she shrugged. "There's more of it up in the northern part of the state, southern Colorado. We get a little wave of them, every few years. Makes the papers." She looked numbed and dispirited, back slumped, a negligent hand on the reins.

  "People take it seriously?"

  Another listless shrug. "Some do. He could be right about scavengers. I've never thought about it much. But I found a mutilated calf once. The face had been . . . well." She frowned over at Cree. "I thought you'd be an expert at that kind of thing."

  "No. I'm a psychologist, Julieta. I may have a unique theory of psychology, but it all pertains to the human mind. They didn't teach us a thing about extraterrestrial intelligences at Harvard or Duke."

  Julieta bobbed her head, unable to share the joke.

  "Think Donny will agree to meet me?" Cree asked.

  "Depends. I'd give it even odds. He will if he thinks he might get some useful information out of you—dirt about me or the school. Or if he thinks he can use you to get some publicity that makes McCarty look nice. He'll do anything—last month, they did a local TV special about handicapped grade-school kids taking a field trip to the mine. So very heartwarming. He calls it 'image management.'"

  They rode on in silence for a time. It was only three o'clock, but the day had dimmed as a thin film of clouds formed high in the atmosphere and diffused the sun's glow. Though the light was still bright, it had begun to take on a milky quality that muted the landscape, softened the shadows, blurred the distances. The celebratory crispness was gone from the land, leaving it forlorn.

  "We got interrupted," Cree ventured. "You were telling me some really important things. I'd love to hear the rest."

  Julieta turned quickly, and even behind the mask of the sunglasses her face looked stricken. She whipped her head to the front again and looked as if she were about to flee once more, to gallop away from her own past.

  "Julieta!" Cree barked. "You can do this, damn it! You're an administrator and you know how to do hard things! Tell me!"

  Julieta caught herself as she raised the reins. She slumped again, took off her sunglasses, and looked at Cree with glittering eyes.

  "You're being me again," she said. "The boss me." She grunted with bitter amusement.

  "Whatever it takes," Cree told her curtly.

  Peter Yellowhorse was about her age, twenty-four, twenty-five. He was from Teec Nos Pos, up near Shiprock, but he'd moved south a year earlier to take a job doing grounds work for the tribal facilities in Window Rock. Always late, he'd gotten fired pretty quickly, but then he'd been lucky enough to get work with the little company that took care of the McCartys' estate. He lived in a wreck of a house just over the rez line, about eight miles away. He was dirt-poor, by white standards, anyway, lucky to have a job. He owned exactly three things of any value whatsoever: his horse, a beat-up Chevy truck, and a belt with a fancy silver and turquoise buckle that had been made by some uncle who was a well-known silversmith. He loved to ride and occasionally did bronc riding at local rodeos, but mainly what he wanted was to get into radio, become a DJ. He did janitorial work three nights a week at a Gallup station in exchange for the studio time and training that would earn him his FCC license.

  Easy to be DJ on a Navajo station, he joked. All those long moments of respectful silence, yeah?

  At first she found excuses to chat with him during the day about repairs or landscaping she wanted done. Then she started talking to him about her horses; she asked him to help train them and, eventually, to ride with her. Peter was the restless type, she could see why he didn't hold a job. But he was very smart, with a relentless sense of humor and a gift for turns of phrase that always surprised her. He was innately courteous and, compared to Garrett's social set, surprisingly proper, traditional. She liked that. Also unlike them, he was honest, never tried to hide what he was, couldn't have if he'd tried. And oh God, he was handsome—whipcord thin, smooth bronze skin, a fast smile and quick flashing eyes. He wore his hair long because there'd been an American Indian Movement protest nearby a while ago, and though he'd considered them just a bunch of troublemaking Sioux coming down from the Midwest to get their pictures in the papers, he'd liked their rebellious look and style.

  One day she was bold enough to ask him to do some work, just him, during off hours. After a while, when he came, all they did was talk or ride together. The desire she felt was as bright and hot as lightning, except it didn't flicker, didn't come and go. It was a remorseless current that flowed continuously, almost painfully. Yet despite its power, they were just friends for almost a year. Julieta was still waiting for Garrett.

  Peter felt it, too, but even with his reckless attitude, he would never have broached it. He was too decent, too respectful. And he was no doubt more aware than she was of the risks that would come with having an affair with the wife of Garrett McCarty. A poor Navajo kid getting on the bad side of an old rich white coal exec wasn't likely to do too well in any arena of life.

  Julieta was the one who led the way. Something had sprung loose inside her the first time she'd seen him riding Bird so joyously. She'd determined she would taste that freedom. She'd been a physical virgin when she'd married Garrett; as she and Peter began to make love, that first time, she realized that in every way that mattered she still was one. It happened in a worn sandstone gully far around the south end of the mesa, among smooth, sensuous rock curves that invited their bodies to collide and entwine.

  "He touched my face. He caressed my face for a long time, like he wanted to know my bones. My expressions, the feelings I'd had? It was slow, but it was . . . urgent the whole time." Julieta's eyes went wide as if she'd just heard herself, the degree of confidence she'd indulged.

  Cree held her breath, unwilling even to mutter encouragement, afraid it would break the flow. Or that Julieta would notice her reaction: The image of Mike had materialized and she could feel the shape of his body against hers. In the vaulted architecture of her heart, some supporting pillar or buttress bent and faltered agonizingly. Blind, she let Breeze find her own way. The sky had taken on the same feeling, turning gradually an opaque, cataracted white; the sun was the color of a blood orange, dimming, and in the odd light the landscape felt artificial—some stark, digital, virtual place. The school was still several miles away.

  They were lovers for a year. They were very careful to keep it secret. Julieta confided only in Joseph, whom she trusted absolutely. She introduced Peter to Joseph, they liked each other. She grew stronger. She realized she'd have to divorce Garrett, even if her father lost his job as a result. Now when she took her husband's arm for the occasional function they attended together, she felt dirty not because of his infidelities but because of hers: She was betraying Peter. When Garrett came home, she made excuses to avoid sleeping with him.

  At first, she did a good job of planning the divorce. She hired a private detective to take photos of Garrett entering motel rooms with different women. She made copies of his credit card bills showing incriminating purchases, travel, and hotel stays, which she kept in a secret file. When they went to court, she'd have him by the balls.

  But just about the time she was ready to file and move out of the house, two things happened to blow the whole thing apart.

  She discovered she was pregnant. She knew it was Peter's child because she hadn't slept with Garrett for months and because, yes, she had been less than cautious with Peter. When she told Peter about it, he was shocked and, understandably, perturbed. As she was: Being visibly pregnant or having a baby that was obviously not red-blond Garrett's child would reveal her infidelity and put the impending divorce process at risk.

  At the same time, she never once considered having an abortion. She wanted that child. Really, it was no accident that she'd gotten pregnant. She'd let that last, most intimate barrier fall, she'd needed it to. She'd wanted her life to begin at last.
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  When she told Joseph, he helped her make a plan: keep the pregnancy secret, file for divorce immediately—before she started to show—and move to her own place.

  But before she got that far, Peter left her.

  The first time he didn't show up to visit her, she was upset, but she didn't worry until the next day, when she called his house and got no answer. The following day, she drove past his place and found it abandoned: The truck was gone, Bird wasn't in the corral.

  He's young, Joseph told her. You know how he is, Julieta, he's a free spirit. That's one of the things you love about him. He got scared. If not of Garrett, then of being a father, making a commitment. But he's a good guy. He'll think about it for a while and he'll call you. He'll realize pretty quick he can't live without you. Don't worry.

  And it was true that Peter was intimidated at the prospect of being a father, a husband, a full-time companion. The ardor and excitement in his eyes had been mixed with doubt ever since she'd told him.

  But he didn't come back. Weeks went by and he didn't reappear.

  Julieta went through with her plan. One horrible afternoon she told Garrett she was divorcing him, then moved out of the house and set up in a cramped third-floor apartment in Gallup.

  For a while she tried to make excuses for Peter: Maybe Garrett had found out about him, had threatened him or had him beat up and scared him away. But then she thought, no, there was no way Garrett could have found out, they had been too careful. The proof was that if he had, he'd be using her infidelity against her in the divorce; he certainly fought her proposed settlement terms tooth and nail, and he followed through on his threat to fire her father, but he never brought Peter into it.

  Still, she couldn't bear to believe Peter had left of his own accord. But when she finally mustered the courage to call Peter's mother, up near Shiprock, she said yes, he'd brought Bird to stay at her house and had left the rez. He'd said he was going to California, but she hadn't heard from him. Julieta begged her to have him contact her if he came back or called.