“Good. Two bikers—especially if one’s a girl—should be noticeable out there, Ferdy.”
“Still feels like we’re gonna be looking for Captain America on his Stars ‘n’ Stripes chopper. Call Arnie to see if he has anything new.”
Tommy dialed his cell phone.
“Hey Arnie, Tommy here. We’re about to head out to Monument Valley and then over to Farmington. Anything new on your end?”
“Only that we had a local Needles guy go to that van and truck rental place to see Fred again.”
“Do you mean Vince? Jesus Christ, I hear he’s an animal.”
“Yeah, Vince. He got a little out of him. What you’re doing sounds like the right thing. We think they were going on the same route you’re planning to take. Get going and keep your eyes open. Ask questions, but be cool about it. You don’t want to raise any suspicions.”
“I’m a little afraid to ask this, Arnie, because I’m not sure I want to know the answer; but what happened with the van and truck guy?”
“He’s in the river.”
“Oh shit, did he have to do that?”
“Come on, you know about Vince. You shouldn’t be surprised.”
“Yeah, I know about Vince. Why they keep him around is beyond me.”
“He gets the job done. Simple.”
“Yeah, and then some. Talk to you later.” Tommy dropped the cell phone in the center console. “He said he’s in the river, Ferdy.”
“Christ, this keeps getting deeper and deeper.”
“I loved our trip to Ouray, Jim. Nice highways with beautiful mountain scenery. I’m glad you thought of it, and these day trips.”
They were back in the Farmington Courtyard’s lounge after finishing their return ride from Ouray, Silverton, and Durango.
“Yeah, and how did you like that little hotel? I haven’t slept in anything smaller than a queen-sized bed in years, but I kind of liked being cozied up to you under a mountain of blankets. Sure gets cold up there at night though.”
“But I loved it. I sleep better when it’s cold like that,” Penny said.
“Yes, you did sleep well, didn’t you?” Jim said, emphasizing did.
“I have to get a good night’s sleep now and then. I can be ready for the next night that way. Isn’t that a good trade-off?”
“Would that be tonight?”
“You’ll see. So, tomorrow we do Mesa Verde and lots of ruins?”
“Yes. We need to leave early to get on the first tours so we don’t have to wait around behind a bunch of tourists. Quick breakfast at six-thirty and on the road by seven-thirty?”
“I can do it. Traveling with you like this, I can do whatever is needed.”
“Great. By the way, we haven’t heard from Morton in two days. I think I should call the detective to see if there’s news.”
Jim hit the call symbol on Morton’s box in the contacts list and activated the speaker.
“Hi Dale. We’ve been on a two-day ride up through the Rockies and may have been out of cell phone range. Anything new?”
“Yes, a few things. The two guys who hit Penny’s place work for a drug dealer named Carlos Garcia. He’s the guy Mack beat up in the big fight. Our drug guys think the fight was over the notebook. The theory is that Carlos found out that Mack was compiling it, and either felt threatened by it, or wanted it for his own purposes. Word on the street is that Mack owes Carlos a lot of money from deals and had been ducking him. Could be the notebook was a bargaining chip in the debt debate, but we don’t know. This may be the break our drug guys have been waiting for to roll Mack on Carlos’s drug operation.”
“So, have you picked up the two guys yet, or are you holding off?”
“We’ve been tailing them to find out who their connections are before we lock them up. We don’t want to play our hand too soon. But I think we have what we want from them now and the plan is to grab them tomorrow morning. We want to work them a little before word gets out that we have them for this caper.”
“Glad to hear this, Dale. Penny and I can breathe easier now and enjoy our trip a lot more when you have those guys. I’m hoping they’ll back off when they know their jig’s up.”
“Yes, but you’ve still got to be careful. These people aren’t rational like the rest of us.”
“You’re telling me! We’re going on a day ride tomorrow to Mesa Verde and may be out of touch again. But we’ll call when we get back at the end of the afternoon. Thanks for taking my calls.”
“No problem, I understand what you’re going through. Take care of yourselves.”
Jim turned off his phone. “Penny, honey, I’m bushed. Let’s go to the room and call room service. I want to eat in bed and not move again today.”
“You have the best ideas!”
“Hi guys, what can I get you?” The bartender behind the Courtyard’s long, polished counter asked the two men who’d just slid onto barstools.
“I’ll have a Coors draft, if you have it,” Tommy said.
“Me too,” added Ferdy.
“Comin’ up.”
Placing bar napkins down before he sat the tall mugs of beer in front of the two, the bartender said, “Aren’t you one night early?”
“Early? Why do you ask that?”
“The monthly Rotary get-together is tomorrow night. Aren’t you Rotarians?”
“No, we’re medical supplies salesmen. Why would you think we’re Rotarians?”
“How you dress. Short-sleeve business shirts, ties, no jackets, khaki pants, and tassel loafers: Rotary uniforms.”
“Ha, ha. No, sorry, just dressing the way that’s comfortable out here in the desert and still looks businesslike.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Believe me, that’s how all the downtown business men dress around here.”
“Well, sorta makes sense doesn’t it: business dress is business dress. By the way, maybe you can answer a question for me?”
“Yeah, what is it? Bartenders know all . . . .”
“Do you get many bikers through here following the old ‘Easy Rider’ route? I hear it’s a big thing these days.”
“Yeah, depending on the time of year naturally. This supposedly was right on the film crew’s route as they went from Monument Valley to Taos. There weren’t any movie shots made around here, but the story is they came through. Why?”
“Just curious. Have there been any through here in the last day or so, or even today? I’d love to talk to some of them just to find out what it’s like. You know, why are they doin’ it? What are they lookin’ for, how does it feel, that kind of shit?”
“There’s a couple staying here right now that have been following the route. But, I guess they decided to take a couple of days off to see the sights around here. They just came back from someplace an hour or so ago. I heard them talking about Mesa Verde tomorrow. Maybe you can catch them in the breakfast bar in the morning.”
“Mesa what?”
“Mesa Verde. V-E-R-D-E.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a world-famous cluster of cliff dwellings an hour or two northwest of here.”
“So, it’s a day trip kind of thing?”
“Yeah. Lots of tourists stay here to go up there. Some of them go back, day after day, to see it all. There’s a nice driving loop most people take: 160 into the park from the east, and then 160 out to the west, then 491 south.”
“What are the roads like going up there?”
“Remote. Nothing out there but a few scattered little houses. No towns, no services, nothing.”
Tommy looked sideways at his partner with scheming eyes. “Okay, we might check it out. Sounds like something we shouldn’t miss now that we’re here.”
“That’s true. It’s a world wonder.”
“We need a room. Do you know if there are vacancies?”
“Last I knew, there were. This is still the off-season: there’s snow in the higher elevations that keeps some folks away until spring break.”
�
�See, the clothes worked. We didn’t even need the bolo ties, shithead!”
“Fuck you, Tommy.”
“Okay, okay, easy, Ferdy, I was just kidding! Tomorrow morning we’re gonna hang out in the breakfast bar area and look for two people dressed like bikers from the time it opens until we see them. We’ll try to listen in on their conversation to see if they talk about how they’re going.”
“Then what?” Ferdy asked.
“We’ll follow them at a safe distance, trying to look like tourists, and look for a spot to trap them on the way out.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s obvious. What are we going to do when we have that decided?”
“Wait for them. Force them off the road. You’re gonna be holding the shotgun on them, Ferdy, old friend. We tie them up, load them into the back seat and take them someplace where they’ll talk to us. Get them to tell us everything about the notebook and who knows about it.”
“Sounds like an all-day job; we’re gonna need lunches. Are we going to pound on them?”
“Look, you’ve been doin’ this long enough to know we do whatever we’ve gotta do. It would be nice if we could just threaten them and they caved, but that probably won’t happen. I hope we don’t have to do anything more than slap one of them around a little, but we have to be ready to do whatever it takes. We’ve got knuckles, knives and rope; something will work.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know, I don’t want another murder on my sheet. We shouldn’t off people unless we’re the ones who are threatened. If we can get it out of them without doing anything too heavy, we might be able to let them go. If we ever get caught, a little assault isn’t going to add much to my sheet, and I could live with that.”
“You gettin’ soft?”
“Ferdy, I’m getting tired . . . tired of knockin’ people around. This business is getting a little old for me. I hope this will be easy—for them and us,” Tommy said.
“Let’s go buy sandwiches for tomorrow.”
Twenty-Two - Mesa Verde
“The Anasazi peoples—Hopi and Pueblos—who built these buildings, populated this mesa and these canyons for over one thousand years before they were driven out by droughts and bad crops,” the guide told the group as they hiked a rising trail to a series of wooden ladders propped against the cliff face.
“And in Canyon de Chelly, south of here, the U.S. Army, led by Kit Carson, drove them from their homes and force-marched them hundreds of miles to the east to their new homeland,” The guide continued, frowning as he spoke the words “new homeland.”
Penny and Jim climbed one ladder taking them to a ledge wide enough for a few people to stand on, and then climbed the next ladder, leading to a higher ledge and another ladder, which led to a final broad ledge that was the main floor level of the cliff dwellings. The climb, while not dangerous for anyone in decent condition, was a challenge for people with acrophobia as the view down while climbing the ladders was exaggerated by the drop-off to the dry river beds far below. The combined effect discouraged many would-be cliff dwelling tourists. Penny climbed the series of ladders without a second thought, never looking down.
“I thought Kit Carson was one of the good guys,” Penny said as she started up a ladder. “At least that’s the impression I had from my high school history classes.”
“Yeah, well history books have to be approved by people appointed by politicians. You can’t always believe what you’re taught in high school.”
“Or church,” Penny responded. “I decided that when I found out that the Roman Emperor Constantine appointed the council who decided what went into the Bible. What do you suppose his objectives were?”
“You can only imagine. Hey, I see you know the secret to climbing challenging trails and mountain paths.”
“Do you mean never looking down?”
“Yes. How did you get comfortable doing it?”
“By knowing I’d scare the shit out of myself if I looked down. I used my fear to conquer my fear.”
“Could you look down now?”
“Maybe, but I wouldn’t like it. If it’s too high, I always feel like I’m going to wet my pants!”
“How do you expect to go back down? You have to look down to see the next rung in the ladder.”
“By only looking at the next rung.”
“That’s how I do it, too!”
“You bastard. You had me thinking you were the great mountaineer, afraid of nothing.”
“I’m from Indiana, remember. The highest thing I ever experienced was standing on a milking stool.”
They spent the day on various tours and hikes, gaining an appreciation for the living and organizational skills that existed before the Europeans arrived and brought their skills and technology—and violence and diseases. They marveled that, while the first of the Anasazi cultures had disappeared well before the Europeans arrived, they left outstanding examples of their level of sophistication dating back a thousand years. Penny and Jim stood looking in awe at their accomplishments. Jim started into a narrative of how the European diseases decimated the native Americans—hundreds of years before the brutal Indian wars—and how it is a highly suppressed story, not fitting into the modern narrative of American Exceptionalism that politicians love to talk about.
“Please don’t talk about it, Jim,” Penny asked. “I’m having a beautiful day and I don’t want it ruined with the truth about governments.”
Well behind Penny and Jim, but in the same guided tour group
“Enough of this crap, Tommy. I’m tired of following them around these dusty trails and I can’t look at another old mud brick and stone building. What’s so important about a bunch of Indians who lived here a thousand years ago. So they had brick buildings before some other places did; big deal. Look what it got them, in the big picture, they’re still living in mud brick buildings,” Ferdy complained.
“Asshole, try to get some perspective of history. Think of what it was like, living out here in a desert with no running water, electricity, cell phones, or TV. No doctors, no medicines, livin’ off corn and squash, and they did all this!” Tommy replied.
“Yeah, so they made pretty baskets. BFD!”
“Okay, I can see you’ve absorbed all the culture you can for your lifetime, but I’m tired of this, too. We heard them say they’re gonna take 160 out to the west so they don’t have to go back the same way. Let’s go find a place to set up our ambush.”
After hours of guided tours, walking several miles in the hot sun, and climbing countless wooden ladders in and out of adobe buildings, Penny said, “I’m exhausted, Jim. This has been wonderful, but I’m ‘ruined’ out,” air quoting the word ruined.
“Me too. I’m ready to ride back and sit in the bar by the fireplace again with a good drink and nothing but dinner in mind. Not thinking about thugs in San Diego has been a refreshing change.”
“I wasn’t going to bring it up.”
“Thanks for that, I don’t know why I did. But, now and then it pops back up in my mind and I can’t push it back. Lead the way, hon!”
With the parking lots almost empty and all but a few straggling tourists gone, they started their Harleys and headed out the dirt road toward the highway. They followed 160 west and then 491 south, hoping to return to the Courtyard before sundown. At a sign announcing “Shiprock 10 MILES”, where they would turn onto 64 for the final leg back to Farmington, with Jim leading and Penny following ten feet off his left rear—the road curved around a clump of large rocks on the opposite side of the road. As they rode past, Jim noticed a white SUV around the backside of the rock pile, circling behind it, and heading for the highway behind them. It pulled onto the road one hundred yards behind them. Jim was immediately suspicious and watched it in his rear-view mirror. He reached under his seat into the compartment where the .45 hid. As the SUV accelerated and gained ground on them, Jim noticed the passenger side widow had lowered, and a long, black gun barrel appeared.
“Penn
y, do you hear me?” Jim said into his helmet-to-helmet radio.
“I hear you. Did you see the white car that came out from those rocks?”
“It’s trouble. It looks like there’s a gun sticking out of the passenger window. They may try to pass us and block the road.”
“What do we do?”
“When I say, ‘hit your brakes,’ hit them as hard as you can without sliding. I’ll wait a few seconds so we don’t crash into each other, and then do the same. They should fly by and that’ll give us a chance to turn and head back the other way. We’ll go off-road at a dirt trail I saw back there before the rockpile. I’ll pass you, and you follow me. They won’t be able to keep up.”
“Okay. Just tell me when.”
The SUV pulled into the on-coming traffic lane, obviously getting in position to pull alongside or pass them. I’m not going to screw around with these guys; I’ve seen enough of their handiwork. Jim slid the .45 out of its compartment, then momentarily taking both hands off the bars, loaded a shell into the firing chamber, doing it quickly in his lap so the move wouldn’t be seen from behind. He set the safety to the ‘off’ position. As the Navigator pulled even with Penny, Jim yelled, “now” into his helmet microphone. Penny hit both front and rear brakes at the same time and was well behind the SUV within seconds. Jim applied his brakes after seeing that Penny now had enough clearance to start her one-eighty turn. But as the SUV pulled even with him, the driver matched Jim’s braking and bulled across the center line into Jim’s lane as the passenger leveled the shotgun at Jim’s chest and signaled a pull-up motion. He yelled something undistinguishable. Jim rotated his left arm straight out, pointing the .45 at the shotgunner, mouthing, “Fuck you!” The passenger mouthed the same thing back and pointed the short-barreled pump-gun at Jim’s head. Jim’s split-second response was to pull the trigger at near point-blank range, hitting the man full in the forehead. A momentary look of surprise spread over his face as he fell back into the SUV, the shotgun dropping from his hands and bouncing off the car’s window sill.
Starvation Mountain Page 13