South California Purples

by Baron R. Birtcher

  Only two people remained at the far end of the property, squatting beside a small cookfire and stirring the contents of an enamel pot they had set on a square of chain-link fence laid across a bed of smoldering coals. Cast-off sheets of paper and patches of cloth flapped in the wind, tangled inside the thorned vines of berries that grew wild along the shoulder of a drainage ditch.

  “It looks like the day after Woodstock,” I said.

  Cricket ducked her head back inside the window and gaped at me.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” I said. “I go to the movies.”

  I pulled the truck to a stop at the foot of the stairs that led up to the front door of Teresa’s trailer. She stepped out onto the landing and leaned on the rail and watched us climb out.

  “The first BLM trucks started packing out this morning,” she said. “Where are the news crews for that part of the story? I guess this is what victory looks like.”

  “So it’s over?” Cricket asked.

  “Still working out the details.”

  Cricket looked at Teresa and said, “This is depressing.”

  Teresa’s eyes followed the taillights of a departing eighteen-wheeler. “Demonstrations are apparently more interesting than the outcome.”

  “You did a good thing,” I told her. “We’ll be your witnesses.”

  The flag clipped to the flagpole Teresa had nailed to the wall snapped in the breeze, and she looked as though she might start to cry. What had begun with a phone call—initiated by a woman whose heart and concern was the preservation of a herd of wild horses—had been co-opted by the acts and ambitions of the daughters and sons of political patronage; semiprofessional agitators had hijacked her cause for their own meretricious objectives.

  “They broke into my home while I was up in Salem,” she said. “Can you believe that?”

  “I’m sorry, Teresa,” I said.

  “At least the storm never arrived.”

  “Not the one with the rain,” I said and cast my eyes across the churned-up soil of her fields. “Let us help you clean this place up.”

  WE WORKED all afternoon, until the last of the rubbish had been forked into one of the rusted oil barrels we used to incinerate the debris. Teresa brought a six-pack of beer from her trailer and the three of us drank while we watched the embers rise out of the flames and roil away.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s all I can offer.”

  Teresa pulled Cricket toward her, and held her tight to her chest. Their eyes were wet when they finally let go, and I reached out a hand for Teresa. I kissed her on both cheeks and she waved from the top step of her porch as she watched Cricket and me climb into the truck and make the long drive back to the ranch.

  “You look disappointed,” I said, and turned my headlights on.

  “I guess I am,” Cricket said. “It’s not what I expected.”

  Cricket’s long hair feathered her face in the stream of chill air. She corralled it with one hand at the back of her head and rolled up the window with the other. The silence inside the cab was sudden.

  “I’m not disappointed, I’m angry,” she said finally. “I mean, what the hell was that? Why would they do that to someone like Teresa?”

  “Everybody’s heard of false prophets,” I said. “But nobody mentions false believers. Some people feel invisible unless they’re standing up next to a spotlight.”

  “Or flapping their mouths. It’s all bullshit.”

  The fence posts that marked the edge of the road were weathered gray and rotted along the saw cuts, their bases choked with mustard weeds. The quiet inside was one of the heaviest I’d ever heard.

  “Those are the same people who scratch their names onto tabletops and bathroom walls,” I said. “They fear it’s the only lasting contribution they might ever make to this earth.”

  “Are you saying that’s who I am?”

  “I’m saying that’s who you are not. It’s the reason you have that hollow feeling inside you. It’s the reason you befriended the boys who were making their film. It’s the reason you respect Teresa Pineu.”

  I hadn’t yet told Cricket about the murders of Peter and Sly, and I judged this to be neither the time nor the circumstance to change that. For the moment, their memory was better served this way.

  Her eyes drifted over the landscape and landed on a small herd of blacktails grazing inside a fenced orchard, then she leaned her head on the window and sighed.

  “Are you all right, Cricket?”

  “I will be,” she said.

  THE HOUSE smelled of bleach and the rugs had been rolled up and removed. The bullet hole that had spidered the bay window had been covered over with squares of cardboard Jesse had taped to either side.

  “The glazier is coming down from Lewiston tomorrow,” she said when she saw me eyeing the glass.

  Framed photographs and artwork rested on the floor beneath wet spots that marked where the walls had been recently scrubbed. The sleeves of my old faded snap-button shirt that she used when she worked were rolled up past her elbows. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, loose strands framing her face.

  “How is Teresa?” she asked Cricket. “She must be over the moon.”

  “Everyone’s gone. Everybody.”

  “I thought it would be like the Fourth of July down there,” Jesse said.

  She came out of the kitchen and into the living room, drying her hands on a dishcloth.

  “So did I.”

  “That’s like leaving the game during the seventh-inning stretch.”

  “They vandalized her home while she was away,” Cricket added.

  “What’s wrong with people?”

  Cricket slid her hands into the pockets of her blue jeans and shook her head.

  “People are really beginning to piss me off,” Cricket said.

  I grilled steaks and ears of early corn in the husk while my daughter and wife showered and changed. I had just taken them out of the fire when the phone rang.

  “Do you recognize my voice, Mr. Dawson? If you do, please don’t say it aloud.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you meet me tomorrow morning around ten? There’s something I need to show you.”

  “What’s—”

  “Meet me at that place where you found Dub Naylor,” he said. “Roger that?”

  “I’ll be there,” I said and hung up.

  “Smells good,” Jesse said as she tipped up on her toes and kissed me. “Who was that on the phone?”

  “Rex Blackwood.”

  Her eyes went momentarily dark.

  “What did he want?”

  “He wants to meet me tomorrow, up on the North Camp pasture.”

  She cocked her head sideways and looked in my eyes. The smile that animated her features was not the same one that had been there before.

  “Why there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you going?”

  “Of course, I’m going.”

  “That man scares the hell out of me.”

  “At least he called this time.”

  We ate on the plank table out on the porch, by the light of a pair of brass oil lamps whose rims had gone dusky with soot, and the fragrance of wild hyacinth Jesse had picked and placed in a vase. When we had finished, I did the dishes while the girls watched TV. It almost seemed normal, except for the odd lapses of quiet and the sense we were all trying too hard.

  I hadn’t slept in nearly two days and my eyesight had begun to go soft at the edges, my mind pulling loose at the moorings like a tent whose stake poles had come out of the ground and left the flap snapping loose on the wind. Cricket stayed up and watched TV in the dark while Jesse and I went to our room.

  I propped a Winchester in the corner, arm’s reach from my side of the bed.

  “Is that going to bother you?” I asked.

  Jesse pulled back the covers and showed me a hard look.

  “I’m not one of those women, Ty,” she said. “We all di
d what had to be done.”

  “I meant no insult.”

  “I know you didn’t,” she said and the ice in her eyes melted away. “We don’t need to give grief a second show in our lives by talking about it. It’s over.”

  I slid under the covers and twisted the knob on the lamp.

  Jesse crawled in close beside me and nested her head on my chest. She kissed me and said, “Go to sleep.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CRICKET WAS ALREADY awake when I came into the kitchen for coffee. She was wearing blue-and-black checked men’s flannel pajamas and a pair of old sheepskin-lined moccasins, and looked like she had been up for a while.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” I asked and gave her a kiss on the crown of her head.

  “I saw it on the news last night. Peter and Sly were murdered by the side of some road.”

  “I’m sorry, Cricket. I couldn’t find the right time to tell you.”

  Her lips tightened into a line, but there was neither anger nor bitterness in her expression.

  “There is no right time,” she said softly.

  Cricket stepped past me and poured coffee from the percolator and studied the cream that she swirled into the cup. She held it tight in the palms of both hands and blew at the steam as it rose.

  “I’m sorry,” I said lamely. “They were good kids.”

  “Yeah, they were. I’m sorry too. Seems like there’s plenty to be sorry about these days.”

  The sky was deep blue outside the window, and I heard the birds light in the willow and the wet gargle of redwings hunting for food.

  “Give me a minute to get dressed,” she said. “I’ll come out and help you saddle the horse.”

  She padded out of the kitchen and I thought I heard the sound of a car pull up into the driveway. Wyatt straggled out from his bed in the mudroom, wagged his tail, and followed me out to the porch.

  A man stepped out of a familiar dark-colored Dodge Coronet and stood at the base of the stairs. He took off the Madison hat he’d been wearing and tossed it on the seat.

  “I thought you’d want to know that the four suspects—the ones who survived their confrontation with you—have been transferred to the hospital ward at the state pen up in Salem.”

  “Good morning, Conrad,” I said. “Coffee?”

  “They’re being held without bail while we sort out jurisdiction and charges. A couple of them have warrants out in several separate states.”

  “Oregon has the death penalty,” I said. “Make sure they stay here to stand trial.”

  “We followed up on your lead, and the Idaho State Troopers located the fugitive from the Skadden killings,” he said. He buttoned his suit jacket and took his eyes off me to stare at the shine on his shoes.

  “They found him in a twelve-room motel about 400 miles from here, just over the border near Potlatch,” he said. “The guy had shaved off his hair and his beard in an attempt to alter his appearance, but it obviously hadn’t been enough.”

  “Enough for what?” I said and took a sip of my coffee. Wyatt rubbed up against the shank of my boots to scratch an itch under the gauze.

  “He took three shots to the back of his head from a .22-caliber handgun, execution style. The pistol had been wiped down and left on the dresser at the scene.”

  “And the saddlebags? The money?”

  “What money?”

  “Are you sure you don’t want some coffee?”

  Averill Conrad cocked his head and looked first at the dog, then at me.

  “They didn’t find anything but the guy’s bike and his clothes. Repeat what you said about money.”

  “I didn’t say anything. Forget it.”

  Conrad stepped back and placed one hand on the door latch of his car and looked like he was about to get in. He stopped himself and looked into my face.

  “I’m not a huge admirer of yours, or of this situation, Mr. Dawson.”

  “Remind me about that the next time I see you,” I said. “I’ll let you know if I give a goddamn by then. Thanks just the same for dropping by.”

  A BLANKET of late-morning ground fog lay over the floor of the valley, obscuring all but the tallest of trees, and put me in mind of a vast silver lake as I rode my horse up the trail to the North Pasture. I topped the last rise and reined to a stop in a circle of sunbreak that passed between dew-laden branches and felt its warmth spread on the back of my coat. I studied the deep purple creases etched into the mountains and the narrow striations of snow that remained at the high elevations. Somewhere inside the cedars, a scrub jay mimicked the cry of a circling hawk.

  I had arrived early, and no one was there when I finally broke out of the old growth and onto the flat of the meadow. The horses that Caleb had earlier herded here from the barn were lazily grazing in new grass that had grown well past their ankles. I watered the one that I had been riding at the steel tank near the base of the eclipse windmill, then loosened the cinch and removed the saddle and blanket and bridle and leaned them against the trunk of a tree. I turned him loose to graze with the others while I spoke with Blackwood, intending to round up Drambuie and ride him back home when this meeting was concluded.

  I lit up a smoke and unhooked my pistol belt from the pommel and buckled it on as I watched a cloud pass between me and the sun. As one, the herd raised their heads from the grass and turned their attention skyward, their ears cocked forward in alarm. I reached for the rifle tucked in its scabbard and scanned the edge of the meadow for coyotes or whatever had put a spook in the animals. Seconds later, I heard the dull thrum of an aircraft engine dopplering closer and the silhouette of a helicopter drifted toward me from over the tops of the trees. The wash from the rotors flattened the grass near the pond where I had found Dub Naylor’s body, several hundred yards away. I pressed the butt of my cigarette into the wet soil and walked toward the descending chopper with my rifle held close against my chest.

  The engine flared as the skids touched the ground and a door disengaged on the copilot’s side. It was a Bell UH-1, the type that had come to be known as a Huey, but this one had been painted a deep matte gray, nearly black, and bore no identifying marks of any kind whatsoever, not even numbers on the tail. I saw a man step down from the cockpit, hunch underneath the decelerating whirl of the blades, and jog toward where I stood with my back pressed against the rough bark of a conifer.

  Rex Blackwood slid off the mirrored sunglasses he wore and grinned at me from under the brim of a faded ball cap with an STP logo patch stitched to the crown. The engines idled down to a dull throb and he reached into the pocket of a military field jacket and pulled out a handful of hard candy mints wrapped in cellophane and offered one to me.

  “Want one?” he asked. “I woke up this morning and my mouth tasted like I ate a skunk’s ass.”

  “Do you ever wonder if there’s something wrong with you?” I asked, and declined the candy.

  “Every goddamn day.”

  “Want to tell me what we’re doing out here?” I said. “And who that thing belongs to.”

  “The bird?”

  “Yes, the bird.”

  “It belongs to the company I work for,” he said. “And the truth is, I’m not really supposed to be here, but there’s a few things I think you deserve to know.”

  “The company you work for?”

  “Small ‘c.’ I’m not with the Agency.”

  I searched his face with renewed interest; Blackwood had slid into and out of my field of focus over the past several days, his behavior and dress like that of some kind of chameleon. Though I had no reason to trust what he’d just told me, his eyes held no trace of the moral vacuity I had come to associate with Company men.

  “Here’s the deal, Dawson,” he said, gauging the doubt he had seen in my expression. “I work for a private organization that investigates anomalies.”

  “Anomalies,” I repeated.

  “Weird shit that crops up out of the blue. Some call them ‘Black Swan Events.’”

&nb
sp; “I know what an anomaly is.”

  His eyes squinted past me and he watched the horses graze in the meadow. “Thing is, you’ve been smack in the center of one. You were set up to fail, but you didn’t.”

  “I am aware of that now,” I said. “Who set me up?”

  “You already know the answer.”

  “Say the name.”

  “The late Sheriff Lloyd Skadden.”

  “And what do you know about a fugitive biker with a face that looks like a pockmarked rabbit? He acquired three holes in the back of his head in a shitbag motel room in Idaho.”

  “I heard about that.”

  “And the cash he was carrying?”

  “I don’t involve myself in that sort of work,” Blackwood said, taking his eyes off the horses and turning them back on me. “Let’s take a ride.”

  I had heard stories of Vietcong prisoners of war being interrogated at high altitudes and shoved out the cargo doors of choppers that looked much like the one that was now parked in my pasture.

  “I can see the wheels turning in your head, Mr. Dawson. I don’t participate in the kinds of things you’re considering right now. Not anymore.”

  “Odin gave an eye for the acquisition of knowledge.”

  Blackwood smiled again, rocked back on his heels, and looked down at the toes of his boots.

  “I like that you have an appreciation of mythology,” he said. “But I’m not asking the payment of any kind of toll. Bring your sidearm with you if it makes you feel any better. And you can sit in the backseat so there’s nobody behind you.”

  He started to walk toward the chopper, but I remained planted where I stood. After a few steps he looked at me over his shoulder.

  “I don’t have much time, Dawson,” he said. “Like I told you before, I’m not supposed to be here at all.”

  BLACKWOOD STRAPPED himself into the copilot’s seat, and I took the one directly behind the pilot, diagonal to Blackwood so I could keep an eye on him. Like its exterior, the interior of the chopper had been modified for paramilitary use, and had been outfitted with two rows of plush leather passenger seats. The cargo bay, however, was arrayed with electronic equipment and drop-down net seating and gear hooks that could easily accommodate a tactical team and mission matériel.