Listening Woman jlajc-3

by Tony Hillerman

  . . . how many rounds of ammunition? Leaphorn opened the magazine, poured three shells out into his hand, and carefully reloaded them. A round in the chamber and three in the magazine. Knowing this, what would Tull do? Not, Leaphorn thought, stand and fight in this blackness with a pistol against a shotgun. The darkness minimized the effect of the pistols range and magnified the effect of the shotguns scattered pattern. Tull would head for the entrance, for the light and the radio. He would call Goldrims for help. And would Goldrims come? Leaphorn thought about it. Goldrims had probably intended to radio to the copter as it passed and order it to land, order the pilot out, and then, if he could fly a copter, fly a few miles, abandon the aircraft and begin a well-planned escape maneuver. If he couldn’t fly a copter, he’d disable it and its radio, fix the pilot so he couldn’t follow, and run. Why return to the cave? Leaphorn could think of no reason. Would he come back to help Tull in the cave? Leaphorn doubted it. Tull had been expendable at the Santa Fe robbery. Why wouldn’t he be expendable now? The contest in this cave would be between John Tull and Joe Leaphorn. Leaphorn felt along the top of the rocky ledge for a flat place, put his flashlight on it, aimed it at the place where Tull had been, and flicked it on. He ducked three long steps to his right and then looked over the top. The flashlight beam shone through a blue haze of gunpowder smoke into a gray-white emptiness. Where Tull had been, there was nothing now. Leaphorn slipped back to the flashlight, flicked it off, aimed it at the place the hostages had been kept, and snapped it on again. The beam fell directly on the body of Father Benjamin Tso and illuminated Theodora Adams, kneeling inside the cage. She covered her eyes against the glare. Leaphorn turned off the flash, and felt his way through the blackness to the cage. He unlocked the padlock with the key he had taken from Jackie’s pocket.

  Get the lantern off Jackie’s body, he said. Get everybody away from this place. Find a place to hide until I call for you. He didn’t wait to answer any questions.

  The speed with which Leaphorn followed John Tull toward the caves mouth was reduced by a healthy respect for Tull. He skirted far to the left of the direct route, carrying the shotgun at ready. When he finally reached the area where light from the entrance turned the blackness into mere dimness, he found droplets of blood on the gray-white calcite floor. At another point, a smear of reddish brown discolored a limestone outcrop.

  Leaphorn guessed it was where Tull had put a bloody hand against the stone. Leaphorn hadn’t missed. The shotgun blast had hit Tull, and hit him hard.

  Leaphorn paused and digested this. In a sense, time was now on his side. A shotgun would make a multiple wound, hard to stop bleeding and Tull seemed to be bleeding freely. As time passed, he would weaken. But was the crucial measurement of time here being made by Tull’s pumping heart or by a clockwork mechanism attached to about twenty sticks of dynamite still unaccounted for? Leaphorn decided he couldn’t wait.

  Somewhere in the darkness around him, Leaphorn was sure that missing timer and perhaps other timers he had never seen was counting away the seconds.

  He found Tull where he thought he would find him at the radio. The man had moved the butane lantern some fifty feet back into the cave from the place where Leaphorn had first seen him and Goldrims, and he’d turned on a battery lantern and adjusted its beam toward part of the cavern. The range of light thus extended substantially beyond the effective range of the shotgun. Leaphorn circled, trying to find an approach that offered some close-in cover. There wasn’t one. The floor here was as dead level as a ballroom.

  From it ragged rows of stalagmites rose like a patchwork of volcanic islands from the surface of a still, white sea. Tull had moved the radio behind one such island and the lantern was beside it giving Tull the advantage of deep shadow. From there, he could have a clear shot at anyone trying to get out of the cave mouth via the water. The lake protected one flank and the cave wall another. Approaching him meant walking into the lantern light and into the barrel of his pistol.

  Leaphorn glanced at his watch, and considered. His hip now throbbed with a steady pain.

  Hey, Tull, he shouted. Lets talk.

  Perhaps five seconds passed.

  Fine, Tull said. Talk.

  He’s not coming back, you know, Leaphorn said. Hell take the money and run. You get stuck.

  No, Tull said. But I tell you what. You throw that shotgun out there where I can see it, and well just make you one more hostage. When we cut out of here, you’re a free man.

  Otherwise, when my friend gets back, he’s going to be behind you, and I’m going to move in from the front, and were going to kill you.

  And that was about the way it would work, if Goldrims did come back, Leaphorn thought.

  He would be fairly easy to handle by two men even with the shotgun. But he didn’t think Goldrims would be coming back.

  Lets quit kidding each other, Leaphorn said. Your friend is taking the ransom and running.

  And you’re supposed to wait around for some more broadcasts, and then you’ll run. And when you run, you’re blowing this place up.

  Tull said nothing.

  How bad did I hit you?

  You missed, Tull said.

  You’re lying. I hit you and you’ve been losing blood. And that’s another reason you’re not going to get out of here unless we make a deal. I can keep you in here, and you can keep me in here. Its a Mexican standoff, and we cant afford a standoff because your boss has a bomb set to go. Leaphorn paused, thinking about where he had found the bomb and the circumstances. He didn’t tell you about the bomb, did he?

  Screw you, Tull said.

  No, Leaphorn thought, he didn’t tell you about the radio setup and the bomb in the room with the sacred paintings. Tull’s tracks hadn’t shown up there, and six sticks of dynamite had been missing when Leaphorn had first found the cache. Probably that bomb had been set up separately. This was a Buffalo Society operation, but part of it, Leaphorn was increasingly certain, might be a very private affair of Goldrims himself.

  I’m going to play a tape recording for you, Leaphorn said. He took the recorder from under his shirt and adjusted it. Haven’t heard it myself yet, so we can listen to it together.

  It was fastened to a Hallicrafters radio transceiver way back in a side room. There was this radio, with a timer set to turn it on to broadcasting, and let it warm up and then turn on this tape recorder. And after the tape ran, the timer was set to detonate some dynamite in a sack there. You ready for it?

  There was silence. Seconds ticked away.

  Okay, Tull said. Lets hear it. If it exists.

  Leaphorn pushed the on button. Goldrims’s voice boomed out again.

  . . . have seen policemen in the territory you agreed would be kept clear of police. You have broken your promise. The Buffalo Society never breaks a promise. Remember this in the future. Remember and learn. We promised that if police came into this corner of the Navajo Nation, the hostages would die. They will now die, and we warriors of the Buffalo Society will die with them. You will find our bodies in our sacred cavern, the mouth of which opens into the San Juan River arm of Lake Powell less than a mile below the present lake-level mouth of the river, approximately twenty-three miles east by northeast of Short Mountain, and exactly at north latitude 36, 11, 17, and west longitude 110,29,3.

  To those of the Buffalo Society who seized these white hostages, know that we three warriors kept our honor and our promise. To the white man, come to this cave and recover the bodies of three of your adults and eleven of your young. They died to avenge the deaths of three of our adults and eleven children in the Olds Prairie Murders. With them will be bodies of three warriors of the Buffalo Society: Jackie Noni of the Potawatomi Nation, and John Tull, of the Seminole, and myself, whom the white men call Hoski, or James Tso, a warrior of the Navajo Nation. May our memories live in the glory of the Buffalo Society.

  The clear, resonant voice of Goldrims stopped and there was only the faint hiss of the blank tape winding into the take-up r
eel. Leaphorn pushed the off button and rewound the tape. He felt numb. His logic had told him that Goldrims might kill the hostages to eliminate witnesses, but now he realized that he hadn’t really believed it. The impact of hearing Goldrims’s pleasant, unemotional voice declare this mass murder/mass suicide was stunning. And in that split second, he also became aware that the name of Father Benjamin Tso was missing from the catalog of the dead. He confronted the implications of that gap in the roster. It meant that Goldrims had planned even better than Leaphorn had guessed.

  You want to hear it again? Leaphorn shouted. From the beginning this time.

  Tull said nothing. Leaphorn pushed the on button. You were warned, the tape began. But our people have seen policemen in the territory . . . When the recorder reached the list of bodies, Leaphorn stopped it. I want you to notice, he shouted to Tull, there’s a name missing from this list. Notice its the name of your buddy’s brother. I want you to think about that.

  Leaphorn thought of it himself. Bits of the puzzle fell into place. He knew now who had written the letter summoning Father Benjamin Tso to his grandfathers hogan. Goldrims had written it himself. He felt a chill admiration for the mind that had conceived such a plan. Hoski had realized he could not escape from the manhunt. It would be massive and inexorable. So he had devised a way to abort it. What the dynamite left of his brother, as Hoski had arranged it, would be found with the shattered radio and identified as Hoskis body. Everyone would thus be accounted for. There would be no one left to hunt. As he realized this, Leaphorn also realized that his own problem had been multiplied. Goldrims would have to respond to Tull’s radioed call for help. He couldn’t risk having Leaphorn, or anyone who had seen Father Tso, escape from the cave. Hoski would have to come back.

  Leaphorn pushed the play button again, ran the tape, pushed stop, pushed rewind. He was awed by it. Perfect. Flawless. Impeccable. It left nothing to chance. The big score for James Tso would not just be the ransom. The big score would be a new life, free from surveillance, free from hiding. There would be no reason to question the identity of the body. Hoski had never been arrested or fingerprinted. And no one knew the priest was here. No one, that is, who would remain alive. And there was a family resemblance.

  Hey, Tull, Leaphorn yelled. Have you counted the bodies? There’s Jackie, and all those Boy Scouts, and the woman, and one of the Tso brothers, and you. You’re there on the list of dead, Tull. But your friend Hoski is going to be alive and well. And wealthy, too.

  Tull said nothing.

  Goddamn it, Tull, Leaphorn shouted. Think! He’s screwing you. He’s screwing the Buffalo Society. Kelongy wont see a dollar of that ransom. Hoskis going to disappear with it.

  Leaphorn listened and heard nothing but the echoes of his own voice dying in the cave.

  He hoped Tull was thinking. Hoski would disappear. And someday a man with another name and another identity would appear in Washington, and contact a woman named Rosemary Rita Oliveras. And somewhere, wherever he was hiding, a madman named Kelongy would wonder what went wrong with his crazy scheme and perhaps he would mourn his brilliant lieutenant. But there was no time to think of that now. Leaphorn glanced at his wrist watch. It was 2:47 A.M. In an hour and thirteen minutes it would be time to broadcast the answers that would keep the law at bay for another two hours. What had been Hoskis timing? He had called the helicopter to deliver the ransom at 4 A.M. Probably he would have picked up the money about two-thirty. When was the Hallicrafters set timed to broadcast its tape, and to detonate its bomb? Since Hoski would want to make sure that broadcast was recorded, he’d probably time it at one of the regular two-hour broadcasts.

  But how soon? Leaphorn tried to concentrate, to shut out the throbbing of his hip, the aching fatigue, the damp, mushroom smell of this watery part of the cave. It would be soon. Hoski would need very little running time. An hour or two of darkness would be enough to get well clear of the cave and its neighborhood. Because there’d be no search once that tape was aired. There would only be a great flocking of everybody to find this point on the map the smoking mouth of a cave. There would be chaos. The hunted would have been found. Hoski/Goldrims, safely outside the circle of confusion, would simply walk away. Leaphorn was suddenly confident he understood the timing of Hoskis plan.

  Tull, Leaphorn shouted. Cant you see the son-of-a-bitch set you up? Use your head.

  No, Tull said. Not him. You made that tape up.

  Its his voice, Leaphorn shouted. Cant you recognize his voice?

  Silence.

  He didn’t tell you why he moved his brother away from the Boy Scouts, did he? Leaphorn shouted. He didn’t tell you about this tape. He didn’t tell you about the bomb.

  Hell, man, Tull said. I helped him put them together. I’ve got one right here with me, by this radio set here. And when the time comes, its going to blow you to hell.

  You and me together, Tull, Leaphorn said. And as he said it, he heard the muffled purring of an outboard motor.

  You weren’t here when he made one of those bombs, Leaphorn said. And he didn’t tell you about it. Or about that tape. Or about broadcasting it over that spare radio. Come on, Tull. You were the sucker in Santa Fe. You think you’re immortal, but don’t you get tired of being the one who gets screwed?

  Tull said nothing. Over the echoes of his own words, Leaphorn could hear the purring motor.

  Think, he shouted. Count the dynamite sticks. There were twenty-four in the box. He used some to seal the other end of the cave. And some in a bomb to wipe out the Scouts, and you probably have a couple there. So does it all add up to twenty-four?

  Silence. It wasn’t going to work. The tone of the outboard motor had changed now. It was inside the cave.

  You said there was dynamite in a sack by that Hallicrafters, Tull said. Is that what you said? His voice sounded weak now, pained. How many sticks did you say?

  Two sticks, Leaphorn said.

  How many dynamite caps?

  Just one, Leaphorn said. I think just one. With a wire connected. The purring of the outboard stopped.

  Ill bet Hoski set the timers himself, Leaphorn said. Ill bet he told you that bomb with you there will go off about six o’clock. You’re going to make the four o’clock broadcast and then cut out and run for it. But he set the timer a couple of hours early.

  Hey, Jimmy, Tull yelled. He’s over here.

  Whats he have? Hoski yelled. Just Jackie’s shotgun? Is that all? Hoskis voice came from the waters edge, still a long way off.

  God damn it, Tull, Leaphorn shouted.

  Don’t be stupid. He’s screwing you again, I tell you. He’s got you listed among the dead on that tape, so you gotta be dead when they get here.

  He just has the shotgun, Tull shouted. Move around behind him.

  He set the timer up on that bomb you have, Leaphorn shouted. Cant you understand he has to kill you, too?

  No, Tull said. Jimmy’s my friend. It was almost a scream.

  He left you at Santa Fe. He didn’t tell you about that tape. He’s got you listed with the dead. He set the timer . . .

  Shut up, Tull said. Shut up. You’re wrong, damn you, and I can prove it. Tull’s voice rose to a scream. God damn you, I can prove you’re wrong.

  The tone, the hysteria, told Leaphorn more than the words. He knew, with a sick horror, exactly what Tull meant when he said he could prove it.

  He’s talking crap, Goldrims was shouting, his voice much closer now. He’s lying to you, Tull. What the hell are you doing?

  Leaphorn was scrambling to his feet.

  Tull’s voice was saying: I can just move this little hour hand up to . . .

  Don’t, Goldrims screamed, and Tull’s voice was cut off by the sound of a pistol shot.

  Leaphorn was running as fast as heart and legs and lungs would let him run, thinking that each yard of distance from the center of the blast increased his chances for survival. From behind him came the sound of Goldrims screaming Tull’s name, and another shot.

/>   And then the blast. It was bright, as if a thousand flash bulbs lit the gray-white interior of the cavern. Then the shock wave hit Leaphorn and sent him tumbling and sliding over the calcite floor, slamming finally into something.

  Leaphorn became aware that he could hear nothing and see nothing. Perhaps he had lost consciousness long enough for the echoes to die away. He noticed his nose was bleeding and felt below his face. There were only a few drops of wetness on the stony floor. Little time had passed.

  He sat up gingerly. When the flash blindness subsided enough so that he could read his watch, it was 2:57. Leaphorn hurried. First he found his flashlight behind the rocks where he had left it, with the shotgun nearby. Next he found two boats a small three-man affair with an outboard engine, and a flat-bottomed fiberglass model with a muffled inboard. In its bottom was a green nylon backpack and a heavy canvas bag. Leaphorn zipped the bag open. Inside were dozens of small plastic packages. Leaphorn fished one out, opened it and shone his flashlight onto tight bundles of twenty-dollar bills. He returned the pouch and carried the backpack and bag into the cave. Near the blackened area where James Tso and John Tull had died, he stopped, swung the heavy bag and sent the ransom money sliding down the cave floor into the darkness.

  By the time he had everyone in the boats it was after 3 A.M.

  At ten minutes after three, both boats purred out of the cave mouth and into open water.

  The night seemed incredibly bright. It was windless. A half moon hung halfway down the western sky. Leaphorn quickly got his directions. It was probably eighty miles down the lake to the dam and the nearest telephone at least four or five hours. Leaphorns hip throbbed. To hell with that, he thought. There would surely be aerial surveillance. Let someone else do some work. He picked up the spare gasoline can, screwed off the cap, floated it on the lake surface, and as it drifted away blasted it with his shotgun. It erupted into flame and burned, a bright blue-white beacon reflecting from the water, lighting the cliff walls around them, lighting the dirty, exhausted faces of eleven Boy Scouts. Normally it wouldn’t be noticed in this lonely country. But tonight it would be. Tonight anything would be noticed.