Dance of the Winnebagos

by Ann Charles

  Flashing his light around the room, Mac focused on the big pile of rocks on the other side. Most of the stones bore white scratches and scars where a pickax had connected with them.

  What was Sophy looking for?

  His flashlight dimmed and flickered. He knocked it against his leg a couple of times until it brightened. When he focused the beam on the ore cart again, he noticed a second ore cart, half-buried, further back in the debris. Its rusty sides were camouflaged by the surrounding rocks.

  Was that what she was trying to unearth?

  Mac raised the beam to the cavernous ceiling. Fissure cracks branched across the surface. He’d seen fewer lines on a road map of Los Angeles. Turquoise—Mother Nature’s neon sign for copper—coated the rocks, much like several other sections of Socrates Pit.

  Loaded with copper ore, this mine was a bonanza. But extracting the copper would take a pool of capital, one Ruby wasn’t exactly floating in at the moment. The mining company execs must be salivating at the thought of getting their hands on this hillside.

  His thoughts and flashlight returned to the second ore cart. Sophy had cleared a small section underneath it. Rocks covered the top of it and cascaded over the side.

  His light dimmed again until he banged it against the palm of his hand.

  Under the cart, he found a critter’s nest stuffed up where an axle connected to an iron wheel. He brushed away the dried greasewood twigs, coughing from the dust he’d stirred up, but found nothing more than the sticky remnants of stale-smelling axle grease. Rust coated the bottom and the wheels.

  Frustration burned in his throat along with the dust. There was something in this mine—in this very room—that Sophy was willing to kill to protect, but what?

  A glance at his watch drove him to his feet, his heart hammering. He’d been in the mine for too long. He needed to get the hell out of there before Sophy showed up to start digging.

  Without a backward glance, he rushed from the chamber. He’d learned his lesson the last time Sophy had shared a mine with him. Cave-ins were not his idea of a good time. He preferred to face the deranged broad under the open sky.

  The tunnel stretched before him.

  Several bends in the mine later, his flashlight dimmed again, glowing no brighter than a cigarette lighter. He knocked the light against his leg.

  The beam faded even more.

  Dropping to one knee, he unzipped his pack and dug out a spare pack of copper tops. He flicked off the light, total darkness blinding him. He dumped out the old batteries and slipped the first battery into the body of the flashlight.

  Light glimmered off to his right.

  The second battery still clasped in his palm, he didn’t move a muscle, barely breathing.

  A beam of light bounced off the wall ahead.

  Sophy! Shit, he was too late.

  Hands sweaty, he pushed the last battery into the light, scooped up his pack, and slinked back toward Sophy’s lair, trying not to scuff his boots as he stepped.

  He kept the light off until rounding the next corner.

  Two bends before the chamber, he slipped into a shallow passage, fifteen or so feet deep. Earlier, he’d checked out this short tunnel with a flash of the light. Now, he raced to the back of it and leaned against the wall behind a rock that jutted out of the wall.

  Killing his light, he waited in the pitch black.

  Several silent seconds passed, then the outline of his nose became visible. The light was growing.

  He couldn’t hear her footsteps, her breath, nothing. If he’d dicked around a few more minutes back in that chamber, Sophy could have snuck up on him and removed him from this whole equation.

  If luck wasn’t on his side tonight, she still might.

  Mac peeked past the outcrop. As he watched, a flashlight came into view, then the hand holding it. Then another hand—this one holding a 9mm.

  Holy. Fucking. Shit.

  Mac’s grip on his pack tightened so much one of his knuckles popped, sounding ten times louder in the shallow passage.

  The flashlight whipped in his direction. He retreated a fraction of a second before the beam crossed over the outcrop, the shadow of it blackening the wall over his shoulder. He plastered himself against the cold rock, jagged edges digging into his lower back.

  The beam bounced around the cave for several gut-wrenching seconds before sweeping away.

  Mac counted to twenty, breath held, and peeked out.

  Sophy, wrapped in shadow, slipped out of sight.

  His breath whooshed from his lungs in a silent blast. Blood roaring in his ears, he stood there, trying to become one with the wall for a bit longer.

  That was close. Too close. He needed to get the hell out of Socrates Pit before that crazy broad and her 9mm blocked the exit.

  With his flashlight still off, he edged out to the lip of the short tunnel and peered around the corner in Sophy’s direction. The dim glow from her flashlight and the faint smell of her perfume seeped around the bend toward him.

  Dousing his flashlight with his palm, he tiptoed in the opposite direction. Several corners later, he pulled his hand away from the lens and picked up his pace, careful not to let his boot heels clop down on the stone floor.

  Sweat ran in rivulets down his back. Every so often, he glanced behind him to make sure there wasn’t a 9mm pointed at his head.

  The touch of the cool night air on his face and arms eased the tension in his shoulders, the wide-open sky made breathing easier. Then he remembered Claire’s mysterious absence all afternoon, thought about Sophy’s 9mm, and tightened up all over again.

  He clambered down the hillside, uprooting prickly pear cacti bunches and daisy clusters, scared shitless he wouldn’t find Claire safe and sound at the R.V. park.

  Way too many heart-racing minutes later, he killed his pickup in front of the dark windows of Ruby’s General Store.

  His white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel relaxed at the sight of Ruby’s old Ford parked under the cottonwood tree. Claire had made it home. She wasn’t lying face down in some chamber with a bullet hole in her forehead.

  He climbed out of the pickup and eased the door shut to keep from waking Ruby and Jess. The porch’s wood steps creaked under his boots. The forty-watt porch light flickered, moths peppering it.

  As he reached for the screen door, it opened. Mac moved back to let Harley step out.

  The older man closed the door. He nailed Mac with a squint. “Your aunt is worried about you.” He sniffed and wrinkled his nose. “You smell ripe. Where the hell have you been?”

  Mac didn’t want to talk about it. “Did Claire make it home okay?”

  An owl cooed in the cottonwood tree.

  Harley nodded. “You haven’t answered my question.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against the door, blocking it. “Where have you been?

  In other words, Mac wasn’t getting inside until he gave a sufficient answer.

  “Out,” Mac said, rubbing the back of his neck.

  He needed to figure out what to do about Sophy, and until then, he didn’t need Harley and his posse of old buzzards shoving their beaks into this sticky situation.

  “Out where?”

  “Just out.” He didn’t like the way Harley was staring him down, like he’d been busted with joints in his sock drawer. Two could play this game. “What are you doing here so late?”

  Harley bristled. “I told you, your aunt was worried about you. She wasn’t fit to be left alone.”

  Ruby was no daylily. Underneath that soft southern drawl, she was as tough as the hardpan soil on the valley floor.

  “Right. And judging by the lipstick smeared on your jaw, neither were you.”

  * * *

  Monday, April 26th

  Sophy’s body hummed with anticipation.

  As she lifted the last rock from the bottom of the ore cart, she nearly dropped it on her toe at the sight of a small, metal box. With a victory cry, she threw the rock toward the pile and li
fted the box, its casing cold and dented.

  “Viva Las Vegas,” she sang, Elvis’s voice echoing in her head as she used the tail of her shirt to wipe dirt from the lid. She ran her fingers over the small keyhole on the front, then shook the box. Something rattled inside, sounding like a handful of small stones—rubies, emeralds, diamonds?

  While fishing a pocketknife from her jeans, she glanced at the chamber opening for the umpteenth time since she’d given up searching for Claire.

  Dark and empty, the doorway looked the same as it had five minutes ago. But that didn’t ease the tension in Sophy’s neck. The nosy bitch could still be poking around in the mine somewhere, even at three-thirty in the morning.

  She snapped open her knife and dropped to her knees. Her hands shook as she twisted the skinny blade in the keyhole.

  Sweat trickled down the length of her spine, the muscles in her back and arms warm from hefting rocks about for the last couple of hours.

  She’d searched high and low throughout Socrates Pit for this box. The old map of the mine had been about as useful as a limp dick, since the passageway leading to this chamber didn’t exist on it.

  She’d scoured tunnel after tunnel, chamber after chamber, searching for the ore cart he’d told her about. Over the years, she’d dug out three different rooms, thinking the ore cart might be under all of the rubble, only to end up empty-handed.

  Finally, hours shy of the mining company taking over the land, she held the loot in her hands.

  The bright lights of Vegas glittered behind her eyelids, the sound of coins clinking in the slot trays filled her ears. No more suffocating under the stench of kitchen grease, day after day. No more faded orange curtains and torn vinyl booths, button-fumbling hicks with chew stuck in their teeth, dingy watering holes and one-horse towns.

  She’d served hard-time for Joe. He’d stolen her youth. Now she’d take what she’d earned.

  With a rusty-sounding clink, the lock broke under her blade. She dropped the knife on the floor and sat back on her heels, rubbing her palms on her jean-clad thighs.

  She’d have red silk sheets, rhinestone-studded dresses, and a solid granite bathtub full of champagne.

  Her hand trembling, Sophy touched the lid. It creaked as it flipped back onto the floor.

  She’d dreamed about this moment for so ...

  A gasp exploded from her lips.

  Her heart flash-froze into a chunk of ice in her chest.

  Reaching down, she scooped up a handful of marbles, squeezing them in her grip. Her breath grew ragged, a scream building in her lungs.

  She backhanded the box, knocking it onto its side, and whipped the marbles across the chamber. The box’s remaining marbles spilled across the floor, rolling every which way.

  A glint of gold on the floor next to the now-empty box caught her eye.

  A ring.

  She picked it up and held it under the battery-powered lamp.

  It had writing engraved on the inside. She squinted without her reading glasses, and pulled back a little until the words came into focus.

  Forever your girl—Sophy

  “No, no, no,” she cried, staring in horror at the wedding band she’d bought for Joe with the money her parents had sent for her eighteenth birthday.

  She covered her face and screamed into her palms.

  The rotten, thieving, son of a bitch!

  He’d fucked her over again.

  * * *

  Mac stepped inside the General Store and found Jess behind the counter, scribbling down algebra problems on a notebook page.

  The cool shadows inside the store were a welcome relief from the blazing sun holding court high in the afternoon sky. He could hear the rattle of the air conditioner coming from the other side of the curtain. The smell of cigar smoke—Harley’s calling card—lingered in the air.

  “Where’s your mom?” he asked.

  “In back.” Jess nudged her head toward the curtain. She didn’t look too happy to be stuck on cash-register duty. “With the others.”

  “What others?”

  “The old dudes.” Jess shoved a red curl behind her ear and focused back on the algebra book. “Harley, too.”

  “What are they doing?”

  Jess shrugged, which he figured in teenager-speak meant she cared more than she wanted him to see.

  Mac tugged playfully on her ponytail as he passed her. He pushed through the curtain and hesitated at the threshold, blowing away the finger of cigar smoke drifting toward him. In the midst of a card game, the four of them seemed oblivious to his presence.

  He cleared his throat. Heads turned and four pairs of eyes drilled into him.

  The mining company’s deadline was two hours away, and the lines streaking across Ruby’s forehead made it clear she hadn’t forgotten.

  “Where have you been, boy?” Chester asked.

  “Selling your secrets to your ex-wife,” Mac replied and slipped behind the bar to grab a Corona from the fridge.

  “Which ex?” Manny asked as Mac strolled up to the table. “The long-legged blonde who filled his pickup bed with cement, or the top-heavy brunette who chopped his favorite fishing pole into matchsticks and drilled holes in the bottom of his boat?”

  “Don’t forget about Bernadette and the time she tried to run him over with her ‘71 Monte Carlo,” Harley added.

  Chester smiled, his gaze taking on a faraway look as he lowered his cards. “That feisty redhead shot me in the ass with a BB gun, too. More than once.” He slapped an Ace of spades on the table. “Damn, I miss her, especially in the sack.”

  Harley frowned and threw down a Queen of spades. “That woman was a couple of chickens short of a coop.”

  Ruby grabbed Mac’s arm. “Well? Am I signing?”

  The others quieted, their cards still in front of them, their attention riveted on Mac.

  “Do you want to talk about this here?” Mac wasn’t certain this was something she wanted the boys to hear.

  She shrugged. “I have nothin’ to hide. They know what today is. Shoot, this place has been their home away from home longer than mine.”

  True, but they weren’t the ones who’d been hanging onto it by their fingertips for the last year.

  Mac swigged the cold Corona, savoring the flavor as he went over the words he’d contemplated on the way home from the Yuccaville library. He took a deep breath, uncertainty rumbling in his gut. “Don’t sign the papers.”

  Ruby’s brow pinched. “Are you saying ...” She trailed off, her mouth opening and closing like a malfunctioning garage door.

  “I’m saying don’t sell the mines to the mining company.”

  “But an hour ago,” Ruby said, “Claire came in here and told me I should sell. She said you were right all along.”

  Surprise made him step back. Claire had said that? What had changed her mind?

  “No disrespect to Claire, but she doesn’t know that the land and those mines are worth more than the company is offering. I do. Don’t sell.”

  That sounded a lot more confident than he felt inside at the moment.

  “I have to do something about the bank. I need to have that money to them by Friday at closing time.”

  “Leave the bank to me.”

  Her green eyes sparked. That had gone over like a truck with square wheels. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  He hadn’t figured she would, but since she was paddling up Shit Creek, she didn’t have much choice. “Trust me.”

  “Where are you gonna get that kind of money by Friday?”

  “It’s already taken care of.”

  Her nostrils flared, and her lips compressed into a tight white line. “MacDonald Abraham Garner.”

  Mac winced at the sound of his full name.

  “I will not take your charity.”

  Dropping a kiss on her pink cheek, he said, “Just trust me, Aunt Ruby. I won’t let you down.”

  Ruby sighed. “Okay, but if this comes out of your pocket, your nam
e goes on the papers as the land owner.”

  “No way. If I’m right about what those mines are really worth, the amount you owe to the bank doesn’t equal half of it.”

  “Fine. You’ll be part land owner, then.” When he opened his mouth to refute her, she held her palm up. “On this, I get final say.”

  Mac glanced at the boys. Harley stared at Ruby so intently that he didn’t notice Chester cheating, peeking at his cards. Manny smiled like a proud father.

  “Let’s talk about this more later,” Mac said, turning back to Ruby, “after the mining company knows you’re not falling for their line of bullshit.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Now,” Mac tossed his empty bottle in the garbage. “Where’s Claire?”

  They had some unfinished business to attend to.

  * * *

  Down in Ruby’s basement, Claire sat slouched at Joe’s desk, staring at the turn-of-the-century Rayo lamp that had been “electrified” to fit modern light bulbs. A faint buzz of electricity hummed from the lamp.

  For the last hour, she’d hunched over five pictures of Sidney Arnold Martino—his driver’s license, three passport photos, and the newspaper photo.

  And for the last hour, she hadn’t come up with a single idea on how Sidney fit in with Joe and Sophy.

  When it came to sharp detectives, she fell in the butter knife group.

  Then there was the bone. She squeezed the bridge of her nose, not wanting to think about the damned bone that had lured her into this whirlpool of bullshit.

  She slumped in Joe’s office chair, the springs squeaking as her weight shifted, the scent of aged leather enveloping her.

  She’d failed. Failed her grandmother, failed Ruby.

  Telling Ruby she should sell to the mining company had left her with an ache in her chest. She’d sell her soul for a cigarette about now.

  She had been so determined to follow through on something in her life, to finish what she’d started and come up with the right answers. Answers that would make the eight years she’d wasted in college classrooms add up to something, anything of value.