by J. M. Hayes
J.D. watched the tear slide down her cheek and catch on the scar.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s the trouble. People keep needing me and I keep letting them down.”
She turned, shaking her head. Her rich mahogany curls took turns hiding one side of her collar and then the other. “That’s why I’m with Larry. You still don’t understand, do you J.D.? You think you’re to blame. All those people in Spain, you think it’s your fault they died. That things came apart out there in the desert. That a bunch of us ended up with battered bodies and bruised psyches—all your fault. Shit, Fitzpatrick, the only person you’ve ever failed is yourself.
“Don’t you get it! We won. Sasaki died, not us. There isn’t any rebellion out there on the reservation anymore. Parker may be dead, but he got that way all by himself, not because of you. You’re the one who made it possible for us to need you again. Maybe we still do.”
“Won? Haven’t you heard about Jujul?” he asked. “Don’t you know? He died!”
“Yeah, I know. It’s terrible and I don’t understand it. I always thought you could help him, if you only tried. I still think you could have. But you know, he made choices too. They say he attacked that guard. I thought, as far as he was concerned, his life ended when he took the rap and went to jail. Everything after was just waiting around to die. Maybe he took all he could, then made them finish it for him. But now, here you are, indulging in a private wake that’s probably more for yourself than Jujul, while another person who thought you were his friend sits behind bars. He always did what he could for Jujul, but he didn’t have the connections, didn’t have the political clout. He never got anywhere trying, but he never quit either. When he heard what happened to the old man he didn’t just open the nearest bottle. Maybe what he did wasn’t right, but there’s some justice in it.”
J.D. took another sip. “What are you talking about?”
“Jesus drove out to the reservation yesterday afternoon. I guess he made a mess of Larson’s face, and his own career, before they stopped him.” She nodded toward the bourbon. “You keep hitting that stuff as hard as you are and you’ll do a number on your career too, only the gesture won’t have been as dramatic and by then, there may not be anybody left to care.
“I haven’t stopped loving you, you know,” she said. She was digging through her purse for tissues and Santa was doing his best to pretend he wasn’t listening. “I’m not sure I ever will, but I love Larry too, and Larry needs me for more than just sharing his self-pity. I’m afraid, if you ever get past that, you may not need anybody for anything else at all.”
She spun off the barstool and headed for the entrance. She wasn’t hurrying but she was gone before J.D. could decide whether he wanted to respond, to say nothing of where to start. He wasn’t even sure she was wrong.
He watched her go and felt the hollow place in his soul start to ache again. Draining the rest of his drink didn’t fill it, so he ordered another.
“You know,” Santa observed while refilling his stocking, “at least self-pity is the sincerest of emotions.”
J.D. picked up the glass and rotated it slowly in front of his eyes, watching the amber liquid swirl and distort whatever he viewed through it. “You’re a real comfort,” he muttered. He wasn’t talking to innkeeper Claus.
He felt guilty, all right. Jujul was dead because he hadn’t acted quickly enough. But she was wrong. He had acted.
He’d gone to the FBI, the same agent who’d convinced her and Larry and Jesus to keep their mouths shut, the one who’d arranged the deal that sent the old man to jail in exchange for Larson dropping charges against the other Papagos, the one who stood beside J.D.’s hospital bed while he floated on the tenuous edge of consciousness and told him the public record would show that all their injuries resulted from an automobile accident that occurred after Jujul was captured, and, as a federal officer, he was expected to make sure no one ever suspected anything else.
J.D. only had one thing to bargain with, a threat to go public. At first the agent didn’t believe he’d do it, and told him so, and was even kind enough to wonder who would believe an alcoholic, shell-shock case from Spain anyway. But, in the end, the Bureau decided not to take the chance. All the silence they’d arranged to protect the Papago and Americans of Japanese descent also covered the Bureau’s ass. As long as it held, they didn’t have to explain how they’d lost track of a Japanese secret agent who’d killed and kidnapped American citizens. Not needing to explain that was worth something—clemency for Jujul. He got their guarantee a few days after Pearl. Obviously, he got it too late.
It was warm in the bar, not like the chilly gloom outside. The place radiated an artificial sense of goodwill and the assurance of pleasant forgetfulness. It smelled of tobacco smoke and beer and whiskey, comforting smells, as welcome as a greeting from an old friend. J.D. sat and experienced the place, inhaled it into his innermost self to see if it might diminish the void he still felt there, listened to its promises and tried to believe. He couldn’t quite do it.
Winter Forever
J.D. stuffed his hands into his pockets as he walked back. A pair of the army bombers that were becoming increasingly common at Davis-Monthan droned by overhead, skimming the bottom of clouds that hung as cheerful as lead. The crowds of Christmas shoppers seemed equally joyous, their faces down, concentrating on puddles, hidden by turned up collars and turned down brims. The afternoon was becoming colder, hinting that even Tucson, in spite of claims by the chamber of commerce, couldn’t avoid winter forever.
The collection of recruiting posters by the entrance to the federal building looked more festive than downtown’s Christmas decorations and suggested conflict might prove similarly enjoyable. J.D. knew better.
He went briskly up the stairs and though he only went to the second floor, he was breathing a little hard by the time he got there. He walked down to the end of the hall and into the office that housed the only FBI agent a backwater like Tucson rated. He waved his badge at a secretary who made a desperate attempt to intercept him before he could disturb her boss, but was through the second door without benefit of knocking before she could get there. He closed it in her face as the startled agent looked up from a desk full of paperwork.
“You still owe me one,” J.D. told him.
“Shit, Fitzpatrick!” the agent complained. “It’s not my fault the old bastard tried to make a break for it. Jesus! What do you want from me now?”
“That’s right,” J.D. said enigmatically. “That’s exactly who I want, only you’ve got the pronunciation wrong.”
Afterword and Acknowledgments
On October 16, 1940, an attempt was made to arrest a Tohono O’odham Chief named Pia Machita. He had refused to allow his people to be registered for the newly instituted military draft. A beaten and bloodied posse was run out of his village, after which the recalcitrant Papago and his people disappeared into the desert. Despite the best efforts of tribal and federal authorities, they remained at large, and in what was effectively a state of war with the United States and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, until they were captured in May 1941.
The concept for The Grey Pilgrim is based on that incident, chronicled by Elmer W. Flaccus in his article, “Arizona’s Last Great Indian War,” The Journal of Arizona History, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1981. Though an attempt to capture the mood of the people, places, and times in which Pia Machita’s rebellion occurred may have produced other similarities, this is an imaginative work, not a fictional account of historic events.
I would like to apologize to the Tohono O’odham for having created a fictional rival to a fascinating and complex individual who steadfastly followed the dictates of his own grey pilgrim, and for any misrepresentations of their culture inadvertently made.
I owe so much to Kathryn A. Munday, George Michael Jacobs, and Dr. Gary Orin Rollefson, special friends who allowed themselves to be imposed upon for reaction to and assistance with various phases of the original story. My pilgrimag
e might never have begun but for Dr. Karl H. Schlesier, who first introduced me to Jujul (under many other names). The first version of the novel could not have been completed without the guidance of Martha Gore and Peter Rubie, and the suggestions of Thomas J. Riste and David Yetman.
Not many authors have the opportunity to revise a novel after it has been published. Most probably wouldn’t want to. Perhaps they are wiser than I.
Barbara Peters, owner of the Poisoned Pen Mystery Bookstore in Scottsdale, reviewed the original and liked it well enough to feature it at her store, despite feeling it was out of balance. She is now Editor for the Poisoned Pen Press, and with her kind assistance, I have been given the opportunity to restore some material cut from the previous version. This edition combines what I believe are the best of both, with a little polishing and a few minor additions and deletions—lessons learned in the subsequent decade. I hope it’s a significantly better read.
Along with Barbara Peters, thanks also to Robert Rosenwald, Louis Silverstein, and all the folks at Poisoned Pen Press. If they hadn’t loved good mysteries so much that they had to begin publishing the ones that, otherwise, might be out of, or never in, print, this pilgrimage might have ended long ago. And, I would have missed some great reading.
Thanks to Paige Wheeler, my agent, for believing in, and putting up with, yet another quirky author. Many friends and family, including some who may not think so, were invaluable to the process.
Finally, special thanks to my wife, also a Barbara, but for whom the support of all the rest would have been insufficient.
For any errors or failures in the novel, I alone am responsible.
J.M. Hayes
Tucson, Arizona
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