Tularosa

by Michael McGarrity

  Kerney took it. “I’ll get started right away.”

  “You don’t know how much I appreciate this.”

  Kerney didn’t respond. Head down, he leafed through the papers, scanning them quickly.

  “Kevin?”

  Kerney turned away. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “When Sammy came to see you…before he went into the Army…I mean, what was that about?”

  “He wanted to ask my opinion about enlisting. I told him to blow it off and go to college.”

  “Did he tell you what I said?”

  “As a matter of fact he did. It seems you preached the gospel of Duty, Honor, and Country.”

  “Stupid,” Terry muttered. “If anything happened to him because of what I said…” He shook off the thought.

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Kerney cautioned. He closed the file and nestled it under his arm. “Did you develop any leads off the base?”

  “No. Sammy stayed pretty close to the post. He spent some time in Las Cruces, but as far as I can tell he wasn’t into the bar scene or doing a lot of skirt chasing.”

  “Was he having any personal problems?” Kerney asked.

  “None that he talked about with me or his mother. Maria would have known if he was bummed out, or in a bind. She has a kind of radar about Sammy that way. His buddies I talked to drew a blank when I asked if he was in any trouble.”

  “Are you and Maria back together?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Still living in the same place?”

  Terry nodded.

  “Same phone number?”

  Terry nodded again.

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  Terry handed him a business card. “Leave a message at the office if I’m not at home.”

  Kerney studied the card. “Okay, Chief,” he said, slipping it into the folder.

  The sarcasm stung. “Why didn’t you just finish kicking the shit out of me?”

  Kerney laughed. “You’d let me do that?”

  “No way,” Terry replied. He got in the police car, closed the door, rolled down the window, and started the engine. The two men looked at each other.

  “Thanks,” Terry said.

  “I’m doing this for Sammy, not for you.”

  “I know it.”

  Kerney watched the man responsible for his early retirement bounce the police cruiser down the ruts of the road. Three years ago he’d been chief of detectives for the Santa Fe Police Department. The first year after the shooting he’d been in and out of the hospital for reconstructive surgery on his knee and stomach, followed by a rehabilitation program that took every ounce of his willpower to complete, and put him in the best shape of his life, except for the patched-up gut and bum leg he had to live with.

  Terry had it easy as far as Kerney could tell. Alcoholism was a reversible disease. Moreover, drunk or sober, Terry had managed to stay a cop; which was now something beyond Kerney’s reach.

  He touched the throbbing scar on his stomach. Too much stretching in the wrong direction on the roof, he decided. As the cruiser pulled slowly through the mud at the end of the road, Kerney halfway hoped Terry would get stuck and have to call for a tow. He wanted the pleasure of watching him sitting in mud over the hubcaps, just for the spite of it. No such luck. Terry passed around the escarpment where the dirt road met the highway and drove out of sight.

  Back in the cabin, Kerney sat at the table and tried to read the file, but his mind kept wandering to the money in the envelope. He put the file down and counted the bills. The five thousand dollars matched what Kerney had in a bank account. His dream since coming to the ranch had been to lease acreage from Quinn, buy some good cattle stock, and get into ranching in some small way. There were two thousand acres of prime rangeland, unused except as solitude for Quinn. To Kerney it was an unnatural waste. All the right ingredients for ranching existed on the property. Live streams cascaded down from Glorieta Mesa, native grass was abundant, and the water table was excellent.

  He considered how many yearlings he could buy at auction after putting up the lease money for the land. Not many if he went with prime stock. But it sure would feel good to get started.

  He stuffed the envelope into a pocket, shook off the daydream, retrieved the file, and read it again in greater detail.

  The information consisted of notes from interviews Terry had conducted with members of Sammy’s unit and a meeting with Sammy’s commanding officer, a Captain James Meehan. The only official information supplied was a summary of Sammy’s military service up to the point of his disappearance.

  Specialist Fourth Class Samuel Yazzi had graduated at the top of his advanced training class, received an accelerated promotion, and been given the option of picking his permanent duty station. In his eight months at White Sands, his performance ratings had been excellent. With no blemishes on his record, Sammy was considered a prime candidate for continued advancement through the enlisted ranks.

  Captain Meehan, the commanding officer, knew of no incident which might have prompted Sammy to go AWOL. There was no rumor of a budding romance with any of the local girls that might have contributed to his disappearance, and no evidence of dissatisfaction with military life. In fact, Sammy apparently liked his job and had adapted well to the military.

  Terry’s talks with the soldiers who knew Sammy confirmed that he wasn’t using drugs, drinking heavily, or spending his money in the Juárez whorehouses or gambling dens. Nobody was riding his tail, and to the best of everybody’s knowledge he had no enemies.

  Everyone liked him, although he was characterized as quiet and something of a loner. He played on the post baseball team as a reserve right fielder. Sammy’s coach was a master sergeant by the name of William Titus McVay. Terry hadn’t spoken to the man. McVay had retired two weeks after Sammy vanished. A clerk in the personnel office reported McVay had turned in his papers months before Sammy disappeared from the base. There was no follow-up by Terry to find and talk to the coach.

  Terry had made a few visits to some of the GI hangouts in Las Cruces, where Sammy was vaguely remembered, and had interviewed Sammy’s closest buddy, Alonzo Tony, a full-blooded Navajo PFC who told him that for about a month Sammy had dated a girl who worked on the post. Tony hadn’t been surprised when the girl lost interest in Sammy. She was a notorious husband-hunter who had moved on to greener pastures, and Sammy, according to his friend, hadn’t been dating anyone else, as far as he knew.

  Sammy’s roommate had confirmed Tony’s observations about the girl but had no clue why Sammy would have gone AWOL. A meeting with the officer in charge of the investigation, Captain S. J. Brannon, had turned into a question-and-answer session, with Brannon asking most of the questions. Terry hadn’t gotten anything at all helpful out of the interview.

  Kerney closed the file and looked through the front window. The clouds were gathering for another afternoon shower. A shaft of light cut through a small thunderhead, spotlighting the deep slash of a narrow canyon in the mountains. The view dissolved as the cloud covered the sun and shadows blunted the outline of the mountains. He decided to leave the Salvation Army easy chair outside and take it to the dump when he had the time. He would treat himself to something better when he got back.

  Kerney walked up the driveway to the ranch house, wondering what in the hell had happened to Sammy. The border of privet bushes he had planted in the fall was thriving. The old mountain ash trees, slow to bud in spring, were finally putting out new growth. Shrubs and trees framed the driveway and drew the eye to the house, where the wide veranda offered shade and comfort. Usually the walk to the main house pleased him. Today it seemed much too artificial, like a movie set piece.

  Quinn had been urging him to take a vacation. By choice, Kerney had worked for over a year with rarely a day off. He had rebuilt the horse barn and the corral and repaired fence lines. Once again water ran in the stock tanks as the windmills pumped them full, attracting deer, antelope, and coyotes. All done, Q
uinn pointed out, as he willingly paid for the improvements, for one domestic animal, a half-trained, nameless mustang Kerney had bought at a Bureau of Land Management auction.

  The double-walled adobe house was a survivor of the days when the ranch ran two thousand head of cattle over thirty thousand acres. The veranda, with comfortable wicker chairs scattered about, provided tremendous views of the Galisteo Basin. Quinn’s part-time housekeeper kept the terra-cotta pots filled with fresh petunias and geraniums. The porch, supported by hand-peeled logs dark with age, gave deep shade and welcomed the slightest breeze. Above the veranda the angle of the pitched roof was interrupted by a series of gabled windows. Kerney crossed the polished plank floor, entered the front door, and went directly to the library, his favorite room. Originally the living room, it was a long, rectangular space with a stone fireplace against the far wall, set off by two wide south-facing windows. The remaining walls, lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, contained Quinn’s extensive library. A large Early Colonial desk in the center of the room was bracketed by soft leather reading chairs.

  Quinn’s library, Kerney’s primary source of recreation, contained an excellent collection of biographies and histories. He would have to remember to replace the ruined Churchill book. Fortunately, it wasn’t a prized first edition, and he knew a used-book dealer in Santa Fe who probably had it in stock.

  He walked across the flagstone floor to the desk, wrote out a salary check for himself on one of the signed bank drafts left behind for his use. He scribbled a note that he was taking some time off, just in case Quinn decided to stop over before flying to Germany, and taped it to the monitor of the computer so it wouldn’t be overlooked. He left another note on the refrigerator in the kitchen for the housekeeper, locked all the windows and doors, and returned to the foyer, where he switched on the security system. The house was, as usual, too quiet. Not used enough, Kerney thought.

  The mustang ignored him when Kerney approached the corral. A bit too long in the back with a thick muzzle and withers set too far forward, the horse was no show animal, but his muscling was good and he would be a sturdy ranch horse once he was fully conditioned and trained. Kerney cleaned out the stall, opened the barn doors for ventilation, set out a new salt lick, and put out feed. Fresh water was no problem; the stock tank in the corral filled automatically.

  At the cabin he packed a bag with enough clothes to last several days, dug out his emergency cash, and checked the time. If he got his tail in gear he could bank the five thousand in Santa Fe, cash his paycheck, pay a visit to Terry’s ex-wife, and be on the road to Las Cruces before much more of the day was gone. He slung the bag over his arm, grabbed a handful of cassette tapes, and started for his truck. Ten steps away from the porch, Kerney realized he was walking as fast as his bum leg would carry him. It felt damn good to have an adrenaline rush again, he thought.

  MARIA LITTLEBIRD TAFOYA sat in the small studio where she created jewelry sold exclusively under her name at one of the best Santa Fe galleries. The room, both a studio and porch, had been added to the house by her mother, who had taught her the silversmith’s craft. Now that the demand for Maria’s jewelry stretched far beyond the boundaries of the pueblo, she could afford a more expensive home, but she had no intention of moving. One day she might build a place for herself when Sammy came back from the Army, finished school, married, and started a family, but that was a long way off.

  The house, on the edge of the pueblo’s plaza, had views of the Jemez Mountains beyond the Rio Grande. Ordinarily, the vista was comforting; she could look up from the workbench and rest her eyes on the scene that rolled earth and sky into a passionate steel-blue tapestry of constantly changing patterns.

  Her home had been too quiet since Sammy went into the Army. During the last six weeks it had seemed more so. The pattern on the bracelet before her, a turquoise-and-coral inlay mosaic wrapped in silver, required a harmony and balance that were missing. Unhappy with the design, Maria debated removing the stones, putting the silver setting aside to salvage later, and starting another piece. Lately she simply couldn’t seem to concentrate.

  A muddy pickup truck with a dented fender halted in front of the porch. Maria sighed. She was constantly pestered by bargain hunters who wanted to buy directly from her at cut-rate prices. She would have none of it.

  A man stepped out of the truck, walked with a limp to the porch door, and smiled at her through the screen. She got quickly to her feet, pulled Kerney inside by the hand, and hugged him tightly.

  “It’s you,” Maria exclaimed, smiling up at him.

  “And it’s you,” he replied, letting her go.

  She stepped back and looked at his face. He smiled down at her, but his blue eyes didn’t sparkle. His brown hair, slightly longer, covered the tips of his ears and showed a wisp of gray near the temples. His handsome uneven face, deeply tanned and older-looking, with the same square chin, broad forehead, and Celtic nose, was less expressive than Maria remembered it to be.

  “It’s been too long,” Maria said.

  “Much too long,” Kerney agreed.

  “Terry called and said you might stop by.”

  “Was it your idea to bring me in on this?”

  “Terry suggested it, and I encouraged him to ask you.”

  “That’s good to know.” Kerney’s smile brightened slightly. “So the two of you are talking to each other again, I take it.”

  “More than we did before the divorce. Isn’t that strange?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Come inside.” Maria took his arm and led him into the living room. She wanted to ask Kerney a million questions about what he would do to find Sammy. She wanted him to assure her that he would bring Sammy home safe and sound. She held back, busying herself with getting Kerney settled, offering him food and something to drink.

  He accepted her offer. She got him seated and went quickly to the kitchen. He waited patiently as she clattered about, asking chatty questions, her nervousness betrayed by quick appearances in the doorway as he responded. He sat in the Mission-style rocking chair next to the kiva fireplace and wondered when she would simply fall apart and start sobbing.

  “How is Mary Beth?” Maria queried.

  “Long gone,” Kerney said. All sounds from the kitchen stopped. The original house, built by Maria’s great-grandfather, was a hundred years old. The puddled adobe walls bulged at the bottom and flowed unevenly to the ceiling. The floor, packed dirt mixed with ox blood, had a deep red patina.

  Maria stood in the kitchen door looking sadly at him. “What happened?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “She said I wasn’t fun anymore. She was probably right.”

  Maria’s expression was sympathetic. “Is that it?”

  “Not really. I don’t think she liked the idea of living with an invalid. It was taking me much too long to recover.”

  Maria made a face. “That stinks.”

  “I thought so.”

  Maria started to speak, changed her mind, shook her head disparagingly, and disappeared from sight. She brought a small tray of cheese and grapes along with a large glass of lemonade and placed it on the end table next to the rocking chair. Kerney’s gut didn’t react well to cheese, but he selected a small slice anyway and washed it down with the lemonade. The grapes were sweet and chilled, just the way he liked them.

  She sat across from him on a love seat covered with an antique Navajo rug. She was perfectly still, her hands folded stiffly in her lap. He could see the tension in her back and neck. Her long flowing skirt draped to the floor. Only the toes of her beaded moccasins showed under the fabric. Kerney got up, moved to the love seat, and sat next to her.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Oh, Kerney, I’m so sorry about Mary Beth.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m over it.”

  “How can you be?”

  “You’re right. I’m almost over it. But in a strange
way she helped me get over being so damn mad at Terry. She gave me someone else to be angry at besides him.” He patted her hand. “How are you holding up?”

  Maria gave him a brave smile. “I’m scared, Kerney.”

  “I know you are.”

  “It isn’t like Sammy to vanish. He’s such a responsible person.” She shook her head vigorously to keep away the tears and looked at a framed picture of her son on the fireplace mantel. He wore his Army uniform and was photographed at an angle to display the insignia on his sleeve and a single row of ribbons on his jacket.

  “I bet you talked him into sitting for that picture,” Kerney ventured. He needed her to stay coherent.

  Maria’s smile returned. “I did. I admit it. I’m a proud mother.”

  “He’s a handsome man. Why was he so determined to join the Army?”

  “Oh, all the usual reasons. Said he wasn’t ready to go to college and wanted to do something different.” Exasperation crept into her voice. “I tried to talk him out of it, but he has a stubborn streak just like his father. That’s why I sent him to see you. I thought maybe another man could talk some sense to him. Terry was no help whatsoever.”

  “I figured you had a hand in his visit.”

  Maria shrugged. “I’m your typical meddling mother. What’s done is done. He plans to use the GI Bill after his discharge to attend the Art Institute in Chicago. He’s already been accepted.” Pride crept into her voice.

  “He’s still drawing and painting,” Kerney ventured, trying to keep Maria upbeat and positive.

  “Oh, yes. I think soon he’ll be the best artist the pueblo ever produced. He has remarkable talent.”

  “You must be proud of him.”

  “Very.” Maria fell silent. She was a striking woman, slender and fine-boned, with a symmetrical face and small nose. Her dark almond eyes, usually filled with vitality, were restless and tight. Her long black hair was thick and straight and spilled over her shoulders. There was a slight tic in the corner of one eye. “When will you start looking for him?” she asked.

  “I already have,” Kerney answered. “You’re my first stop.”