Not Dead Enough

by Warren C Easley

  Chapter Twenty-four

  I was warm again. That’s the first thing I noticed, that and seeing the steady drip of a clear liquid from a plastic bag feeding a tube that ran down to my arm. The bag seemed to levitate above me like an alien spaceship. Looking at it reminded me how full my bladder was. I tried to move my left arm and felt a sharp pain.

  “You’re awake.” The voice came out of nowhere, and a face appeared next to the bag, a face with kind eyes. “I’m Beth, and I’m taking care of you today. How do you feel?”

  “Tired. How long have I been out?”

  Beth glanced at her watch. “It’s close to noon. They brought you in around six-thirty this morning. After the doc stitched up your arm he gave you something to help you sleep. If you’re up to it, I’ll call the Sheriff. He wants to talk to you as soon as possible.”

  “Go ahead, but first I need you to do something for me, Beth.” I managed to pull Gertrude Johnson’s number out of the murk in my brain and recite it. “Please call the woman at this number and ask her to take care of my pup until I get out of here. Okay?” She agreed. As she was leaving I looked at the heavy swath of bandages on my forearm. “How bad is my arm?”

  “Something gashed it, maybe a bullet or your fall.”

  “It was a bullet.”

  She flinched visibly. “Oh, dear. It’s, uh, been stitched up. You’ll have an ugly scar, but you’ll be fine. You’re very lucky, you know.”

  I drifted off again and thought I heard Sheriff Talbot’s voice, but when I opened my eyes sometime later that afternoon Deputy Sheriff Cleta Grooms’ face was hovering over me like a big, full moon.

  “Big C. How you doin’?”

  She smiled down at me, and her eyes didn’t look so steely. “I’m good, Cal. How are you feeling?”

  “Glad to be alive. How did you get here?”

  She laughed. “Sheriff Talbot came here to personally interview you, and you told him to go to hell, that you were going to sue his ass off—”

  “I did? I said that?”

  “You did. Then you told him to call me, so here I am. It was my day off, anyway.”

  “Well, I’m not suing anybody, but don’t tell Talbot that.” I tried to smile, but my lower lip was a fat sausage. “Man, I don’t know which was worst, the temperature of that water or the way it tasted.”

  Grooms laughed again. “The water was in the low fifties. You were hypothermic when they fished you out.”

  “How did they know I was down there?”

  “From what Talbot told me, it was your neighbor. She heard the shots down in the quarry and called 911. There was a patrol car in Dundee and they came in a hurry with lights and siren. They said they could hear you babbling all the way from a locked gate at the entrance to that quarry. They didn’t pass any cars coming in. The shooter probably went over the mountain, got away clean.”

  “That sucks.” I shook my head. “I was hoping that pond was deep, and it was—I never did hit bottom. When I resurfaced, he pumped at least two more rounds at me, but it was pitch black down there. I treaded water as quietly as I could, and I guess he either heard the siren or just figured I’d drowned.”

  “They found you hiked part way out of the water, babbling like an idiot, bleeding like a stuffed pig. You were hanging onto an ice pick. Had it stabbed in a crevasse to anchor yourself. Probably saved your life.” She lowered her brows and cocked her head. “An ice pick?”

  I managed a slight upward curve in my sausage lip. “I always plan ahead.” I went on to sketch in the whole cockamamie scheme I’d come up with and how it had all gone south.

  Grooms took some notes, asked some questions, and when I finished said, “Anything else that might help us?”

  I tried to focus, but it felt like my synapses were firing blanks. I wondered what was dripping into my arm. “Uh, tire tracks should match the ones Philip found out in Clarno. Maybe some fingerprints on the gate. Several shots fired. He was using a bolt-action rifle, which probably saved my ass. It took him time to reload. Should be some retrievable rounds in the quarry somewhere.” I closed my eyes to concentrate and the room took a half-lap. “One hit a four by four post next to a pile of timbers that were maybe thirty or forty feet in front of the cypress trees where I jumped off. There might be one in those tree trunks, too.” I sat up a little and fought back a wave of nausea. “Give me a pencil and piece of paper and I’ll draw you a map.”

  When I finished, she said, “That’s it?”

  The disappointment in her voice irritated me. I massaged my forehead with my good hand and tried to think. The effort felt like walking through deep snow. “Uh, one thing, sort of off topic. I talked to a journalist yesterday who knew Nelson Queah. I got some interesting information and possible leads.” When I finished describing the Fletcher Dunn meeting I yawned. “I’m tired. Go get Talbot so I can get this over with.”

  As she was leaving, Big C turned back to me. “One thing I don’t get. If you heard the alarm, why was the shooter in his truck instead of waitin’ in the trees to pick you off?”

  I shrugged my right shoulder. “I don’t know. Only thing I can think of is that when I heard the alarm, I turned on the light for a second or two. Thought it was the damn phone. Maybe that tipped him, and he went back to his truck, and that’s when I blundered in. Not my finest hour.”

  “Well, you beat ’im.” She chuckled and looked at me. The steel was back in her eyes. “That boy’s gonna be real disappointed when he learns what a good swimmer you are.”

  I guess Talbot had heard enough from me, because he delegated the interview to two of his deputies. Big C sat in, and she and I made short work of it. Toward the end of our chat she said to the deputies, “There’s a gentleman outside who’s an expert tracker. He identified some boot prints and tire tracks at the Watlamet murder scene that you folks might want to watch out for. I think he’d be willing to take a look at your crime scene.”

  The deputies exchanged glances. One of them responded, “We have our own crime scene techs, but if we find anything, we’ll let you know.”

  Grooms nodded. Her expression remained impassive, but her jaw flexed as if she was trying to flatten something very hard between her teeth.

  We’ll let you know—the quintessential kiss-off.

  When the deputies left, I managed to flex my swollen lip into the semblance of a smile. “Lone Deer’s here?”

  “I called him. He’s outside.”

  My friend came in wearing a look that was one part worry and two parts anger. But when our eyes met he smiled broadly. “This is Oregon, Cal. We don’t swim in March.”

  ***

  That day in the hospital was a dizzy blur. Philip urged me to call my daughter, but I wasn’t about to do that. I knew Claire was busy with classes at Berkeley, and the last thing she needed was to be worrying about me. Grooms had left and I was filling Philip in when his cell phone chirped. He answered and handed the phone to me. “Winona.”

  “Cal? Oh, my God, are you all right?” Her voice cut the fog in my head like the chime of a bell across a lake. “Philip called and left a message. I’m sorry. I feel like this is my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault, Winona. The sniper seems to have taken a distinct dislike to me. I do that to some people.”

  “This isn’t funny, Cal. He almost killed you. How’s your arm? Are you in pain?”

  “Definitely not. The drugs here are great.”

  She sighed in exasperation. “Cal, I want to drop this whole thing. Now. I’m sorry I ever brought it up with you.”

  “That’s not an option. I’m afraid it’s taken on a life of its own. I’ll be watching my back until this guy goes down. When that happens, we’ll be in a position to tell the world what happened to your grandfather.”

  She sighed again. “I’m more concerned about you than my grandfather right now. I guess the
police must be all over this, right?”

  “Of course. It’s a model of interagency cooperation.”

  “Look, I’m in Seattle. I’ve got to go into a meeting now. I’ll call you back tomorrow. And Cal, I’m glad you’re okay.”

  Later that afternoon I began to feel a little better, and when I asked Philip to swing by my house to check on Archie and pick up a change of clothes for me he smiled and shook his head. “You’re not planning a jail break are you?”

  “Uh, I’m feeling pretty good now. No need to take up a bed here. Besides, if I can persuade you to stick around, I’d like for us to look around the quarry when Yamhill finishes.”

  “After those bozos muck it up?”

  “It’s worth a try. Look what you found last time.”

  My tone must have had a hint of desperation in it, because Philip shot me a reassuring look. “I’m not going anywhere. I got you into this, not Winona. This guy needs his ticket punched.”

  We left that evening to the utter disbelief of two shocked nurses and the attending doctor, who had me sign a release.

  On the way out, I felt like I was on the deck of a ship in high seas, but I made it to Philip’s truck okay.

  I had a back to watch and a score to settle.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The next morning Philip and I sat on my side porch sipping coffee and watching the crime scene techs finish up their work over at the quarry. Archie lay next to me with his back pushed firmly against my foot in a show of support. He sensed I was injured and was staying close. As we watched, Philip mentioned that, although he hadn’t located Timothy Wiiks, he had found his mother, who was living on the Umatilla Reservation. When he told Winona about it, she volunteered to make contact with the mother.

  Around mid-morning two men in fluorescent orange vests sawed out a section of a tree that had apparently stopped one of the shooter’s bullets. After that, the investigating team left the quarry site.

  Twenty minutes later, Archie, Philip, and I slowly worked our way down the narrow corridor leading to the locked gate. Philip led with his head down. The road was rocky and hardpacked. About thirty feet from the big oak tree that saved me from being run over, Philip stopped and dropped to one knee. “That’s where he spun a U-turn,” I said.

  Philip shook his head. “Nothing I can read here.”

  I pointed up ahead. “He was parked on the right side, next to those trees, facing this way.”

  After examining the area he shook his head again. We moved to the gate, and Arch and I stood by as Philip effortlessly scrambled over it. I stood there, aching to sit down but knowing if I did it would be hard to stand back up on my own. I held my bandaged arm against my chest, wishing I had a sling. Philip combed the rocky soil that had been thoroughly tramped on by the investigating team, then called back to me. “Nothing here.”

  We walked back out to the main road and stopped. A strong scent of cedar drifted in the breeze and fast-moving clouds promised rain, an event I hadn’t dressed for. I nodded in the downhill direction. “There are a couple of places down from here where I figured he might park.”

  Archie sat down and cocked his head up at me. Philip placed his hands on his hips and looked me over. “You don’t look so good, paleface. You want to go back?”

  I shook the question off. “Maybe he pulled into one of those spots before coming up here.” I glanced up at the sky. “Let’s have a look before it cuts loose.”

  A large thatch of blackberries marked the first pull-out, a rutted path that wound in between the brambles and a row of mature cedars before abruptly dead-ending. I nodded at the narrow entrance. “I checked in there first, last night.”

  Philip dropped to one knee and examined the interface between the asphalt and ground at the entrance. “Looks like someone backed out of here not too long ago.” He flicked at the fine pieces of gravel on the path with his finger. “See, gravel from the street’s been sprayed on the path. My guess is someone pulled in slow then came back out. Could’ve been our guy.”

  I told Archie to stay at the entrance and followed Philip into the shaded area between the cedars and the blackberries. The ground was covered with a thick mulch of cedar sprays and seed cones. I walked behind my friend with my eyes glued to the ground but didn’t see a thing that caught my attention.

  Suddenly Philip dropped to both knees and pointed at a bare spot in the mulch. “Looks like bootprints.” He moved in closer, nearly touching his nose to the ground, then looked up at me. “Same pigeon-toed prints I saw at Watlamet’s”

  I knelt down cautiously and looked where he was pointing. All I saw were two small triangular indentions in the mulch. “That?”

  “They’re toe prints. The heel prints are barely visible.” He pointed again. “See?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  Philip got up and motioned with his hand. “He must have parked his rig right here. He pointed again. “Look, those are tire tracks.”

  I struggled to my feet, and a wave of dizziness washed over me. All I saw was the suggestion of some faint marks imprinted on the mulch. “Tire tracks? You’re kidding me.”

  Philip rolled his eyes. “White people. So clueless about the natural world.”

  I pointed at the tire tracks that for me were only a squint from disappearing. “You think we could get a wheel base measurement out of those? That would be a useful piece of information to go with the mold Grooms got of the tire track at Watlamet’s.”

  “No problem. I’ve got a tape measure in my truck. I’ll stop on my way out and phone it into Grooms. What about the Yamhill Sheriffs?”

  I laughed. “What we’ve got wouldn’t stand up as valid evidence, and Talbot would be the first to tell you that. Let Grooms worry about what Talbot needs to know.” At that point I looked up at the swaying cedar branches and felt the first drops of rain. “We’re going to lose it, anyway.”

  Philip unhooked Archie’s retractable leash from his collar. “Here. Take this end.” We stretched the leash across the tire marks and using his pocket knife, Philip cut the leash to length. “You don’t need a leash for this dog, anyway,” he told me with a note of disdain in his voice.

  The wind continued to build, and when the rain began it came down at a slant. We were both soaked by the time we got back to my place. I hadn’t worn a jacket but managed to keep my bandages dry by wrapping Philip’s windbreaker around my arm. Philip made us fried egg sandwiches for lunch, and then on his way out he did two more things. First, he took a stainless steel revolver from under the seat of his truck along with a box of cartridges. “This is a .357 Magnum. It’ll stop a mule.” He snapped the cylinder open to show me the gun was fully loaded, closed it, and handed the gun to me. “You need some protection, Cal. Take this, damn it.”

  Next, he went to my garage and put my chainsaw in the back of his pickup. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  Not long after that I heard a buzz as the saw came to life in the distance. I went over to the side porch and watched him clear the trees the sniper would have used as cover to shoot me. When he came back, I said a little sheepishly, “Thanks. I should have done that in the first place.”

  He shrugged. “You know what they say about hindsight.” Then he handed me the motion sensor I’d placed over in the trees. “Besides, this wasn’t such a bad idea.”

  ***

  That afternoon I took a pain pill and lay down on the couch in my study with Archie at my side and the .357 sitting on an adjacent table. I tried to think through the situation I found myself in, but as soon as a thought formed in my head it would take flight like a bird. In no time, my pain and every care I had dissolved into a slow moving, pitch-black vortex.

  I remained there until I heard a guttural noise. It seemed to come through a long tunnel. I opened my eyes to a dark room. Night had fallen. The noise came again. It was Archie. He was in front of th
e study door, growling—a low, uncertain warning. I picked up the revolver and tried to clear the fuzz in my head.

  I told Archie to lie down and hush and then eased into the darkened hallway, shutting the door behind me. I took a couple of steps and froze when I heard the unmistakable creak of the second step on the front porch.

  That sound cleared my head in a hurry.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  I crept down the back hall and let myself out through the kitchen door onto the side porch and slowly circled around to the front. There wasn’t much light, but outlined against the white wall I could see the shape of someone at my front door. I extended the .357 Magnum out with both hands and wincing at the pain in my left arm and scarcely believing what I was preparing to do, tightened my finger on the trigger.

  I cleared my throat. “Can I help you?”

  The figure froze. Even in the weak light I sensed something familiar about the silhouette.

  “Cal? It’s me. Winona.” She peered at me through the darkness. “Jesus, don’t shoot me!”

  I lowered the revolver and expelled a breath. “Winona? Sorry. I was asleep. Heard you on the steps. I’m a little jumpy.”

  “I just drove up from Eugene. Thought I’d pop in and see how you’re doing.” She managed a laugh. “You blew it, you know.”

  “I did?”

  “You could have said, ‘Go ahead, make my day.’”

  We sat in the kitchen with a bottle of pinot between us. Archie was under the table, sleeping against my foot. He liked Winona well enough, but he was still sticking close to me. At her insistence, I was taking her through what’d happened. It wasn’t a story I was particularly anxious to repeat. After all, it’s embarrassing to be caught in your own trap.

  When we’d finished discussing the latest attempt on my life, Winona said, “I’ve got some news. Timothy Wiiks is dead. He died on March 9, 1957. That’s the day before the falls were flooded, the day before Grandfather disappeared at Celilo. He went off the road into the Deschutes River late that night. Of course, the police found a couple of whiskey bottles in his car.” She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Just another drunken Indian.”