by J. A. Jance
In the bleak silence that followed that last statement, Brandon Walker slipped lower in his chair, leaning his weight against an arm that had dropped onto the table. “No matter what we did for that kid, it was never enough.”
Diana reached out and put one hand over her husband’s. “I’m sorry,” she said.
He nodded. “I know,” he murmured. “Me, too.”
“It’s not your fault, Brandon,” Diana said. “You did everything you could.”
He looked up at her then, his eyes full of hurt and outrage. And tears. “But he’s my son, for Chrissakes!” he croaked. “How the hell could my own son do this to me? How could he go against everything I’ve ever stood for and believed in?”
“Quentin isn’t you,” she said. “He made his own choices . . .”
“All of them bad,” Brandon interjected.
“. . . and once again, he’s going to have to suffer the consequences.”
Even as Diana uttered the too pat words, she knew they were a cop-out. She was hurt, too, but the real agony belonged solely to Brandon. After all, Quentin was his son. With Tommy evidently out of the picture for good, Quentin was the only “real” son Brandon Walker had left, which made the betrayal that much worse.
For years they had listened while Janie, Brandon’s ex-wife, made one excuse after another about why Quentin and Tommy were the way they were. In Janie’s opinion, the critical missing ingredient had always been Brandon’s fault and responsibility, one way or the other, although whenever Brandon had tried to exert any influence on the kids, Janie had continually run interference. Any attempt on Brandon’s part to discipline the boys had met with implacable resistance from their mother. Diana had seen from the beginning that it was a lose/lose situation all the way around.
“Can you imagine what Janie’s going to say when she gets wind of this? She’s going to blame me totally, just like she did with the accident.”
“You’re the sheriff,” Diana had said. “You have to do your job. Remember, Quentin’s a big boy now—a grown-up. If he’s turned himself into a criminal, then it’s on his head, not yours.”
But that wasn’t entirely true. Quentin was the one who was prosecuted for his part in the extortion scheme, and a slick lawyer got him off but when the next election came around, Brandon Walker lost. His opponent, Bill Forsythe, managed to imply that there had to be some connection between Quentin’s illegal but unproven activities and his father, the sheriff.
Diana thought that Brandon could have and should have fought back harder against the Forsythe campaign of character assassination, but somehow his heart wasn’t in it. When the fight ended in defeat, he retreated into the Gates Pass house and lived in virtual seclusion while focusing all his energies and frustration on cutting and stacking wood.
Monty Lazarus returned to Diana trailed by a waitress bearing a tray laden with glasses of iced tea as well as a bowl of salsa and a basket of chips.
“I thought I’d order a little food—something to keep up our strength.” He grinned. “Now where were we? Oh, that’s right. You were telling me about your daughter. University High School. That’s a prep school of some kind, isn’t it?”
Diana nodded.
“So she must be smart.”
“Yes. She hopes to study medicine someday.”
“And pretty?”
Once again she felt that vague sense of unease, but she shook it off.
“I suppose some people would say so,” Diana said dismissively. “But aren’t we getting a little off track?”
“You’re right,” Monty Lazarus said. “Have some chips and salsa. When I’m hungry, my mind tends to wander.”
Buying the car had been fun for Quentin Walker. Early on he had settled on a faded orange, ’79 Ford Bronco 4-by-4 XLT, with alloy wheels, a cassette deck, towing package, a newly rebuilt 302 engine, and a slight lift. He’d had to go through the usual car-buying bullshit with that cocky bastard of a salesman who acted like he was working for a Cadillac dealership instead of hawking beaters at a South Tucson joint called Can Do Deals Used Cars.
Winston Morris, in his smooth, double-breasted khaki-colored suit and tie, had taken one look at Quentin’s mud-spattered boots and figured him for some kind of low-life without a penny to his name. Quentin had willingly put up with all the crap, waiting for the inevitable moment when Winston would finally get around to saying, “What’s it going to take to put you in this car today?”
Quentin had leaned back in his chair and casually crossed one leg over the other. “You’ve got it listed at forty-two hundred. I’ll give you thirty-five, take it or leave it.”
The sad look that came over Winston’s face was as predictable as his initial closing question. “You can’t be serious. We’re in this business to sell cars, not give them away.”
But when Quentin got up to leave, the bargaining had begun in earnest. Quentin ended up paying thirty-six fifty. But the most fun came when the dickering was done and Winston had said, “How do you intend to pay for this?”
That was the supreme moment, the one Quentin had been salivating over all morning. Nonchalantly, he had reached for his wallet and opened it. One by one he drew out four of the thousand-dollar bills and laid them down on the desk in front of the salesman. “You can give me change, can’t you?”
The look on Winston’s face as he scooped up the four bills had been well worth the price of admission. He had taken the money and disappeared into his sales manager’s office. He was in there for a long time. No doubt, everybody there was busy trying to figure out whether or not the money was counterfeit. Eventually, though, he came back out and finished up the paperwork.
Leaving the lot, Quentin still felt good. After not driving a car for six years, it was strange to be back behind the wheel again, odd to be in his own vehicle. Knowing what would most likely be waiting for him in the desert, he stopped at a grocery store and picked up a six-pack of beer, a flashlight, and several spare batteries, as well as a large box—an empty toilet-paper box. Then he headed out of town.
The good mood lasted for a few miles more, but as soon as he crossed the pass and could see the mountain ahead of him, a pall of gloom settled over him. He popped open the first can and took a sip of beer, hoping to hold off the blanket of despair that was closing in on him.
If only his father hadn’t made him take Davy out to the charco that day. Then, none of the rest of it would have happened.
“Do I have to?” Quentin had whined to his father on the phone. “Me and Tommy have better things to do today than haul Davy Ladd out into the desert to put a bunch of plastic flowers on something that isn’t even a grave.”
“Listen here, young man,” Brandon Walker said. “We’re not talking options here. Where did you get that car you’re driving?”
“From Grandma,” Quentin conceded grudgingly. “You bought it for us from Grandma Walker.”
“That’s right. Diana and I both bought it for you,” Brandon corrected. “As long as we’re paying for gas and insurance, you’d better straighten up and help out when required to do so. Is that clear?”
“I guess,” Quentin said. “But do we have to do it today?”
“Yes. Today is the anniversary of Gina Antone’s death. Rita’s too busy with Lani to take care of the shrine herself and it would be too hard on her anyway, so Davy’s agreed to do it for her. It’s very important to Rita that the work be done today.”
“Well, I’m not doing any of it.”
“Nobody’s asking you to. Davy will do whatever needs doing. Brian will probably help out too, if he can come along.” Now that Quentin was being slightly more agreeable, Brandon was willing to be conciliatory as well. “I’ll send along enough money so the four of you can stop off at the trading post and have a hamburger or a burrito on your way back. How does that sound?”
“Okay, I guess,” Quentin said.
Showing off, Quentin had driven the aging ’68 New Yorker like a maniac on the way out to the reservatio
n. Tommy was game for anything, but Quentin was waiting to see if he could scare either Davy or Brian into telling him to slow down. Neither one of them said a word. The bad part came, though, when they turned off Coleman Road and headed for the charco.
Quentin was still going too fast when they came around a blind curve that concealed a sandy wash. He jammed on the brakes. Seconds later, the Chrysler was mired in sand up to its hubcaps. By then they were only half a mile or so away from the charco and the shrine. Brian and Davy had set off with their flowers and candles. Meantime, Quentin left Tommy to watch the car while he hiked out to the highway to find someone to pull the Chrysler out of the sand.
That took time. He was gone over an hour. When he came back with a guy with a four-wheel-drive pickup and a chain, Tommy was nowhere to be found. The car was out of the sand, the guy with the pickup was long gone, and Brian and Davy were back from doing their shrine duties before Tommy finally showed up.
“Where the hell have you been?” Quentin growled.
“I got bored,” Tommy told him. “But you’ll never guess what I found. There’s a cave up there,” he said, pointing back up the flank of Kitt Peak. “It’s a big one. I tried going inside, but when it got too dark, I came back.” He wrenched open the passenger door, opened the glove box, and took out the flashlight Brandon Walker insisted they keep there in case of trouble.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you.”
“We can’t do that,” Davy said.
“Can’t do what?”
“Go in the caves on Ioligam,” Davy told him.
“Why not?”
“Because they belong to the Indians. They’re sacred.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it!” Tommy said. “Caves belong to everybody. What about Colossal Cave? What about Carlsbad Caverns? Besides, it’s Kitt Peak anyway, not ‘chewing gum.’ ”
“Ioligam,” Davy repeated, but by then Tommy was already headed back up the mountain. Quentin paused for a moment. He himself wasn’t wild about exploring caves, but the idea of doing something Davy was against proved to be too much of a temptation. “If Tommy’s going, I’m going,” he said. With that, Quentin set off after his brother.
“Why are the caves sacred?” Brian asked as he and Davy trudged reluctantly up the mountain after the others.
“Nana Dahd told me that it’s because that’s where I’itoi goes for summer vacation,” Davy answered. “But Looks At Nothing told me once that back when the Apaches attacked the village that used to be here, the village called Rattlesnake Skull, the only people who lived were some little kids who hid out in a cave. Later on, the Tohono O’othham found out that one of the girls from Rattlesnake Skull had betrayed her people to the Ohb. Some hunters went looking for her. When they found her, they brought her back and shut her up in one of the caves on the mountain to die.”
With three older brothers, Brian Fellows was used to having his leg pulled. “Is that the truth or is that just a story?” he asked.
Davy Ladd shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Looks At Nothing told it like it was the truth, but maybe it is just a story.”
They had followed the older boys to the entrance of the cave and then waited outside until the flashlight gave out, forcing Tommy and Quentin to emerge.
“It’s beautiful in there,” a gleeful Tommy reported. “Unbelievable! It’s too bad you’re both chickens.”
“We’re not chickens,” Davy said quietly.
Quentin laughed. “Yes, you are. Come on, chicky-chicky. Let’s go have that hamburger. I’m starved.”
During the next couple of weeks, Tommy had persuaded Quentin to spend every spare moment exploring the cave. When they ran out of money for gas and flashlight batteries, they stole bills from their mother’s purse. And even Quentin was forced to agree it was worth it. The cave was magnificent—magnificent and awful at the same time. It was so much more than either of them had imagined and yet it was terribly frustrating. They had found something wonderful and amazing, beautiful beyond all imagining. Gleaming wet stalactites hung down like thousands of rocky icicles. Stalagmites rose up out of watery pools like so many gray looming ghosts. Here and there, pieces of crystal reflected back light like a thousand winking eyes. Tommy was dying to share their discovery.
“You know what’ll happen if anybody finds out,” Quentin had warned his brother. “They’ll kick our asses out of there and we’ll never get to go back.”
“Will they ever open it up? Maybe charge admission like they do at Colossal Cave?”
“Don’t be stupid, Tommy. You heard what Davy said. It’s sacred or something.”
It wasn’t the first time Quentin and Tommy had squared off against the rest of the world. The two of them had been keeping secrets—some worse than others—all their lives. They were used to it, and they kept this one, too.
Three weeks after finding the cave, they ventured far enough inside the first chamber to locate the narrow passage that led to the second. The first room had been so rough and wet that it was almost impossible to walk in it. Starting in the passage, the second one seemed dryer, and it had a dirt floor, as though someone had gone to the trouble of covering the rough surface so it would be easier to walk on it.
Inside the second chamber they had discovered the rock slide barring most of what had once been a second entrance to the cavern. And over against the far wall, much to both their horror and fascination, they had found the scattered pieces of a human skeleton.
“Hey, look at this?” Tommy said, picking up a bone and flinging it across the cave. “Maybe they left this guy here to guard these pots and to cast a spell over anybody who tries to take them.”
Tommy Walker’s imagination and his fascination with magic had always outstripped his older brother’s. “Shut up, Tommy,” Quentin said. “And leave those bones alone. What if they still carry some kind of disease or something?”
Shrugging, Tommy leaned down and picked up the first pot that came to hand. In the orange glow from the flashlight it looked gray or maybe beige. A black crosshatch pattern had been incised into the surface.
“I’ll bet something like this would be worth a lot of money,” he said thoughtfully. “How about if we take it to the museum over at the university and try to unload it? Whaddya think of that idea?”
“It might work,” Quentin had agreed. “With all the gas we’re buying these days, our budget could use a little help.”
Together they had discussed which pot might best serve their immediate monetary purposes, settling eventually on the one Tommy had picked up in the first place. Carrying the pot in one hand and his flashlight in the other, Tommy had started back toward the main cavern. Quentin was several feet behind him, so he never saw exactly what happened. All he knew was he heard a noise, like something falling. He also heard the pot breaking into what sounded like a million pieces. When he came around the corner, Tommy was nowhere in sight.
“Tommy,” he yelled. “What happened? Where’d you go?”
For an answer, he heard only dead silence, broken occasionally by the drip of water.
“Tommy, come on now. Don’t play games,” Quentin said, fighting back a sudden surge of fear. “This is no time for jokes. We have to get out of here and head home. It’s getting late.”
But still there was no answer. None at all.
Slowly, carefully, Quentin had begun to search the area. After ten minutes or so, he found the hole, almost killing himself in the process. Just off the path they had used to get to the passage, there was something that looked like a shadow. But when Quentin shone his light that way he found instead a shaft, some twenty feet deep, with Tommy lying still as death at the bottom with his feet in a murky pool of water.
“Tommy!” Quentin shouted again. “Are you all right? Can you hear me?” But Tommy Walker didn’t answer and didn’t move.
Terrified, Quentin raced out of the cave. In honor of their spelunking adventures, the two boys had managed to amass a fair collection of
discarded rope. Gathering an armload of rope, Quentin dashed back up the mountain. Inside the cave, working feverishly, he managed to rappel himself down the side of the shaft. Once there, he was relieved to find that Tommy was still alive, still breathing.
“Tommy, wake up. You’ve gotta wake up so we can get out of here.” But there was no response. Finally, desperate and not knowing what else to do, Quentin tied the rope around his unconscious brother’s chest—fastening it under both his arms so it wouldn’t slip off. Then he climbed back up to haul Tommy out.
It had worked, too. With almost superhuman effort and after a half-hour struggle, Quentin finally dragged Tommy’s dead weight up out of the shaft. He heaved him out of the hole and rolled him onto the jagged floor of the cave like a landed fish, but by then Tommy Walker wasn’t breathing anymore. He was dead.
“Goddamn it!” Quentin had screamed, gazing down at his brother’s still and rapidly cooling form. “How dare you go and die on me! How dare you!”
He had started to go for help even then, but halfway to the car the second time, he changed his mind. What if, in the process of pulling Tommy up and out, Quentin had done something to him—what if he had broken something else, caused some other damage that hadn’t happened in the fall? What if it was Quentin’s fault that his brother was dead? And maybe it was anyway. After all, Quentin was the one who had driven them there in the first place. It was Quentin’s car, Quentin’s driver’s license, and Quentin’s gas.
And finally, because he didn’t know what else to do; because he didn’t know how to go about beginning to face the enormous consequences of what he had done, he climbed into the car and drove away. He went home. Later that night, when Janie asked where Tommy was, Quentin said he didn’t know. He claimed he had no idea.