Stone Butterfly

by James D. Doss

  Sarah shook her head. “I’m too full, but thank you.”

  “No matter, you can take some home.” He shouted an instruction to the manager.

  Groundhog opened a refrigerated display case, removed a whole banana-creme pie. Once again, he gave Sarah the eye. Wonder what ol’ Oates is up to now. Whatever it is, there must be some money in it for him. After delivering the boxed pie to the boss, he began to wipe the counter at a location within earshot of his employer and the skinny girl.

  From an inner jacket pocket, Ray Oates produced a fresh cigar and a fourteen-karat gold-plated lighter. Being a man who always focused on the work at hand, he went slightly cross-eyed as he touched a flame to the tip. “You like living with your Aunt Marilee?”

  “She’s my cousin.”

  Okay, Little Miss Correct-Your-Elders, so she’s your damn cousin. He tried again: “Are you happy living with Marilee and Al Harper?”

  Amorphous concepts like happy surfaced only in Sarah’s dreams, melted away with the dawn. The orphan opened her mouth, closed it—stared at her enigmatic inquisitor.

  Undeterred by her silence, Oates took a puff on the ten-inch stogie. “Way I hear it, Marilee works all day to support her live-in boyfriend.” He removed the Arturo Fuente Curly Head Deluxe from his mouth, pointed it at the girl. “Did you know Al was a sneak thief and a jailbird?”

  The girl maintained her blank stare.

  “Well he is.” He returned the cigar to its rightful place between his lips. “And they both drink too much. Don’t take no offense, Missy—I’m just a straight-talker. And I’m here to tell you—those two are a couple of losers.” He exhaled a cloud of smoke, stared deep into her brown eyes, as if he saw something there. “But you ain’t no loser—you’re just down on your luck.” Without the least effort, he assumed a foxy expression. “And I’m also here to tell you—your luck is about to change for the better. You and me are gonna conduct some business.”

  Having never encountered anyone remotely like Raymond Oates, Sarah was hanging on every word.

  Aware of his advantage, Oates forged ahead. “Like I already said, I know about how you do some chores for my half brother Ben—like running a little errand now and then.” He affected a significant pause. “How much does he pay you?”

  Sarah shrugged. “Fifty cents for making his lunch.”

  Oates snorted.

  She felt a sudden need to defend grumpy old Ben Silver. “He gives me a dollar if I bring him some groceries from the store.” It was a very long walk from the supermarket, across the highway, down behind Marliee’s house and through the brush around the Little Sandy Dry Wash, then up the trail through Hatchet Gap, which was the only way through Big Lizard Ridge. And if you didn’t go through the gap, you had to walk a long, long way down the highway, and take the dirt lane that went around behind the ridge, and that was also a long, long walk.

  While she performed this mental review of the local geography, Oates produced another snort. “A measly dollar—what an old cheap-skate!” He pushed the pretty red package across the table. “This is for you.”

  She gave the parcel a wide-eyed stare. “What is it?”

  “Just a gift from one friend to another.”

  She shook her head. “But I couldn’t accept a present from—”

  “It’s just a little book.” His mouth twisted into a knowing grin. “And there’s some bookmarks in it.” He glanced around the café to make certain some Nosy Parker wasn’t eavesdropping. Didn’t notice Groundhog, who was scrubbing at an invisible spot on the countertop. “But don’t open it up until you get home and you’re all by yourself. And don’t tell Marilee or that crumb-bum Al Harper I gave you a little present.” Oates tapped his nose in a way he had seen Paul Newman do in an old movie. “This is just between you and me, see?”

  Of its own accord, her hand reached out. Sarah’s fingertips caressed the shiny paper, her eyes looked wonderingly at the generous man. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome as warm sunshine in January, kid.” Oates pointed his chin at the brown paper bag in the seat beside her. “Them groceries for Ben?”

  Sarah shook her head. “That’s for Marilee.”

  Satisfied with slandering the girl’s Papago relative, the attorney had no further words to waste on Marilee Attatochee. “How often do you go to see my half brother?”

  “Now that school’s out, almost every day.”

  “Do you and Ben get along okay?”

  Sarah frowned, shook her head. “When I don’t do something right, sometimes he yells at me.”

  “Oh, don’t think nothing about that—grumping about anything and everything, that’s just Ben’s way.” You may be the only soul on earth the nasty old bastard can stand to have around him. Oates leaned across the table, gave the girl a goggle-eyed look. “What’s he say about me?”

  “Not very much.” Little Miss Frank lived up to her name. “Except that he’s going to dance a jig around your coffin and sing ‘Happy Days Are Here Again.’” The Ute-Papago girl assumed this must be some kind of white-person funeral ritual.

  “And he will if he gets the chance.” Raymond Oates’s plump torso shook with chuckles. “Ben and me don’t get along. Never did.” As he slipped back five decades, the half brother’s eyes took on a glassy, faraway look. “It all started over that stupid lizard he caught and put in a shoe box. Made a reg’lar pet of it—even gave it a name.” Lonnie Lizard. Now is that dumb, or what? “After it turned up with its head chopped off, he claimed I was the one that killed it.”

  Stunned at the thought of such a reprehensible crime, Sarah was unable to keep the question in her mouth. “Did you?”

  The lawyer glared at the girl, saw the accusation in her tight lips, quickly looked away. “There was never a smidgen of proof.”

  Being busy eavesdropping on the boss’s conversation with the Indian kid, Groundhog was distracted by a husky truck driver who demanded “some service over here.” The manager of the Thunder Woman Café flipped a grimy dish towel over his shoulder, approached the customer—who shoved an empty coffee mug across the counter. “Gimmee a refill.”

  Groundhog nodded. “You got it.” But coffee won’t be all you’ll get in your cup.

  A shadow of her appetite having returned, Sarah eyed the white cardboard pie box. She wondered whether it would be all right to have a piece before she took it home. Just a small one.

  Oates looked through the fly-specked window, at what he could see across the busy highway. Above the peaked roofs of dismal frame houses, faded façades of failing businesses, and intermittent clusters of scrub pine, the long, jagged spine of Big Lizard Ridge dominated the skyline. Brother Ben’s place was on the far side of the ridge, at the mouth of Hatchet Gap. Well, it’s time to stop beating around the bush, get down to brass tacks. His brow furrowed. Beating around bushes, getting down to brass tacks—why do we say stuff like that? The intermittently intellectual fellow rolled a few possibilities over in his mind, terminated the process when his head began to ache. He focused his gaze on the girl. “Sarah, my half brother has something I want. And I’m ready to pay a pretty penny for it. But every time I bring the subject up, the old snapping turtle bites my head off.” The wheeler-dealer assumed an optimistic expression. “But I think maybe you could help.”

  This unexpected request made her feel very important. “How?”

  “By acting as a go-between.”

  Sarah watched Mr. Zig-Zag lick grease off his paws. “What’s a go-between?”

  This kid gets right to the point. Another scowl. Right to the point—point of what? Another thudding ache in the brain. He clenched his teeth on the cigar stub. “A go-between is a person who arranges a business transaction between two other parties—who for one reason or other, can’t or won’t talk directly to one another.” The attorney tried to think of just the right way to say it. “Ben has this…this pretty thing.” He described the family heirloom in some detail.

  Having never heard of such
a wonderful treasure, Sarah Frank wanted to see it. Hold it in her hand. But Mr. Silver would never show it to me…The half brother’s booming voice jarred her out of the reverie.

  “It belonged to my old man, but the day Daddy died, Ben made off with it and I ain’t seen it since. If you could talk him into selling it to me, I’d pay him a pile of cash.” He grinned at the girl. “And you’d get a commission.”

  “What’s a commission?”

  I like the way she cuts right to the bone. “A commission’s a piece of the deal. I’d pay you ten percent of whatever the pretty thing cost me.”

  Sarah thought she was beginning to get the gist of it. “How much would it cost you?”

  Oates grinned ear-to-ear. This is my kind of kid. “Hard to say. It’d be up to you to talk Ben into the deal. But just for starters, let’s say we’re talking ten thousand dollars for Ben. That’d mean a thousand to you.”

  Her entire body went tingly numb. “A whole thousand dollars?”

  “That’s the least fee you’ll get.” He leaned across the table. “Here’s the way it’d work, Sarah. Let’s say I put up eleven thousand bucks. The cut would be ten thousand for Ben, one thousand for you. But if you manage to buy it from my brother for a lower price, that’s fine with me. You’ll still get your thousand, and keep the difference.”

  Sarah crinkled her face into a frown.

  Looks like ’rithmetic ain’t her best subject. I gotta make this simple enough so’s a oyster could understand. “Let’s say you talk Ben into selling for five G’s. You’d get your one plus five more. Which would make six thousand for you.”

  The puzzled expression was stuck on her face.

  I’m gonna have to spell it out. “Okay, just for the sake of argument, let’s say Ben likes you so much, he decides to give it to you. I wouldn’t know that, and I wouldn’t care. Soon as you deliver the pretty thing to me, you get the whole eleven thousand.” He raised an eyebrow. “Just imagine what you could do with that much money.”

  A certain clarity of understanding began to dawn on the poverty-stricken girl.

  Seeing a hint of avarice glinting in her eyes, Oates hurried on. “I know that sounds like a huge pile of cash to a little kid like you, but it’s pocket change to me. But don’t think you wouldn’t earn it.” Now for the ticklish part—I sure hope she gets my drift. “See, what makes this go-between job hard is that Ben don’t want me to have the pretty thing. If he knew I was the buyer, he’d never sell it. Not for a hundred thousand. The deal you set up would have to be…well, whatever you can think of.” He looked up at the acoustic-tile ceiling. “But consider this as a for-instance—maybe you could convince Ben that some other person wants to buy it on the Q-T. Like say, some rich out-of-towner who’s a good friend of yours—somebody who’d give you the money to buy it.” Oates stuck the cigar stub into his coffee cup. “First of all, you’d have to find out where Ben keeps the thing—just to make sure he still has it in his possession. And you’d have to get a good look at it.” His bleary blue eyes became hard as glass marbles. “Work it out any way you want, but here’s the bottom line—when you bring me the pretty thing, you’d get eleven thousand bucks. All in twenty-dollar bills.” His face flushed rosy pink. “How much of that wad you take back to Ben—well, that’s entirely between you and him.”

  Sarah Frank stared at the attorney. He wants me to steal it.

  Raymond Oates saw the flash of fear in her eyes, “Think it over, kid. You decide to help me on this, and over and above any cash you earn—I’ll give you a real nice present.” He jutted his chin at the crimson-tinted, ribbon-tied parcel at her elbow. “Something worth a damn sight more than what’s in that little package.” He read the question in her eyes, removed a black velvet pouch from his jacket pocket, pushed it halfway across the table. “Want to take a peek inside?”

  Again, her hand moved as if it had a mind of its own. When she saw the opal pendant, Sarah’s mouth gaped—her heart stuttered, seemed as if it might stop.

  The chubby tempter attempted a Santa Claus smile; what he produced was a hideous leer. “Pretty bauble, ain’t it? Should be—set me back nine hundred bucks!” He snatched her heart’s desire away, stuffed the pouch back into his pocket. “You want to hang this geegaw around your neck, all you got to do is come up with a workable plan for getting me what I want. I have my lunch here at high noon, almost every day of the week.” He pointed toward the parking lot. “If you see my Town Car out front, come inside and tell me what you’ve got in mind. If I like your plan, the pendant’s yours to keep, and I’m talking up front—before you deliver the property that’s rightfully mine. And when you bring me what Ben stole out of our house before Daddy’s corpse had time to get cold—then you get the cash money.” The piggish man’s right hand doubled into a hamish fist, hammered the table just hard enough to make the stainless flatware rattle. “But whatever happens, kid—don’t you ever say anything to anybody about this.” His final words came slowly, floated between them like balloons about to pop. “You—understand—what—I’m—telling—you?”

  Sarah Frank felt her head nod.

  Late that night, shortly after Marilee Attatochee and Al Harper had gone to bed, Sarah switched on a tiny plastic flashlight. Ever so carefully, she untied the blue ribbon on the shiny red package. Unfolding the paper, she could hardly believe her eyes. How could he have known….

  There on her lap was The Book. Grandmother Spider Brings the Sun.

  It was like an impossibly wonderful dream. Almost as good as those sleep-visions where Charlie Moon showed up in a gold-and-white limousine and drove her back to Colorado where they would get married in St. Ignatius Catholic Church and then live ever-so-happily together in a three-story redbrick house on the banks of the Piedra.

  One by one she turned the pages, whispered the written words. When she got to the page where the little spider lady was dancing by the clay pot she had brought the warm light in, all the smiling animals in a circle around her…Fox and Wolf and Moose and Bear and…Sarah wept. Her tears fell onto the charming picture.

  She was closing the book when, tucked in between the last page and the cover, she found the “bookmarks”—five twenty-dollar bills! After staring wide-eyed at the most money she’d ever had in her hands, Sarah switched off the flashlight, hurriedly slammed the book on the greenbacks, stuffed it under her pillow. The thin girl sat on her bed, nervously curling and uncurling her numbly cold toes. With a hundred dollars I could buy a bus ticket to Durango, and even have some left over. The desire to leave for Colorado on the first eastbound bus out of Tonapah Flats was intense enough to make her entire body tingle. The thought of the magnificent fire-speckled opal, suspended from her neck on the silver chain, made her shudder with anticipatory delight. But until I got to Aunt Daisy’s home, I’d have to keep it under my dress so nobody would see it. Still another but: But unless I can come up with a good plan for getting that pretty thing from Mr. Silver, Mr. Oates won’t give me the opal pendant. And if my plan works, he’ll pay me thousands of dollars. For a child who had always been so wretchedly poor, the urge to stay and give the seemingly impossible task a try was compelling. Sarah made her decision. First, I’ll try talking to Mr. Silver. She sighed. He’ll get all red in the face and yell at me. No, he’ll never give the pretty thing up…so what can I do? She knew, of course, and blushed with shame. Like lying, stealing was a dreadful sin.

  Instantly, it was as if someone whispered in her ear: Mr. Silver stole it from Mr. Oates’s father, so returning it to the rightful owner wouldn’t really be stealing—it would be a good thing to do.

  Thus justified, Sarah Frank snuggled into her small bed, was pleased when Mr. Zig-Zag cuddled himself behind her head. She yawned. I should never have thought Mr. Oates was the Devil. He’s more like an angel. As she was slipping off to sleep, a troublesome thought floated along with her: Wasn’t the Devil also some kind of an angel…a very bad angel?

  Chapter Five

  Colorado, Southern Ute
Reservation

  While a spray of stars still sparkled overhead, Daisy Perika groaned and grunted her way out of bed. She dressed herself with the patience necessary for one whose arthritic joints protest when flexed. As a final touch, she pulled a woolen shawl around her stooped shoulders, stepped outside on the porch. Aside from the rhythmic sigh of her breaths, and the barest whisper of a breeze in the junipers, there was not a sound. Though summer was only days away, the pearly-gray dawn blooming over the black ridges filled her with a shuddering chill. The warm comfort of her bed pulled at the sleepy woman, but having made up her mind, she went back inside, pulled on a heavy overcoat that had belonged to her third husband. Wanting an early start for the journey that got longer with every passing winter, the tribal elder had decided to take her breakfast with her. She stuffed a foil-wrapped egg-and-pork-sausage sandwich into one of the spacious coat pockets, a pint jar of honeyed coffee into the other. Thus prepared, she slung a hemp bag over her shoulder, got the sturdy oak staff in hand—and left her cozy home behind.

  Daisy felt uneasy about venturing along the particular path she had in mind. Father Raes Delfino had issued several stern warnings that she should stay away from the dwarf, whose hole-in-the-ground dwelling was in Cañón del Espíritu. Unlike other matukach—and even some of the younger tribal members—the Catholic priest did not disbelieve in the little man’s existence. On the contrary, it was Fr. Raes’s view that the pitukupf was real—and potentially dangerous. It was his concern for Daisy’s immortal soul that led the Jesuit to counsel this reckless member of his flock to avoid any communion with the deceitful creature. But since the priest’s retirement as pastor at St. Ignatius, Daisy rarely saw him and so his influence in her life had gradually diminished. When Fr. Raes wasn’t off gallivanting around some foreign country, he spent his days in that little cabin on Charlie Moon’s ranch. Which reminded Daisy of another reason she felt guilty about today’s errand—her nephew also strongly disapproved of her walks into Spirit Canyon. Charlie’s objections had nothing to do with the pitukupf—he was one of the younger generation who dismissed the dwarf as a tribal myth. He worried that his elderly aunt would take a bad fall, break an ankle or hip. If that happened, she would be stranded in the wilderness between the walls of Three Sisters and Dog Leg Mesa, where only cougars and coyotes would hear her calls for help. By the time he came looking, it would be too late.