Seeing a particular mile marker flash past, the FBI agent consulted her map, shattered the brittle silence. “Take the next exit.”
The tribal investigator slowed, eased the automobile off the interstate onto a two-lane blacktop that bubbled and steamed in the midday sun. Moon’s mind was occupied with thoughts of Provo Frank’s daughter. Sarah has gotten herself into some deep trouble. I hope I can do something to help. But how do you help someone who beats an old man to death with a baseball bat, assaults the sheriff—and then makes a run for it? Life was an enigma wrapped in a mystery, and like those Greeks who came to see Jesus, the Ute was seeking wisdom.
Being of a more Semitic disposition, McTeague was looking for a sign.
Behold—one appeared at the side of the road. Though perforated with sixteen rusty-ringed bullet holes, the mangled steel rectangle had obstinately refused to die; it clung to the post by a single bolt. Having persevered to do its duty, it did—informing the passing motorists that Tonapah Flats was 6 MI down the road. Presently, there was a second, home-brew sign, presumably provided by a local with tendencies toward paleontological humor:
Caution!
Carcharodontosaurus Crossing
“The reference is to a North African carnosaur of the Cretaceous period,” McTeague said. “Which was about a hundred million years ago.” She flicked a glance at the driver. “If you would you like to know more, I will be happy to oblige.”
No response.
She was happy to oblige anyway. “The Carcharodontosaurus had a head the size of a kitchen refrigerator, a massive tail for knocking enemies about, short arms with three-fingered hands. These fingers came equipped with extremely sharp claws.” The lady examined an immaculately manicured array of lethal-looking fingernails. “Momma Carcharodontosaurus used these claws to rip the eyes out of moody male acquaintances who refused to carry on a civil conversation.”
This would normally have produced a smile, but it was one of those rare days when Charlie Moon’s mind—troubled as it was by guilt and regret—was fairly afire with sinister images. Right on cue, Nature provided fuel, and fanned the flames. As the breeze pushed aside a curtain of low-hanging clouds, a sinuous torso appeared on the sandy flat-lands. Its knobby spine was armored with jagged plates, the wrinkled gray hide bristled with thick, close-cropped hair. It appeared to be the fossilized corpse of a miles-long reptile. Moreover, the stone beast was split neatly in half—as if an angry giant had laid a mammoth cleaver onto its back. As they drew closer, it became apparent that the plates were merely extruded basaltic flow, the “hair” stunted juniper, thirsty scrub oak, and other such hardy flora as manage to survive in arid wastelands.
Though not without an interest in local geography, McTeague was focused on more recent additions to the topography. Such as a pauper’s collection of shabby, sad-faced homes scattered along the two-lane. “Tonapah Flats,” she muttered, and indulged herself in a delicious stretch. “We have arrived.”
The driver took note of a 35 MPH sign, slowed to the legal limit. No point in getting a ticket right off. “Now to find the sheriff’s office.”
“It’s on the right.” She pointed a pointy fingernail that glistened with Crimson Passion. “About two hundred yards past the Stop-and-Shop, and if you get to the Oates’ Supermarket you have—and here I quote: ‘done passed it.’”
He frowned at the Stop-and-Shop. “You called ahead for directions?”
“Certainly. While on my way to the Columbine, I spoke with a deputy who calls himself Bearcat. The name on his driver’s license is Leland Redstone. In case you’re interested, he happens to be a Choctaw from Chickasha. I refer to the Chickasha in Oklahoma.”
“This Utah cop told you all that?”
“Some men like to talk to me.” She flashed a splendid smile at the Ute. “But to be perfectly honest, prior to shutting my computer down I pulled up some Bureau data on the Tonapah Flat sheriff’s office.”
“Must be nice to have access to FBI files. While you were snooping around on your computer, I bet you found out what’s the best restaurant in this burg.”
“The Bureau does not keep data of the culinary sort. But Deputy Bearcat informed me that it’s a toss-up between the Thunder Woman Café and the Gimpy Dog Saloon. But he said stay away from Dinty’s Grill.”
“Know what I don’t think?”
“Of course I do, Charlie. But if it would make you feel better, tell me.”
“I don’t think you called the sheriff’s office, or talked to a Choctaw who calls himself Bearcat—you’re making all that stuff up. Just to see how gullible I am.”
“Don’t think whatever you wish.” The stunningly attractive FBI agent put on a saucy little smirk, touched it up with just a hint of Crimson Passion lipstick. “Anyway, I already know how gullible you are.” She dropped the waxy cosmetic back into a black leather purse, where it found a cozy hideaway with her 9-mm Glock automatic and such other necessities as a working woman must carry with her when she is out and about her business. “And I won’t mention that unlike a part-time lawman I will not name, we full-time professionals prefer to know precisely where we are going—and what we are going to do when we get there.” That ought to make him smile.
It did not.
The tribal investigator estimated they would be there in about a minute, but he had no idea what he would do when he arrived. Except stand there like a fence post, listen to this Utah sheriff roll out nine yards of serious bad news. He stifled a sigh. Well, at least I’ll find out if they’ve picked up Sarah during the past few hours. Ask to talk to her if they have. Make sure she’s got a first-class lawyer. And then, I’ll give Aunt Daisy a telephone call—let her know what’s— These dismal thoughts were interrupted by a siren’s keening wail, the urgent flashing of red-and-blue emergency lights. Both were emanating from an oncoming, low-slung automobile that was growing larger at twice the posted speed limit.
Moon slowed, pulled toward the edge of the highway. “It’s thoughtful of the sheriff to send somebody to meet and greet us.”
The oncoming unit screeched almost to a halt, skidded across the lane barely twenty yards away, came to a lurching stop in front of an establishment whose sign proclaimed it to be the Gimpy Dog Saloon.
“Probably taking his lunch break,” Moon said.
A muscular man in a khaki uniform emerged from the vehicle, popped a tan Smokey hat onto his burr-cut head, checked his holstered sidearm, assumed the determined look of an hombre who has come to conduct some important business. He barged through the swinging doors and into the sour-smelling bowels of the Gimpy Dog.
Her brow furrowed, McTeague thought: This could be just the diversion Charlie needs. She offered the opinion that perhaps they should provide some assistance.
The tribal investigator shook his head. “That hardcase cop don’t need any help. If you want to assist somebody, go lend a hand to the poor devil he’s come to butt heads with.”
She glanced at her partner. “Do you intend to just sit here?”
“Nope. I intend to put Mr. Ford’s machine in gear and motivate right on down to the sheriff’s office.”
“Then I’ll have to go in the saloon by myself.”
Moon stared at the woman. She’s got to be kidding.
McTeague got out of the car.
She’s bluffing.
She slammed the door. Hard.
The woman can’t fool me. She’s double-bluffing.
McTeague marched off toward the Gimpy Dog. When she heard the Ute’s boots crunching gravel, the fed allowed herself a fleeting smile. She cast a haughty look over her shoulder. “So—you’ve decided to back me up?”
“My momma didn’t raise no fools.” In three long strides, Moon was at her side. “But if you’re going to create some havoc, I intend to have me a ringside seat.”
As the tall man passed her by, McTeague hurried to catch up.
Upon entering the dimly illuminated space, the first thing they noticed through the smoke and artificial twilig
ht was the husky deputy. From the BEARCAT tag on the lawman’s shirt, it was apparent that this was the Choctaw deputy from Chickasha.
Moon sized him up as about six feet, two-hundred and eighty pounds, maybe one ounce of that fat. This cop’s a real woolly-booger—not a fella I’d want to get into a rasslin’ match with. He muttered to McTeague: “It don’t look like he’ll need your assistance.”
The lady could not disagree, but she had no particular interest in the deputy or his duties. Charlie is already enjoying this.
Having come to play the only game in town, the two-yard-high, yard-wide Choctaw had drawn a pair of jokers. What he confronted was a red-faced, middle-aged man outfitted from the top down in a battered Golden Gate cowboy hat, green felt shirt, faded Levi jeans, scuffed Roper boots. The second party was a highly agitated blond woman whose tattooed biceps bulged from daily workouts with twelve-pound dumbbells. Miss Uncongeniality came equipped with form-fitting orange slacks, a fire-engine-red blouse, and a temper to match.
The local lawman had his palms raised in what was intended to be a calming gesture. The big man’s bullfrog voice was calm as a Mississippi bayou on one of those days when not a breeze stirs. “Bettie Jean—Cowboy—I want botha you to calm down. And tell me what’s goin’ on here.”
Hurricane Bettie Jean was not in a mood to be calmed. Her intentions were more along the line of aggravated manslaughter and feeding entrails and other leftovers to the hogs. And Cowboy Roy—the derisive nickname had been hung on the unfortunate fellow because he was deathly afraid of cattle—was the very man she intended to slaughter and disembowel. She shrieked her accusation—pointing at the sheepish-looking fellow. “That no-good bastard jerked it right offa my neck.”
Moon had found a table with an excellent view of the floor show.
McTeague (with feigned reluctance) took a chair beside him.
Bettie Jean continued to shriek: “And then he stuffed it inta his shirt!”
Imitating a black woolly worm about to pounce on whatever black woolly worms pounce on, the burly constable’s left eyebrow arched. “Stuffed what in his shirt?”
Bettie Jean screamed a spray of spittle. “What do you think—my squash-blossom necklace, o’course.”
Turning on an invisible neck, Bearcat’s pumpkin-shaped head rotated over the buffalo shoulders. He fixed his eyes on the counterfeit cowboy. “lzzat right?”
“So what if I did?” Roy vainly attempted to puff up his twenty-six-inch chest. “By rights, it’s my proppity.”
“That’s a dirty rotten bald-faced lie—it is not yours!” Bettie J. clenched her hands into fists, shook both of them in Roy’s face. “You gave me that squash blossom last year on Valentine’s Day.”
“Well, I’m takin’ it back.” Roy regarded the deputy with one of those man-to-man looks that expects understanding from the brotherly gender. “I had to, Bearcat. See, my little wifey found out about me givin’ a Valentine present to Bettie Jean, and I said Baby it was just for old times’ sake and wifey she says Cowboy if you don’t get that necklace and bring it home to me before dark, I’m goin’ to kick your butt up between your shoulders and put scorpions in your boots and poison your food so you die a horrible death, and after that I’ll make your life sheer hell.” The man who feared large livestock and his little wifey paused to take a breath. “And you know my old woman’ll do exactly what she says.” Roy set his jaw. “Besides, I laid down my own hard-earned cash for that joolrey at Coyote Joe’s Pawn Shop down in Gallup, and that makes it mine.” He patted a lump in his shirt, which clanked exactly like silver joolrey.
The deputy turned his head another ten degrees, addressed a bald, bespectacled bartender who was, quite sensibly, keeping the Gimpy Dog bar firmly between himself and the combatants. “Mike, did you see what went down?”
“Not all of it. I heard some yellin’, then I saw Cowboy jerk that necklace offa Bettie Jean’s neck.” Mike shrugged. “I woulda just let it ride, but when she whipped out that big knife and made a slice at Roy, and he grabbed a beer bottle and told her to back off or he’d knock her head alla way down into her gullet, I thought I oughta call 911.” He used his snow-white apron to polish a shot glass. “I wasn’t sure who’d kill who, Bearcat—it was a kind of Mexican standoff ’til you showed up.”
The deputy’s head reverse-swiveled on the unseen axis. He offered the blonde a look of mild disapproval. “You pull a knife on Cowboy?”
“Damn right I did.” She gave the bartender a poisonous look. “And if Mealy-Mouth Mike hadn’t a called the law, I’d a used it too!”
“What’d you do with the weapon?”
Bettie Jean thought this was none of his business, but under the deputy’s hard stare, she finally murmured: “It’s in my purse.”
“Gimmee the knife.” Bearcat put a meaty palm out for the offering.
The outraged woman regarded the Choctaw as if he had asked for her to render up an embroidered undergarment. “I certainly will not.” She explained: “My momma gave me that knife on my sixteenth birthday.”
Not being the sort of lawman who messes around, Bearcat took a step forward, snatched the woman’s purse off a table.
Bettie Jean screamed. “You leave that alone!”
The deputy fumbled through the thing, produced a folding Buck knife with a five-inch blade. “That’s a concealed weapon.” Not being a stickler about rules of evidence, the deputy dropped the exhibit into his jacket pocket.
Blondie addressed a plea to her boyfriend. “Roy, don’t let him steal my knife what my momma gave me!”
Cowboy Roy still had the beer bottle in his hand, and he knew just what to do with it. And because it was cows and such that he was afraid of—not sheriff’s deputies—he laid the thing squarely across Bearcat’s brand-new Smokey hat. The amber glass fractured, the hat was flattened.
McTeague was getting up from her chair when Moon put a hand on her shoulder. “Easy, now. Don’t let’s make a federal case out of a bar fight.”
Seeing the sense in this, she settled down.
Bearcat looked up at the edge of his deformed hat, the effort rendering him temporarily cross-eyed. A few drops of warm beer were dripping from the brim. With all the solemnity of a chief justice of the United States Supreme Court appearing on national television to swear in a president, the Choctaw from Chickasha removed the damaged lid. While Bettie Jean and Cowboy Roy held their breaths, the deputy inspected the ruin. Pushing out the crown with a ham-sized fist, he addressed a thoughtful comment to the man who’d had the poor judgment to break a bottle over his skull. “Cowboy, you shouldn’t’ve done that.”
“I know—I’m sorry as hell, Bearcat.” Cowboy Roy gulped. “I just don’t know what come over me.”
The deputy placed the forlorn-looking headpiece back on his head. “Roy, I’m gonna tell you just one time.” He focused flat black eyes on the man. “You take that necklace outta your shirt.”
“Yes!” Bettie Jean clapped her hands. “That’s right, Bearcat—make him give it back to me!”
Bearcat clarified. “He’s gonna give it to me. I’m gonna impound it as legal evidence, along with your pig-sticker. You and Roy can tell Judge Lujan your stories, and he’ll decide who gets the necklace and who gets ninety days.”
Bettie Jean glared in turn at each of these heartless men, tried to decide which one she hated the most, called it a draw.
Having sized up the massive deputy sheriff, Cowboy Roy was about to render up the squash blossom—when he recalled his wife’s unequivocal threat. A man does not look forward to having his butt kicked up between his shoulders, having his victuals poisoned, finding scorpions in his boots, et cetera and so on. He straightened his spine, set his jaw like a vise. “No.”
Bearcat’s surprise was evident. “What’d you say?”
Cowboy repeated the two-letter word the deputy found so painful to hear. Emboldened by this rebellious act, he emphasized the negative response by shaking his head.
Realizing that the
time for polite conversation had come to an end, Bearcat reached out, grabbed the man by his shirt collar, raised him off the floor. “I want that necklace. Cough it up, Roy.”
“Awwrk!” This remark was no doubt an attempt by the choked man to suggest that the deputy had chosen a clumsy—not to say highly inappropriate—metaphor.
Unaware of the stifled literary criticism, Bearcat began to shake his victim.
Cowboy’s head bobbled around like one of those plastic figurines with suction cups which certain discriminating road scholars are apt to mount on dashboards of classic Chevrolet Impalas. The effect was made even more comical by the way his legs and arms wobbled.
“Way to go,” Bettie Jean shouted. “Shake it outta him!”
McTeague had had about enough. Turning her ire on Charlie Moon, she informed him: “I have had about enough.”
Wanting some service, the tribal investigator waved a signal to the barman. “Enough of what, Lila Mae?”
The lady gave her companion a wide-eyed look. “We have witnessed an assault on an officer of the law.” She began to count on her fingers. “Also unlawful search. Unnecessary use of force. Violation of a citizen’s right to—”
“Right. And the amazing thing is that Officer Bearcat has only just got started.” Moon addressed Mike the bartender, who had arrived with an order pad and an urgent desire to retreat to his sanctuary behind the bar. “I am not sure what the lady wants, but I could use a man-sized mug of black coffee. And don’t forget to bring a quarter-pound of cane sugar. If you are out of sugar, honey will do nicely—especially if it’s from Tule Creek, Texas.” He turned to his pretty companion who was pretty fed up with his disinterest in How the Law Was Enforced in Tonapah Flats. “Coffee, Agent McTeague?”
She shook her head.
“Tea?”
The woman was not in the mood for a beverage, or any sort of refreshment. Her entire attention was focused on Deputy Bearcat, who was shaking Cowboy Roy.
Moon followed her gaze. “Like a terrier with a rat in his mouth,” he mumbled. “Or a bulldog with a pork chop?” It was difficult to find precisely the right image. As he pondered this issue, Cowboy’s left boot fell to the floor with a dull thud.
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