“Sounded to me like a gunshot.”
Bushman smacked Six-Toes hard enough to knock his dentures loose. “I didn’t hear no gunshot.”
The cowboy was not surprised. Grumpy old man couldn’t hear it thunder.
There was a flash of lightning, an ear-splitting BOOM!
Bushman snorted. “Kyd, what you heard was thunder.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Lila Mae Tries Again
FBI special agent McTeague called the Columbine for the third time. Slammed her telephone down when she got Charlie Moon’s answering machine.
The Columbine Foreman’s Stringent Remedy
Pete Bushman regarded the pair of bunged-up, half-conscious cowboys with an expression of utter disgust. I ain’t gonna wait all night for you two sleeping beauties to wake up and start talking. Having made this decision, he unscrewed the cap from a plastic bottle, poured a generous helping of ammonia-based cleaning fluid on a wad of cotton. The foreman was not a stickler when it came to chemical persuasion—and Safety was not Mr. Bushman’s middle name. Results were what mattered and he intended to have his right now. He stuck the noxious preparation directly under Six-Toes’s nose. Waited for the inevitable effect.
The wait was just shy of three hundred milliseconds, which in human experience passes for instantaneous.
The unfortunate man, who had already had an absolutely terrible day, jerked his head away from this latest outrage. To fend off any subsequent assault, Mr. Toes also flung a forearm in front of his face, and mouthed a piteous moan.
“Heh-heh.” I knew that’d do the trick. “Now start spittin’ out words, Six.” The heartless foreman yanked at his victim’s earlobe. “Who was it that lowered the boom on you?”
Six-Toes opened his left eye, perceived a fuzzy vision of Pete Bushman’s fuzzy face, then ventured to peel the right orb. “Wadder yer say?”
Charlie Moon’s second-in-command leaned close to the cowboy’s sunburned face. “I said—who knocked your block off?”
The injured party gingerly touched a hairy paw to his bruised jaw, winced at the sting. The last few hours were a fog, but as he pondered the day’s several misadventures in chronological order, the final disagreeable memory surged up like stomach acid after a platter of chili rellenos and jalapeño-enhanced refried frijoles. “It musta been that yahoo out yonder at the front gate—the one that pulled up behind our flatbed.”
The foreman’s eyes narrowed to thin slits. “Who was this yahoo?”
“I don’t ’zacktly know his Christian name,” Six-Toes whined. “But that low-down sucker-puncher must’ve been one a them Mormons!”
Bushman’s blank expression conveyed the impression that he did not get it.
The bruised cowboy explained. “I got a gander at the plate on his pickup. That big-fisted bushwhacker was from Utah!”
Bushman was not overly surprised. Well just imagine the man’s brass—after fisticuffin’ two Columbine hands half to death, he’s sleeping in the boss’s house like he was Charlie Moon’s next-a-kin! Being a go-getter who esteemed audacity in other men, Bushman felt a certain measure of admiration for the cheeky Utah sheriff. But this would not deter the foreman from doing his bounden duty. Sober as a Quaker schoolmarm on Easter Sunday morn, he turned to address that good-looking young cowboy known as the Wyoming Kyd. Which he did. “Mr. Kydmann, go round up them armed guards we put out awhile ago. I want ’em all at the boss’s house right now.”
“You got it.” The steely-eyed spur-jingler from Wyoming, Rhode Island, vanished in a flash. I still say what I heard was a gunshot.
The foreman pulled a Winchester carbine off the rack in his pickup, marched off toward the darkened Columbine headquarters. His intention was to inform Charlie Moon that he was harboring a crazed man who had—for no apparent reason—assaulted two Columbine cowboys. Bushman cocked the carbine. And I don’t care if he is a big-shot sheriff over in Utah—he could be a full bishop in the Mormon church, but here in Colorado he’s just a damned out-a-state tourist.
Pete Bushman, the Wyoming Kyd, the loaded-for-bear cowboys—would search the headquarters from basement to attic, find it empty of human life. After which, all hands were roused. Sleep-deprived men were sent out in twos and threes to mount a methodical search of the Columbine. Every bunkhouse, hay barn, horse barn, tack room, and toolshed would be checked—plus the vacant blacksmith’s quarters, the heavy-equipment shed where the tractors, combine, and bulldozer were housed, even the abandoned line shack on the north fence. And as an afterthought, the priest’s log cabin. But Charlie Moon’s employees would arrive—as Mr. Bushman would later tell his distraught wife, “way too late to do any good.”
The Shaman’s Terrible Dream
Daisy Perika’s head was resting on the feathered pillow, her sleep-spirit adrift in a frothy sea of mists, memories, and myths. As the tribal elder slipped through the mystical dimensions, she came face-to-face with the Ute shepherd who had crossed that river a dozen years ago. The dreamer was pleased at the unexpected appearance of her old friend. “Nahum Yaciiti,” she said. “How long has it been since—”
The holy presence raised a palm for silence, his voice rumbled like boulders rolling off Shellhammer Ridge. “I have been sent to you with a message.”
This was not the cheerful Nahum she was used to. But with dead people, you never knew what to expect. The old woman steeled herself for the revelation.
“Someone you know has left his body,” Nahum said. “He is here with me.”
Being old as a tall ponderosa, Daisy was neither surprised nor alarmed. From among the few remaining survivors of her antiquated generation, someone she knew died almost every month. She expected to behold a familiar soul hovering near the messenger. “I don’t see any—”
“You do not see, because your eyes are dim.”
Somewhat chagrined, Daisy snapped: “Then tell me who it is!”
“Of all those souls you’ve known in Middle World, who have you loved the most?”
The tribal elder felt a sudden surge of panic. “Oh no…”
Chapter Forty-Four
Absent
The essential residue of Charlie Moon was suspended within a peaceful no-where, no-when of utter emptiness. Aside from a tenuous suspicion of self-presence, there was little evidence that he existed—no intake of breath, no thumping of heart, only darkness to fill the eyes. He was even denied the familiar elbow room of space, three-dimensional or otherwise. But because his soul was unencumbered by elbows, lungs, eyes, heart—or other fleshly parts, this absence of stimulation and sensation was largely irrelevant.
He was at peace.
And might have been content to remain there forever. But for a shadow cloaked by the Void, there is no there. There is no ever. Even the subtle illusion of time is exposed as a part of the Conjurer’s art.
In Middle World
At the touch of someone’s hand, a shaking of his shoulder—Charlie Moon became aware of his left arm, elbow and all.
His ears heard someone faraway say: “Hey!”
He opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was a burnished copper lamp suspended from a beamed ceiling. The next thing he saw was Popper the Copper’s homely face, looking down through a fuzzy tunnel. “Hullo, champ—you still with us?”
With a monumental effort, he replied: “Uhhnng.” Moon imagined a nine-pound John Henry sledgehammer pounding railroad spikes into his head. But a piece at a time, he remembered who he was. Where he was. Why he was. He raised a hand, touched a finger to his temple. “Ouch!”
Popper’s voice boomed: “You took a good knock on your gourd.” A frown as he looked around. “Where’s that priest who hangs his hat here?”
The Ute raised himself on an elbow, watched the room spin down and stop. “Father Raes’s car’s gone. So I guess he’s away somewhere.” A relevant question occurred to Moon. “Who whacked me with a telephone pole?”
“Bearcat.” The sheriff helped the Ute into a straightback chair,
pointed his chin at the man he’d shot dead—much like Jack McCall had popped Wild Bill Hickok. “I bet you didn’t know the big Choctaw’s name was Leland Redstone.”
Charlie Moon did know. He turned his head, caught a first glimpse of the massive figure on the floor, was momentarily mesmerized by the horrific spectacle. Like Popper, Moon did not notice—a hand’s breadth below the dead man’s right knee—the small bloodstained rip in Bearcat’s trouser leg where Father Raes’s poker had made painful connection with flesh and bone. The Ute stared at the space where the Utah deputy’s head had been. Aside from a fragmented rim of white skull, a few jutting tufts of coal-black hair, nothing remained from the ears up. Bits and pieces of skull and brain were plastered on the paneled walls, the propane range, the refrigerator door. A gallon of blood had pooled on the cracked linoleum floor; this crimson tide was congealing darkly at the edges. The Ute choked back the uppermost portion of his supper, fixed his gaze on the checkered oilcloth—saw a dozen-dozen bloody crimson squares, paired with a gross of bone-white partners.
“Leland Redstone,” Popper said again, as if repeating the name might undo what was done. Tears welled up in the flint-hard lawman’s eyes. “Ever since he was a little boy, Leland was a world-class woolly-booger. Not afraid of nothin’ or nobody.” With the back of his hand, he wiped salty beads off his face. “His mamma started callin’ him Bearcat on his sixth birthday—which was when the neighbor’s dog chomped Leland on the ankle.” He smiled affectionately at the big-shouldered corpse. “The feisty little boy grabbed that mutt on the hind leg—and he chomped it right back!” He coughed away a lump in his throat. “And little Leland, he wouldn’t let go. No sir, not even when they throwed a pitcher of ice water on him and the dog. They say it took both his daddy and his big brother to pry him loose, and all the time that dog was a-howlin’ bloody murder.” He turned his face away from the grisly remains. “I expect you’d like to know what my deputy was doin’ here in the priest’s cabin.”
“First,” Moon muttered, “I’d like to know what you’re doing here—I thought you was in bed.”
“That’s what I wanted you to think, Charlie.” The sheriff hesitated. “But truth be told, I never intended to do any snoozin’—that’s why I swigged down such a load of that strong coffee.” Smiling at Charlie Moon’s quizzical expression, Popper continued. “Call me Mr. Suspicious, but I’d have laid three-to-one odds you was hiding Sarah Frank on the Columbine.”
“Why would you think—”
Popper interrupted the question. “I also figured some of the things I’d told you might make you want to go and check on the girl—after you thought I was sound asleep. So I set there on the edge of the bed with ears pricked and eyes peeled, and waited to see what’d happen.”
The Ute recalled Bushman’s visit. “And you didn’t have to wait very long.”
“No, that’s a fact. Wasn’t more’n a few minutes when I heard your foreman come stompin’ into the kitchen, yelling his head off about some of your cowboys that’d been found unconscious at the front gate. After old Loud-Mouth left, I cracked the bedroom door and saw you making a telephone call. From the way things looked, nobody answered.”
“The line was dead.”
“Right after that, you left the house and headed off through the woods, and I just naturally followed you.” Apologetically, he added: “With you carrying that flashlight, I was able to stay quite a ways behind. Otherwise, I expect you’d have heard me.” Popper grinned. “Now you want to know why Deputy Bearcat was in the cabin?”
At a sudden searing pain, Charlie Moon closed his eyes, grimaced.
Taking this as a “Yes,” Popper started up again: “Even after being banged hard on the bean, I expect you can call to mind Ben Silver’s half brother Ray Oates, and Sarah Frank’s cousin Marilee, and Marilee’s boyfriend Al Harper.”
A grunt from the tribal investigator.
“Well, Al Harper told Ray Oates a tale about a late-night phone call to Marilee. According to Mr. Harper, the call was from little Sarah herself.”
Charlie Moon opened his eyes. “Did Harper get the caller’s ID?”
A nod from Popper. “It was a Colorado number. But the phone was registered to a person none of us had ever heard of.”
“Who—”
“Don’t get ahead of me, or I’ll forget where I was.” Popper presented a brushy-browed scowl. “What you should be askin’ is: ‘How did a backward old lawman like Ned Popper happen to find out about this highly confidential conversation between Harper and Oates?’”
“Okay,” the Indian said: “How?”
The wily lawman twisted a waxed tip of the spiffy mustache. “I’m not at liberty to reveal that highly sensitive information.” His mouth made a prideful smirk. “Let’s just say that I’ve got my sources.” The way the Utah lawman saw things, Charlie Moon (being an outsider to Tonapah Flats) did not have The Need To Know that Ray Oates’s personal secretary was also the sheriff’s second cousin, or that Rosey O’Riley provided a tidbit of useful information now and again. But Popper was miffed that his cousin’s harvest of information had been so sparse. It’s a pity Rosey didn’t find out that Oates had the whole damn sheriff’s office staff on the take. Except for my honorable self, of course. And now that I come to think of it, it’s been years since Mr. Money-Bags has offered me so much as a thin dime to fix a parking ticket. The public servant didn’t know whether he should feel flattered or insulted. Or what he might have done had a sizable bribe been proposed…
Popper seemed to have drifted off into some private space. The Ute waited patiently for the white man to return.
Sheriff Popper eventually did. “I’m about ninety-nine percent sure that Ray Oates got in touch with Bearcat—and told him about the phone call Sarah supposedly made to her Papago cousin. And Bearcat was what you call ‘highly motivated.’ See, my deputy not only wanted to collect Oates’s reward for getting the ‘stolen property’ back—the big Choctaw had an urgent personal reason to find the girl.” Seeing the Ute’s slightly raised eyebrow, Popper decided to get the embarrassment over with. “You remember my dispatcher—Bertha Katcher?”
At a painful cost, Moon nodded his aching head.
“Well, it’s still hard for me to believe ol’ Bertha had the energy—but for years she’s been moonlightin’ for Ray Oates.”
Hoping to clarify his foggy vision, Moon rubbed at his eyes. “Doing what?”
“Oh, destroying police records, removing physical evidence from the vault, passing on confidential information—stuff like that.” Popper collapsed into a chair, glared across the kitchen table at the Ute. “Now I ask you—what sort of a sad excuse for a human being would stoop so low as to turn another man’s faithful employee into a paid spy?”
“That is going pretty far down the dark path.”
A grim-faced Popper nodded. “Bertha Katcher was an outright traitor.” But he also blamed his cousin, who had shown insufficient initiative. Rosey just never had enough get-up-and-go. If she’d worked out some way to listen in on Ray Oates’s telephone calls, none of this would’ve happened.
As the throbbing behind his eyes subsided, the tribal investigator gently prodded the older lawman along. “So what has your dispatcher been up to lately?”
“I’d say she’s had enough business to keep her busy.” The sheriff felt a sudden hunger for something sweet. “When Oates realized that Sarah Frank wasn’t going to steal what he wanted from Ben’s house, he decided he’d hire somebody who would.”
“So Sarah’s not a thief.”
“That’s right. And she didn’t murder Ben Silver.”
“That’s welcome news.” Charlie Moon smiled. “But I have a hard time imagining Miss Katcher burgling Mr. Silver’s home, much less murdering the old man. Besides—wasn’t she tending to her dispatching duties that particular morning?”
Popper put his hand in a candy jar, found a lemon drop. “Oh, Bertha was at the station all right—but she was busy managing the
break-in for Ray Oates.” He popped the hard candy into his mouth, propped his elbows on the table. “See, the setup was for Bearcat to slip through Hatchet Gap, and do the breaking and entering at Ben Silver’s house. And while Bearcat was busy looking for Ben Silver’s whatzit, Bertha had posted Deputy Packard at Dinty’s Grill. Packard’s job was to keep an eye on the private lane to Silver’s house—and phone a warning to Bearcat if anybody turned in.”
“It was a simple plan,” Moon said. “The kind that generally works.”
“It was. And would’ve. Only I sent Packard to help the state troopers with that accident over on the interstate, which was also why Ben’s appointment with his doctor got canceled, which was why Marilee brought the old grouch back home early. What happened after that, I learned from Bertha who got it straight from Bearcat. Ben Silver walked into his parlor and realized somebody’d been messing around in his house. He called 911 right about the time my dispatcher had run off to the ladies’ room, which is why the call got automatically forwarded to my cell phone and I ended up taking Ben’s emergency call while I was on the way into town.” Winded by this lengthy statement, he paused to take a breath, also to wonder what Bertha would have done if she had picked up on Ben’s call for help. Talk about your moral dilemmas. “It was too bad Bearcat was still in the house when Ben showed up. And Sarah must’ve been there, too—hiding from my deputy. Anyway, while Ben was trying to tell me something was wrong, Bearcat jerked the phone cord outta the socket and grabbed ol’ Ben like he was a sack of onions. The big Choctaw gave Ben a choice—‘Either cough up what I want or I’ll shake it outta you.’”
This quote triggered the recollection circuitry in Charlie Moon’s brain, which called up the memory of that lively afternoon in the Gimpy Dog Saloon. The scene played by like a flickering old black-and-white film; it was transformed into Technicolor as Deputy Bearcat administered the shake-treatment to Cowboy Roy. That explains why Mr. Silver’s shirt buttons and boots were on the floor. The tribal investigator’s face burned. I should’ve picked up on that right away. But he comforted himself with this thought: Clever Lila Mae McTeague never made that connection neither. This mistaken consolation would be short-lived.
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