“That’s how we like ’em.” The pimp and his crew chuckled. “Ain’t seen her, though. Wish we had. She’d be worth some money.” He flipped the photo into the water streaming down the middle of the alley. “Speaking of that, why don’t you give me your billfold and that badge? I’d like to have me a badge.”
The pistol against the back of his head disappeared. Ned took the worn leather billfold from his left back pocket and held it out. “I got some cash here.” He reached into his other, getting a grip on the leather sap.
Risking a glance over his shoulder to measure the distance between him and the most serious threat, Ned’s eyes widened as a dark shadow rose and swung a short length of pipe. It connected with a wet slap against the gunman’s head. He fell, arms stiff at his sides, unconscious before smacking his face onto the concrete with the sound of a dropped steak.
There was no time to think. In a practiced move, Ned pulled the heavy sap weighted with several ounces of lead and whacked the startled pimp on the temple. The street hustler’s eyes rolled white and he went down as if he was poleaxed. Like a malevolent spirit, the shadow rushed past Ned and he caught glimpses in the darkness as the pipe rose and fell.
Only seconds passed, but in that time, grunts and shrieks filled the air, punctuated by one short, desperate plea. “Hey, wait…”
More blows fell, and then there was silence.
Heart beating wildly, Ned knelt and picked up his pistol and the one dropped by the now unconscious man. He tucked that one into his belt. Too old for street fights, he backed away from the alleyway’s opening and against the wall with the sap and the .38 at the ready.
The Indian he’d seen in the waiting room emerged from the darkness, the length of pipe washing clean in the rain. “You all right?”
Ned cocked his head and lowered the pistol. “Who’re you?”
“Crow.”
“I don’t know no Crow.”
The taunt, muscular Indian pitched the pipe onto the concrete beside the unconscious pimp. “We can’t talk here. We got to git.”
Ned blinked and waved toward the bus station. “We need to call the laws on these punks and I still need to check in there to see if my granddaughter….”
“She ain’t in there, sir.”
“How…?”
Crow gently touched his shoulder and Ned felt an electric power in the man. “Because I doubt she ever came by bus. Now, let’s go.” He led the way and Ned followed on shaky knees.
Chapter Twenty-six
Cale couldn’t believe the language coming from his girlfriend. Pepper was pissed. There was nothing to do but let her run out of steam, but he soon realized that might be a while.
She finally calmed down enough to talk in a slightly more civilized tone of voice. “I want my damn money back!”
“Listen kid. I don’t give refunds.”
They were at the counter of the Santa Anita Indian Trading Post on Route 66. Outside of the white building, signs abounded.
Watch Real Indians.
Trade!
Moccasins!
See Our Baby Rattlers!
Jackalopes For Sale.
She’d been excited long before they arrived at the quirky trading post late that afternoon. To that point, their road trip had been good, if not perfect. Earlier in the day they hitched a ride with a young family who left them off on the side of Highway 80, west of Dallas. At his wife’s urging, the man pressed a ten-dollar bill into Pepper’s palm and told them to be careful.
They hadn’t been gone ten minutes when Pepper waved the bill at a passing eighteen-wheeler. The gray-haired driver shut the rig down and pulled over. The kids piled into the cab and Pepper stuck the ten into the driver’s shirt pocket. “Nice ponytail.”
“Thanks kid.” With a hiss of air brakes, he pulled back onto the highway. “How far are you going?”
“The ocean.”
“Hop in.” Back on the highway with the kids sharing the passenger seat, Jimmie Ray Ozborne handed the ten back. “You don’t need to pay me. I was on the road myself once. You can call me Oz. I’m heading for Albuquerque.”
Cale and Pepper shared the passenger seat. She wriggled around to get herself comfortable. “Will you take us all the way?”
“Sure enough!”
Oz had the radio tuned to an outlaw rock ’n’ roll station out of Mexico. With the cab filled with the Rolling Stones, James Brown, and The Doors, they rushed across the arid desert. True to his word, Oz dropped them off in Albuquerque an hour before dark, leaving Pepper with her ten bucks and some advice.
“Don’t y’all get in no trouble.”
They picked up another ride and would have gone farther with the man in the station wagon, but since Amarillo, Pepper kept seeing signs for Indian trading posts, and couldn’t go another mile until she’d seen the inside of one.
And that’s where the trouble started.
“No refunds, kid!”
She glared across the counter full of cheap knives, even cheaper bowls, fake Indian jewelry, Kachina dolls, rubber tom-toms and post cards. “You cheated me.”
“You got your money’s worth.”
“The sign out front says ‘Stop in and See the Baby Rattlers.’”
The man grinned. “So?”
“So them ain’t nothing in the case behind that curtain but a handful of painted baby rattles.”
“Right. Baby rattlers.”
“I want my money!”
“Hell kid, it was only a quarter.”
“That’s not the point. You cheated me.”
“Nope. Those are baby rattlers, like the sign said.”
Worried because they were drawing a crowd, Cale pulled at the thin strap of her sack purse. “C’mon. You’re spinnin’ your wheels. He won’t give you your money back.”
“Well, I ain’t buying a damned thing in here, and I was fixin’ to try on some of those moccasins over there.”
The manager’s face hardened. “I’m done with you. Get out.”
“We’re gonna get gone, but this is a sorry excuse for a trading post.”
Cale pulled Pepper outside, noticing that most of the adults were grinning at them. “You’re gonna get us arrested.”
Still mad, she pouted in the hot gravel parking lot. Fluffy clouds drifted overhead, scattering wide patches of shade across the desert. Not far away, a dust devil spun to life, reaching a hundred feet in the air.
“Look at that little tornado!” Pepper pointed.
“My people call them chiindii.” The black-haired boy in a headdress, bustle, feathers, and breastplate gave her a smile and did a little step to make his jingles rattle. “Hello. I’m Jonathan.”
For a moment Pepper thought it was Mark Lightfoot in an Indian dance outfit, and felt a moment of sadness when she realized it wasn’t him. “Oh, hi.”
Cale stepped between them. “Yeah, and I’m her boyfriend, Cale.”
Ignoring him, Pepper returned the smile. “I’m part Indian. What does chindy mean?”
He corrected her. “Chiindii, a ghost. They are bad. My people believe they are ghosts left behind after a person dies.”
“My cousin sees ghosts.”
“Many of our people do.”
Pepper couldn’t take her eyes off the young man. “Wonder who it was?”
“Doesn’t matter. Don’t let it touch you. Contact with a chiindii can cause illness. Even death, because they are everything bad about a person.”
Cale couldn’t take it any longer. “What are you all dressed up for?”
“I’m a dancer.”
“Fancy dancer is more like it.” Cale’s tone was obvious. “Why don’t you dance right out of here?”
Jonathan’s eyes flashed. “I wasn’t talking to you, but I’ll cut you a deal. You pluck this white feather off my
head and I’ll leave. You can give it to her. If you can’t in say, sixty seconds, you pay me twice what she paid to see the baby rattlers.”
Seeing it as a way to get Pepper’s money back, Cale nodded and grabbed for the feather.
Already anticipating the move, Jonathan danced away and bobbed his head. The parking lot was immediately filled with the musical jingle from the bell sets on his ankles, wrists, and waist. He held a fan in one hand and a bone whistle in the other.
Cale snatched at the bobbing feather again, but this time in addition to ducking his head, Jonathan blocked the grab with his forearm, sweeping the fan across Cale’s eyes.
“Hey!”
Jonathan bent, danced, and bobbed. He sang softly to himself, keeping a constant beat with his feet. The jingling bells filled the hot sunshine. A crowd gathered, watching Cale dart in to snatch at the feather, only to be denied each time.
Pepper’s breath came fast and she found herself rooting for Jonathan.
Thirty seconds later, Cale was pouring sweat and tiring. Head bouncing and bobbing, Jonathan spun left, then right. No matter how quick Cale’s hands were, the Indian boy was faster. The vivid assortment of brightly colored ribbons, feathers and beads were a rich blur surrounded by the crowd of tourists who thought the confrontation between the two youngsters was part of a pre-designed show. Jonathan suddenly danced faster, his spins so pronounced that the feathers generated their own breeze.
Almost as if he had a stopwatch, Jonathan ceased to dance and stood upright. Cale grabbed the feather, plucking it from the roach on Jonathan’s head. “Got it.”
The Indian boy straightened. “No. The dance was over. You lost. Give it back.”
Cale backed away. “You lose.” He stuck the quill upside down under his own headband. “Let’s go, Pepper.”
He stopped. A dozen Indian boys in similar dress blocked his way. “Give it back.”
Cale had never been on the receiving end of such a situation. Knowing he’d already lost, the bully quickly backed down. He jerked the feather out of his headband and threw it on the ground. “Indian giver!” He laughed at his own wit.
Jonathan’s arm shot out and Cale recoiled as a painted stick lightly tapped him on the chest. “Hey! What was that?”
The Indian boy slipped the stick back into his waistband. “I counted coup on you.”
“What’s that?”
“Look it up.”
Uncomfortable, Cale stepped back. “C’mon, Pepper.”
She allowed him to grab her hand, and as he pushed his way through the line of dancers, she felt someone slip something into her free hand.
It was Jonathan’s feather, and a Kennedy half dollar.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Ned’s headlights lit the empty pavement. They hadn’t passed but one car in a good long while. Behind the wheel, Ned Parker momentarily took his eyes off the wet road as they neared the small town of Denton on Highway 77. “Why are we going this way?”
Crow slumped against the door and crossed his arms. “I believe the girl you’re after is heading for Amarillo.”
“Her name’s Pepper, and she’s my granddaughter. How do you know where she is?”
“I don’t, but I know where she ain’t, and she hasn’t come through that bus station while I was there.” Crow handed him the picture he’d retrieved from the alley.
Ned shook his head, feeling a lump rise in his throat. This news on top of all the stress was taking its toll. His stomach ached worse than ever, making him feel bad all over. “How do you know that?”
“Because I come down from Oklahoma City a couple of days ago and I’ve been hanging out in the station to stay out of the weather.”
“Why’d you set out with me?”
“Because I recognized you as a lawman from Chisum. You took my cousin to jail a couple of years ago and I come down when he appeared in court. You was there and he pointed you out. He said he was in the wrong and you was a fair man.” Crow grinned. “That little stint in your jail did him a lot of good. He straightened right up after he got out. But Mr. Ned, you were as out of place in that city as a cat in a doghouse.”
A dozen questions flashed through Ned’s mind. He didn’t know where to begin. “You an outlaw?”
“I’m not wanted for anything, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m not running from anything, other than boredom.”
Ned mashed the dimmer switch on the floorboard when a car appeared on the horizon. The click was audible. The oncoming car didn’t reciprocate and it nearly blinded Ned as it passed. He switched back to high beams as the car disappeared in his rearview mirror. “Tell me what’s going on here.”
“I saw you in there and heard what you were doing.” Crow shifted in the seat to get comfortable. He reached over his shoulder to push the door lock button. “I’ve seen that pimp and his friends working the station. They picked up a few girls who thought they could make it on the street. That’s how I know your girl didn’t come through, because they’d-a been on her like a chicken on a June bug.”
Ned shivered, thinking what could have happened. “She’s only fourteen.”
“They don’t care.”
“She’s with a boy a little older.”
“He couldn’t have stood up to those guys. They fight for a living.”
“You were better.”
“I’ve had to make a living.”
Ned studied on the implications of that statement. “Start with you and your name.”
“My name ain’t important. Crow is enough, but I ain’t Crow, I’m Comanche.”
“I’ve known some folks up in Tahlequah by the name of Two-Crow.”
“Nope. Just Crow.”
The rain slacked once again and Ned turned the wipers to low. “You know so much, where we going?”
“Amarillo, first. The kids moving through Dallas are trying to get to California for the most part. I’ve watched them, and listened to what they had to say. If they aren’t taking the bus, some of ’em are thumbing it. You’re thinking old school. You need to think like they do.”
“I cain’t. I’m too old.”
Crow nodded. “I understand. We need to get ahead of them if we can. Since Amarillo’s the next biggest town, they’ll most likely stop there for a little while before hitting sixty-six and taking it to California.”
Route 66 was already a legend before it became even more appealing by the television program a few years earlier. The highway stretched from Chicago to Los Angeles. Other routes existed, of course, but Crow figured the runaways would follow the rest of the counter-culture kids funneling toward the Promised Land.
“My son, James, is checking different places.”
“That’s good. You know what highway he’s following?”
“Not for sure. I’d expect this one, but he could be anywhere. We’re supposed to call in to the house ever so often to check in.”
“Well, when you do, tell him I think they’re going to San Francisco.”
“What makes you think that? Why not Los Angeles?”
“All these kids want to go where the action is.”
“I’d bet Los Angeles.”
“You’d bet wrong.”
They drove in silence for several minutes. Few cars were on the road, so Ned kicked his speed above seventy. The farther west they drove, the less it rained. “Why’d you step in back there, and what are you getting out of this?”
“I was bored, for one thing, like I said, and I don’t like to be bored. I don’t like to see a man outnumbered, neither.” Crow closed his eyes. “Besides, I’ve been thinking about going to California myself.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
A steady stream of people came through our house, bringing food like somebody’d died. The women cried with Miss Becky about Pepper and held her hand. I tried to stay out
of the way and spent a lot of time sitting alone in the hay barn, missing my cousin and wishing she’d at least call.
For the first time in a couple of days, the house was empty. I was on the couch and feeling pretty blue when Miss Becky came out of the kitchen. “Top, it’s quit raining for a while. I need you to ride up to the store and get me some flour and baking powder.”
She didn’t drive, so I was her only hope. I heard she’d driven the tractor once or twice before I came along, and steered the truck in the pasture while Grandpa fed the cows, but she didn’t have a license and had no intention of getting one as far as I could tell.
The phone rang, so when she sat down to talk, I jumped on my bike and coasted down the drive. The wet highway hissed under my tires as I pedaled past the ditches full of water. The weather kept a lot of people from running the roads, so not even one car passed me the whole way.
A handful of loafers sat under Oak Peterson’s overhang, in the same postures I’d seen time and time again. Some sat on the benches, hands or elbows on their knees. One or two rocked back and forth on the back legs of cane-bottom chairs. I waved as I passed, and most waved back, but they didn’t stop talking.
I didn’t go into Mr. Oak’s store because he scared me. I pedaled on past and leaned my bike against Uncle Neal’s porch. Thunder rumbled up on the river as I climbed the steps and went inside. For once there wasn’t anyone on the porch. I hadn’t seen that but a time or two. Uncle Neal was there at his counter with his wavy white hair sticking straight up, slicing rat cheese with his electric slicer.
Marty Smallwood leaned on the chest-type Coke machine, smoking a cigarette. I picked up a bag of Gold Medal flour and can of Clabber Girl and put it on the counter. I wanted an RC, but he didn’t show any intention of moving out of the way. Not knowing how to go about asking, I stood there for a long minute.
“What do you want, kid?”
“I’d like an RC.”
He uncrossed his ankle and flicked an ash on the floor. With the toe of his boot, he kicked a wooden case of warm RCs. “There you go.”
Uncle Neal spoke over his shoulder. “Marty, come here and see if this is enough.”
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