Mojave Desert Sanctuary

by Gary J George

  He said his memory’s not what it used to be since his stroke, and he had forgotten about it until he saw her with me.”

  “Well, that was a while back,” said John.

  “That’s what I thought, but then he told me he saw a car going fast over the railroad crossing yesterday. It was headed south. It was the same kind of car the two men were driving that day. It worried him so much he wrote himself a note to tell me about it the next time he saw me.”

  We were all quiet again. The night no longer seemed peaceful.

  “So, what do we do now?”

  “I go away. I’m putting the three of you in danger just by being here.”

  “You really think they can find you out here?”

  “You heard Ade. They came looking for me in May. Now they’re back out on the desert again. I’ve been thinking about this since he told me. I think when they didn’t find me in the places they thought they might, places like Salinas and Los Angeles and close to friends I had in college, they started over.”

  “We should go to the police.”

  Kiko laughed bitterly.

  “The Las Vegas Police? These people own the police. There are probably people in the department who know about this and are helping them look for me.”

  “Kiko, we can protect you.”

  “No, John, you can’t. I love it that you would offer, but they’ll kill me and you and anyone else who helped me.”

  “Give them the money back. They’ll leave you alone after they get it.”

  “They won’t. I killed a man who was way up in their organization. It was an accident. They probably know it was an accident, but that doesn’t matter. The only way to avenge his death is to kill me. These people are big on revenge. Getting the money would be extra.”

  “So, I run. And I keep running for the rest of my life. Because they will never, ever give up. I knew that when I was sitting on the chair in that fat man’s room. My old life is over. It’s never coming back.

  That’s why I took the money. I knew I’d need it if I was going to stay alive.”

  “And the money is in a locker at the Union Pacific Depot?”

  “That’s right. The key is in my purse.”

  “How much is it? Do you know?”

  “I had no way to get it open, but the man who was trying to impress me said it was over half a million dollars.”

  “You’re going to need every penny if you’re going to disappear,” said John.

  “Yes. I have to go get it.”

  “You can’t, Kiko. You can never go to Las Vegas again.”

  “I could wear a disguise.”

  “No. No. Too dangerous. I’ll get it for you. I’ll go tomorrow morning after breakfast. Joe will be here to protect you while I’m gone.”

  “And me too.”

  “No, Aeden,” said John. “You have to leave.”

  “There’s no way I’m leaving until this is over.”

  “Now listen,...”

  “Trying to be a man,” said Joe.

  “That’s right. He’s a boy trying to be a man. But he doesn’t know what that means yet.”

  “Trying to be a man, already most way to a man.”

  “But...”

  “He wants to stay. He stays.”

  John sat looking off into the night without speaking.

  “Okay, but now you’ll have two people to protect. Kiko and Aeden both.”

  “John, thank you for going to Las Vegas for me.”

  “Aren’t you afraid I’ll take the money?”

  “I know you won’t do that. I’d trust any one of you with that money and with my life. In fact, I already have, just by telling you what happened.”

  And with that, the discussion ended.

  I didn’t return to Lee’s Camp that night.

  Chapter 18

  Smoke Tree, California

  and the Mountains

  of the Eastern Mojave Desert

  July 10, 1961

  Two irritated, disheveled, unkempt, unshowered, sweat-soured and unshaven hard guys were ushered into Judge Sherman’s court in Smoke Tree on Monday morning at nine o’clock. When their case was called, they were joined at the defense table by a world-weary man from the Los Angeles law firm of Kravitz, Karl and Klein. Jason Ablemann looked no happier about being in Judge Sherman’s court than Salvatore Lupo and Fiore Abbatini. Ablemann and his driver had left L.A. in his Lincoln Continental in the middle of the night

  He hadn’t conferred with his clients. He didn’t have to. They knew the drill. They had been down this road many, many times before. So had he.

  Fiore was charged with impersonating a police officer and carrying a concealed firearm without a permit. Salvatore was charged with the same, plus one additional count for the switchblade. Both men pleaded not guilty.

  The local prosecutor, who was out of his depth in dealing with an experienced criminal lawyer like Ablemann, asked that the men be held without bail. He cited their lengthy arrest records and the severity of the crimes with which they had been charged. Attorney Ablemann stood and pointed out that while both men may have been mistakenly arrested for various crimes, neither man had ever been convicted of anything. Therefore the information was immaterial and irrelevant.

  When the attorneys were done, the judge looked thoughtful and then set bail at fifty thousand for Salvatore and forty five for Fiore. He also set a date for the preliminary hearing.

  Ablemann asked if cashier’s checks for the entire amounts drawn on the Bank of America would be acceptable. The judge said if the checks were presented to the clerk of the court, the two men would be released, pending the hearing.

  Fifteen minutes after the case was called, Jason Ablemann was on his way to the Bank of America with an attaché case full of cash. He was pleased he had guessed the bail amount within five thousand dollars.

  Salvatore and Abbatini were returned to the custody of Lieutenant Caballo. Not long after they had been locked in their cells again, a deputy came into the hallway.

  “You made bail.”

  He unlocked the cells. The two men followed him down the hall to the front counter. Their wallets, watches, change, and rolls of cash were returned to them, as was the picture of Kiko Yoshida. They knew better than to ask for their guns or Salvatore’s knife. They did, however, ask for their shoulder rigs. Those were returned to them.

  They were signing for their possessions when Horse walked out of his office.

  “I’d like to say we enjoyed seeing you boys, but we didn’t.”

  Neither man said anything. They turned to go.

  “Hey, where’s the car keys?”

  “You owe us twenty five dollars before you get those.”

  “For what? The lousy food?”

  “Towing fees. You don’t pay, we keep the car.”

  Salvatore pulled the wad of bills out of his pocket. He peeled off two twenties and tossed them on the counter.

  “Keep the change.”

  Horse turned to his deputy.

  “Give him a receipt and his change. Don’t give him the keys until he picks up both.”

  He turned and walked back to his office.

  Their car had been left in the sun with the windows up the day before. The window on the passenger side had exploded in the heat. Most of the glass was outside the car, but there was some on the seat.

  “Sonofabitch!”

  Salvatore was so mad he grabbed the chrome door handle without thinking. It was blistering hot.

  “Sonofabitch!” he said again, louder this time, shaking his hand.

  They drove downtown and went into the first motel they came to.

  “Need a room.”

  “Check in time is two’ o’clock,” said the young man at the desk.

  “Come on. We won’t be here long. Just need to shower and shave.”

  “I’d like to help you, but check in time is not until two.”

  Salvatore pulled out his roll of cash. He put a fifty on the count
er.

  “Gonna give you a choice, zit face. You can take the money and give us a room, some shavin’ stuff, toothbrushes and toothpaste, or you can give me that ‘two o’clock’ line again.”

  The young man started to speak. Salvatore held up his huge hand.

  “Not done yet.

  Now, if you take the money and give us what I asked for, you can keep the change. If you give me that two o’clock shit again, I’m gonna come over this counter and rip your face off.

  What’s it gonna be, pal?”

  The young man picked up the fifty-dollar bill and walked out of the office.

  “Sally! Hey, Sally!”

  A woman emerged from one of the rooms.

  “Yeah?”

  “Which ones are made up?”

  “Four, nine, eleven and fifteen.”

  He came back in and gave Sal the key to number nine.

  The two men walked toward the room. They left the car parked in the shade of the overhang.

  After showering and shaving, they stopped at a coffee shop for breakfast and discussed their situation.

  “Should go see that guy in Golf.”

  “Goffs.”

  “Yeah. Member what Tommy Bones said about them busted shields or somethin’?”

  “I remember. No way can we go back to Vegas without somethin’ for him.”

  “Should we call him?”

  “No way I wanna talk to that guy before we have somethin'.”

  “Okay. There must be a place in this town we can buy some guns. Shotguns would be okay. Make that shotguns and a hacksaw.”

  “I got the guns covered.”

  “Whadya mean?”

  “Show you on the way.”

  They left Smoke Tree and started back the way they had come on Saturday. Hot air poured in through the gap where the window had been, making the air conditioner pointless.

  When they got to Klinefelter, Fiore pulled off the highway and drove into the parking lot of the abandoned motor court. He parked in the shade of a salt cedar and got out and opened the trunk.

  “Man, if you left back-up guns in there, they’re long gone.”

  Fiore handed a big screwdriver and a pair of pliers to Salvatore, keeping a screwdriver and pliers for himself.

  “Let me show you.”

  Salvatore followed as Fiore walked back and opened the driver’s side door. Kneeling on one knee, he went to work.

  “There’s a .45, extra clips and another cop badge in the rocker panel on your side.”

  Salvatore smiled for the first time in two days.

  “Hey, Abbatini? You ain’t as dumb as you look.”

  “Eddie was worried about that deputy. Thought we might run into trouble.”

  A half hour after stopping, they pulled back on 95. A half hour after that, they were in the Goffs store.

  They showed Chuck Sweeney their badges and the picture of Kiko. They told him Don Clark had sent them. They asked him what he had overheard a cowboy say to someone else about an oriental woman and where the cowboy might have seen her. Chuck got out a pencil and paper and began to draw them a map.

  “You’ll know you’re almost to this intersection when you see the phone booth. Slow down and look to the left. You’ll see a road going off to the west. It’s the only way you can turn. That’s Cedar Canyon Road. There are some ranches out there. The OX cowboy said the woman was with a kid in a pickup truck. Probably came from one of the places out that way.”

  They got back in the car, crossed the railroads tracks and turned right onto Lanfair Road. It wasn’t long before the pavement ended.

  “Guido and me was out this way somewhere back in May. We got on a road that turned to dirt like this one, but after a while it was paved again.”

  They drove on beneath the bright white glare of the sky. The road remained dirt. The heavy luxury sedan with its low clearance and soft suspension was strictly a highway cruiser. It was not made for these conditions. It shook, shimmied, lurched and plunged. When Fiore tried slowing down, the cloud of dust they were kicking up behind the car caught up with them and came in through the gap left by the missing window.

  He tried speeding up almost to fifty. That worked better. There seemed to be a speed at which the wheels hit the tops of the washboarded surface and skipped along without making their teeth rattle. But when the long straight suddenly turned right and dipped down into Von Trigger Wash, the car slalomed and slid sloppily into the curve and the soft sand in the bottom. Alarmed, Fiore began to slow down again.

  Put your foot in it,” yelled Salvatore, coughing in the dust. “This thing gets stuck in the sand, we’ll never get it out.”

  Fiore jammed down the accelerator, the wheels spraying sand and gravel. There was dust everywhere. Somehow, he kept it going forward and on the road until they climbed up the other side of the wash. He was relieved to be back on the hard road, bumps and all.

  After a few more miles, they came to a phone booth.

  “Look at that,” said Fiore as they drove past. “What the hell’s a phone booth doin’ out here? There’s no goddamned people.”

  “Beats me. Watch for the road he told us about. We should be comin’ up on it.”

  They came to a “T” intersection, and Fiore turned left onto another dirt road.

  “I didn’t see no sign, but I don’t see no other road neither. This must be the one.”

  They continued on through a forest of Joshua Trees. The road ran straight to the west, then turned north before turning west again. At the top of a steep hill, Fiore brought the car to a stop. They sat with the engine idling, looking down at the broad wash below, dust billowing around them.

  “Man, when we hit the bottom, you’d better punch it. That’s worse than the last place. Be sure you keep this bucket movin’. Get stuck, gonna make you carry me back to Vegas.”

  They dropped down into Watson’s Wash. When they were almost at the bottom, Fiore shoved the accelerator to the floor and they went sliding, twisting and fishtailing through the sand and gravel, rocks pinging hard off the undercarriage. Somehow, they made it across. The road that rose up the other side was relatively smooth.

  When they crested the hill, Salvatore pointed off to the right.

  “Look at that big, white house up there. Start with that one.”

  A little farther down the road, they came to a sign that read ‘Box S’. There was a square with an ‘S’ in the middle made out of wrought iron on the post above the sign.

  A rutted road snaked off through the yucca, cactus, catclaw and sage.

  “Shit.”

  “Hey, made it through that last place, can make it through here.”

  They did. And then they came to the west face of Pinto Mountain and the switchbacks that led to the top. Fiore eased the heavy car onto the first one.

  Getting around the turns at the ends of the switchbacks was hard, but in spite of a lot of slipping and sliding and backing, they made it to the top and onto a long, straight driveway lined with whitewashed rocks that angled off to the northeast.

  As they drove closer to the white adobe with the red tile roof, they saw a big corral off to the side. There were five horses in the corral. They were all staring at the car. Beyond the corral, there was a slender man at the end of the driveway. He was wearing Levi’s and a blue, long-sleeved work shirt. His black hair hung down past his collar. A red bandana was tied around his forehead. There was a bucket at his feet, and he was bent over slightly, stirring something with a stick.

  “Is that one a them Mexicans or a Indian?”

  “Not sure. Sometimes can’t tell ‘em apart.

  Indian, I think.”

  Fiore eased to a stop beside the man and hit the switch for his power window.

  “Afternoon.”

  The man looked at him.

  “You speak English?”

  “Yes.”

  Chapter 19

  The Mountains of the

  Eastern Mojave Desert

  July
10, 1961

  Chemehuevi Joe

  Joe and Aeden were making floor tiles from clay and red dirt. Joe heard the car before he saw it. He could tell by the sound the tires were making that it was coming fast. He walked over to the edge of the drop off and looked east down the road.

  A moment later, a black sedan crested the hill above Watson’s Wash. It was a big car, the west-tilting sun glinting off the broad windshield. It was coming faster now.

  Joe stepped back from the drop off so he couldn’t be seen from the road below and listened.

  “What is it?” asked Aeden.

  Joe held up his hand for silence.

  The sound of the car changed as it passed from east to west, and for a moment Joe thought it would keep going.

  Then it slowed.

  Then it stopped.

  Joe imagined the driver looking at the sign for the Box S.

  The sound of the car changed again as it turned off Cedar Canyon onto the road to the house.

  Joe turned to Aeden.

  “Car. Trouble coming. Go in, get Kiko. Take her behind the house. Car gets here and stops, take her around the hillside into the draw leads to the ridge. Go way up in there.

  I don’t come, fifteen minutes, take her over the ridge, Bathtub Springs.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t let her argue. Get her behind the house, fast.”

  Aeden turned and ran.

  The car was on the switchbacks now. Joe could hear the tires fighting to gain purchase. He could hear it stop and back and start again as the driver worked to get it around the hairpin turns.

  Joe walked over to where they had piled the cottonwood. He broke a stick off one of the limbs.

  The car was moving slowly, but it kept coming.

  Joe walked over by the house and picked up a bucket.

  He walked to the end of the row of rocks lining the driveway and put down both the bucket and the stick.

  He took the long-bladed, slender and very sharp skinning knife out of the sheath on his belt. He pulled up his left pant leg and slid the knife down inside his boot. He dropped the pant leg over it again.