They dug the claymore’s legs into the sand so the impact of the explosion would evaporate the chest and head and hands and set the rest of the body afire.
Yes, an ace forensics team might be able to piece together a fingerprint or an identifiable segment of jaw from the shards of flesh and bone not fully incinerated or blown to hell, but overall that seemed a worthwhile risk—better than any other option they’d managed to brainstorm in the limited time they’d had.
They primed the charge, pulled enough wire to gain a safe distance, popped the shipping plugs, and attached the clacker.
Wander, reverting to Giordano’s voice, said to Rags, “Sergeant Trapnell, would you kindly do the honors and mist my ass?”
The explosion generated a pressure wave spitting dust and a coal-black cloud licked by flames. As Chalky ventured forward to see if anything recognizably human remained, Rags reeled in the undestroyed wire, while Wander said, “Praise cheeses.”
BBK just stood there, watching the smoke disperse. Rags was about to tell him to snap to, they were pulling out, when the big man, silent all morning till now, said, “Comes my time? Worse ways to go out.”
He seemed transfixed, immobile, a pillar of dark salt.
“That’s deep,” Rags said, not wanting to sound dismissive. One of the only godly things he knew was this man’s silence, making his rare utterances all the more wondrous and strange. “But it’s also a little premature, don’t you think?”
The big man nodded but still didn’t move. Black Buddha Killer, the Silent Giant—he murmured some kind of chant, then said, “To conquer our fear, we must first surrender hope.”
***
Having finished a lengthy recitation of additional facts and rumors Elan thought Lisa might find useful—which lawmen she could trust, which ones she couldn’t, where to find a decent chile relleno—Elan wished Lisa good luck and turned to go.
She stopped him. “I’m wondering—when I called the number I was given for you, the receptionist said I’d reached the Public Defender’s Office.”
“That’s my hangout,” he said. “Technically I work for Tribal Social Services. But I kinda, you know, freelance around. Wherever I’m needed.”
Another gust of wind whipped through the park. Lisa tugged a few wild strands of hair from her face. “What exactly do you…do?”
Again he offered that gentle, cagey smile. “I’m the guy they call when a young buck from one of the tribes, you know, goes off the reservation, ho ho. Scores some crank, hits a liquor store or two, walks off with the cash, and holes himself up somewhere with his girl. I try to talk him down. Before bad turns to worse.”
Lisa’s respect grew a bit more spine. “You’re a hostage negotiator.”
He shrugged. “Whatever it takes.”
“You work for the police, then.”
“Not always,” he said. “Seldom, in fact. Depends on who calls first.”
***
A guy the size of a linebacker stood at the door to Giordano’s office, ringing the bell. Rags studied him as they drove past, wondering who the hell he might be, what business he might have with the dead man, how hard he’d try to track him down.
Meanwhile, Wander took out a cell phone—Giordano’s, taken from his jacket after they stripped him naked—and speed-dialed the most frequently called number of late: Rankin’s.
He waited for the voicemail beep, then said, in perfect Giordanian: “Hey, it’s me. Listen, something’s come up. This keno girl I bagged in Bullhead City last year? Says she’s preggers with my kid. Thinks I’m a slot machine. I’ll deal with it, but it’s gotta be in person. You know what I’m saying. Be back in twenty-four hours, forty-eight tops. Temporary digression, nuttin’ serious. See ya soon.”
The cell phone tower would ping the call from near the office, offering no lead back to the abandoned house or the scratch of desert where the man’s piecemeal, incinerated remains lay scattered.
Wander thumbed off and handed the phone to Rags, who removed the battery and SIM card, wiped them down. When they’d traveled another couple blocks, he pitched them out the window into the back of a gravel hauler while Wander hit the CD player.
Isley Brothers: “Fight the Power” segueing into “Take Me to the Next Phase.”
***
As Elan walked off toward the government complex, Lisa checked her watch and rose to go, instantly lightheaded. What I wouldn’t give for a nap, she thought, steadying herself with the bench, and yet the fuzziness of mind felt tinged with foreboding.
You need to call the process server, she thought. Boonie. Tell him what you’ve learned. Warn him about the men working security, what they were capable of, the trigger-happy swagger, the lynchings in the mountains.
Before she could dig her phone from her purse, however, she heard Elan calling out. “One last thing?”
He sauntered back toward the bench, hands in his pockets, long hair swaying casually. No wonder he always talks in the present tense, she thought. If time were gravity, he’d be able to fly.
He gestured to her valise. “Your complaint. One of your causes of action is for conversion.”
“It’s the civil claim for theft,” she said.
“I know. That’s not my point. Littmann’s wife, Meredith’s her name, she’s got this condition called hysterical blindness. Ever hear of it?”
Where in the world, she thought, is this going? “Sure. It’s supposedly caused by emotional trauma. Some people think it’s bogus—I mean, psychosomatic.”
“Way I hear it, when she’s sixteen, she’s driving down some country road, top speed, falls asleep maybe, goes off into the ditch. When she wakes up, it’s in the hospital. And her vision is gone. Not totally but, you know, a lot.”
Lisa clutched the bench for balance again as she marveled at the symmetry. Except when I woke up from my car wreck, she thought, I finally began to see.
“That’s interesting,” she managed to say, “but I’m not sure—”
“You’re suing her husband for conversion. Know the technical term for hysterical blindness?”
“I don’t believe I do, no.”
“It’s called a conversion disorder.”
CHAPTER 26
The phone in the vestibule rang, meaning the guards at the Bristlecone’s gate were trying to get in touch with Gideon. Meredith picked up on the fifth ring. “Yes?”
“Sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Littmann.” It was Logan, head of the gaggle of roughnecks Gideon referred to as the security detail. “The judge isn’t answering his cell.”
Her husband was in the training arena at the far end of the south pasture, working with the trainer, some wranglers, and a small herd of yearlings, trying to drill some cow sense into the latest group of ponies they hoped to mold into cutters in time for next year’s Fort Worth Futurity. He’d probably switched off his phone to avoid interruption.
“Is there a problem?”
“There’s a paper hanger out here at the gate, ma’am.”
“Excuse me?”
“Process server. We figured we’d keep him here till we spoke with the judge.”
Interesting, she thought. Not quite mysterious but certainly odd. “Send him on up to the house.”
“Ma’am?”
“I’m right to assume our visitor is, in fact, a man?”
“Yes’m. He is that.” A deep breath, trailed by a sigh. “All right then. I’ll send somebody with him, make sure he doesn’t get lost.”
Good old Logan, she thought, hanging up. Such a wit.
***
She waited on the front porch, arms crossed, watching through the veil of haze that clouded her long-range eyesight as a distant churning plume of dust grew larger, clearer—the stranger’s car, she assumed, followed by a second bearing one or more of Gideon’s gunmen, traveling the long gravel drive that slalomed among cottonwoods and sycamores to connect the ranch’s front gate to the house.
Hearing footsteps behind her, she turned. “Everything
all right, Mrs. Littmann?”
It was Seth Kirkendahl, the guard who normally watched the house. Meaning her. He was perhaps the most presentable of the roughnecks, changed his shirt more than twice a week, took the occasional crack at a crossword puzzle, face always bright with a fresh clean shave.
“Everything’s lovely, young man. And how are you today?”
Despite knowing her well, having worked there almost a year, he blushed like a twelve-year-old. She’d learned to manage and even exploit this crush, to the point of letting him think of himself as a lovelorn protector, her knight.
“I’m fine, ma’am.” He nodded toward the distant whorl of dust. “Who’s this?”
“Someone bringing a bit of bother, apparently.”
She could feel him stiffen beside her. “Want me to handle it?”
“I doubt that’s an option, Seth. But thank you.”
***
The visitor’s car pulled up to the concrete skirt of the porch. A very large and, from what she could tell, not unattractive man appeared from behind the wheel. Shortly the second car also stopped, and two guards whose names she couldn’t place got out as well, crossing their arms as, through their sunglasses, they watched the visitor mount the broad stairway.
Seth gallantly took a step forward. Meredith, placing a gentle hand on his arm, drew him back.
Reaching the top, the process server said, “Afternoon, ma’am. I’m looking for Gideon Littmann?”
She had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. Like talking to a bust on a plinth. “I’m his wife. Can I help you?”
“My name’s Eric Boone. I have some legal papers for him.”
“I’ll accept them, if that’s all right.”
The big man nodded cordially, offering a smile. “Better if I serve him personally, Mrs. Littmann. Not to be a nuisance.”
She could feel Seth growing heated beside her. At the foot of the stairway, the other two guards, eyes walled off behind their shades, stood with hands on their sidearms.
“My husband’s unavailable at the moment. I can assure you, being that he’s a retired judge, he’s not one to dodge service or fail to appear if summoned. Whatever you need me to sign to validate service, I will.”
The man nodded cordially, went back to his car, easing between the two armed men, then returned with a pro-forma affidavit titled “Acceptance of Service by Spouse.” Holding it up close to her good eye, she read it through, signed under penalty of perjury.
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Littmann.”
“You’re more than welcome, Mr. Boone.”
Seth’s heat seemed to intensify. Oh grow up, she thought. We’re not flirting. It’s called being civil.
“I was wondering,” Boone said, “if you might know where I could find Mr. Rankin. I tried his office, but—”
“I think you should go now,” Seth said. “You got what you came for.”
“Seth, it’s all right. Please.” She turned to Boone: “I’d try the Café Olé on Cherokee in Benson. They have a lovely young waitress there Don likes to annoy.”
Boone bit back a smile and returned to his car. As he drove off, trailed once again by the two guards from the gate, Seth reached for the papers. “I can take those out to Judge Littmann if you’d like.”
She turned away. “That won’t be necessary, Seth.”
***
She fled to her room down the hallway lined with forgeries. Sitting on the edge of her narrow bed, she scoured the complaint and supporting affidavits—taking her time when she came to Tuck’s, trying to hear his voice, tracing her fingers across the words—then continuing on to the end, increasingly furious at the Honorable Gideon Littmann with every turned page.
How dare he, she thought. To pretend he bought those letters, tracked them down with me in mind, a gift. To subject that poor woman to such cruelty, tie her up, take her prisoner.
Then again, where was the surprise in that? How better to describe their marriage? He comes from such a good family, her mother always said. Good stock.
Oh yes, the aptly named Grays. But they were mere background compared to the paternal grandfather. Gustav Littmann.
Good old Gus.
The man arrived in Arizona during the mining strikes of World War I. Shortly he found work with the infamous Sheriff Harry Wheeler.
Labor strife was harming the war effort, at least that’s what the mining companies said, and so the strikers got tagged as German sympathizers, even saboteurs. Gus Littmann, to prove his patriotic bona fides, infiltrated the union, then testified before the kangaroo courts that convicted the members of treason, and thus gained his seat at the table of power, courtesy of the Citizens’ Protective League and Phelps Dodge Corporation.
Good family my lily-white ass.
And yet you married him. You caved. He was, admittedly, if nothing else, a relentless suitor.
And what did it matter? With real love impossible, hounded by your parents to end the silliness, make a good match, what difference did a sham wedding make?
Let him marry the rich girl who blinded herself in despair.
She pitched the documents across the room then went to her closet and pushed away a wall of blouses, exposing the safe where she’d tucked away the antique velvet parcel. Retrieving it, she returned to her bed, untied the old silk ribbon, and leafed through the powdery, brittle envelopes, pulling two out at random, suddenly more intrigued than ever at what the letters might say.
CHAPTER 27
July 6, 1877
My Dearest John Henry:
I have entrusted this letter to our cousin George, whom the family has chosen to travel west to where reportedly you now lay near death.
I have to confess that it requires great strain to keep my hand from trembling as I write. Absent explanation from you, I am left to imagine the quarrel that led to your being brought so close to the grave.
Did you fire first, or did your adversary, as they say, get the jump on you? And what sort of man was he—just another sore loser, which you indicate is the kind of moral defective most likely to take offense at your “abject savage” manner?
Forgive me if I seem callous or harsh. The thought of you so cavalierly dismissing the senseless risks of your way of life, only to end up mortally wounded, has made me both utterly furious and terribly afraid.
If you only knew the horrible nights I have spent racked with insomnia, pacing the floor in darkness when not kneeling in desperate prayer. If you only knew into how many pieces you have shattered my heart.
As I noted in my last letter, I had reached a point where I could no longer go back and forth wondering if my continuing devotion to you spoke to the nobler aspects of my heart, or were instead corrupted by vanity and deceit. With no response from you to guide me, I was obliged to face myself soberly, sternly, and honestly.
I came away with the sad conviction that I had misplaced my affections, and that you had chosen your westward path with no intention of circling back home. And so, with a grieving spirit, I closed that door of my heart to better widen the one devoted to God.
Then we received word of your being shot and in desperate need. My immediate, unguarded thought was: Go to him. He has won the battle of wills by placing himself on the altar of mortality. So be it. Admit the truth of what you feel and put aside your stubborn pride.
With all that in mind, I prepared myself to step forward and tell the family that I would go to Texas and nurse you, with the object of finally retrieving you home.
Secretly, I did not know if I would return. Why not abide his wish, I thought, and stay with him, make a life together far beyond the reach of scandalous rumors and small-minded gossip?
However, I shortly discovered the family had already chosen their caretaker. George had earned the right, so the argument went, through his able service when only a boy as a cadet in the defense of Savannah. He has no family obligations to restrain him from travel and time away, and he can capably take care of himself and you.
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I can imagine you asking why I did not fight harder to take his place, or at the very least accompany him. The answer is threefold.
First, the logic of the decision seemed sound. I do, indeed, have many obligations here, concerning both family and my students, and though not irreplaceable, I suppose, I remain nonetheless much needed, the steadfast spinster upon whom so many rely.
Second, the issue of appearances could not be dismissed cavalierly. Rushing off to be by your side, regardless how needful and dire your condition, would arouse shameless talk. You know the world we live in.
Third, and most importantly, given a brake to my impetuous desire to flee to your side, I had time to think the matter through. When I did, I reflected on my previous confession to you of how, in darker moments, I felt responsible for the increasingly insidious turn of your mind.
Imagine how much more deeply my guilt afflicted me when you wrote back that, though you appreciated the family’s protective concern and loyalty, you no longer could even consider a place among us as home. The stark and bitter loneliness of those words! I doubt I have ever felt more helpless before the utter wicked chaos of life.
And yet, despite these admissions of guilt on your part, you not only resumed your ways, but fell into even greater peril, to the point of getting yourself shot by some scoundrel. I could not help but wonder if, despite your obvious state of distress, you did not also possess some sly intention of luring me west, resorting to the extreme ploy of placing yourself before the door of death in order, at last, to summon me to your side.
Forgive me, but I could not convince myself that this might not be the truth. And so I surrendered to the general will within the family. Rather than going to you in person, I wrote this letter, handing it to George for personal delivery.
The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday Page 13