A Dead Man's Tale (7 page)

The Chickasaw’s Proposal

Charlie Moon ushered his guest to the place where important business on the Columbine was generally conducted. Lyle Thoms seated himself at the tribal investigator’s kitchen table, in a chair that was still warm from Sweetwater’s recent presence.

Figuring he knew more or less what was coming, Moon waited.
Best thing is to let the old man have his say, then figure out how to handle things.

Lyle Thoms got right to the point. “I want a man killed.”

Moon didn’t blink. “That’s all?”

“No.” Not given to subtleties, Thoms was immune to sarcasm. “I’ll need proof that he’s dead. You can scalp him or cut off his private parts—whatever suits you. Just send me something so I’ll know you got the job done.” To facilitate the mailing, Thoms recited his four-digit post office box number in Tishomingo, Oklahoma, which—and this was one of those peculiar coincidences that is bound to occur from time to time—also specified the day and month of Daisy Perika’s birthday.

Which naturally intensified the old woman’s interest.

Yes, Charlie Moon’s inquisitive auntie was enjoying her favorite pastime.

Daisy Gets an Earful

From the Ute elder’s self-centered point of view, her practice of eavesdropping on other folks’ private conversations did not represent a character flaw. She was merely pursuing an interesting and enlightening hobby. And it was great fun to sneak around and find out things you were not supposed to know.

Which was why Daisy had slipped out of her slippers, left her walking stick in her bedroom, and managed to creep along the hallway without creaking a single board in the thick oak floor.
This time, that sharp-eared nephew of mine won’t know I’m here.

Charlie Moon Plays Along

“So who is this fellow that needs killing?”

“Posey Shorthorse.” Lyle Thoms pulled a wallet from his hip pocket and removed something from behind a thick wad of greenbacks. He pushed it across the kitchen table to his host.

Moon picked up the snapshot of a muscular young man.
He looks mean as a stepped-on rattlesnake.

“That’s Shorthorse.” Thoms’s thin lips twisted into a distasteful grimace. “He’s a Chickasaw—one of our bad ones.” He pushed another item across the oilcloth.

Moon looked at the blank rectangle of paper. He turned it over to discover a stylistic representation of a lizard.
That looks like something you might find painted in the bottom of a Mimbres pot.
The reptile’s tail was curled around its body three times.

“That’s my business card,” Thoms said. “This year, I’m head man of the Blue Lizard Clan.” He looked searchingly at the Ute. “Shorthorse got my fourteen-year-old granddaughter pregnant, then beat her up so bad she lost the baby. After that, he went off and left her alone.” He exhaled a deep sigh. “Poor little girl went stone crazy. Soon as she was able to walk, she went down to the creek and drowned herself.” Thoms thumped his knuckles on the table. “I want Shorthorse killed.” He thumped it twice. “The clan wants him killed.” A triple thump. “And we’ll get it done one way or another.” A thoughtful pause. “Problem is, Shorthorse knows we’re after him.” He raised his knuckles again, paused. “Late last year, we got word that he was bumming around out in Los Angeles, living off women. We sent a Chickasaw warrior out there. Our young man never came home.” Thoms took a sip of strong black coffee and made a face as he swallowed. “We figure Shorthorse must’ve killed him and then left L.A. I figured the bastard was gone for good, but just last week I got word that he’d been seen in Granite Creek.”

From long experience, the tribal cop realized that chances were no better than one in ten that the man who’d been spotted was the Chickasaw that Lyle Thoms wanted killed.
And even if it was Posey Shorthorse, he was probably just passing through.
But Oscar Sweetwater’s old friend had to be treated with faultless respect. “Do you have any other information that might help me find him?”

Lyle Thoms stared at the Ute. “Would it help if I gave you his address?”

“Well…that might come in handy.”

“If I knew where Shorthorse hung his hat, I’d have already shot him dead.” The Chickasaw’s face was like stone.

The Ute could not suppress a grin.

“You’ll take care of him, then?” There was a steely glint in Thoms’s eye.

“I’ll look into it.”
First chance I get.
A bad apple like this was probably wanted for several felonies.
If I find out the fellow’s in town, I’ll turn Scott Parris loose on him.

“Good.” Thoms helped himself to a deep breath. “That’s settled, then.”

The Spy Barely Averts Discovery

She did it with two fingers. It happened like this: Daisy Perika felt a sneeze coming on. A great big one. The kind that can blow the ham and eggs right off your plate.

Did she panic? Not a chance.

The tough old lady pinched her nostrils shut and held her breath until she thought her head was going to swell up like a balloon and explode all over the place.

But it didn’t.

And the “ah-choo!” gave up before Daisy did.

Moon is Snookered

The head man of the Chickasaw Blue Lizard Clan drummed his fingers on the kitchen table’s red-and-white-checkered oilcloth for a moment, then paused. “Let’s talk about your fee.”

The needy rancher waited in respectful silence.

“I’ve thought about it.” The Chickasaw studied the Ute’s best poker face. “If I was to pay you for swatting a fly buzzing around my head, that’d be worth maybe fifty cents. If I needed you to kill a rabid dog on my front porch, I’d pay…say, fifty dollars. Then, if I wanted you to get rid of a man, that’d be worth more.”

Moon’s poker face slipped a half smidgen.
How much more?

A fair hand at seven-card stud, Lyle Thoms read Moon’s expression and answered the question. “Let’s say…twenty thousand dollars cash money.”

The tribal investigator blinked. “That’s a fair price.”

“Yes it is, for a killing a
man.
” Thoms leaned toward Moon and spat the words across the table at the Ute. “But Posey Shorthorse ain’t no man. He ain’t even a green snake or a dung beetle.”

Charlie Moon wondered where this was going.

Lyle Thoms told him. “For ridding the world of a
nothing
like that, I’ll pay you twenty-five cents.”

The supposed assassin cocked his head.
Did he really say—

“I know you’d be glad to do it for free—but it’s an insult, see?” Realizing from Moon’s bemused expression that he wasn’t quite getting through, the Chickasaw elder put it this way: “Before you execute Shorthorse, make sure that low-down bastard knows you’re doing the job for
two bits.
”

After barely suppressing a disastrous sneeze, Daisy Perika came very near giving herself away by laughing out loud. Deciding on a tactical retreat, the tribal elder withdrew to her bedroom, where she let the chuckle out—and then busied herself with packing for the drive south in Sarah Frank’s pickup.

There is Absolutely No Place

Like home, of course.

When Sarah Frank and Daisy Perika arrived at the tribal elder’s remote dwelling for an overnight stay, tears formed in the old woman’s eyes. There could be no doubt about it, everything was better here than on the Columbine—including the sky, which was of a deeper hue of blue. And those halfhearted birdsongs on Charlie’s ranch couldn’t hold a candle to the crooning of robins and bluebirds in
Cañón del Espíritu
and…
The air here makes me feel twenty years younger!
Before going inside, Daisy took time to inhale a dose of that vaporous elixir. After shivering in those chill winds that whistled on her nephew’s ranch, the warmth of this sweet afternoon breeze felt ever so welcoming. Indeed, the moist breath exhaled from the mouth of Spirit Canyon carried delectable hints of an early summer, and familiar scents of savory herbs and enticing spices that Daisy gathered to concoct everything from arcane medications to tasty soups and salads.

Fine as they were, the sky, birdsongs, air, and flora were just for openers.

At the instant she stepped over her threshold, the homesick woman was almost overwhelmed by the inexpressible joy of…
being back where I belong again!

Daisy’s creaky rocker by the parlor hearth was miles more comfortable than any chair in Charlie Moon’s log house, and the tired old soul knew that tonight she would sleep like the blessed dead…
and in my very own bed
!

But what is home without a neighbor? Daisy will say, “Just the way I like it!”

But even for this cantankerous old lady, it depends upon the personality of the nearby resident, and after Mrs. Perika has been abroad for a while her standards tend to become relaxed. So much so that even a formerly detestable face can be a welcome sight.

Which explains why Daisy was eager to pay a call on the only more or less mortal soul within an hour’s walk. Even though the Ute shaman was not particularly fond of the dwarf, the
pitukupf
was a singular resident in a community populated primarily by such run-of-the-mill society as wild animals and spirits of dead people. The eccentric citizen whom she aimed to visit was a remarkable little man who had spent the better part of his thousand or so years within the shadowy sanctum of
Cañón del Espíritu
—most recently, as the sole occupant of an abandoned badger hole.

There were two reasons for Daisy’s desire to see the wily
pitukupf
.

The first was friendship. Though their relationship had been checkered by the occasional misunderstanding, the little man was (excepting the raven) Daisy’s only friend in the vicinity. But that term of endearment can be misleading. They were friends only
after a fashion
—in the sense that aged warriors David and Goliath (had the oversized Philistine not perished during their initial encounter) might have become jolly comrades after the wars who would (whilst tipping pewter mugs of mulled ale) debate the relative merits of shepherd’s slings and gigantic spears. The relationship between Daisy and the dwarf was, to put it simply—complex. Not so very long ago, the annoying little trickster had vexed the volatile old woman to the point that she had very nearly
beaten her tiny neighbor to death
.

Please don’t ask. It was an embarrassing incident, best forgotten.

Daisy’s second reason for desiring an audience with the dwarf had to do with the recent visit to the Columbine Ranch by one Delilah Darkwing, who had urged the tribal elder to arrange a meeting with the
pitukupf
. Needless to say, urgings by ravens are ignored at one’s peril. Minutes earlier, when Sarah pulled her red pickup into Daisy’s front yard, that feathered personage had been perched expectantly on the topmost branch of a juniper. In the Ute-Papago girl’s presence, the shaman and the raven had limited their exchange to meaningful glances.

Daisy deposited her suitcase in the bedroom and advised Sarah that she was going to “take a little walk.”

Stiff from the long drive and brimming over with pent-up energy, the eighteen-year-old was ready for a hike. “Where to?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” The elder avoided the youth’s hopeful gaze. “I just want to go have a look at things.”

“What things?”

Daisy bristled at this cross-examination. “Rocks. Trees. Skunks. Centipedes. Whatever I happen to come across!” The edgy old woman leaned against her stout oak staff, took a deep breath—and explained so that even a teenager could understand: “I want to be
by myself
for a while and enjoy some peace and quiet.” She jutted her chin in a defiant gesture. “While I’m gone, you can fix us some supper.”

Sarah arched a doubtful brow. “Well…okay.”
I guess.
“What do you want to eat?”

“I’m not picky.” Charlie Moon’s aunt shrugged. “Anything that don’t smell bad or try to bite me back.”

Daisy’s Time Alone

That was her intention, but she was never entirely without company.

Miss Darkwing was never far from Daisy Perika’s side; the gossipy raven flew from huckleberry bush to aspen sapling to mossy boulder to aged ponderosa—all the while updating the tribal elder on recent events such as births, deaths, feuds, mysterious disappearances, and newcomers in the canyon. Not to mention dreadful omens, thunderous rumblings from Cloud Woman, fiery night-sky portents, and the like.

As Daisy trod her breathless way into Spirit Canyon along the slightly upgrade deer path, she also encountered a lonely disembodied soul who was determined to bend her ear, a cheeky chipmunk who demanded a handout
or else,
and a cheeky little rattlesnake who coiled under a winterkilled Apache plume—all of whom she pointedly ignored. In addition to these residents, not a few pairs of unseen eyes watched the aged woman’s progress with considerable interest—and not all of them belonged to such common residents as mule deer, squirrels, cottontails, badgers, and ghosts.

With much huffing, puffing, grunting, and groaning, Daisy finally arrived at her destination. She was in for a disappointment. After tapping her walking stick on the ground by the badger hole and calling out several times, she was forced to conclude that the dwarf was not at home.
It’s just like the ugly little wart not to be here when I want to talk to him.
The disgruntled visitor kicked a stone into the entrance of the
pitukupf
’s underground dwelling, but this did not satisfy. Charlie Moon’s annoyed aunt looked around for someone to complain to, but the raven—who presumably had some pressing business to attend to—was nowhere to be seen.

Daisy’s feet ached liked she’d walked ninety miles.
Before I head back to my house, I’ll sit down and rest for a while.

The familiar ponderosa log was within a few yards of the badger hole, where it had fallen years ago. She seated herself on the rotting trunk, gazed at the twilighting sky, and commenced to wonder where on earth the
pitukupf
might have gone. But not for long.

“Yikes!”

Someone or some
thing
had tapped a finger on Daisy’s shoulder.

A smallish finger.

The startled woman turned to see the little man, who was standing on the log beside her. The
pitukupf
’s wicked grin enraged the shaman, and she was about to brain the impudent rascal with her oak staff when she remembered the reason she’d come to visit her after-a-fashion friend. Knocking the dwarf’s head
clean off
(in B’rer Bear fashion) would not materially enhance her chances of finding out why the dwarf had dispatched Delilah Darkwing to summon Daisy Perika to an urgent meeting.