Black Sun Descending (13 page)

“How can I help you?” Love wore a golf shirt and a pair of jeans. He had a deep tan. The light from the cab of the truck backlit his salt and pepper hair.

“Are you Paul Love?”

“That's me.”

“Silas Pearson. I was a friend of Jane Vaughn. Do you have a moment for a few questions?”

“What about?” Love had gone back to making notes on his clipboard.

“Maybe you haven't heard—”

“Heard what?”

“Jane Vaughn's body was found. She's dead.”

Love stopped a moment and looked down at Pearson. “You a cop?”

“No. Like I said, just a friend. An acquaintance, really.”

“I've got a manifest to complete for tomorrow's trip, boats to finish rigging, and a group of
VIP
s up in the campground to orientate. I'm pretty busy here.”

“I just wanted to know when the last time you saw Jane was.”

“I don't recall. A year? Two? She was busting my balls about something at a public hearing. I didn't really know her.”

“Really? Weren't the two of you pen pals?”

Love laughed. “If by that you mean she wrote me a lot, telling me that she was going to shut my business down, take away my livelihood, bankrupt my family, and leave my kids on the street, then sure, we were
pen pals
.”

“That doesn't sound like Jane. She said those things?”

“Not in so many words. But she wanted to designate the Colorado as capital-W wilderness. That means no motorized access. That would kill my business.”

“That's an interesting choice of words, Mr. Love.”

“What the hell do you mean?” Love put the clipboard down and Silas took a step back from the open door of the idling truck.

“It's just that you sent a letter to Jane Vaughn telling her that she should go and drown herself in Lake Powell.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I read the letter. Jane has it on file. The
FBI
likely has it too.”

“I told her to go and jump in Lake Powell.”

“The intent was clear, Mr. Love.”

“She wrote me to explain that she was going to propose a wilderness study area in the next round of management planning for the Colorado River. I wrote her back. That's all that was.”

“Well, she had your letter with others in a file that she considered to be threatening. Why do you think that is?”

“Listen, Sherlock, I don't know who you think you are, but I'm not answering any more questions from you. If the
FBI
want to talk with me, they can sign up for a river trip. I leave tomorrow for seven days. But you—I don't have to talk with you for another second. I'm done.” Love put the clipboard on the truck's seat and jumped down from the cab. He was an agile man and stood as tall as Silas but outweighed him by twenty pounds. Silas took another step backwards.

“Jane Vaughn was murdered, Mr. Love. She was beaten to death, and her body dumped near Moab.”

“I'm real sorry to hear that. But I didn't have anything to do with it. Now, excuse me.”

“What about Chas Hinkley?”

“The superintendent from Glen Canyon? What about him?”

“I've heard he's a silent investor in your business. That's a conflict of interest, isn't it? If you were shut down to make way for Wilderness designation, he'd be out a lot of cash, wouldn't he?”

Love stood there, facing Silas in the dark. Silas could feel sweat forming under his arms and along his back. “Listen, Pearson, you should back off. I mean, back the fuck off. I've got a business to run and important guests to take care of. I didn't have anything to do with Jane Vaughn's death. I'm sorry she was killed. I am. And her death doesn't mean that I'm out of hot water over plans for Wilderness, if that's what you're thinking. If you think one dead environmentalist means I can breathe easy, you're fucking nuts. Arizona, Utah, they're full of zealots trying to shut people out of the national parks and run people out of the backcountry. Half of the goddamned state belongs to the Sierra Club and the fucking Wilderness Society. If Jane Vaughn isn't trying to ruin my business, someone else will. So don't go pointing your finger at me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to look in on my boats.”

Love brushed past Silas and walked down toward the river. Silas watched the last light of evening fade from the Colorado as he did. He drew a deep breath, walked away from the idling truck, and found his way in the dark back to the campground.

“DON'T JUMP,” SAID HAYDUKE, WHO
was waiting for Silas at the picnic table.

Silas jumped. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.”

“I mean, what are you doing in Lee's Ferry?”

“Same thing you are. Trying to find out what happened to Jane.”

“Did you follow me here?”

“No, not really. I followed the trail here. Just like you. Been here an hour or two . . . but I just got
here
a few minutes ago. Do you have any beer?”

Silas stood in the dark deciding what to do. After a long moment of silence he said, “Sure. But they're warm.”

“Beer's beer. I don't care.”

Silas unlocked the back of the Outback and took two more beers from the bottom of his cooler. He handed one to Hayduke and opened one for himself. Hayduke popped the top of the can, warm beer frothing over his hand. The young man licked the foam from his mitt and the top of the can and then put his hairy lips over the opening and started drinking. He finished the can without stopping, belched, and crushed the tin in his meaty hand.

Silas watched him with a mixture of repulsion and amazement. Josh Charleston was trying so hard to match the persona of Edward Abbey's character that he must believe he was, in fact, Hayduke.

“I just talked with Paul Love.”

“I know. When I got here I went down to have a look at the ol' Colorado. I saw you there. I snuck around to the other side of the truck and listened. Fuck, that rig is loud. I practically had to sit in the cab next to that asshole Love to hear what you were saying.”

Silas watched him in astonishment. “You know, Josh, I don't know whether to be amazed or horrified by you.”

“Most people don't. The fact is, this Love guy is dirty. He and Chas Hinkley are cooking something up. Hinkley is investing in Love's business, and that's a serious no-no for a guy in his position. Love's worried that the wilder-nuts will take away his little rubber boats and that will be the end of his business. These two had every reason in the world not to want Jane Vaughn around.”

“Well, if you were listening in, you would have heard Love say that if it wasn't Jane, then it would be someone else.”

“That's true. Lots of enviros have their hooks into this issue, but the fact is Jane was leading that fight. She and Penny, that is.”

“Let's leave Penny out of this. That just confuses the matter. You don't think that Jane was just another activist causing trouble?”

“She was the one going to sue the feds over this. She was organizing locals and setting up a boycott of Grand Canyon Adventures and other outfitters.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I was there when she started it all, and you told me to stay in Flag and get some more info, so I did.”

“But now you're here.”

“Jane was planning what the mainstream greenies call ‘consumer action' against Grand Canyon Adventures. Paul Love is leading a special familiarization tour for some dignitaries starting tomorrow. I put two and two together and decided to come and brace him.”

“Did you?”

“No, you got to him first.”

Silas drank the rest of his beer. “When did Jane start planning the boycott?”

“Oh man, like, two years ago. But the plan was to put it into place this spring. She disappeared in November and nobody picked up the ball.”

“You think Paul Love and Chas Hinkley killed her to stop it?”

“I think it's as good a reason to kill someone as any.”

Silas didn't have a response for that. “What do you want to do?”

“Get another beer. Maybe have something to eat?”

“I mean, about Paul Love?”

“I don't think
we'll
need to do anything. He'll come to us.”

SHE WAS SITTING CROSS-LEGGED ON
a bare reef of iron-red sandstone. She had her eyes closed. He stood before her, the blue sky circling, the red earth stretching as far as he could see. Eyes held lightly shut, she spoke. “Oh black and scarlet banners of revolt! Of hope!” and then she opened her eyes and winked at him. “Of free beer!” She threw her raven-black hair back and laughed, and the sandstone all around him trembled with the sound of it.

SILAS WOKE TO
the sound of a canyon wren, its tremolo like falling water over flat stones in the distance, like far-off laugher. It was just light when he crawled from the tent and set up his stove to make the day's first cup of coffee. He stood in the ephemeral light, watching the walls of the Marble Gorge come alive, tears still streaking his windburnt, unshaven face.

He went to the Outback and took out the large metal ammo can that served as his portable library. These boxes, surplused by the thousands after the Vietnam War, were virtually watertight and indestructible. They had become the handbag of any serious river-runner. He popped the lid and the iron smell inside greeted him. Within the box were paperback copies of twenty-two books. He kept this collection separate from the copies of the same books on his shelf in the austere living room at home. This set was for traveling.

The phrase his wife had spoken in his dream was hard to place. It sounded like something Abbey either wrote or quoted in his non­fiction, and Silas knew it wasn't from
Desert Solitaire
. He started with
Abbey's Road
, then
Down the River
, and finally started leafing through
Beyond the Wall
. When he checked the table of contents for that book, he knew where to look. The essay was “Days and Nights on Old Pariah.” Silas was camped less than a mile from where the Pariah, or Paria, River emptied into the Colorado. He quickly found the line, and then reread the essay.

The treatise was a classic Ed Abbey affair: rambling and first-person, about a trip Cactus Ed had done down Buckskin Gulch and up the Paria, slogging through quicksand and swimming in brackish water holes. Abbey had used the essay to at once extol the virtues of the Paria—what he called one of his favorite, secret places in the canyon country—and to admonish the masses to stay away.

Silas smiled at the irony. The essay, and Abbey's exaltations of the Paria's virtues, was one of the main reasons the Bureau of Land Management now had to issue permits and place restrictions on the number of campers in the narrow slot canyon every year.

Silas read the essay a second time and then contemplated the scene around him. He watched someone walk past his campsite carrying a smaller version of the same ammo can he used. The tourist bid him good morning and Silas smiled back.
GRAND CANYON BOATMEN
was stenciled on the side of the ammo box.

Silas knew where he would find Kiel Pearce.

SILAS WAS ABOUT
to get his day pack ready when he heard his name called from down the road. “Pearson?”

Paul Love came around the corner on the campground road, red-faced, hands balled into fists.

Silas looked around to see what he could use to defend himself and decided that all he had was his intelligence, a feeble defense at that.

“There you are, you son of a bitch.”

Silas stood his ground. There was nowhere else to go. “What do you want, Love?”

“I want a fucking explanation!”

“For what?”

“Don't treat me like a fool, you bastard. I want an explanation for this!” He held up a sheared-off key in Silas's face. He held it so close that Silas had to step back to focus on it.