Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 03] (23 page)

“From the beginning this time.” Tull said nothing. Leaphorn pushed the on button. “You were warned,” the tape began. “But our people have seen policemen in the territory …” When the recorder reached the list of bodies, Leaphorn stopped it. “I want you to notice,” he shouted to Tull, “there’s a name missing from this list. Notice it’s the name of your buddy’s brother. I want you to think about that.”

Leaphorn thought of it himself. Bits of the puzzle fell into place.

He knew now who had written the letter summoning Father Benjamin Tso to his grandfather’s hogan. Goldrims had written it himself. He felt a chill admiration for the mind that had conceived such a plan.

Hoski had realized he could not escape from the manhunt. It would be massive and inexorable. So he had devised a way to abort it. What the dynamite left of his brother, as Hoski had arranged it, would be found with the shattered radio and identified as Hoski’s body.

Everyone would thus be accounted for. There would be no one left to hunt. As he realized this, Leaphorn also realized that his own problem had been multiplied. Goldrims would have to respond to Tull’s radioed call for help. He couldn’t risk having Leaphorn, or anyone who had seen Father Tso, escape from the cave. Hoski would have to come back. Leaphorn pushed the play button again, ran the tape, pushed stop, pushed rewind. He was awed by it. Perfect.

Flawless. Impeccable. It left nothing to chance. The big score for James Tso would not just be the ransom. The big score would be a new life, free from surveillance, free from hiding. There would be no reason to question the identity of the body. Hoski had never been arrested or fingerprinted. And no one knew the priest was here. No one, that is, who would remain alive. And there was a family resemblance. “Hey, Tull,” Leaphorn yelled. “Have you counted the bodies? There’s Jackie, and all those Boy Scouts, and the woman, and one of the Tso brothers, and you. You’re there on the list of dead, Tull. But your friend Hoski is going to be alive and well. And wealthy, too.” Tull said nothing. “Goddamn it, Tull,” Leaphorn shouted. “Think! He’s screwing you. He’s screwing the Buffalo Society. Kelongy won’t see a dollar of that ransom. Hoski’s going to disappear with it.” Leaphorn listened and heard nothing but the echoes of his own voice dying in the cave. He hoped Tull was thinking. Hoski would disappear. And someday a man with another name and another identity would appear in Washington, and contact a woman named Rosemary Rita Oliveras. And somewhere, wherever he was hiding, a madman named Kelongy would wonder what went wrong with his crazy scheme and perhaps he would mourn his brilliant lieutenant. But there was no time to think of that now. Leaphorn glanced at his wrist watch. It was 2:47 A.M. In an hour and thirteen minutes it would be time to broadcast the answers that would keep the law at bay for another two hours. What had been Hoski’s timing? He had called the helicopter to deliver the ransom at 4 A.M. Probably he would have picked up the money about two-thirty. When was the Hallicrafters set timed to broadcast its tape, and to detonate its bomb? Since Hoski would want to make sure that broadcast was recorded, he’d probably time it at one of the regular two-hour broadcasts. But how soon? Leaphorn tried to concentrate, to shut out the throbbing of his hip, the aching fatigue, the damp, mushroom smell of this watery part of the cave. It would be soon. Hoski would need very little running time. An hour or two of darkness would be enough to get well clear of the cave and its neighborhood. Because there’d be no search once that tape was aired. There would only be a great flocking of everybody to find this point on the map—the smoking mouth of a cave. There would be chaos. The hunted would have been found. Hoski/goldrims, safely outside the circle of confusion, would simply walk away. Leaphorn was suddenly confident he understood the timing of Hoski’s plan. “Tull,” Leaphorn shouted.

“Can’t you see the son-of-a-bitch set you up? Use your head.”

“No,” Tull said. “Not him. You made that tape up.”

“It’s his voice,” Leaphorn shouted. “Can’t you recognize his voice?” Silence. “He didn’t tell you why he moved his brother away from the Boy Scouts, did he?” Leaphorn shouted. “He didn’t tell you about this tape. He didn’t tell you about the bomb.”

“Hell, man,” Tull said. “I helped him put them together. I’ve got one right here with me, by this radio set here. And when the time comes, it’s going to blow you to hell.”

“You and me together, Tull,” Leaphorn said. And as he said it, he heard the muffled purring of an outboard motor. “You weren’t here when he made one of those bombs,” Leaphorn said. “And he didn’t tell you about it. Or about that tape. Or about broadcasting it over that spare radio. Come on, Tull. You were the sucker in Santa Fe. You think you’re immortal, but don’t you get tired of being the one who gets screwed?” Tull said nothing. Over the echoes of his own words, Leaphorn could hear the purring motor. “Think,” he shouted. “Count the dynamite sticks. There were twenty-four in the box. He used some to seal the other end of the cave. And some in a bomb to wipe out the Scouts, and you probably have a couple there. So does it all add up to twenty-four?” Silence. It wasn’t going to work. The tone of the outboard motor had changed now. It was inside the cave. “You said there was dynamite in a sack by that Hallicrafters,” Tull said.

“Is that what you said?” His voice sounded weak now, pained. “How many sticks did you say?”

“Two sticks,” Leaphorn said. “How many dynamite caps?”

“Just one,” Leaphorn said. “I think just one. With a wire connected.” The purring of the outboard stopped. “I’ll bet Hoski set the timers himself,” Leaphorn said. “I’ll bet he told you that bomb with you there will go off about six o’clock. You’re going to make the four o’clock broadcast and then cut out and run for it.

But he set the timer a couple of hours early.”

“Hey, Jimmy,” Tull yelled. “He’s over here.”

“What’s he have?” Hoski yelled. “Just Jackie’s shotgun? Is that all?” Hoski’s voice came from the water’s edge, still a long way off. “God damn it, Tull,” Leaphorn shouted.

“Don’t be stupid. He’s screwing you again, I tell you. He’s got you listed among the dead on that tape, so you gotta be dead when they get here.”

“He just has the shotgun,” Tull shouted. “Move around behind him.”

“He set the timer up on that bomb you have,” Leaphorn shouted. “Can’t you understand he has to kill you, too?”

“No,” Tull said. “Jimmy’s my friend.” It was almost a scream. “He left you at Santa Fe. He didn’t tell you about that tape. He’s got you listed with the dead. He set the timer …”

“Shut up,” Tull said. “Shut up.

You’re wrong, damn you, and I can prove it.” Tull’s voice rose to a scream. “God damn you, I can prove you’re wrong.” The tone, the hysteria, told Leaphorn more than the words. He knew, with a sick horror, exactly what Tull meant when he said he could prove it.

“He’s talking crap,” Goldrims was shouting, his voice much closer now. “He’s lying to you, Tull. What the hell are you doing?”

Leaphorn was scrambling to his feet. Tull’s voice was saying: “I can just move this little hour hand up to …”

“Don’t,” Goldrims screamed, and Tull’s voice was cut off by the sound of a pistol shot.

Leaphorn was running as fast as heart and legs and lungs would let him run, thinking that each yard of distance from the center of the blast increased his chances for survival. From behind him came the sound of Goldrims screaming Tull’s name, and another shot. And then the blast. It was bright, as if a thousand flash bulbs lit the gray-white interior of the cavern. Then the shock wave hit Leaphorn and sent him tumbling and sliding over the calcite floor, slamming finally into something. Leaphorn became aware that he could hear nothing and see nothing. Perhaps he had lost consciousness long enough for the echoes to die away. He noticed his nose was bleeding and felt below his face. There were only a few drops of wetness on the stony floor. Little time had passed. He sat up gingerly. When the flash blindness subsided enough so that he could read his watch, it was 2:57. Leaphorn hurried. First he found his flashlight behind the rocks where he had left it, with the shotgun nearby. Next he found two boats—a small three-man affair with an outboard engine, and a flat-bottomed fiberglass model with a muffled inboard. In its bottom was a green nylon backpack and a heavy canvas bag. Leaphorn zipped the bag open. Inside were dozens of small plastic packages.

Leaphorn fished one out, opened it and shone his flashlight onto tight bundles of twenty-dollar bills. He returned the pouch and carried the backpack and bag into the cave. Near the blackened area where James Tso and John Tull had died, he stopped, swung the heavy bag and sent the ransom money sliding down the cave floor into the darkness. By the time he had everyone in the boats it was after 3 A. M. At ten minutes after three, both boats purred out of the cave mouth and into open water. The night seemed incredibly bright. It was windless. A half moon hung halfway down the western sky.

Leaphorn quickly got his directions. It was probably eighty miles down the lake to the dam and the nearest telephone—at least four or five hours. Leaphorn’s hip throbbed. To hell with that, he thought.

There would surely be aerial surveillance. Let someone else do some work. He picked up the spare gasoline can, screwed off the cap, floated it on the lake surface, and—as it drifted away—butlasted it with his shotgun. It erupted into flame and burned, a bright blue-white beacon reflecting from the water, lighting the cliff walls around them, lighting the dirty, exhausted faces of eleven Boy Scouts. Normally it wouldn’t be noticed in this lonely country. But tonight it would be. Tonight anything would be noticed. At three-forty-two he heard the plane. High at first, but circling. Leaphorn pointed his flashlight up. Blinked it off and on. The plane came low, buzzed the boat with landing lights on. It looked like an army reconnaissance craft. Now Leaphorn was keeping his eye on the dark shape where cliff and water met—and the darkness that hid the cave mouth. The second hand of his watch swept past 4 A.M. Nothing happened. The hand swept down, and up, and down again. At 4:02 the blackness at the cliff base became a blinding flash of white light.

Seconds passed. A tremendous muffled thump echoed across the water, followed by a rumbling. Slabs of rocks falling inside the cave. Too many rocks for the white men to remove to clear the path to Standing Medicine’s sand paintings, Leaphorn thought. But not too many rocks to remove to salvage a canvas bag heavy with cash. A foot-high shock wave from the blast spread rapidly toward them across the mirrorlike surface of the lake. The reflected stars rippled. It reached the boat, rocked it abruptly, and moved down the lake. They sat, waiting.

Leaphorn stared over the side, into the clear, dark water. Somewhere down below would be the hiding place of the helicopter, and the grave of Haas. He imagined how it happened. Haas with a gun in his ribs hovering the craft over this same boat, the bank loot being lowered into it, the passengers climbing down. Had they shot him then, or left a bomb aboard to be triggered when the copter was a safer fifty yards away? Whatever method, it left a trail impossible to follow. From down the lake came the sound of another helicopter, traveling low and fast toward them. How many, like Haas, had died to make Goldrims’s trail impossible to follow? Hosteen Tso and Anna Atcitty, certainly, and almost certainly Frederick Lynch. Leaphorn considered how it must have happened. Goldrims had been told of the secret cavern as the oldest son. He had stocked it as the base for this operation, and killed his grandfather to keep the secret safe.

Then he must have returned to Washington. Why Washington? Kelongy must be there with the Buffalo Society’s funds from the Santa Fe robbery. And when the time came for the kidnapping, Goldrims had returned to Safety Systems, Inc., and taken the dog he had coveted and corrupted and his ex-employer’s car, and left Frederick Lynch in no condition to report the theft and in no place where he would ever be found again. That crime, Leaphorn guessed, would have been as much personal vendetta as motivated by actual need. As for Tull, he was simply something useful. And as for Benjamin Tso … Theodora Adams interrupted his thoughts. “Why did Ben do that?” she asked, in a choked voice. “It was like he knew he would be killed. Did he do it to save me?” Leaphorn opened his mouth and closed it. Ben did it to save himself, he thought. But he didn’t say it. It wasn’t something he could explain to her if she didn’t already understand it.

THE END.