Moonlight Water (25 page)

“Cool.” Damon gave him a thumbs-up.

They drove in silence for a few minutes. In the rearview Red saw that Damon was asleep. He may have been a tough guy and he may have been a pothead, but he was mostly a super-stressed seventeen-year-old kid. A tired, uneducated, third-world seventeen-year-old kid with few prospects and little hope and pissed off about it.

When they stopped in Tony's driveway, Damon sat up, wide awake and antsy.

“How about some sleep in a bed?” asked Zahnie.

“Yeah.”

“Use Grandpa Winsonfred's room. Pay your respects to him first.”

“Okay.” Damon jacked the door open and went along the flagstone steps toward the big stone house.

Red followed him.

Zahnie put her arms around Red from behind. He turned and kissed her. “We have a couple of hours to ourselves,” she said.

It twisted Red's heart to say it: “He's bad scared. He's going to run rabbit the minute we take our eyes off him. I left my former life with enough cash to live on for maybe, probably, one year. Can't afford to lose that bail money. I'm going to sit at the foot of the stairs while he's up there.”

She gave Red a light kiss. “After I shower, we'll sit together.”

*   *   *

Tony took a break from work and getting ready to go to jail while Red told him everything about Damon, ending with the bail.

“The Harmony House family and the Redrock County justice system, quite a duo, huh?”

Red had something niggling at him, and he decided to try Tony on it. “Tony, you know what's going on with Damon. I mean, he's fooling around with drugs, yeah. At his age, what's different about that? But is there something else?”

Tony made a face. “Yes. Two years ago his best friend, Alan Etcitty, got killed. The famous one-car accident on the reservation, newspaper-talk for
drunk driver.
Which it was.” Tony breathed in and out. “Hard on a kid Damon's age.”

“Yeah.”

“Big surprise,” Tony said. “You think you're immortal, and your best buddy the same age is suddenly dead. That's when he ran off to Santa Fe. Has hardly been around since.”

“Thanks,” said Red.

Virgil held up a box and called, “Tony, will you play checkers with me?”

Tony grinned and nodded. “At least it's legal.”

“Where's Winsonfred?” Red asked.

“Still across at Leeja's. You know, if we go out of business, at least most of them have relations—they'll take them in even if they're not that crazy about doing it.”

They set up the checkerboard on the coffee table. Red sat next to Virgil and started in on a stray
National Geographic
. Clarita was reading again, this time Charlotte Brontë. During the checkers game, from time to time Virgil would take one of Tony's checkers, lift it, inspect it, and pop it in his mouth. Red never did see Virgil put one back, but figured he must have. Or else that was how he won.

Zahnie slipped onto the arm of the sofa and rested an arm around Red's shoulders.

He cupped her cheek with one hand. They moved to a big overstuffed chair. She sat on his lap and gave him a long kiss.

Then Red moved to assuage another guilt, so the weight wouldn't get too overwhelming. “Hey, maybe I intruded. If so, I'm sorry. But I read your poems posted on the walls of the bedroom, and they're great.”

Zahnie pulled a thoughtful look. “Oh. You mean the songs. They're not mine, they're Damon's.”

“Damon's? And they're lyrics, not poems?” Red had trouble putting together the sullen-looking kid and the beautiful words.

“Yeah, his songs. He went to Santa Fe to get discovered.”

“The kid might deserve it.” And for the first time in a long while Red thought about playing music with someone.

Zahnie put her head on Red's shoulder, and he leaned his cheek on her head.

When Damon came down, Zahnie caught him by the forearm and looked up into his eyes. “Red thinks you're going to split as soon as our eyes aren't on you. This true?”

The boy said nothing and made a point of staring in another direction.

“Damon, you have to make your court date. Or you'll be a fugitive.”

Feeling small, Red added, “And I can't afford to lose the ten grand. Sorry, but that's no shit.”

Damon looked at Red. “Dude, I can't hang around. They'll peel the hide off me and leave me to dry in the sun. For real.”

“Maybe you're exaggerating,” said Zahnie. “Maybe you have a few days. Nobody even knows you got caught. Maybe we can find some wiggle room.”

Damon shrugged.

“If you tell us who they are,” said Zahnie.

“Right,” he said sardonically. “The ultra-cool alternative, suicide.”

Just then Jolo called dinner, and the tubular walker-soldier started the one-foot-per-minute trundle toward the dining room. More food for those without teeth or taste buds.

Now Red saw the scene with new eyes. Tony and Jolo cared about these old folks and actually enjoyed taking care of them. In a short while, Harmony House would probably be derelict, some people would suffer, lots of people would worry, and the community would not hold its head quite as high.

After dinner Red said to Damon, “You write songs?”

In two minutes Damon had an old Martin D-18 out from under his mother's bed and a hard-backed chair from the kitchen.

“Damn nice guitar,” said Red.

“I better not tell you how I got it.” He tuned the instrument. A teenage glare made Tony mute the TV.

‘What you doin'?” Virgil whined, “
I Love Lucy
is on.” Clarita put down her Brontë to give full attention to Damon, who was probably her great-grandnephew twice removed or some such relation. Virgil whacked in again in his nasal voice, “Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do.” Red wondered if the attention would throw the kid off.

Damon strummed the strings hard once, a big, attention-getting chord, teased it into perfect tune, and launched into,
“Raven, raven, craven demon.”
It was an exquisite young male voice, high, sweet, throbbing, innocent. The way he phrased things was full of nuance and delicious hints. Lots of people have good voices, but few are terrific singers. Damon had a gift, something that couldn't be taught.

When Damon got to the final chord Tony, Zahnie, Clarita, and Red applauded vigorously. Red thought it embarrassed the kid, but he just started strumming in a new key for the next one. Just then Virgil nasaled in loudly, “He ain't no Desi Arnaz.” Damon rolled his eyes. Red knew the feeling.
Everybody's a critic.

Damon kept going, and he got on a roll. He sang and sang and everyone listened, except for Virgil, who watched Lucy and Ricky, apparently forgetting the sound was off. Soon Red could hear what Damon's musical strengths and weaknesses were. His rhythm guitar playing was ordinary, probably because his skills were basic and he used nothing but open tuning. Sometimes he sounded like a young musician imitating other acts, especially James Taylor, without even knowing he was borrowing.

Red had an idea. “Hey, Damon, let me back you?”

The kid hesitated. Then a grin spread over his face. Red could see him thinking,
I'm gonna jam with Rob Roy of the Elegant Demons.

Red sat at Clarita's piano and gave Damon a wink. “How about that one about looking in the windows of the rich people's houses at night? What key's it in?”

They did half a dozen of the songs again. Red laid down a rich, full backup with some nice harmonic nuances and brought off a couple of bluesy bridges that surprised even him.

When Damon just sang, and as he got into it deeper, he was even better. Red would have told any producer that the kid was a hugely talented singer-songwriter, sensitive, unusual, very much himself. Compare him to? Maybe a Navajo Leonard Cohen, not the lyricist—who was?—but good-looking, with a better, more expressive voice and a feel for human emotion. Yes, Damon was far from polished, but Red heard something pure and real in his music that would touch a lot of hearts. It touched Red's.

As the last chord of his song “After the Squaw Dance” faded, Red said, “Damon, you're incredible.”

“I went to Santa Fe, Mom thought I just wanted to stay stoned all the time. I wanted to make it in the music scene. Course, it—”

“Did you stay stoned?”

“Got a problem with that?”

“Can't talk, I did it for years. I will tell you that it makes it hard to focus on a career, and I did quit getting loaded.”

Damon squinched his eyes at Red in a way he probably intended as hostile.

At that moment the front door eased open without a knock, and Rulon Rule stood in the doorway. The sheriff's face fit a Good Humor ice-cream man better than a law-enforcement officer. Nevertheless, he growled, “I need to talk to Damon.”

Damon shot angry eyes at his mother.

“I didn't know this was coming,” she said. Then, to the sheriff, “Not without a lawyer.”

“I took the liberty,” said the sheriff, and opened the door wider to reveal Rose Sanchez and, behind her, Yazzie Goldman.

They all stepped inside. Rose said, “Nobody says a word until we establish the rules. Sheriff, are you treating Damon as a suspect in the murder of James Nielsen?”

“I believe him to have information about the crime. He is not a suspect for committing that crime, or as an accessory, or in any other charges relating to James Nielsen's death. Okay, Rose?”

The lawyer nodded yes.

“I want to sit in.”

“Now, Zahnie.”

Rose said firmly, “If we're looking for a deal, Rulon, the parent has to be in on it. You know that.”

The sheriff nodded. “And for the record, Mr. Goldman?”

“We may get information about the theft of ancient artifacts from BLM lands. As head of the BLM here, I should hear that.”

The sheriff nodded.

“Okay,” Rose went on, “let's start with just lawyer and clients.”

 

31

IS IT A DEAL?

Don't draw in the sand with your fingers. Snakes will crawl to it.

—Navajo saying

 

Walking behind her son and his lawyer, Zahnie felt her heart pull tight, like it was hefting a big load.

The three arranged themselves in Winsonfred's room, Damon on the little bed, Rose and Zahnie on hard-backed chairs.

Rose started the conversation. “Damon, Sheriff Rule believes you and unknown others were hunting pots up in Lukas Gulch. But there was a more serious crime committed there, murder. The way the sheriff sees it, he'll forego bringing pot-hunting charges against a minor to get information leading to murder charges against unknown persons in the death of Dr. James Nielsen. So he's offering you immunity on everything to do with the crime of looting archeological sites in Lukas Gulch in return for information on all the illegal activities there, and on the murder. Information now, testimony in court later. I advise you to take this deal. The charges for looting are serious, and the penalties include time in federal prison.” Pause. “Does this deal suit you?”

“I talk about who killed Nielsen, I'm dead.”

Zahnie regarded her little boy. Sometimes he seemed grown-up. Now he looked pinched and old.

“The sheriff understands that. He wants to ask you about the background of what's going on up there. He's not going to ask you for any names. I'll be sitting there to make sure he doesn't.”

Damon just stared at the floor.

“Young man, you'd best take this deal.”

Damon shrugged. “Okay.”

Zahnie thought,
He's convinced the only safe thing is for him to skip.

“Damon, the sheriff asks you a question, you have to answer. To earn the immunity. If it's something you don't have to answer under our agreement, I'll step in.”

Damon shrugged and grimaced. “Okay.”

When the sheriff came in, he looked at Damon ruefully, like a kindly school principal correcting a wayward youngster. He sat down on the bed and waited for Damon to look him in the eye. Yazzie Goldman stood, his arms folded. Zahnie supposed he would always look powerful and imposing, whatever his age.

“Damon, you boys finished digging in Lukas Gulch?”

“A couple more days.”

The sheriff and Zahnie looked at each other. Two hours was a typical time for pot hunters to excavate and do their dirty work. Several days meant lots and lots of good stuff.

“Lots of sites, or just one?”

“A big one. Alan Etcitty and I found it.”

Zahnie had a rolling tumbleweed of feelings. A huge discovery, potentially historic and life-changing. Alan was dead now two years, rolled his pickup, drunk. Since then Damon was often sour and remote.

Now, though, Zahnie heard the pride in his voice. Understandable—this sounded like a find to compare with the huge ones of the early days.

“How many of you?”

Zahnie expected Rose to object, but she didn't.

“Three. Up in the gulch, three, plus me. Living in the boonies.”

“More somewhere else?”

“The guy with the connections to sell.”

Zahnie and the sheriff traded thoughtful looks.

“You aren't selling the artifacts yourselves?”

“There's a lot of it. You know…”

More thoughtful looks between Zahnie and the sheriff. Maybe
oh-shit
looks.

Zahnie said, “Okay, who's the seller?”

Rose jumped in. “Sheriff, could this person be charged with murder? Killing during the commission of a crime, though he didn't pull the trigger?”

Rose and the sheriff both thought. Rose asked, “Damon, was the seller ever at the site?”

“He was the first person I showed it to. Hasn't been there since then.”

“Anywhere near?”

“No.”

“Then, Sheriff, do you believe he could be charged?”