Shadow Man (16 page)

When the telephone jingles in the dead of night, it is always unsettling. Twelve times out of thirteen, it will be a wrong number—some beer-soaked guy calling from Poko’s Lounge who wants to talk to his ol’ buddy Leo. He refuses to believe this isn’t Leo’s number. You hang up, he calls you right back. “Hey, Leo ol’ buddy—whassup, bro?” There’s no way to strangle him without getting out of bed, driving all the way down to Poko’s. Maddening. Then there’s that thirteenth call. The one that matters.

Charlie Moon rolled over in bed, snatched up the receiver, listened to a terse report of a fire and a survivor. “I’m on my way.” He pulled on his jeans and boots, grabbed a shirt and hat, clomped down the stairs and outside into the chilly stillness. The Expedition was moving before he slammed the door. As the big automobile rumbled over the Too Late bridge, roared past the foreman’s house, Daisy Bushman woke up, blinked at the clock. “Where on earth is the boss off to at this time of night—and in such a big hurry?” Her husband responded to this query with a grunt and a snore.

A graveyard-shift state policeman stationed along the route reported to his dispatcher that the Columbine flagship was “flying low,” but did not give chase. He had heard the radio chatter about the fire out at Daisy Perika’s place. The tough cop said a prayer for the old woman. And her nephew.

Skidding to a halt behind a fire truck, Moon was not aware that he had trimmed nine minutes off his previous record from the Columbine to the mouth of
Cañón del Espíritu.
Ignoring the smoking ruins, he took long strides toward the old woman, who was barely enduring the protective presence of a hovering EMT.

When Daisy saw her nephew coming, she curtly dismissed the white woman and got to her feet.

Reaching out for Daisy’s shoulders, Moon did a quick inspection. She had some hair singed off, a couple of blisters and a bruise on her cheek—and looked confused. “You all right?”

“I’m okay,” she muttered, and pointed a trembling finger. “But look at that!”

He turned toward where her home had been for more than half a century. Little remained that was recognizable. Bucked up in the center, the charred trailer frame resembled the skeleton of a beached whale with a fractured spine. There were bowed rows of steel ribs where the walls had been, a few dangling roof supports, here and there scorched aluminum panels that had crumpled and melted in the intense heat. Litter of various sorts was scattered about. An album of photographs had come to rest on a juniper limb. Daisy’s trusty 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun had also been ejected by the blast. Someone had propped it up against the fire truck.

The weary woman shook her gray head. “My home is burnt up, all my stuff is gone.” She raised her hands to the heavens. “What am I gonna do?”

Moon had a ready answer for that. “First of all, I’m taking you into town for a good breakfast. Then you’re going home with me.”

Daisy allowed the young man to deposit her in his automobile.

Moon shut the door, heard a raspy, “Hey!” He turned to see the sooty face of a fireman.

“You her relative?”

Daisy’s nephew nodded.

“I’m Dave McDonald, fire chief.” The white man craned his neck to look past the tall Ute. “The old lady gonna be all right?”

“Yeah.” For the first time since he had been awakened by the telephone call, the rancher managed a weak smile. “She’s tough as a two-dollar steak.” He frowned at the ruins. “Any idea what started the fire?”

The fire chief followed the Indian’s gaze. “The BIA fire inspector’ll come out and do a thorough investigation.”

The tribal investigator detected a hint of an undercurrent beneath the man’s words. “But you already have a notion of your own.”

“Yeah,” McDonald said. “But it’s not official or anything.”

“All the same, I’d like to hear what you think.”

“I think it’s the same old story.” He motioned with a jerk of his head. “Come over here, I’ll show you.”

Moon followed.

McDonald stopped near the remains of the trailer. “See that, how the floor is all pushed up in the middle?”

“Yeah.”

The fireman squatted. “See that pipe?”

Moon saw it.

He grinned at the Ute. “You know what that is?”

Moon knew perfectly well. “That’s the propane line.”

“What’s left of it.” The professional firefighter picked up a half-melted curtain rod, aimed it at something he found very interesting. “See that fitting?”

Moon nodded dumbly.

McDonald pitched his pointing stick aside. “That joint is cracked. Probably because some half-wit repairman gave it one twist too many.” He tilted his head, stared up at the tall young man. “You got any idea who might’ve been messing around with her propane line?”

The handyman tried to speak, felt his throat constrict.

The fire chief watched the Ute’s face turn to stone.
He either don’t know or won’t say. Maybe he’s covering up for some backyard mechanic. Well, it’s not my job to find out. I’ll leave the investigation to the BIA fire inspector.
With a grunt, McDonald pushed himself to his feet. “Gas would’ve leaked out till it displaced most of the air under the trailer.” His expression was a bitter mix of sadness and frustration. “Too bad the old lady didn’t smell it and call the gas company. They would’ve sent somebody out to fix it
right.
”

Moon was startled to hear his voice. “What do you think set the gas off?”

McDonald was pleased with the Indian’s interest. “It’s almost always an electrical spark.” He pointed a gloved hand. “Look right over there.”

Charlie Moon looked, saw nothing but piles of blackened rubble.

The fire chief explained. “That’s the electrical relay that activates from a pressure switch to turn the well pump on. Once the gas-to-air mix was right, a little spark from those relay contacts would act like a detonator.” He threw up his arms. “Blow the place sky-high.” He turned to look toward the Expedition. “Since it went boom in the middle of the night, she must’ve been in bed. I wonder how on earth she managed to get out alive.” This led to another thought. “I bet she got up in the middle of the night to use the toilet. When she flushed it, the water pressure dropped low enough to turn the well pump on.”
Sure. That’s bound to be what happened. I’ll drop a hint to that red-hot fire inspector—show him he ain’t the only one who can figure these things out.

It seemed like a long drive from Daisy’s place to Ignacio, where they would have breakfast. As he stared at the road, Charlie Moon’s thoughts ran in the same weary circle.

Maybe the gas fitting I broke wasn’t the cause of the fire. It’s possible the blaze started in the kitchen stove, or the furnace, or under the water heater. Wherever it started, it would’ve finally touched off the propane line. Maybe I wasn’t to blame. But even if I wasn’t, I should’ve checked that fitting after I tightened it down. But I got distracted when she kicked me on the foot, and then I started talking to Blinkoe and his lawyer. Maybe the gas fitting wasn’t actually leaking….

There were miles and miles of silence behind them when Moon finally spoke to the little woman buckled down in the passenger seat. “Can you remember what happened last night?”

Daisy Perika sighed. From time to time, it was a heavy burden, having a nephew who had been an SUPD police officer for years and now was a big-shot tribal investigator. Charlie was always asking pointless questions. “A lot of stuff happened. I got my house burned down and my eyebrows singed off.”

Moon slowed, stopped, allowed a crippled dog ample time to cross the road. “When did you realize the place was on fire?”

“I don’t know for sure.” She rubbed gingerly at the bruise on her face. “I guess it was sometime after the big boom knocked me across the yard, and I had time to come to my senses.” Daisy watched the three-legged mongrel disappear into a weed-choked ditch. “And don’t you make no smart remarks about my senses.”

Moon was in no mood to crack a joke. “Something must’ve caused you to get out of bed.” He recalled what the fire chief had said about the well-pump relay spark igniting the gas under the floor. “Maybe you had to go to the bathroom.”

“I don’t remember.” She shot him a sharp look. “But if I did have to get up and empty my bladder, it’s no business of yours.”

“Where were you when the explosion—”

“Outside. Just a few steps from the porch.”

She must have woken up when she smelled smoke or saw the flames.
“What were you doing outside?”

Daisy looked out the window at the moving scenery, watched a straight-backed troop of pines march by. “Somebody woke me up, took me by the hand, led me outside.”

Moon stepped on the brake, pulled off the road, parked in front of Goodall’s Feed and Grain Store. “Who?”

She blinked, gave him a puzzled, innocent look. “Who what?”

He had played this game before. “Who woke you up, took you by the hand?”

Daisy looked at the back of her wrinkled hand. “Oh, it was Nahum Yaciiti.”

He stared at her. “Nahum, huh?”

She felt a hunger pang. “I think I’ll have three scrambled eggs for breakfast. And two biscuits.”

Moon pulled back onto the blacktop, shook his head. Nahum Yaciiti was dead and gone. Had been for some years now. Dead, that is. But as far as Daisy was concerned—not gone.

At Angel’s Cafe, Daisy Perika was grateful to realize that the story about the fire had not yet hit town. Otherwise all kinds of sad-eyed folks would have been patting and consoling her and saying things like you poor thing and ain’t that just an awful shame. She ordered the Cowboy Special. Three eggs, two pork-sausage patties, a heap of home fries, biscuits and gravy.

Having taken care of the cranky old lady, the morning waitress turned her attention to the skinny Ute.
Charlie looks like he just buried his best friend.
Peggy readied the ballpoint pen. “What’ll you have, honey?”

Charlie Moon didn’t look up at the sweet-talker. “Coffee.”

More times than she could remember, Peggy had brought this man breakfasts that would have satisfied a starved lumberjack. “Coffee—that’s all?”

He nodded, stared blankly.

Charlie Moon’s not hungry—well, now I’ve seen everything and I’m ready to die.
The waitress hurried away.

Daisy studied her nephew’s solemn face. “Charlie, you don’t need to worry about me. I’m not one of those soft town-Indians that live on sugar cookies and soda pop.” Her dark eyes flashed with determination. “I’ve got the
old
blood running through my veins. Our ancestors went through wars and starvations and plagues.” She forced a half-smile. “Even fires.” The hard-faced woman leaned over the table, clenched her nephew’s arm. “When times was bad, the People suffered. Some of ’em died. That’s just the way the world is. But those that was able would put one foot in front of the other—and keep right on going. And that’s exactly what I intend to do.”

Moon took her gnarled skeleton-hand in his. “I know you’ll be all right.”
I’ll make sure of it.

Daisy Perika’s first day at the Columbine was a bustle of moving-in activity, and being the center of attention, the displaced woman hardly had a moment to herself. Pete Bushman felt compelled to follow the Ute elder around, “help” her put odd bits of furniture into her new bedroom, hang framed pictures on the wall, and offer all sorts of sage advice about how to adapt to the rigors of the ranching life. The foreman’s wife loaned Daisy a portable television, fussed over her with hugs and kisses and comforting words until she felt suffocated by Dolly Bushman’s well-meant sympathies.

Charlie Moon spent the day at the ruins of his aunt’s home at the mouth of
Cañón del Espíritu.
He returned with a collection of items that had survived the fire. Shutting herself into the privacy of her downstairs bedroom, Daisy watched
Oprah
in the afternoon, whiled away the evening hours with faded family photographs, jars of canned fruit and vegetables, plastic bags of multicolored beads, the fine buckskin drum that had hung on her kitchen wall for decades, the shotgun she had once used to shoot at a UFO, and a Tennessee Forge cast-iron skillet. She examined each small treasure with considerable pleasure before storing it on a closet shelf, in a chest of drawers, or under the bed.

On the second day, her nephew took her into town to shop for clothing and other such necessities as she might require. Charlie paid the bills.

On the third day, Charlie left her alone with instructions to call on Dolly Bushman if she needed anything she could not find. This provided Daisy with an opportunity to explore the big log house that was her nephew’s home and the hub of the Columbine Ranch. She would pause now and then to murmur and sigh about the part of her life that was forever lost.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, Daisy took an egg-and-bacon sandwich to the porch, seated herself on a cedar bench. The sun was rolling down the slope of an alpine peak, into the saddle of Dead Mule Notch. A breeze off the river was balmy and sweet with purple-aster perfume. She leaned back against the wall, took a bite of the tasty snack.
Egg sandwiches are good. Especially with a layer of crispy bacon. And a little touch of ketchup.
She was evidently not alone in this opinion—before she had taken a second bite, a startling event demolished her appetite.

What happened was this: While the succulent sandwich was clutched in her hand, eighty-six pounds of Something Big and Hairy came thumpity-thumping across the porch, arched its way over her lap, snatched her snack in a pair of toothy jaws, vanished in a flash of hind legs.

This caused the poor old soul to lose control of her bladder—and let out a horrific screech, as if she had discovered a centipede doing the jitterbug in her ear.

Charlie Moon burst through the door. “What’s the matter!”

When she found her voice, Daisy managed to yell: “My sandwich—big [expletives deleted] ugly [expletives deleted]—took it right out of my [expletives deleted] hand—”

Her nephew committed two errors: (1) He laughed. (2) Too loudly.

Big jug head.
Daisy got up from the bench, gave him a sharp kick in the shin.

The main force of this blow was absorbed by his thick horsehide boot.

Charlie eased the fighting-mad woman back onto the bench, seated himself beside her. “There’s nothing to be scared of.” He gave her a comforting hug. “The was just ol’ Sidewinder.”

“I’m not blind as a cave bat.” She pointed toward where the animal had skedaddled. “That wasn’t no rattlesnake!”

He agreed that no serpent had pinched her food. Sidewinder was, in point of fact, a canine creature. More specifically, a dog. A normally placid, God-fearing hound—who became an outright terrorist when food was around.

As far as Daisy was concerned, this had to be Charlie Moon’s fault. She inquired whether the desperate beast was starving, and if so, why wasn’t he fed?

Moon explained. “Sidewinder has his own kind of ethics—he hates to accept handouts. He prefers to steal what he eats.”

Daisy offered the opinion that if that dog ever tried to take food from her mouth again, he would end up eating buckshot.

Her nephew made her another egg-and-bacon sandwich.

The lady had this meal at the kitchen table.

Following this incident, things calmed down a bit.

But the days were long and lonely.

Charlie Moon’s absences from the Columbine became more frequent. He would leave with the sunrise, return home when the stars twinkled over the mountains.

Having little else to do, Daisy became curious about her nephew’s cattle business. Suppertime questions about his various activities were met with shrugs and mumbles. There were “lots of things to look after.” “Seems like if it ain’t one thing it’s another.” “Went to see a man about some hardware.” “Had another meeting with the county agent.” And other such uninformative generalities. Realizing that a busy rancher had plenty of work to do, she gradually stopped asking questions. But little by little, the old woman began to feel less like a member of the household than a bothersome guest.
If Father Raes hadn’t gone off to Italy, I’d have somebody to talk to. I bet he has breakfast every morning with the Pope. Or at least a cardinal.

There was one minor consolation. Every evening, at precisely ten o’clock, the telephone in the ranch-house parlor would ring. (Nine fifty-nine
P.M
. was when Louise-Marie LaForte’s daily dose of television enlightenment concluded; the dreadful evening news was “more than a poor sold soul like me can bear.”) If Charlie Moon happened to be at home, he ignored this particular call. Daisy would take the instrument to a rocking chair, press it against her ear, listen to the French-Canadian woman’s voice.

“Hello, hello,” Louise-Marie would say. “Is anybody on the line?”

“No,” Daisy would answer in a monotone. “This is a recorded voice. At the beep, please put two quarters in the slot.
Beep!
” Or some such silly thing.

“Daisy, is that you?”

“No,” she’d say. “This is Doris Day.” Or Orphan Annie. Or Kermit the Frog. Or some such foolishness.

“Ha-ha,” would be the inevitable reply. “Daisy—you are such a card!”

And then the old friends would get down to chewing over the business of the past twenty-four hours.

On the tenth morning, Daisy stood at the parlor window, watched Charlie Moon pull away in his old Ford pickup. The boss was followed by Pete Bushman in a Jeep, little Butch in a huge fire-engine-red F-350, the Wyoming Kyd in a GMC flatbed truck that was loaded with tools and a crew of sleepy-eyed cowboys.
They’re probably going off to mend a fence somewhere. Not that my nephew would bother to tell me.
Daisy set her jaw.
I have got to stop worrying about what Charlie is doing every day. I need to find something to do myself.
She rolled a few notions over in her mind, decided that for starters a nice long walk would be just the right medicine. The dust from the Columbine caravan had hardly settled when she got hold of her walking stick, headed for the back door.
That pushy Bushman woman may come looking for me.
This thought put some pepper into her stride.

Before she got her foot on the ground, Daisy had decided on a destination.

A few steps from the porch, Sidewinder materialized by her side.

Daisy scowled at the ugly dog. “Shoo,” she said, swatting at him with the stick.

The hound sidestepped the intended blow and—just out of the reach of her staff—continued on his zigzagging, stopping-to-sniff dogtrot. Sidewinder even cast her an affectionate glance. The crotchety old animal seemed quite pleased to be with the crotchety old woman.

After a hundred paces or so, when her guard was down, the dog moved closer.

She was startled to feel something wet and warm take a droolish lap at her hand.

Daisy knew when she was licked.
Oh well. At least he’ll be some company.

It took the aged woman a considerable chunk of morning to make her way up a rock-strewn ridge’s modest grade, pass through a hushed glade of evergreens, ferns, and mosses, finally emerge on the fringe of a grassy, flowered skirt. A mile away—or was it ten?—an alpine lake pretended to be a pool of molten glass. Raising a hand to shield her eyes from the sun, Daisy gazed at a sturdy log cabin that was nestled among a picturesque grove of aspen and spruce. This was the nice little place Charlie Moon had provided for Father Raes during his retirement.
And what does that fussy little priest do then? Stay here, so I can come pay him a visit when I take a notion? No, he goes off to some foreign land to hang around with people that don’t even speak American.

Daisy knew something that every member of her gender eventually came to understand—you simply cannot depend on a man. When you need them the most, they are gone fishing with an oafish drinking buddy, off to fight a war, or paying a call on the Pope.

But it was not only the priest’s inexcusable absence or the unreliability of men in general. For days, something else had been gnawing at her—an injury she could not quite forget, and what was worse—she could not quite remember! Not until this very moment. Daisy stopped in her tracks. Of course.

During all her time on the Columbine, Charlie had not said one solitary word about the urgent telephone message she had left for him.
Maybe he don’t care where that Blinkoe woman is hiding.
She raised her stick, took a hearty whack at a winged grasshopper, which fluttered away unharmed.
Or maybe he already knows where she is.
But another, more hurtful possibility was what galled her.
He doesn’t think I know anything worth hearing about. Far as Charlie’s concerned, I’m just a silly old woman who pays too much attention to dreams and visions.
And, of course, to the
pitukupf.
Her nephew did not even believe in the existence of the dwarf, much less that a tribal elder could learn important things by listening to what the little man had to say. Daisy wished she could think of some way to teach her smart-aleck nephew a lesson. A clump of gray clouds was settling over the mountains, threatening wind and rain, so she turned her face toward the ranch headquarters. Sensing her intention, the hound led the way. As she plodded along, the sly old plotter considered several possibilities, dismissed them all as either unworkable or unlikely to impress her nephew.

When a boisterous chorus of lightning legs tap-danced thunderously along the Buckhorn peaks, she had the inspiration. Oblivious to the dog waiting a few paces away and to the patter of rain on her back, Daisy paused on the ridge above the Columbine headquarters. A mischievous smile creased her wrinkled face.
Yes. That’s exactly what I’ll do.

That evening, just before ten
P.M
., the Ute woman was standing by the current version of Mr. Bell’s invention, waiting for it to make the usual noise. It did. She snatched it up, waited for the familiar voice.

“Hello, hello, is anyone on the line?”

Daisy imitated a girlish tone. “This is Mexican Jack’s Pizza Parlor—may we take your order?”

“Daisy, is that you?”

“No.” She snickered. “This is Mexican Jack.”

“Ha-ha. Daisy—you are such a card!”

She took the telephone into her bedroom, seated herself on a comfortable chair. “Louise-Marie, do you still have that old black rattle-trap you call a car?”

There was a tense silence before the answer came. “Well, yes I do but—”

“Does it still run?”

“I suppose so, but I hardly ever drive it anymore. Not since I had my operation and—”

“Listen to me, Louise-Marie. There’s something we have to do—something
really important.
” She lowered her voice to a husky whisper. “I want you to show up at Charlie’s ranch at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.” Her nephew was always gone by that time of day. “And I don’t want to hear none of your sissy excuses.” That old white woman was such a scaredy-cat. If all the Europeans had been like her, Columbus would still be sitting on a dock somewhere in Spain, whittling little pine boats for Japanese tourists.

Louise-Marie responded in a whinish tone. “But, Daisy dear, it’s been so long that I don’t even remember how to find my way there and besides—”

“If you’ll stop interrupting and let me slip a word in edge-wise, I’ll tell you exactly how to get from there to here.” The happy conspirator proceeded to do this, and with gusto. Giving directions to the timid and confused—this was Daisy’s long suit.