The Searcher (24 page)

T
HE GIRL WAS ABOUT NINETEEN, HER WHITE-BLOND HAIR FALLING LOOSELY
over her shoulders and down the front of a white cotton dress that made her seem ghostly. Her eyes were pale like Solomon's and seemed to stare right through him.

Blind
, his mind told him.
Ellie Tucker is blind.

The pump-action shotgun she held in her hands swung back and forth along with her slow, swinging gait and Solomon could feel her scrutiny even though she could not see him.

“I know you're there,” she said. “I crawled out the window, you son of a bitch, and I can hear to shoot better than most can see to, so don't try nothing. I called the cops too. They're on their way right now, so you better not've hurt my daddy none.”

Solomon felt the skin tighten on his neck. If the cops were coming, he needed to be gone from here. He looked at the shotgun.

Winchester 12—“The Perfect Repeater”—20 gauge—accurate enough and lethal enough up to fifty feet—six rounds fully loaded, which he had to assume it was.

He glanced at the corral. His horse was drinking from a water
trough about twenty feet away, a lot of distance to cover while trying not to make a sound, and still well within range when he got there. His horse would make a noise for sure. Maybe if he was running away she might let him go, leave him for the cops to chase. He studied the way she was holding the gun, tight to her body as if it was part of her. She could shoot, he was sure of that. But would she? She stopped, her head tilted over to one side, listening to the tick of the buildings and sniffing the air.

“What did you do?” Her voice was raw, angry. “I smell blood, what did you do?”

The turkey vulture hopped away, disturbed by her voice, and she turned toward the faint flap of wings and fired without hesitation.

The bird exploded in a boom of blood and feathers and cartwheeled away across the dirt. She racked another round in the chamber with a smooth, well-practiced grace and listened again through the dying echo of the gunshot, her head tilted toward the spot where the carcass of the bird now lay bloody and tattered.

Solomon heard the wail of a siren, in the distance but getting closer. Ellie heard it too and tilted her head back toward the barn, the gun swinging around until it was pointing at a spot marginally to the right of where Solomon was standing. He couldn't tell if she wanted to keep him here until the cops arrived or shoot him before they did. Either way, it was a bad deal for him. He looked over at the parked pickup truck to his right, the only thing close enough to give him any cover but still too far away. He breathed slowly, hyper aware of every sound. The siren grew louder. The gun barrel moved back and forth in a small arc that passed through the spot where Solomon was standing. Then his horse snorted on the far side of the yard and the barrel jerked toward it.

“Ellie,” Solomon shouted, snatching her attention back to him.
The barrel swung back and he leaped to his right just as a shot boomed inside the confines of the barn, shaking dust from the roof beams and chewing up the horse stall he had been standing in front of.

He hit the dirt and rolled forward using the momentum to flip back onto his feet, which were already running. He heard the
snick-snack
of the pump action and pictured her, following the sound of him running, the gun following as if radar controlled. He wished he was barefoot again so he could feel the ground and cushion his footfalls better. She would know he was heading for the truck, and if she was as good a shot as she claimed, she would aim ahead and fire at where he was going to be, not where he was. He stopped dead, straightening his legs and skidding to a stop just as a second boom shook the barn and chewed the wall in front of him to splinters.

Solomon threw himself forward again, sprinting then diving for the truck, hitting the ground as a third boom rang out that ripped the license plate off the rear fender and sent pain singing through his trailing foot. He landed heavily and rolled over, putting the engine block between himself and Ellie. There were pockmarks in the leather of his boot where the buckshot had hit. The skin beneath stung, but the leather had held. He could still run on it—if he got the chance.

He dropped his head down and peered through the dark oily gap under the truck. Ellie's bare feet were planted in the dirt in a solid sideways stance showing she was still aiming at the truck. The siren was louder now. He had minutes to get away and she still had three shells in the shotgun. If he tried to run, she would shoot him, no question, probably hit him this time. But if he waited for the cops to arrive, they would hand him over to whoever he had seen prowling through Holly's house with the silenced pistol. He had to get away in the next minute or he might not get away at all.

He looked around for something he might throw to cause a dis
traction but the floor was clean. He thought about slipping his boots off and using them, but they had already saved him from injury and he only had two whereas Ellie had three shells left.

The siren howled. Ellie didn't move. But he had to. He reached up and grabbed the handle and the door creaked open.

“Steal my daddy's truck and I'll kill ya,” Ellie called from the yard.

Not much of a disincentive. She was going to shoot him anyway.

He looked inside and saw keys hanging down from the steering column. Thank God for trusting country ways. He leaped forward through the door, arm outstretched, and felt springs dig into him from the worn seat. The keys jingled as he grabbed them and twisted them around. The engine coughed. Didn't catch. Then the whole world exploded in jewels of glass as the side window blew inward. Ellie had fired level, assuming he was sitting in the driver's seat. He twisted the key again and the engine coughed. He had maybe a second before she realized her mistake and repositioned. The old engine turned again then caught, the big V8 shaking pebbles of glass down on top of him.

Solomon threw himself forward and out of the cab just as buckshot tore up the bench seat he had been lying on. She had one shot left but he was out of time. He scrambled to his feet and started running, out of the shadow and into the sunlight, toward his horse. Another shot boomed behind him in the barn, tearing up the inside of the truck a little more, then he heard the slide rack again and a dry click as the hammer fell on an empty chamber.

His horse flicked its head and backed away as he drew closer, forcing him to slow down or risk it bolting. The siren was loud now, bringing men with more guns, all of them loaded. He grabbed the horse's mane and hauled himself onto its back, found his balance, and made to turn. Then he stopped.

When the cops arrived they wouldn't be able to follow him by
car, but they could on a horse. He edged the stallion toward the gate, kicked the top loop clear, and pulled the gate open.

The horses inside nickered and snorted and backed away, favoring the familiarity of the corral to the freedom he was offering them. He gave his horse some heel and drove it forward, forcing the herd around. They moved reluctantly, their eyes rolling to white in confusion, then one of them panicked and broke away and the rest followed, the ground shaking with hammering hooves as the herd poured out of the gate and scattered across the desert and away from the ranch.

Solomon kicked his horse again and followed them. From the corner of his eye he saw the police car, a dust cloud behind it as it barreled into the yard. Ellie was standing with her head to one side, lost in the noise. Solomon wished he could have told her what Bobby Gallagher said before he died, that her name was the last thing he had spoken. Maybe he would get the chance, but only if he got away.

He caught up with the rear horses and kept low on the stallion's back, making it harder for anyone to see which horse he was riding. He rode hard, keeping up with the herd until the ranch was lost from sight.

The fewer our wants the more we resemble the Gods.

—
S
OCRATES

Extract from
Riches and Redemption—The Making of a Town

The published memoir of the Reverend Jack “King” Cassidy

The men had been dead for some long while. There were two of them, their ragged clothes binding a loose collection of bones and hide together in something approximating the shapes of men. Smaller bones gleamed white on the ground, fingers and foot joints scattered around and picked white by whatever animals had been drawn to the scent of a meal. There were flies here too and it struck me that this was why there had been so many up at the wagon.

Tools lay on the ground among the bones: a rock hammer, a drilling spike, a chisel—mining tools that had been brought for gold and had ended up being used to dig for something far more valuable to two men dying of thirst in the desert. The gully was pockmarked with holes, about twenty or so all told, some waist deep, others barely more than scrapes in the ground. The dead men's hats lay on the ground next to their skulls, the jaws pulled open in silent screams by skin dried black by the heat. The tops of their skulls shone white through the hide and I realized why. They had been scalped.

I froze where I stood, as if the savages who had done it might be waiting in the trees still. But as my staring eyes took in the scene, my rational mind reasserted itself and calmed my pounding heart. I reasoned that whatever had occurred here must have done so a
long time since and therefore whoever had done it was similarly long gone. There was no evidence of further violence or butchery, which made me think the scalps had been taken when the men were already dead, their hair making easy trophies for a passing band of savages who must have taken their provisions and horses also.

I moved farther into the gully, picking my way carefully between the scattered bones, checking each hole and praying I might find some sign of the water these men had sought and that I now so desperately needed. Each hole was as dry as the first and my fear began to rise again. I knew that without water I would likely end my days here too, and that right soon. But it was as I was conducting this bleak and fruitless inspection that I spotted a scrap of yellowed paper with writing on it snagged on the long thorns of a mesquite sapling. I pulled it clear and opened it carefully, mindful that time and the elements had rendered it fragile. It was incomplete but there was enough of it remaining to send a cold chill through me despite the heat-choked air. I stumbled backward when I recognized it, my mind screaming with what it meant, then scrambled back up the bank.

Eldridge was where I had left him, my untouched canteen lying on the ground by one hand, his other curled into a fist on his chest. Flies buzzed around it, feasting on the blood that oozed from his torn flesh and stained the folded square of paper he held. I worked it from his grip, carefully folded it open, and laid it down on the ground next to the scrap I had found by the scalped prospectors. I took my own map from my own pocket and laid that down too.

They were all three the same.

I had wondered what evil I might encounter out here in the burning wastes, little realizing that I had already faced it. Sergeant Lyons had taken my last dollar in exchange for this worthless map,
but he had taken much more from poor Eldridge and his family and the two prospectors lying moldering in the far gully.

I resolved then, as I stared down at the maps that might as well have been death warrants, that I would not allow my life to be forfeit to this snake of a man who had betrayed us, and who knew how many other poor trusting travelers besides, for nothing more than a handful of silver.

I resaddled my mule as the sun slipped lower, discarding everything not essential to survival. I kept a little food, two blankets for warmth in the night and shelter in the day, and a third of my empty canteens in hopes that I might happen across some water, or another traveler who might spare me some, or that God might lead me to a source. I arranged the pale Christ and the Bible under the shade of a mesquite tree in a rough approximation of the church I still hoped to build here then opened the Bible and prayed to God to give me strength enough to make it back to the fort and bring Sergeant Lyons to justice for what he had done. And as I prayed the wind found its way under the trees and the pages riffled then settled at one of the few passages where the priest had marked some scripture:

And the
LORD
went before them

by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead

them the way; and by night in a pillar

of fire, to give them light

I read the passage over and over, waiting for the heat of the day to fade a little and praying all the while that God would indeed guide me. And when the day faded I led my mule out of the shadows and into the softening sunlight. I paused on the rise of an ancient bank and gazed out at the vast rolling expanse of broken wilderness ahead of
me, the dipping sun throwing deep shadows across it. I felt exhausted just looking at it and thinking of all the distance I had already traveled when I still had hope in my heart and water aplenty in my pack and how I now had to traverse it again with neither. I don't know what caused me to turn at that moment, for I had no reason to other than a strange sensation of being watched. Whatever the reason, turn I did, toward the stand of trees I had so recently quit. And that was when I saw the thing that would change my future.

It burned to the south and east of my position, a light so bright and steady it seemed as if a star had fallen from the heavens and burned still where it now lay in the sand. It shone in a place where the range rose to form a horseshoe of red mountains and a hot breeze blew steadily from the same direction. It smelled of creosote bush and sweet desert blooms and my heart lifted when I nosed it. It was the smell of rain in the desert. My mule turned and tossed his head, for he smelled it too, and the passage the priest had outlined shone now with fresh meaning. The light was in the opposite direction from the fort but I tugged the reins of my mule without hesitation and headed toward this peculiar pillar of fire shining brightly in the gathering night.

I followed that light for several hours until the night was full dark and the light was like sunlight within it. And when I reached the origin of it, I discovered a hole like a doorway cut into the night through which the light poured. It shone upon the ground, lighting up a boulder that had been split clean in two. Spring water bubbled up from the ground between the two halves and I fell into it, drinking and crying and laughing.

I stayed there until dawn and when the sun came up the pillar of light faded away. It was then that I saw what else was in the water: bright flakes of gold and deep green crystals. And I wept again for
I realized that here were the riches the priest had promised, fortune enough to build a church and a town besides.

And that is my tale, or as much of it as I will tell here.

There are other things that happened to me out in that desert that I will not speak of, for they will serve no purpose other than to muddy the clearer waters of my better intentions. And though I have done things I regret, the heaviest burden I carry is something I do not, in fact, regret at all. For I made my choices with a free will, a sacrifice for the benefit of others.

I have become famous in my lifetime for finding a great fortune out in the desert, but in truth there is another treasure, far greater than the first, that I discovered late in my life after a great amount of study. I found the way to it hidden in the pages of the priest's Bible. I had always suspected the book contained a clue that would lead me to riches, but by the time I found it and understood its meaning it was too late for me and so I resolve to take the secret of it to my grave. Maybe someone else will find it. Or perhaps it is meant to be forever lost. It is not for me to decide.

We serve God and we serve each other in different ways. And God knows what I have done. I hope He understands why I did it. I do not expect Him to forgive me.

There is tragedy in this story but there is hope too. Poor Eldridge died before I could fetch the water back to him, but I made sure Sergeant Lyons danced at the end of a rope for what he had done. So it is to Eldridge and his poor tragic family that I now dedicate this memoir. To him, to his, and to that great lost treasure still out there, waiting to be claimed.

In Our Father's holy name.

Amen.

           
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  JC