Trouble at the Red Pueblo (12 page)

The room was in semi-darkness, lit only by a shaft of light that fell through the half-open bathroom door. Spider stood for a minute to let his eyes adjust, and then he walked across the room, puffs of white feathers rising each time he placed a foot. He blew a dusting of down away before he set the aromatic sacks from Big Al’s on the desk and looked around for Laurie.

What he saw made his heart stop.

The bed they had shared last night was empty. Laurie had pushed the saddle over to the wall on the other bed and was curled up beside it.

He would sleep alone tonight.

Spider woke the next morning at seven. He turned over to check the other bed.

Empty.

He listened but heard no sound of movement in the room. Lifting up on an elbow, he saw that the saddle had disappeared. Laurie was gone.

The Big Al takeout bag still sat unopened on the desk. Spider wondered if the emptiness in the pit in his stomach was because he hadn’t eaten since yesterday noon or because he needed to resolve this thing with Laurie. Probably a little bit of both.

Throwing back the covers, he disturbed a layer of feathers and sent them into the air. He contemplated them from flat on his back. They were a metaphor for his life right now. Scattered. Directionless. When things weren’t right with Laurie, nothing made sense. But how to get all those feathers back where they belonged?

This wasn’t getting anything solved. Anyway, he couldn’t do anything about it until evening when Laurie was home from her ride and he was back from St. George. He got up, showered, shaved, and dressed. After leaving a note saying he was sorry about the pillow and a five-dollar tip for the maid, he tucked the instruction booklet for his phone into his pocket and headed out to breakfast. By eight o’clock he was pushing open the door of Houston’s Trail’s End Restaurant.

“Hey, Spencer!”

Curiosity, along with a niggle of voice recognition, made Spider look around at the person calling from the adjacent dining room. It was Laurie’s cousin.

Jack’s smile widened when he caught Spider’s eye. “Come on over. Rest your bones in my booth.”

Spider took off his hat, threaded his way through tables filled with tourists, and slid into the seat opposite.

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Anything wrong? You look like you’ve been drug through a knothole backwards.”

Spider set his hat on the seat beside him. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.” He caught the eye of the waitress and raised his hand.

Jack reached over and picked a feather off Spider’s shoulder. He set it on the table and chuckled. “Must have been some night.”

Spider was grateful the waitress appeared at that moment with a place setting and a glass of water. He ordered ham and eggs over easy and then turned to Jack. “I thought you were riding this morning with Laurie.”

“Didn’t she tell you? She’s going out with Amy. Something came up, and I have to go out of town.”

Spider shook his head.

“Too many other things on your mind, I guess.” Jack blew the feather off the table and chuckled again.

Spider gritted his teeth and tried to remember that he had committed to himself to be charitable towards Jack. “She was looking forward to going out to Inchworm,” he said.

“It’s a great ride and a great arch. Big one with a little one right by it. Looks like an inchworm.”

“Huh.” Spider couldn’t think of anything to say.

Jack took a piece of toast and mopped up egg yolk from his plate. “It’ll take the greater part of a day to get there and back. She’ll be tuckered out when she gets home.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Jack pushed his plate away. “I’ve got to get going. Sorry I can’t stay and chew the fat.”

“No problem.” Spider watched him slide to the edge of the bench and use his arm to lever himself to a standing position. “You hurt your back out there yesterday?”

“Nah. I just got a hitch in my getalong. Takes a minute to get loosened up after I sit a while.”

“Well, take it easy.”

“I aim to.” Jack gave a half-wave and walked toward the cash register.

Spider stacked the empty dishes at the edge of the table as a busboy came by to pick them up, and then he fished his phone and the instruction booklet out of his pocket. He propped the pamphlet open with his water glass and hunched over the instrument, reading the directions under his breath and then trying to replicate the sequence on the phone. His muttering grew increasingly exasperated, and the taps on the screen gained in force with each failed attempt. “Great suffering zot,” he said, sitting back in defeat.

“Excuse me.”

Spider looked up to see a young Asian man dressed in a tee shirt and cargo shorts, sporting fashionably square glasses. He bowed slightly and spoke in crisp, well-enunciated English. “May I be of assistance?” He pointed to Spider’s phone.

“I’m an old dog,” Spider said, poking the phone with his index finger. “I’m not doing too well at learning new tricks.”

The young man smiled. “Even an old dog can learn if he has a good teacher. What is it you wish to learn?”

“I’m trying to learn how the GPS works. I can’t figure it out from the instructions.”

“May I?” The young man pointed at the phone.

“Be my guest. Have a seat.” Spider indicated the bench opposite. “My name’s Spider Latham.”

The young man bowed again and introduced himself as he slid into the booth. “Daisuke Ito.”

Spider tried the name on for size. “Dai-su-ke.”

“It means ‘great helper,’” he explained as he picked up the phone and began pressing buttons with both thumbs.

“The instructions are here.” Spider pushed them across the table.

Daisuke didn’t look up from his task. His eyes moved back and forth as his thumbs flew, and after a few minutes he shifted from across the table to the bench beside Spider. “I have downloaded a new app. I will teach you how to use it.”

“Remember, I’m an old dog,” Spider said as he took the phone from Daisuke.

His companion smiled. “Yes, but remember, I am a good teacher. My advice is, do not over-think it. The program is very intuitive. Now, where do you wish to go?”

Spider took the card that Neva had given him from his wallet and pointed to the address on the bottom. Daisuke walked him through the process, explaining it in a way that was perfectly clear.

“I’ve got it.” Spider grinned. “You are well-named. You’re a great helper, Daisuke.”

At that moment the waitress arrived with Spider’s ham and eggs. Spider turned to the young man. “Will you have breakfast with me?”

He shook his head and slid out of the booth. “I have already eaten, and my companions are waiting for me.” He gestured toward two young Asian men standing at the restaurant entrance.

“I’ve kept them waiting. I’m sorry.” Spider stood. “I don’t know how to thank you.” He offered his hand to Daisuke.

“I was glad to be of help.” He shook the proffered hand and then bowed.

Spider wished he could offer more than thanks. “Are you going to be in town for a while?”

“We’re on our way to the Grand Canyon,” Daisuke said, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “My friends are going to be jealous that I have been talking to a real cowboy.”

Spider almost denied that he was a cowboy. Before the words got out, he glanced at Daisuke’s friends, standing wide-eyed by the door. Instead of a denial, he picked up his Stetson, put it on, and hooked a thumb in his belt. “It’s been mighty fine talkin’ to you this mornin’, and I take kindly to your helpin’ me out like you did.”

Daisuke bowed again and walked toward his companions with a grin on his face.

“Happy trails,” Spider called after him and sat down. Happy trails? That sounded like a B movie. Apparently, it didn’t ring false, though, for each young man caught Spider’s eye and waved through the window as they walked past on the sidewalk.

When the boys had disappeared beyond the frame of the plate glass, Spider attacked his breakfast. The eggs were cold, but his mind was on other things as he ate. He tried to focus on what he wanted to learn in St. George, but he kept returning to the question of why Laurie didn’t tell him last night that Jack wasn’t riding with her today. With that question still unanswered, he paid his bill and left. Soon he was on his way south to Fredonia. From there it was 75 miles of desert across the Arizona Strip with only the polygamous village of Colorado City before his destination.

Spider ignored the electronic instructions from his cell phone until he got into Hurricane, twenty miles from St. George. Then he started listening. The disembodied voice led him to a tiny, business-on-a-shoestring storefront on North Main Street in St. George, just up the street from the pioneer-era tabernacle.

Spider parked the Yugo and walked half a block to the correct address. There it was on the door,
Earnest Endeavors
. The sign was surrounded with the same floral motif as the one on the business card Spider carried. Wondering what this could have to do with the trouble at the Red Pueblo, he pushed the door open and entered.

A MIDDLE-AGED LADY
with copper-colored hair, thick eyeliner and clumpy black eyelashes sat at a desk in the middle of the room. The desk faced the door, and the nameplate read Leona Rippley. A copy machine was the lonely occupant of the wall beside her, and a scattering of scrapbooking supplies made a sad showing on the opposite one.

As Spider took off his hat and approached, Leona looked up and flashed a wide smile. “How may I help you?”

Spider held up Leona’s business card. “Some people over in Kanab got a letter from you offering to buy their property,” he said. “They’ve asked me to come over and talk to you about it.”

Leona’s smile didn’t diminish in size, but it seemed to Spider that it grew rigid. “What was the name?”

“The letter would have been addressed to Martin Taylor.”

Leona keyed some information into her computer, her long, boutique nails adding an extra layer of noise to the process. She frowned as her eyes moved across the screen, and she turned to Spider. “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t. Name’s Spider Latham.” He put the card in his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and opened it to his badge. “I’m a deputy over in Lincoln County, though I’m not here on county business.” He laid the wallet on her desk, so she could get a good look.

The smile was gone now, and Leona had turned so pale that her eyeliner and mascara stood out like black slashes on the white oval of her face. She pointed to a chair with a trembling hand. “Will you bring that over here, please?”

Spider obliged, dragging the chair to the place she indicated by her desk. He picked up his wallet and stuffed it in his back pocket before sitting when she motioned him to do so. He held his Stetson on his lap.

She swiveled her chair around to face him and leaned forward, her knees perhaps two feet away from his. Clasping her hands, she looked into his eyes and said, “I prayed to Jesus.”

Someone walked by outside, and Leona grabbed her keys, sprang out of her chair, and went to the door. She locked it and turned the
open
sign around to say
closed.
Then she returned to her chair and assumed the same knee-to-knee, eye-locked position as before.

“I didn’t know where to turn,” she said. “My son has muscular dystrophy and has such needs.”

Spider didn’t have any idea where this was leading. He shifted in his chair

“I opened this shop. I do bookkeeping, and I’m a notary. I sell some scrapbooking things, but it’s hard when you’re a single mom and—” Her eyes welled up.

“—and your son has such needs.” It was easy to finish her sentence because of her obvious desperation, but Spider didn’t want to get sucked into something that was going to take time and energy away from today’s mission.

“So when he came in, it was like my luck had finally turned.”

Spider sat up straighter. “When who came in?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I signed something. I can’t talk about any of it. What he asked me to do or what I did or any of it.”

“Was it illegal?”

“No.”

“But you can’t talk about it.”