BURYING ZIMMERMAN (The River Trilogy, book 2) (40 page)

"She's still out there, Owen. It ain't
over."

My breathing turns shallow and quick. For
hours, my attitude toward Zimmerman has swung like a pendulum
between belief and disbelief. But now that I'm convinced he
accepted Gig's delusions long ago, the pendulum has stopped
swinging. In 1902, Henry knew it was Gig who killed Jessie and
Perlmutter. He knew Gig was driven by his fear of the glowing girl.
And he knew Gig would never have allowed Drew to handcuff him
without a lethal fight.

But even if Henry conspired with Garrett,
it's over now – everything except my chance to avenge Drew tonight.
My anger rises because he won't let go.

"Did you inherit Gig's curse, Henry? Is the
glowing girl hunting you now?"

"She ain't after Henry."

The humming in my head rings louder. I focus
on his hands resting on the table, weathered fingers extended
toward me. Nine full and one severed, the one that drew my
attention as an eight-year-old, after Henry helped rescue me from
the mine.

"She never was," Zimmerman says, "and it's
too late anyhow."

Like the fog that shrouded Wylie, the fog
enveloping Zimmerman begins to burn away. Something he said a few
minutes ago echoes in my head, and suddenly I feel sick. My right
hand drifts from the table to my lap and my fingers curl around the
grip of the Colt.

"Your finger," I manage. "You said it
earlier. You said, 'it was my own doing'."

Zimmerman's mouth curls into a tight-lipped
smile. My heart beats faster and my queasiness subsides.

"But it was Garrett's doing," I tell him.
"Both times."

"Henry should of knowed better."

"When? When he put his hand in the water to
catch a frog and trusted you not to spear it? Or when he and Drew
came to your cabin to ask you to give the sheriff your
fingerprints?"

He laughs. "Both times."

Everything I believed is wrong. That
September night in 1902 recast the arc of my life, and now the
foundation for all my rationalizations and questions and fears has
been ripped away. Drew didn't shoot Gig Garrett, and Garrett didn't
burn to a crisp in his wood cellar. He's staring at me from across
the table. It was Henry Zimmerman who died alongside Drew that
night, and tonight's storyteller killed them both. And Perlmutter.
And Jessie and her unborn child.

I raise the Colt quickly from my lap but the
muzzle catches on the table edge, and the instant I lower my eyes
to sweep it clear is the instant Garrett grabs the knife. It
doesn't matter, even when he flips it to his right hand and holds
it ready. My pistol points directly at his chest.

"You killed Drew first," I say. "Made him
throw down his revolver, then shot him in the chest. That was the
easy part."

Garrett seems to be watching that night play
out against the insides of his eyes.

"Henry was the body in the cellar. That must
have been tricky. You shot him with Drew's gun, maybe knocked him
in the head to finish him off. You wanted everyone to think he was
you, so you put your gold ring on his right hand. Then you dropped
him into the cellar, poured oil on him, and burned him into a
blackened shell."

"Henry gave me no choice," Garrett says. "And
burning don't hurt when you're dead."

"But that wouldn't have been enough," I add,
visualizing another twist in the labyrinth. "Because Henry had a
severed finger and you didn't. So when the police found a corpse
with nine-and-a-half fingers, they would have known it was Henry,
not you."

Now the remaining turns seem clear.

"So you used the hatchet. You laid Henry on
the floor near the trapdoor, stretched out his left hand, and
chopped off three fingers at the knuckle, flush with the stub he
had on the fourth. Then you dumped the corpse into the cellar. It
had four half-fingers on its left hand. It could have been you. But
you needed another bloody stub to leave on the floor."

My eyes find Garrett's left hand, resting
again on the table.

"You needed half a ring finger," I say,
focusing on his stump.

"Like I said," Garrett agrees in a baleful
voice, "it was my own doing."

And as I lift my eyes something slams into
the left side of my chest, just below my shoulder. My fingers flex
and I pull the trigger as the force of Garrett's thrown knife tips
me backward. He ducks as the bullet flies high and right. Splinters
burst from the wall. The hollow sound of a gunshot fills the cabin.
Garrett lunges low across the table toward me, but I'm already
falling over. My left side feels useless, made of putty. I swing
the pistol toward him and fire twice more before my back hits the
floor and my gun hand flies backward.

I hear him yowl and hiss and then he's diving
down from the table before I can track him with the Colt. His eyes
are locked in a feral squint and his hollowed face is stretched and
sweating, lips pulled back to show clenched yellow teeth. A dark
stain soaks his shirt below his left collarbone. My second bullet
must have struck him where his knife struck me.

Drops of his blood rain onto my neck and face
as his knees come free from the table and his body falls onto me.
His hands seek out my wrist, driving the pistol down toward the
floor. When I try to raise my left arm against him, a searing pain
stops me. The knife blade is buried in the hollow below my
shoulder.

One of his knees is on my chest and his hands
are prying my fingers loose. In seconds he'll have the gun. I pull
the trigger once, twice, and one final time, and bullets ricochet
off the floor and walls behind my head as he snatches the Colt from
my grip. He pins my right wrist with his foot, aims the barrel at
my chest, and pulls the trigger without saying a word. I take a
last full breath and exhale, knowing the chamber is empty and
gathering myself for a final effort. Garrett snarls something
unintelligible, and the pistol butt flashes down toward my temple
as I close my eyes.

Chapter 48

I lower my eyes from an ill-timed glance at
the sun. Clara is telling me about a gas-house explosion in Santa
Fe as we sit on a round-backed rock beside the Pecos River, on an
upper reach where the valley is narrow and its walls are steep and
green with ponderosa pines. It's early autumn and we can see blazes
of yellow above us where the aspens have turned. The river rolls
over skull-sized rocks that glow, when the cloud shadows lift, in
colors ranging from rust to amber to bone.

Winnie studies them as she wades carefully
across and back, holding her bunched-up dress above the knee-deep
water. Strands of her hair lift in the breeze. She looks tall and
thoughtful and must be eight years old. When she's as far upstream
as I could cast a fish-hook, she bends forward, lowering her face
almost to the water. She stares for a full minute, then stands and
pivots toward Clara and me.

"Papa!" she calls out. "Come see!"

I extend my palm toward Clara and raise my
eyebrows, offering her the chance to share Winnie's discovery, but
she shakes her head.

"Oh no," she laughs. "You're the treasure
hunter in this family. I'll settle for cataloging whatever you
bring back."

"Maybe it's a gold nugget," I counter. "Then
you'll wish you'd seen it in place."

I leave my shoes next to Clara, roll my
trouser legs above my knees, and wade slowly upstream and across
the river. Most of the rocks hold steady under my weight. Winnie
has turned back toward her discovery and is staring at the shaded
surface again.

When I reach her she acknowledges me with a
glance and points to the water just as the sun illuminates a deep
pool before her. An underwater oval of river rocks defines its
periphery, and at its center are two eroded stone lions lying side
by side, just like the ones carved from tufa rock on the Pajarito
plateau. It's hard to tell how big they are – the pool might be
three or thirty feet deep. Winnie and I stare through the surface
ripples at the lions below for a long time.

"I'm cold," she says. I nod and take her
hand, then lead her back to Clara on the sun-splashed rock.

"I'll go get blankets," I say.

Our cabin is a hundred feet up the bank
through the trees. I leave my shoes on the rock and climb to the
cabin barefoot. It's made of logs, with an entry from the front
porch into the main room. Two doorways in the back wall lead to
small bedrooms with windows facing up and down the valley. I enter
the bedroom on the left and close the door to reach the shelves
mounted on the wall behind it. But now the shelves are gone, and
the log wall is smooth clay.

I look around the dimly-lit room. The walls
are adobe. I can touch all four with a single step from the center
of the floor. No blankets anywhere, just a bed-sized table of thick
pine branches against the wall opposite the door. I approach to
look closer and realize it's neither bed nor table. It's a
cremation pyre. I pivot back to the door and pull. It doesn't open,
even when I yank hard with both hands.

I turn toward the outer wall. It's three feet
thick and has two square windows that look like port-holes. Peering
through the nearest one, I extend my hands and head into the shaft.
My shoulders won't fit through. I can't see the sky, but the trees
through the window look dark and threatening. Then a flash
illuminates the hillside, and my right hand feels like it's been
stung by a bee. As thunder rolls down the valley, I pull it from
the window shaft and open my fingers to examine my palm. A wolf
tooth impales its center. The tooth is framed by two eyes, drawn
simply in black. Drops of blood from the tooth-wound look like
tears.

***

My throat hurts and my head throbs as I open
my eyes, flat on my back in the cabin of the scow. The oil lamp is
out but dawn light seeps through the port and starboard windows. Is
Garrett gone? I can't hear him. Instead there's a crackling sound,
and an orange glow that comes and goes against the wall. My right
arm is stretched out on the floor, with something hot and heavy
pressing on my palm. I turn my head to look and see the fire a few
feet beyond it. Instinctively I pull my hand back, but it won't
move and a bolt of pain shoots through it. When I focus harder I
see the knife. Garrett has stabbed my hand to the floor.

I roll toward it, and my left arm flops away
as if a violent kick has dislodged it at the shoulder. Grimacing, I
flip my shoulder and the arm follows limply. I roll further,
pulling in my knees and using my elbow to pry myself onto them,
trying to keep my stabbed hand still.

Now I'm facing the waist-high fire and
absorbing the full heat from its rising flames. A circle of coals
glows orange on the floor, with gray and white hunks layered on
top. Garrett has broken the cask into pieces and formed a teepee
above the coals. The whiskey-soaked staves are burning freely, and
shards of glass sparkle in the fire beneath them. The lamp must
have contributed its oil.

I glance up. Smoke has pillowed across the
ceiling and is pushing down toward the floor. Sweat drips from my
face as I lower it toward my hand. The cabin seems small and the
fire unbearably hot, close enough to engulf me. I try to close the
fingers of my stabbed hand around the butt of the knife. I can't
grip it.

Bracing myself for pain, I swing my left arm
toward the knife. From shoulder to elbow it feels like a torn rag,
but somehow my fingers close firmly around the hot handle.
Instantly they're drenched in sweat. I anchor both elbows on the
floor and tighten my grip, determined to do this only once. Then I
curl my left hand up with all my strength. My shoulder feels
crushed, but the knife and both hands rise together, and then the
blade slips free from the flesh.

I back away from the fire on my knees and
manage to stand without using my hands. Immediately the smoke
hunches me over. I pocket the knife, take off my jacket, and wrap
its sleeves around my shoulder wound. Then I stretch my shirt
across my nose and mouth and shuffle to the door.

Pull my bleeding hand into my shirt sleeve
and use it to open the door a few inches. My knee does the
rest.

Stagger up three steps, into April air and
birdsong. Stand near the transom and breathe.

Follow the starboard rail, past the cabin
window that shows orange smoke within. The dawn sky reveals drops
of blood on the race plank. Garrett was here. Where is he now? The
door to the stable in the bow swings ajar. Wasn’t it closed when I
climbed onboard?

A few more steps to the sycamore that stopped
the scow.

Resting my forearm against its trunk, I look
down for the foothold cut. The cool air is a blessing, but my
breaths are shallow. I feel drained and starved and sick.

I sit on the rail, stretch my foot into the
cut, and lunge forward, but nothing works. I spin off-balance as I
fall. The dried mud hits my feet, knees, right side, and I roll
face down.

Kneel, stand, stumble, and crawl across the
uneven dirt.

I'm away from the scow, far enough from the
fire, and that's all that matters. I collapse and close my eyes, no
longer afraid.

Chapter 49

May 2, 1924

Using my bandaged hand, I set my flask
against the gravestone as a tribute. I haven't opened it since my
night with Garrett on the scow. That was Tuesday. It's Friday now,
just past sunset. I wanted to wait until the Methodist cemetery was
quiet. I don't want anyone to ask me about this grave.

The stone must be softer than most, because
the name engraved on it is already losing definition. That seems
fitting. It memorializes a lie.

Gilbert Garrett

1874 – 1902

I don't know where he is, but I'm convinced
he's alive.

Bill Morris, who saw the smoke from Sandy
Landing Road and followed it to the scow, found me in wretched
condition on Wednesday morning. But neither he nor the others who
appeared from nowhere to gawk at the smoldering wreck found another
body nearby. I didn't mention Garrett. Just told the police I had
happened upon the scow and climbed aboard to explore it when I was
attacked by someone I never saw. That was all I remembered of
Tuesday night.