Jacob's Ladder (23 page)

“Your mother's brother was a bad businessman,” Wellington responded, giving the ladder to Caldwell, who unfolded a large plastic bag he had taken from his backpack and placed the ladder inside it. “A pretty good silversmith, but he was way over his head with this.”

The man moved closer to John Sunspeaker. “Your family could have gotten a lot of money for this piece. You could have taken care of
your people
without even building a casino,” he said, mocking him.

“Besides,” Wellington added as he watched Caldwell seal the bag over the ladder, “the Natchez tribe isn't even a tribe anymore. What does it matter now if it's returned or not?”

“It belongs at the burial site,” the nephew insisted.

“See, that's the trouble I have understanding you people right there,” Wellington commented. “That's exactly the problem with this entire story! Why would you want to recover this exquisite piece of art only to bury it in the ground?”

“Because it is where it belongs,” John Sunspeaker replied.

“Well, now it belongs with me, and if makes you feel any better, I can promise you I will treat it with the utmost respect.”

Wellington nodded at Caldwell and then started walking toward the house.

Caldwell motioned to the other two men to bring the Sun-speakers closer to the trio by the riverbank.

The two men pushed the family members down toward Rose. As they obeyed their orders and moved closer, she recognized them as the two men she had seen in the diner when she had stopped with Sheriff Montgomery on their way home from Checotah.

John and Daniel moved as they were directed. The older man had a sound look of defeat about him.

“Now, what do we do with so many of you?” Wellington had stopped and turned around to face them.

No one answered.

“Why don't you let the dead man's family go?” the sheriff finally said, trying to negotiate. He remained with his hands above his head. “And the woman,” he added, referring to Rose. “Let them go and we can talk.”

Wellington's right-hand man, Caldwell, smiled. “I don't think so, Sheriff.”

He moved over to Rose and grinned in her face. “Ms. Rose Franklin, you know, we were so close yesterday to taking care of all of this, but now it looks like you've involved a lot of other people.”

Wellington laughed.

Caldwell backed away and glanced around at his cohorts.

“Tie them up, too. We'll take them to the car.”

The men forced John and Daniel to their knees. One of the pair stayed focused on them while the other pulled duct tape out of his pocket and began tying up the sheriff's hands first and then moved over to Rose. He shoved them both down next to the other hostages and then pulled Agent Lujan out of his seat. Clearly, the quick movement caused the injured man more pain, as he buckled to his knees, wrapping his arms around his waist.

Rose watched Caldwell's assistant pull him up and then tape his hands together behind his back. Lujan struggled to lift himself, and then the man kicked him over to where the others knelt.

Rose winced to see him in such agony and turned away so as not to face him directly. She could not imagine getting out of this situation with the same ease and good fortune she'd had when she was in the camper. She noticed the ax handle but knew that was no match for the three guns the other men had. She watched as the sheriff kept trying to negotiate.

“There's no need to keep all of us,” he pleaded. “Just let them go.”

“Shut up!” Wellington yelled, and everyone at the riverbank went silent.

That was when Rose heard the faint sound of a motorcycle. She struggled to listen and then she was certain. She heard more than just one, and the bikes were headed in their direction.

TWENTY-SEVEN

At first, it seemed to Rose that no one else noticed the approaching roar of the engines, but soon, it was evident that Wellington recognized help was on the way for his hostages.

He yelled for his associates to hurry the others up from the bank and through the woods, toward the house. Rose fell as she was being shoved along, but she was quickly pulled up and once again pushed forward. Even with the quickened pace, however, Wellington and the gunmen were not fast enough.

By the time they got to Sheriff Montgomery's house, the place was surrounded with what appeared to be a squad of Hell's Angels. Rose immediately recognized them as the gang that Lucas liked to ride with, the Welcome Wagon group.

There must have been twenty or more large men with lots of tattoos and plenty of attitude pulling up on motorcycles and moving in all directions. Only one deputy's car followed in behind them, but the siren blared as if a fleet of patrolmen were coming in.

“Get down,” the sheriff yelled to Rose and the other hostages when he realized that there could be gunfire exchanged. The sheriff and the other four immediately dropped to the ground.

Wellington made a run for the SUV parked beside the camper, but Lucas jumped off his bike and tackled him before he made it to the door. When Caldwell and the other two men realized they were completely at a disadvantage, they dropped their weapons and raised their hands. The motorcycle riders circled them as the two deputies quickly moved in.

Sheriff Montgomery hurried over to one of the men on the motorcycles and gestured behind him at his taped wrists. The man immediately pulled out a knife and cut him loose. The sheriff then ran over, picked up Caldwell's firearm, and headed to where Lucas had his knee on Robert Wellington's neck and seemed to be bowed in prayer.

Rose wasn't sure whether it was a prayer of thanksgiving he was offering or one of forgiveness. Although it was obvious that he was doing the right thing in his rescue, Rose knew Lucas was not a violent man.

The sheriff handcuffed Wellington while the deputies took care of the other three.

“These men are under arrest for murder, kidnapping, burglary, possession of stolen goods, and”—he paused as they walked toward the car—“a slew of other crimes that I haven't even thought of yet.”

He shoved them in the car and walked over to the other hostages. He borrowed the knife and began snapping off the tape from Rose, Agent Lujan, and finally the Sunspeaker men.

“You need me to call you an ambulance?” he asked Philip Lujan.

The agent shook his head and twisted a bit from side to side. “No, I think I'm feeling better now.” He turned to Rose. “You got a mean swing, though,” he said.

She rubbed her wrists. “Sorry about that.”

“It's all right,” he replied.

The Sunspeakers joined them as they gathered near the car where Lucas and the sheriff were already standing.

“How did you find out about all of this?” she asked Lucas. She reached up and hugged her friend, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Willie,” Lucas said.

Rose was puzzled.

“Willie saw the SUV in the campground this afternoon. It pulled in next to the big rig from California,” he explained.

“Wellington,” Rose added.

The others leaned in to hear.

Lucas nodded. “He remembered that it was the second car that had entered Shady Grove the night the man from New Mexico was murdered.” He turned to John and Daniel Sun-speaker, both of whom were listening. “I'm sorry,” he said to the two men, appearing as if he knew they were family.

They nodded at Lucas.

“Anyway,” he said, getting back to the story, “Willie came over to the office, where Rhonda and I were, and told us. So when those fellows left, I followed the vehicle over to the motel and could tell right away there was more trouble about to break.”

Rose was enjoying hearing his account of things.

“I called some friends, ran into Deputy Dog over there on Second Street, where the gang was gathering, and he said you had come by the office and were heading out here.” He pointed with his chin over to some of the motorcycle riders. “Rhonda's there.”

Rose searched among the other riders and found her friend as she removed her helmet. Her red hair fell out on her shoulders. They smiled at each other.

“I told her to stay at Shady Grove, but she said if you were here, she was coming.” Lucas winked at his wife, who waved in response. “She thinks of you like a sister.”

Rose nodded. She felt exactly the same way.

“So that's what happened.”

Rose reached up, hugging Lucas again. “Where would I be without you?” she said.

John Sunspeaker searched around the grounds, trying to locate the ladder. When he did, he went over, picked it up, took it out of the plastic bag, and handed it to Agent Lujan. “My uncle understood that you would know what to do with this,” he said.

Agent Lujan nodded. He took the ladder from the dead man's nephew. “He called me a long time ago to say he had been troubled by a dream, a dream of restless spirits.”

Hearing that, Rose remembered the dream she'd had when she was in the stolen camper. She realized it was the same one the dead man had dreamed. She walked closer to hear the conversation.

The agent continued. “He told me about an old ladder that his family had passed down from generation to generation but that had been lost or stolen many years ago.”

John Sunspeaker nodded, already knowing the story. “He knew it had come from an ancestor who had escaped the terrible slaughter in Louisiana, the extinction of the Natchez people.”

Rose had read this story while she had been researching at the library. She knew that there had been almost five thousand people in that tribe, that their ruler was the Great Sun, and that he lived in a huge dwelling on a high, flat-topped mound. She remembered reading the account from 1729. The French attacked the tribe, trying to gain control of the leader's home. The entire tribe had been destroyed. She knew that most had been killed or taken as slaves but that a few had survived and fled the region.

Based upon the comments the nephew had made, she assumed that Mr. Sunspeaker's ancestor had been one of those who became a refugee in the Southwest, that he must have become a part of the Zuni tribe, another pueblo people who believed their high priest and political chief was a descendant of the Great Sun.

She listened to the two men as they continued talking.

“Our ancestor brought with him pieces of strong wood and stones from his leader's fallen home. He was to build the ladder for the lost spirits of his people. The story goes that the ladder had to be built and then returned to Natchez and that without it the spirits of the people could not find their way home.” John Sunspeaker looked over at the ladder he had handed to Philip Lujan.

“My mother's brother was troubled for a very long time. He served in the war and came back to the pueblo as a man broken, lost. He was taken to prison, always in fights, always drunk. And then he received the vision to find and return the ladder to Natchez.

“From that time on, he searched for it. He was a new man, a man with purpose. Once he found the ladder stored away in some museum, he replaced all of the missing stones that had been stolen, and he knew he would see it returned to its rightful place. It was all he lived for.”

Agent Lujan held the ladder reverently.

John Sunspeaker lowered his head and a breeze poured through the trees. It was a passing wind that shifted through budding limbs and stirred the piles of cold, wet leaves. And just as swiftly as it came, it went. It seemed to Rose that it signaled the easy passage of a captured soul, suddenly released.

“There is this, as well,' the sheriff said, breaking the silence. He walked over to the dead man's nephew and handed him the bracelet Rose had found.

The man smiled and took the piece of jewelry, then placed it in his son's hands. They nodded at each other and spoke softly in the Zuni language. The father slid his arm across the younger man's neck; then a silence fell between them.

John Sunspeaker then turned to the group gathered around him. “We thank you for taking care to find our uncle's murderers, for securing the ladder, and for helping us find peace for our journey home.”

Rose considered the long trip they still had ahead of them as they returned to New Mexico. She considered inviting them for dinner, since the hour was late, but then she remembered that she didn't really have anything to offer them. Her cupboard was bare, she recalled.

And then just as she had that thought, Thomas, Ms. Lou Ellen, and Mary pulled up in Ms. Lou Ellen's car. Thomas jumped out and ran over to Rose.

“Are you all right?” he asked, reaching for her.

She felt his arms around her once again. “I am now,” she said.

“Rose, dear,” Ms. Lou Ellen was calling out as she emerged from the car. “If you don't refrain from this dangerous behavior, I swear I am going to be as big as the side of a house. I can't keep expecting to hear bad news and finding it necessary to eat so much.” She moved in Rose's direction. “Because if you continue being involved in this kind of harm, we will one day finally be celebrating your funeral.” She reached over and pinched her friend roughly on the arm.

Rose pulled her arm away and rubbed it. She grimaced. “Yes, ma'am,” she replied.

Lucas and Thomas laughed.

Rose remembered that she wanted to offer dinner to the men visiting West Memphis. She had an idea.

“How about let's put an end to all of this death talk and eat all that funeral food tonight?” she said. “Let's just get rid of it and forget completely about any more anticipatory grief.”

“You got folks in mind to share all that with?” Lucas asked, remembering how much food there still was at his mother-in-law's house.

“Absolutely,” Rose replied, turning in the direction of the three men from out of state.

“Well, where are my manners?” said Ms. Lou Ellen, holding out her hand to the men standing by Rose.

Suddenly, Mary opened the rear door of the car and the three-legged dog jumped from the backseat and ran over to Daniel Sunspeaker.