Leaning Land (18 page)

Ray caught Wager’s eye and made a wry face. Those were universal topics on the reservation; Luther and Ray had talked about them, too.

Wager asked, “Did he say anything about family troubles? About any problems he was having with his wife?”

Interest brought her eyes off the carpet. “Sharon? Were him and Sharon having problems?”

That sort of answered Wager’s question, so he sort of answered hers. “I don’t know. It’s just the kind of thing we have to ask.”

“No. He didn’t say nothing about Sharon that I remember. Not while I was there, anyway.”

“Did he say anything about working for the FBI? Or about learning anything that the FBI might be interested in?”

“Not while I was there, no.” Wager was obviously ignorant of Ute ways. “That’s something they would talk about in the shade house or in the hogan. Men only. But it was raining, so they had to stay inside and wouldn’t talk about things like that.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. On the wall behind the woman hung a flat, brightly painted drum and beneath it two crossed sticks, each of which had something hairy dangling from an end. They didn’t look like drumsticks. Prayer sticks, maybe. On another wall was a brightly colored picture of Jesus looking up into a light that came from somewhere outside the picture frame. It was a lot like the one hanging in his mother’s living room in Denver.

Wager finally asked, “Was Luther’s brother getting an allotment?”

“He was one quarter. He couldn’t.”

“He said something about his allotment. Said it was finally going to be worth something.”

The woman frowned, thinking. “He didn’t get no allotment. Maybe he meant his portion—land portion—from his father. But I don’t know how he could get anything out of that: he couldn’t sell it and he couldn’t live on it. He let Luther use it for running sheep.” She wanted them to understand: “Luther paid him for the use of it. In sheep. One quarter of each spring lambing went to him for the use of it. Luther didn’t really have to pay him nothing, but he did.”

Ray asked, “Where is this land?”

“It’s a section up Narraguinnep Wash. His father felt like the government was wrong to say his son was not an Indian anymore so he left him a section in his will. His father thought maybe the government would change its mind again, so he wanted to make sure his son had a place on the reservation when it did.” She added, “It’s a real nice portion.”

“Who does it belong to now?” asked Wager.

She shrugged. “Sharon, I reckon. Maybe the children—Estelle and Blanche. I don’t know what the new rules say. Probably the children—they’re one eighth.” Another shrug. “But they won’t get nothing out of it unless the rules change again. They can’t sell it and they can’t live on it either, unless the rules change.”

Ray asked, “How far up Narraguinnep Wash is it?”

“Near the border. Runs into the land of that-man-who-died-from-a-knife.”

“That man who died maybe two months ago?”

“Him. Yes.”

R
AY SAT IN
the pickup truck’s sun-heated cab and did not start the engine right away. Luther’s mother had not been able to add anything about either Rubin’s death or that of Walter Lawrence, and she had nothing to tell them about the Constitutional Posse or anything else of what she called “white man’s politics.” After a while the tribal policeman said, “I’d like to talk to some other people before we go see Luther again.”

“Why?”

“This land that belonged to Rubin, it’s the first I heard about it.” The sunglasses swung toward Wager. “Who told you about it?”

Wager repeated what Rosemary Morris had mentioned. “But I don’t see what its importance is. It can’t be sold or lived on by anyone off the reservation.” A thought struck him. “Or is the law going to change? Will Del Ponte’s wife be able to sell it?”

“The rules can always change. This new tribal sovereignty plan means the rules probably will change. In fact, that’s its purpose: to get rid of the reservations, let the tribes fend for themselves without any more government handouts. Some of the people see it as America’s ‘Final Solution to the Indian Question.’“ He started the vehicle and slowly swung around in the street. “Four hundred years of solutions and still trying. But whether or not it means people off the reservation will be able to sell reservation land to nonresidents is something else. I can’t see any of the tribes agreeing to that. I mean, the whole idea of restricting tribal membership to half-bloods was to consolidate the tribe—to give it closer unity. That, and so the royalty payments from gas and coal wouldn’t have to be split among so many claimants. And to keep the ‘Made by Native Americans’ labels from being used by anybody who said they had a drop of Indian blood in them.”

Driving slowly, Ray gave himself time to talk and to think. “Native American artists! We used to have all these people moving to Santa Fe and Taos and claiming their great-grandfather had some kind of Indian blood, and then setting themselves up as Native American artists. Crap!”

“What’s to stop them now?”

“Federal law—truth in packaging, believe it or not. Law now says you can’t claim you’re making Native American handicrafts unless you’re a registered member of a tribe. Pissed off a lot of whites and Hispanics who were running around wearing headbands and feathers and selling their pots and rings and rugs as Indian-made.”

Wager steered the man back to what he figured was more important. “So if it’s not likely that Sharon Del Ponte can do anything with the land, what’s important about having it?”

“If Rubin was killed, it must have been for some reason. And the land is the only thing he had that maybe was worth anything. His truck, sure, but his wife won’t get much more than a few thousand out of a used semi.” He nodded thoughtfully. “And nobody mentioned his land to me. That’s kind of weird—I think maybe people didn’t want me to know about it for some reason.”

Wager, too, was thinking. “Do mineral rights go with the land?”

“No, they’re collective—tribal rights. That way everybody gets some of the royalties even if the minerals aren’t on their portion.”

“But that could change?”

“Could. I don’t think it’s likely, but it could. But I haven’t heard of any mineral finds up in Narraguinnep Wash.”

“Might the land go to Luther?”

“Depends on Rubin’s will, I think. If he made one. If he didn’t, the state will probably probate the property to his wife and children rather than to a half brother. Any way you can find out if Rubin had a will?”

“If it’s been filed, sure. Should be with the Montezuma County clerk and recorder’s office. I can give them a call.”

“I think I’ll ask around some about this land of Rubin’s. Maybe there’s something about it being next to Walter Lawrence’s place.” A moment later Ray mused, “I wonder who got Walter Lawrence’s land when he died?”

Ray let Wager use one of his office telephones to call the county clerk’s office in Cortez. The woman down there said it would take a little while to get the information, could she call him back?

“I’d better call you. I won’t be at this number later.”

Ray, leafing through the small pile of memos and mail that had come while he was out of the office, looked up when Wager stopped talking. “No luck?”

“She has to go through the court files. Takes a couple of hours, she said.” He thanked Ray for the use of his telephone. “Let me know when you go out to talk to Luther. I’d like to go along.”

The younger man nodded. “And you let me know what you find out from Cortez.” He pointed a finger at Wager, his thumb cocked like a pistol. “And look over your shoulder now and then, OK?”

Wager promised he would and, stomach grumbling about missing lunch, plodded to his car through the weight and glare of the early-afternoon sun.

If Sharon Del Ponte was getting tired of seeing Wager, she didn’t show it. This time he accepted her offer of coffee—it might fool his stomach for a while—and joined her in the small kitchen with its dark cupboards of imitation wood. A girl eight, maybe nine years old, with dark eyes and sun-bleached hair hung around watching Wager until her mother told her to go outside and see what her sister was up to. “An in-service day at school,” she explained to Wager. “Teachers anymore seem to spend more time studying how to teach kids than teaching them.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Wager sipped and complimented her on the coffee. “I understand your husband owned some land over on the reservation.”

“I don’t know if ‘owned’ is the word for it. It didn’t do us any good; we couldn’t use it for anything.”

“Can you tell me what happens to it now?”

“What happens to it?” Her pale eyebrows went up. “I don’t know. Goes to Luther, I guess. He lives there—he’s been using it for his sheep.”

“It didn’t go to you or your daughters?”

This seemed to be the first time she’d thought of that possibility. “No—I don’t think so. Why should it?”

“Well, your daughters are their father’s heirs. Property usually gets handed down to the closest relatives. Did your husband leave a will?”

“No, not that I know of.” Again, it seemed to be an aspect of his death that she hadn’t considered. “Rubin didn’t own anything worth putting in a will.”

“Do you know what would happen to the property if he didn’t leave a will?”

“No. I ain’t thought much about that. Like I said, it never was worth anything, so I never really thought of it as belonging to us.” She studied Wager’s face. “You think that land might belong to the girls? You think I ought to hire a lawyer to see they don’t get cheated?”

“I don’t know about hiring a lawyer yet. If your husband didn’t leave a will, the state will have to get involved.”

“How come?”

“Just the way the law reads. Anyone who dies without a will or a trust has to have his property go through probate court. That’s in order to make sure any claimants against the estate—anybody he borrowed money from or bought things from on time—gets paid. The court also makes sure that Colorado gets any outstanding taxes and fees.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yes, ma’am. They advertise for claimants to the estate for three days and then wait three months to give people a chance to get to court and file. What’s left goes to the heirs by a state formula.” Wager watched the two children messing around near the swing set. The younger one was gingerly walking up the slide and talking as she held on to the metal sides; the older girl, poking a stick at something in the dirt, was ignoring her. “I noticed that the only telephone number painted on your husband’s truck is this one. Did you answer his business calls for him when he wasn’t here?”

“Yes. Mostly took messages for him, and he’d call back when he came in.”

“So you had a pretty good idea of his schedule?”

“Not a good one, no. A lot of the time I’d know where he was supposed to be, but he was the one who set up his schedule. He wouldn’t let me do that. He said he knew best how long a job might take and he’d better be the one to do the schedule.” She repeated what she’d already told Rosemary Morris. “Sometimes he’d lose a job because the caller wanted to know right then if Rubin could do it. He couldn’t wait for Rubin to get home and call him back.”

“Did anyone phone him just before he left on the seventeenth?”

That demanded an effort of memory. “I’m not sure, it was so long ago, now. Let me see if I maybe wrote something down.” She went around a small partition that set off the dining area from the kitchen with its wall phone. Wager heard the light scrape of a desk drawer and she came back, the heels of her slippers tapping the linoleum. “I’d keep his messages in a notebook,” she explained. “That way I wouldn’t forget, and if I was gone or asleep when he got in, he could look at them.” She said apologetically, “I don’t know if this’ll help you any. It ain’t much.” The notebook had a bright-red paper cover; printed neatly on it in black marker was “Daddy’s Message Book.” She saw Wager reading it. “I got it for him for Christmas a couple years ago. For the kids to give him for a Christmas present.” She stared at it for a second or two before opening it. Wager expected tears, but aside from a slight weariness, her voice did not change. “I reckon it’ll be one of the last pages, won’t it?” She leafed backward past a few blank sheets. “Here.”

Wager turned the booklet so he could read it. Vertical ink lines had been carefully ruled down across the printed blue lines. The first column was headed “Date and Time,” the second, “Name and Number,” the third, “Message.” The last entry was from Bill Nyholt followed by a phone number and “21 March?” There were a couple of others like that—Wager figured they were ranchers who wanted to set up cattle moves, and Mrs. Del Ponte said he was probably right, she recognized a couple of names. Then a note that said “Mr. Sloan, Lastwell Furniture, ASAP” that was dated March 18. A few more names and numbers were scattered through the week preceding the seventeenth, but the only one Wager recognized was Lou Gregory, dated the sixteenth at 10:30 A.M. and followed by a number.

“Your husband saw all these messages?”

“That’s what that little check is there. Means he saw them, but it don’t mean he called back. I don’t have any way of knowing if he called back—that was his business.”

Wager looked over the list once more, copying the names and dates of the calls. “He didn’t have a mobile phone?”

“No. Said it would cost too much. He had a CB in his truck, but he didn’t use it much that I know of. It was for emergencies and to keep awake with on his long hauls.” She shrugged. “It didn’t work too good around here anyway.”

“Did he have many of those?”

“Long hauls? No. Mostly local. The furniture store job was about his longest. Down to Phoenix—that’s that Mr. Sloan. He runs the furniture store up in Grand Junction.”

“Did your husband have any income other than his trucking business?”

“No. He owned some of his brother’s sheep; that’s what he got from him for using that land. But there wasn’t much money in it. They sheared the wool every spring, but they didn’t sell any for meat.”

“Did he ever talk about canceling his run for Mr. Sloan?”

“Canceling it? What for? He was one of Rubin’s steady customers.”