Leaning Land (23 page)

The marks across his nose and under his eyes were still there, as ugly as sin and a lot less fun. The purple blotches had begun to change around the edges to that dark red tone of old bruise, and some of the lighter ones were turning brown and yellow now. He looked like a damned Gila monster and felt just about as hungry as one. But he did seem to be a lot better, only slight twinges in his torso, which should work out with movement. And most important, he was clearheaded. Food would make him feel even better. Eggs. Over easy. Hash browns. Spicy sausages, link or patty, either one—a hearty cholesterol boost to clog the arteries, washed down with a pot of strong black coffee to raise the blood pressure … .

Wager was wiping up a remaining trace of egg yolk with the last corner of his toast when Paula stopped by the table to check his coffee. “Your poor face looks so sore!”

“Looks worse than it feels, Paula. Really.” Even his tongue was better. It had grown used to the change in the surrounding teeth and no longer poked itself against the sharp edge.

There were no other diners and the girl glanced over her shoulder toward the doorway to the lounge and the cash register beyond. “Yesterday, you and the sheriff were talking about Mr. Litvak?”

Wager nodded.

“Well, that reminded me—you remember you asked me about Rubin? If he’d met with anybody in particular before he died?”

He nodded again.

“He and Mr. Litvak spent some time one afternoon, with that man from Denver. I don’t know his name, but they were talking about something important, it looked like. You know, their heads all close together and no jokes or storytelling—all business.”

“When was this, Paula?”

“Maybe a week or two before Rubin died. I don’t remember the exact day, I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right. Just the three of them?”

“Yes.”

“Who was the other man? The one from Denver?”

“I’ve never heard his name. He’s been here a few times—drives a really nice new car, a Lexus. That’s why I think he’s from Denver: license plate starts with an A.” She bobbed her head at the plate-glass windows open to the parking lot and the stretch of empty highway and the equally empty range beyond. “He usually parks just out there, that’s how I know what he drives.”

“Can you remember anything at all about their conversation?”

“No, sir. It was pretty busy and I didn’t visit their table much—they just had coffee and ice tea. I wouldn’t’ve remembered it at all except for what you and the sheriff said yesterday.”

“Does Verdie know him?” Wager remembered the several times Paula had stood silent and unnoticed while he and Morris talked.

“I don’t know.” But it was clear that she was uneasy at the idea of Wager talking to the older woman about it.

“Well, if he comes in again and I’m around, let me know, OK?”

“Yessir, but I don’t know if he’ll be back too soon. He was here again just a couple of days ago.”

“Who’d he meet?”

“Mr. Litvak and Mr. Hegendorf and another rancher that I’ve seen a couple of times, but I don’t know his name.”

“When was this?”

“Day before yesterday. Late afternoon.”

And that Lexus Wager passed as he was approaching the motel must have held the man. “Tell you what,” Wager said, jotting Sheriff Spurlock’s number on the back of one of his DPD business cards. “If I’m not around when you see him again, leave a message for me at this number. And thanks, Paula.”

She nodded but didn’t move; Wager guessed that she had more on her mind.

“Something else you remember, Paula?”

“Not remember, no. But … do you know Denver real well?”

“That’s where I work, usually. I’m a cop there.”

“Could you—I mean if maybe I went there, could you sort of talk to somebody about a waitressing job for me?”

“Well, I suppose I could, sure. But you want to think very carefully before making a move like that, Paula. Denver’s a big city—and not a very friendly one, sometimes.” Certainly not the way Wager experienced it. “Especially for a girl who doesn’t know anyone there.”

“I’d know you. I mean, I wouldn’t be hanging around you, not that, but if I needed help or something, I’d be able to call you, wouldn’t I? You’re a policeman, you said.”

“Well, yeah. But it could be dangerous, too.” He stopped himself from giving her a cop’s jaundiced view of life in the city. “Not everywhere, but there is danger there.”

“There is here, too,” she said. She started to add something but the sound of voices in the lobby caught her ear and she turned to leave.

“Paula?”

“Yessir?”

“Thanks for the warning the other night. When you called me.”

She froze for an instant, biting her lower lip. Then she nodded quickly and before Wager could ask anything else, hurried away with her head bent over the pot of coffee.

Verdie wasn’t at the cash register when Wager finished his meal. He left a bill to cover his breakfast and a generous tip and headed for the telephone in his room.

The toe of Wager’s shoe tapped the rug with impatience as he waited for an answer to the call he had to make but didn’t really want to. Durkin’s voice finally came on: crisp, efficient, brusque. “Where the hell have you been, Wager? I tried two or three times to call you yesterday. You wanted to know what I found out remember?”

“Right, sorry, I was out of reach. What’d the National Guard people say?”

“No thefts. All of their C-4 is accounted for. They keep it in a secure underground magazine that only the supply sergeant and the battalion commander have access to. And they run a signed, monthly inventory on all munitions as well as the weapons in the armory.”

“And Nichols was the last one to be issued any?”

Durkin’s tone revealed a mix of surprise and irritation. “If you already know this, Wager, why the hell are you asking me?”

“I got it from a different source—think of it as corroboration and be happy. Did Nichols turn any back in?”

“Not that I was told of. Why?”

“I heard that, at the time, the supply sergeant thought Nichols had requisitioned an excessive amount.”

“… He didn’t tell me that … .”

There could be a couple of reasons for the supply sergeant’s silence: it didn’t seem important to the man, he simply forgot about it, he didn’t want to get a friend in trouble. Or himself, if Nichols was the type to get even. And from the little Wager had learned about the man, he was. “You might check with Sergeant Yeager—see if he remembers.”

“Yeah. I will. Nichols is a member of the Constitutional Posse, you said.”

“One of its leaders, from what I hear. Along with a good friend of his, Stanley Litvak. They see a lot of each other; my guess is that if Nichols is up to something, Litvak at least knows about it.”

“I see … .”

“Plan on talking to them?”

“You bet I do. I’ll be in touch, Wager. Thanks.”

And thank you, Special Agent Durkin. That line of inquiry would be very helpful: it would keep Nichols’s eyes away from Wager, give the FBI man something to do, and—if dropping Litvak’s name worked out—might even make Liz happy.

He finished brushing his teeth and was almost out the door when his telephone rattled and Liz’s rushed voice said, “Good morning! How are you feeling?”

“Fine—really. Good sleep, good breakfast. And I was just thinking about you.”

“Pleasant, I hope.”

“Thinking of something that would make you happy.”

“I’d like to hear more about that! But it’ll have to wait—meeting in ten. But I wanted to tell you what I found out: That license plate? It belongs to a car owned by Ronald Pyne. He’s that wheeler-dealer Weldon McGraw likes to do favors for. The Riverfront Project man?”

“I remember. But why—”

“I thought you’d want to know. So I asked Weldon about him—why he’s running around the western slope. And of course Weldon couldn’t help a little puff about his intimate knowledge of his wealthy friends and their deals. Pyne owns a ranch somewhere out there. He bought it a couple of years ago, and McGraw says he’s planning on developing it. Has asked McGraw to come in with him—provided, is my guess, McGraw can deliver on the Riverfront Project.”

“Develop it how?”

“McGraw wasn’t too specific about that. Resort hotel, recreation stuff. Some kind of vacation village, I think.”

“Do you know what ranch?”

“He said it was the Flying W. It’s somewhere in La Sal County, but he didn’t know exactly where.”

Wager gazed off at the county map he held in his mind. “I know where that ranch is. But Weldon better not count his money yet—there’s not much out there for recreation unless you like scrub range and high desert.”

“He said Pyne has been out there a number of times, doing research and talking to county residents about the plan. Have you read or heard anything locally?”

“No.”

“OK—that’s all I have—got to run!”

She hung up before he could thank her.

Ray Qwana’tua, too, had tried to call Wager yesterday; he had planned to drive out to Luther’s place in the afternoon and Wager had said he wanted to go along. But Wager must have slept through the telephone’s ringing at his bedside, though he only told Ray that he had been out. So the tribal policeman had put off his visit until he could reach Wager. Now, as they rattled along the bumpy track toward Narraguinnep Wash, Ray, who had finally gotten over his shock at Wager’s bruised face, listened as he described Rubin’s tangled love life.

“What’s the sheriff think of all that?” Ray asked.

“I haven’t told him all of it.”

The tribal policeman tapped a finger on the steering wheel. “Maybe he already found out about Rubin and what’s-her-name, Herrera’s wife. Maybe it was bad enough his niece married an Indian, but then that Indian started cheating on her.”

Wager didn’t see it that way, but he’d learned long ago that a lot of things weren’t always the way he saw them. “Sharon said he and Rubin got along all right.”

“Spurlock got along with an Indian?”

Wager shrugged. “That’s what she said, and I haven’t found anything different. And Rubin was an Indian who was family.”

Another tap on the steering wheel. “Yeah, that’s so. And I don’t really know Spurlock all that well, just what I hear about him on the rez from people he’s arrested for drunkenness. Not your least biased testimony, I guess.” Then, “Maybe we should go back to the test by smoke.”

“What’s that?” asked Wager.

“Ute marriage test—a boy and girl who want to get married have to sit all day in a teepee filled with smoke. Hot, hard to breathe, stings the eyes, itch with sweat—just sit there for a whole day with only water to drink. If they don’t get on each other’s nerves, then the marriage is OK; if they start bitching at each other, it’s off.” He lifted his cap and resettled it on his glossy black hair. “Hell of a lot cheaper than a divorce, I think. Lot less trouble, too.”

Wager couldn’t argue with that; he’d only tried the expensive option. But it crossed his mind that Liz could get through the test OK; in fact, she’d probably make it a point to do better than Wager. “They still do that? The Utes on the reservations?”

“Some might, I suppose. But I haven’t heard of it in a long while.” He guided the bucking steering wheel across a ledge of exposed rock. “No television inside the teepee, so probably not. Say, did Don Henderson get in touch with you? He called me yesterday, said he’d been trying to reach you.”

The BLM man who had picked Wager up at the airport. “No. Did he say what he wanted?”

Ray shook his head. “Didn’t sound too excited, though. Just said thanks and hung up.”

If it was vital, Henderson could always leave a message for Wager at the sheriff’s office and the dispatcher would pass it on. He squinted against the late-morning glare as the vehicle rocked and lurched toward the distant and isolated split-level home. The last time they had arrived, they’d sat patiently in the truck until a figure had come out of the house to welcome them. This time it was a woman, Luther’s wife, to judge by her age; and like the man’s mother, she, too, had her hair gathered into a knot at the back of her neck and anchored by two long wooden pins. But instead of an ankle-length, baggy dress, she wore Levi’s, a flannel shirt, and tennis shoes. A heavy silver-and-turquoise necklace hung around her neck, and turquoise rings glinted on both hands. She greeted Ray with a Ute phrase that Wager couldn’t quite hear, and Ray replied something just as quietly. Her name was Cerise and he introduced Wager as a Colorado lawman. Then he asked if Luther was around.

“No. He’s out with the sheep.” She lifted her chin toward some vague point on the eastern horizon. “Left a few days ago, be out maybe a week more. You got to see him right away?”

Ray made a so-so gesture and glanced in the direction she had indicated. “Is he up the wash? Toward the land of his half brother who had bad luck?”

She nodded. “Could be near Knife Springs, maybe.”

“Knife Springs? Is that on Luther’s land?”

“No. On the other one’s. His brother’s. Up by Siva’atu Mesa. You know that place?”

“I’ve never been there. You think I can find it OK?”

Her black eyes shifted to the truck’s door, to the ground as she thought. “There’s other places got water right now, so I don’t know if that’s where he is. But Knife Springs’s the only place up that way got water all year, so it’s the only place with trees. Just go along the wash to Siva’atu Mesa and then look for the trees; I think you can find it OK. But you got to go around.” Her arm made a wide circle in the air. “Off the reservation, if you want to drive there. From here you got to have a horse. You going there now?”

Ray thought it over. “That’s a long way to go. Maybe you can tell me what I want to know—save us the trip.”

She waited for the question.

“Luther’s mother said she heard his half brother say his land portion was going to be worth something now. I’d like to know what he meant by that.”

Wager watched closely, but the woman’s expression did not change. Her wide face still aimed at the ground, her black hair glistened in the sun. “He was real happy about something, I remember. But a lot of times he was just full of hot air, so I didn’t pay much attention.”