Leaning Land (29 page)

Ray met him in the shade of the building’s front door and walked with him to the tribal police office. “Durkin just called. He wanted to know if I’d seen Nichols. And he wants you to call him right away.”

“Nichols is missing?”

“Looks that way. Durkin took a sniffer dog and a search warrant out to Nichols’s ranch just after noon. Nichols wasn’t there, but the dog turned up some sticks of C-4 in a corner of the barn and Durkin put out an arrest warrant for him. But nobody seems to know where he is, so Durkin wants you to call.”

Wager did.

“I thought you were supposed to coordinate things, Wager. I by God call the sheriff for some help in locating a wanted fugitive and he as much as tells me to kiss his ass. Now that I need it, where in hell’s all this cooperation you keep talking about?”

“I can’t coordinate if I don’t know what’s going on, Durkin, and I just heard from Officer Qwana’tua about Nichols. Did you tell Sheriff Spurlock you were going to run a search of Nichols’s ranch?”

“No, I did not. Nor am I required to.”

“Was that because you didn’t trust him not to warn Nichols?”

“Well, no—! It was … you have to move fast on these things, and I didn’t have time. You know what it means to preserve evidence in a search!”

Wager knew what it was to lie, too, and he caught that defensive note in Durkin’s voice. “Any reason why Sheriff Spurlock shouldn’t assume you didn’t trust him?”

“Wager, goddamnit, I am not the one who’s derelict in my duty here! I’m a by God federal officer and I order you—that’s an order—to assist in the location and apprehension of Bradley Nichols, who is a wanted fugitive from justice!”

“Do you have any idea what a damn fool you sound like?” The noise on the other end of the line became a squawk and Wager had to raise his voice over it. “I’m willing to help you, Durkin, and I can. But you’re going to have to help me, too.”

“What!”

“You give Sheriff Spurlock your word that you will not mount any more operations or exercise any more warrants in his jurisdiction unless you inform him first and request and heed his advice in dealing with the local population.”

“What?”

“Otherwise you are out there by yourself, Durkin. And you will not have any local agencies to hide behind if some of the county’s hotheads feel like shooting to defend their liberties.’’

“Wager, you—”

“You can give me your word on that, and I’ll pass it on to Spurlock. And then I’ll ask him to help you with Nichols. But without something from you, I’m not going to get a damned thing out of him.”

The line was silent. “Let me speak to Officer Qwana’tua.”

Wager handed over the telephone to the tribal policeman, who grunted a few times in response to whatever the FBI agent was saying. Then Ray handed the telephone back to Wager. “He wants to talk to you again.”

“OK, Wager. You tell Spurlock I’ll work with him. In his jurisdiction only. But I expect help in locating Nichols. And you tell him he calls me—I by God am not going to call that man first.”

Wager thought that was a small price and made his call, hoping Spurlock would think so, too.

“Durkin wants what?”

“In return for your help, here’s what he agrees to.” Wager told the sheriff about the bargain.

“That sombitch ran a search warrant in my jurisdiction, Wager! Went out and raided the home of a member of the goddamn Constitutional Posse and stirred up the whole goddamn bunch worse than a hatful of hornets! I got a call from Morris, who saw Pete Stine and half a dozen others going down the goddamn highway in a parade of pickup trucks and rifles!”

“He found the C-4, Sheriff. It was there. In Nichols’s barn.”

“He what? He found it?”

“Buried in a corner of the barn. Dog sniffed it up.”

“Oh, goddamn.”

“Think Morris can get that word to Pete Stine and the rest of the Posse members? It might cool them off to learn that Nichols is guilty.”

A deep sigh.

“And you can promise Stine and the others that the FBI won’t pull any tricks—that the FBI has agreed to work through your office for any and all operations in the county, and that they can come to you with any questions or worries they have about FBI activities.”

“You think Durkin means that?”

“All you have to do is call him.”

“It’s worth a try. Hell, it’s the only thing I got for a try.”

Wager hung up the telephone and stared for a long moment at the office wall without seeing it. He hoped it would work. “Coffee,” he said to Ray. “I need a cup of coffee.”

“It’s not as good as Happy’s, but here you are.”

Wager took a long swallow. “What did Durkin tell you?”

“Said I was a federal employee, that I was to report directly to him, and that I wasn’t to work with you anymore, forthwith. I think he was trying to save face—figured he could stomp around in his own sandbox, since he couldn’t stomp around in Spurlock’s anymore.”

“What are you going to do?”

Ray’s eyebrows lifted. “I’m not a federal employee—I’m an employee of the sovereign state of the Squaw Mountain Ute Reservation. And we’ve got a case to finish.”

That was what Wager wanted to hear. He drained his cup. “Have you talked with Ramey yet?”

“No. Why?”

“How did he know Luther had gone to see a medicine man?”

“Aw, crap!” The younger man looked embarrassed. “The white man told him. I should’ve thought of that.” Then, “But what would this white man and Ramey want with Luther?”

Wager brought him up to date about Holtzer’s contract for a share of Rubin’s water and what Paula had said about Ramey meeting with the new owner of the Flying W.

“Ramey met with Ronald Pyne after you got here? Just a couple of days ago?”

“And Ramey knew I was looking into Rubin’s death.” As, it seemed, everyone else in the county did, too; but Wager didn’t bother telling the tribal policeman about the threat Paula had overheard—Ray had already seen the results of that.

“But I still don’t see why anyone would go after Luther.”

“I don’t know for certain. But it looks like we have two people running: one who planted some bombs, the other who claims Rubin’s land.” Wager told Ray what he had been formulating on the drive to the reservation. “My guess is Luther had a deal with either Ramey or Pyne or both. Maybe Luther killed Rubin or helped someone else kill him so he could claim the land. Then maybe he got greedy and raised the price of the water—Rubin must have told him about Holtzer’s contract and what the water might be worth. Or even what it might be worth not to file a lawsuit that could tie up the Flying W development for years. But in some way, Luther and Ramey both have to be involved with the Flying W. Things just don’t make sense without that. And, if Luther is, then my guess is that either Luther didn’t deliver something to someone, or he knows something that someone doesn’t want him talking about.”

“That someone’s the white man?”

“Nobody knows where Nichols is. If he went out to Knife Springs, he wouldn’t know yet about Durkin’s raid on his ranch. So maybe he’s not running from Durkin, but running after Luther.”

“Where does Ramey come in?”

“I figure he smelled money and pushed his way in. Maybe through killing Lawrence, certainly through buying his land from the tribe. So he got a foot in the door through Lawrence. But Knife Springs is a better water source. The problem is, it belongs to Luther, now. So how’s Ramey going to get it? Luther has relatives living on the reservation who would have first claim if he dies. But what if Luther could be frightened enough to sign over the land to Ramey—scared enough that Nichols or somebody was going to kill him, and that the only way to get out alive would be to take what Ramey offered for the land. Then Ramey would have both portions. The Many Coats would own all the water Pyne needs to buy, plus the land the casino is going to be built on with tribal money.”

“He could make Pyne pay through the nose.”

“Well, Pyne might back out if it gets too expensive. That would screw up his and his investors’ plans to get rich, as well as Ramey’s own investment in Walter Lawrence’s land and make it worth zilch again. But Ramey sure would be able to bargain for a much sweeter deal than if Pyne or Nichols already had some kind of claim to the water—say, through a deal with Luther.”

Ray dragged his thumb along the bumpy flesh of his jaw. “So Ramey figures maybe Luther can be scared into selling the land to him—warns Luther that Nichols is out to kill him, and the only way to prevent it is to get rid of the land. But Luther doesn’t sell. Instead, when he sees Nichols, he runs and he also makes his wife promise never to sell—that’s what that was all about! So Nichols tells Ramey what happened, and Ramey calls Cerise to find out where the medicine man lives. And then he tells Nichols—who goes after Luther to make him live up to the deal they’d offered Rubin.” The tribal policeman nodded to himself. “And if Nichols does happen to kill Luther for whatever reason, Ramey can make—will make—the offer to Cerise. And she’ll probably be easier to handle than Luther, especially if her husband’s just been murdered. He could even scare her by saying he caused Luther’s death with his medicine, and in a way he’d be right.” Ray stared at the map on the wall as if it were a television screen. “And even if that little plan doesn’t work, Ramey’s no worse off than before. It doesn’t answer all the questions, and I don’t see where Kershaw comes in, but it makes a lot more sense than it did before.”

“It also makes it pretty important that we find Luther while he can still talk.”

Cerise Del Ponte had told them that in the past Luther had used a Navajo medicine man of the Begay clan. “Henry Begay. He lives somewhere over here near Hovenweep, on Montezuma Creek.” Ray’s finger on the map had followed the boundary lines where the northern edge of the Navajo reservation lapped up into the southeast corner of Utah, almost to the Hovenweep National Monument.

“This is where Luther’s headed?”

Ray shrugged. “It’s where Henry Begay lives.”

And that was why Wager now sat rocking and swaying on the more gentle of the two ponies Ray had led down the ramp from the police trailer when the fragmenting track finally grew too rough for the truck’s four-wheel drive. A helicopter would have been quicker and a lot more comfortable. But it wasn’t in Wager’s budget, and the only one available to Ray was the one all the federal agencies chartered when they needed it. It was also the one Durkin would know about if Ray did request it. Besides, Ray had grinned, it felt good to get out of that truck and back in the saddle again. Wager had not grinned back.

The sun faded into a dying smear of red off to their right. Against the clear green of the evening horizon loomed the black silhouettes of buttes and broken ridges, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to see the dips and hollows of the earth as the light gradually settled into a single gray shade. But the ponies did not stumble often, and Wager hung on in trust of his animal’s hooves and Ray’s knowledge of where they were headed.

Once, early on, Wager had asked Ray if he was sure the widely scattered sign he was following was Luther’s and the tribal policeman had shaken his head. “Nope. Who do you think I am, Tonto?” Then the wide smile lit up his face. “But anybody headed for Hovenweep country has to come this way. Land’s too cut up to go any other way.” He gestured vaguely to both sides. “Some humongous canyons to wander around in. No, we might not be following every step of his trail, but there’s no other way to take a horse from here to there.”

“Why didn’t he drive?”

“Maybe he was afraid Nichols could drive faster or that truck of his couldn’t make it. Or that he might meet Nichols coming back to the rez as he was leaving. Besides, there’re only three roads in this whole corner of the Navajo reservation and they all link up. Wouldn’t be hard to look for someone who had to stay on those roads.”

“Do you think Nichols might have come this way, too?”

“Not without a horse, and I haven’t seen but one set of fresh tracks. My guess is he’s driving. It’s a long way around, too. Either up through Monticello and down 191 to Bluff, or over on 666 toward Cortez and then back up to Aneth. Either way, the trip takes a whole afternoon to get somewhere ahead of Luther.”

They rode until it was almost black, then Ray swung out of the saddle and took a long drink from one of the large, cloth-covered canteens slung from his saddle. “We better camp now. Cold camp. Be light enough again, six, seven hours.”

A cold camp, Wager found out, meant no campfire; Ray didn’t want to take the chance of Luther discovering that they had followed him. It also meant being cold, and Wager buttoned the neck of his denim jacket and turned its collar up against a wind that had shifted from a warm, upslope direction to bring a bone-deep chill from the icy glitter of the stars. Ray gave the horses a light drink and hobbled them to forage while Wager kneaded a little water into his foil pouch of dried vegetable and beef whatever, and heated it over the hissing blue flame of a dim gas burner set in a pothole. It wasn’t good, but at least there wasn’t much of it, and even the ground—hard and lumpy through the thin mattress pad—felt better than the barrel-sized saddle that had begun to torture his legs by pushing them into bowed arcs. Now, Wager thought as he quickly drifted into sleep, he knew why cowboys walked the way they did.

After a while, you stopped trying to find away to keep your knees and hips from hurting or to ease the raw hotness of the saddle chafing against your spine. What you did was let your mind sort of go out into the sun-whitened rock and sand in a feeling that was almost like sleeping with your eyes open. The gait of the horse made a gentle lurch that swayed your body and kept one tiny part of you anchored to the hurt, but the rest could float away above the banks and cliffs of red sand, above the increasingly deep arroyos and gullies that tortured the land, until you could almost see yourself somewhere in the glare below: a tiny figure whose shadow made a tight pattern of black that rippled across the brush and gravel and spines of bone-white slickrock.

Wager ceased to wonder about where he was or how long it had taken to get here. Time was like the surrounding desert, something that went on forever, that had its own being, and into which he and Ray were intruders. The rhythmic creak of leather, the steady slosh of canteens that were fast growing empty, the plopping of hooves—muffled by loose sand or ringing against bare rock—formed the only sounds and helped in their monotony to push his spirit self even farther from its body. And always the sun, like a weight that grew familiar but never easier. Pressing steadily against flesh, against cloth, weighing on his eyes and even the air he breathed so that a breeze, when it came, was only heat from another direction.