Slickrock (Gail McCarthy Mystery) (29 page)

Blue's hand moved to my wrist; his eyes cautioned me.

Steve was twenty feet away now, looking up in the rocks. He stared at the sapling.

"You bastards," he said again. And pointed his pistol and fired.

Crack! The shot was aimed in our general direction, but I didn't think he could see us. He took another step forward and pointed the gun right at us.

"Now," Blue said urgently.

I pulled the trigger.

Ka-boom. The .357 went off in a deep-voiced explosion. Echoes bounced, my hand jerked back. For a second I saw Steve's face-amazed, furious-as the force of the bullet shoved him backward. He fell, rolled, and went over the bank, leaving only the rattle of falling scree behind him.

I looked at Blue. His face registered nothing. He watched the cliff where Steve had disappeared. I looked over to where Dan Jacobi lay on the ground. He, too, watched the spot where Steve had fallen off the edge. It seemed for a moment that we all held our breath. No noise, nothing. Just the sound of the creek in the canyon.

Dan's face turned in our direction. "I haven't got a gun," he said clearly. "I think my leg's broken."

Blue and I glanced at each other. "What do you think?" I whispered.

"Be careful," he said.

"Put both your hands where I can see them," I called to Dan, training the pistol on his body.

Slowly he raised both empty hands in the air.

"Where's Jim?" I yelled.

"Back in camp."

Once again, Blue and I looked at each other. "Let's go," I said. "Let's get out of here."

He took this in and stood up. We clambered carefully back down to the trail. I didn't look at the cliff, tried not to think about Steve or the horse. I kept my eyes on Dan, kept the pistol pointed at him.

He lay on the ground, hands raised. He neither moved nor spoke until we stood on the trail.

"Don't leave me here," he said evenly.

I stared at him. By the angle at which it lay, I could see that his leg was broken-a compound fracture, probably. I knew the kind of pain he would be in. His face was quiet; his eyes watched us.

I felt no sympathy for him. I felt no anger either. I felt detached. There he lay in front of me, suffering, and I felt no more pity than a rabbit who is suddenly empowered to kill the bobcat. Let him suffer, I thought.

Dan showed no sign of the pain. His face stayed quiet, composed even. A little tightness in the way he held his mouth, that was all.

He met my eyes. "Help me," he said.

"Why?" I pointed the gun at his face. "Why did you do all this?"

For a long moment those hard, dark eyes looked right at the end of the gun. "I can show you," he said at last.

His hand moved and my own hand jerked in response.

"I don't have a gun," he said again, holding still. "I want to get something out of my pocket."

I stared at him. "If you pull a gun, I will kill you," I said steadily.

"I know that. I don't have a gun. Can I show you?"

I wavered. What in the hell? "Move very slow," I warned him.

His hand went slowly to the pocket of his shirt. He unbuttoned the flap, reached in, fumbled a minute, brought his hand out, fist closed.

"See," he said. And he opened his hand.

For a moment I didn't understand what I was seeing. Small, shiny pieces of glass, little clear stones that glittered in the sunlight. I peered forward, keeping the pistol on Dan's face.

They were jewels, I realized. Loose, not set. Cut, faceted gemstones, clear and shiny, green in color. Emeralds? If they were emeralds, they looked strangely pale and washed out, there in the palm of Dan's hand, in the clear, pure Sierra sunlight. Like chips of glass, lacking any of the green fire in their hearts that the word emerald brings to mind.

"Green fire," I said out loud.

"That's right." Dan looked mildly pleased. "I knew you'd see it, sooner or later. One way or another."

My mind was adding things now, coming up with a new equation. "Green fire in their bellies," I said. "That's what Bill Evans meant."

Dan nodded ever so slightly. I looked over at Blue, who was watching us silently.

"That's what all this was about. I heard Bill Evans say 'green fire in their bellies.' I never thought twice about it. I thought he was talking about colic. But he meant horses with smuggled emeralds in their guts. That's why they colicked, probably."

"That's right," Dan Jacobi said. "We brought Peruvian Pasos in from South America. Juan used a balling gun to give them the emeralds down at the other end. Sometimes they colicked; a couple of them died. Bill was my vet. He knew all about what we were doing; it was impossible to hide it from him when he was dealing with the colicked horses. I gave him a cut, but he was never happy about it."

"When he said 'green fire,' he meant the smuggled emeralds," I said again, still taking it all in.

Dan watched me quietly.

"But I had no idea what it meant," I said. "I never would have guessed."

Dan nodded slightly. "In the end you would have repeated it to someone, though. And 'green fire' has a real specific meaning to anyone in the trade. Those cops were already asking me questions about my relationship with Bill. They've been trying to catch me for years."

"They knew you were smuggling emeralds?"

For a brief second Dan almost smiled. "Nah. They thought I was smuggling cocaine. Every time I'd bring in a load of horses from South America they were worried. They even brought their sniffing dogs out to my place once. But there wasn't anything to sniff. These don't smell." He rolled the stones in his palm.

I stared at the shiny bits. "You didn't smuggle cocaine?" I asked him, curious despite everything.

"Nah," he said again. "I don't like the business. And I don't care for the people you have to deal with. These," he rolled the jewels again, "you deal with a different bunch. A better class of crooks." His lips twitched.

I stared at him. "You were crazy to try to kill me," I said at last. "It was an off chance that I'd ever repeat that phrase or anyone would ever understand what it meant. You're in a lot worse trouble now."

"You're right." For a second Dan glanced at the cliff. "Steve convinced me we could get rid of you and no one would ever know. Just a minor problem solved."

"That rockfall," my mind was jumping back, "that was what he tried first, didn't he?"

Dan wouldn't meet my eyes. "I just wanted to talk to you, find out how much you knew," he said finally. "I got Ted to take me to your camp. But I made the mistake of telling Steve. He's worked for me since he was a kid. He's my sister's son. She never could deal with him. He knew all about the jewel business; he handled the horses at this end and got a cut. He wanted to get rid of you."

Dan looked into my face again. "I'm not a killer," he said. "I'm a horse trader. And I'm not above smuggling a few emeralds. But I've never killed anyone in my life. Steve just left camp one morning and said he was going to take care of my problem. I let him go."

"You knew," I said. "You knew what he meant to do."

"Maybe," he conceded. "But I didn't ask him. When he didn't get it done the first time, he got more determined. And when he came back the second time, he said we had to kill both of you because you would figure out who was after you."

"So you set the fire." I said.

"Steve did." Dan shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

"You could have stopped him." Suddenly I was angry. I turned toward Blue. "Let's go," I said. "Let the son of a bitch lie."

''Take me with you." Dan said it quietly; it was as close to begging as he would get.

I ignored him and spoke to Blue. "We can't. We'd never get him on a horse with that leg. And I don't trust him."

Blue looked at Dan, then at me. "What do you want to do?" he asked me.

"Leave him here. We'll send the paramedics, and the sheriffs, after him when we get to Bridgeport.”

Blue watched Dan, who stared at us, saying nothing.

"Let's give him a shot of that stuff," Blue said.

"We've only got one shot left. Don't you think you might want it?"

Blue twitched his right shoulder and winced. "Give it to him. I'll take a codeine. Give him what's left of the codeine, too."

I was quiet. I looked at Blue, then looked at Dan. A dozen thoughts came into my mind. I looked at Blue again. "All right. If that's what you want. I'll go get the stuff. You hold the gun on him. I don't trust him."

When I returned, Blue was leaning against a rock, the pistol idly pointed in Dan's direction. Both men were quiet. I approached Dan, holding the syringe in my hand. "Keep the gun on him," I said to Blue.

To Dan I said, "If you do one thing that even vaguely alarms me I will tell him to shoot you. Believe me. You owe this painkiller to Blue, not me."

Dan nodded slightly. He set the handful of emeralds on the ground beside him. "Take these," he said.

I felt slightly sick. The pale green stones gleamed against the rough gray granite. Little bits of glass-oddly out of place.

"I don't want them," I said.

"You?" I looked at Blue.

"Not me."

"Give me your arm," I told Dan. I injected the shot as quickly and competently as I knew how, closing my mind to everything but doing a job. "Keep your emeralds," I said when I was done.

He picked one up and looked at it. "Pretty things," he said. "Must be the gypsy in me. Steve was like that, too. He loved them."

Automatically, it seemed, we all looked at the cliff. I didn't want to think about it.

I tossed the codeine vial at Dan. "Keep what's left of these. Codeine," I said briefly. I set a water bottle on the ground near him. "We'll send the paramedics after you. Just remember one thing. I am going to tell the sheriffs in Bridgeport every single thing you told me as soon as we get there. There isn't going to be any reason to go after me anymore. The cops will know everything I know."

"I understand." Dan showed no more sign of the relief of his pain than he had of the pain itself.

"All right?" I asked Blue.

Without a word, he turned and walked down the trail, pistol in his good hand.

We untied the dogs and the horses, and I helped him on Dunny, stowing the pistol back in my saddlebag. For a second we both looked in the direction where Dan lay.

"It's all right," Blue said. "Come on. Let's go."

I turned toward the man on the lion-colored horse and followed him, not looking back.

TWENTY-SEVEN

We rode into Bridgeport that day. Through the last of the Roughs and down Buckeye Canyon, right to the main street of the little town. Bridgeport sits where the sharp spires of the eastern Sierra Nevada meet the plains of the high desert, as dramatically beautiful a spot as you'll find. It seemed surreal to be there on such strange business.

It was surreal enough just to be in the midst of civilization again. We clopped down the road in the late afternoon, and I stared at houses and cars as if I'd never seen them before.

Blue guided us to the Bridgeport Inn, which actually had a hitching rail in its dirt parking lot. We tied the horses up, and the dogs. The four horses stood quietly, heads down, close to each other, back feet cocked. The dogs lay down, side by side.

Blue looked at me and caught my weary expression. He smiled. "Can I buy you a drink?" he said.

"I guess so." I gave him a weak smile in return, thinking of investigations, and probably, inquests.

We walked toward the Bridgeport Inn; I stumbled, climbing the wooden steps, and Blue took my elbow with his one good arm.

So it ended. In a bar in Bridgeport, appropriately enough. Blue Winter and I sat side by side on bar stools in the Bridgeport Inn, having called sheriffs, paramedics ... et cetera. They were coming, they said; we would wait.

I stared at our reflections in the mirror behind the bar. My dark brown hair waved in messy rivulets around my dirt-smudged face; Blue's fedora was dusty and limp. Even his red-gold curls looked limp.

The dead man in Deadman Meadow had brought another dead man in his wake. He lay at the bottom of the Roughs, waiting. As Dan Jacobi lay waiting.

As for me, I sat by the side of this tall, red-headed stranger and wondered what I was here for. Perhaps I was waiting, too. Waiting for the change that would unmake my life.

I should call Lonny, I thought. But he seemed distant, unconnected to my present reality. Trouble was, I wasn't even sure what that reality was. Something had shifted during the last few days, and I had a sense that the change was only just beginning. Who knew where it would end?

I met Blue's eyes in the mirror. He looked at me, then down at his margarita. Raising the glass in his left hand, he turned his head and met my eyes directly.

"Here's to you," he said.

I raised my own margarita and clinked it gently against his glass. "Here's to us," I said.