Slickrock Paradox (9 page)

At Miner's Basin, in a grove of trembling aspen, Silas killed the engine and got out of the car, stretching his back. He took his cane and walked a few yards from the car to stand among the quivering trees.

The La Sal Mountains were omnipresent in the Canyonlands; one of four great laccolithic mountain ranges that ringed the region. From forty miles distant, in Moab, or from a hundred miles away, from Island in the Sky in Canyonlands National Park, their triangular facades appeared dark and barren. But venture up out of the Spanish Valley and up to eleven thousand feet above sea level and you exchanged the oppressive heat of summer for an eternal spring or perpetual autumn.

The temperature was a modest eighty degrees as Silas walked slowly along the cattle-worn path through the aspens. A breeze gently ruffled his hair, and Silas wondered why anybody in their right mind—and here he included himself, first and foremost—would spend a single day in the scorched earth of the canyons during the summer. He walked for half a mile, leaning heavily on the cane for support, until his ankle ached. He sat down on the leaf litter at the edge of a clearing below Mount Waas. He leaned back on the stout trunk of an aspen and closed his eyes.

Penelope had taken him here once, some years ago—five, six? He couldn't recall now. She had brought along a copy of
Desert Solitaire
and read to him the chapter called “Tukuhnikivats, The Island in the Desert” about a hiking trip Abbey had taken in the La Sal Mountains to escape the heat of Arches during one of his seasons in the park. At the time Silas had criticized the writing, saying that anybody who talked about pissing, eating, and drinking as much as Abbey could not be taken seriously as a writer. Upon reflection, Silas now thought it was one of Abbey's finer moments in
Solitaire
, reminiscent of one of his own favorite bits of prose,
The Sound of Mountain Water
by Wallace Stegner. He wished Penelope was with him to hear his confession. He drifted off to sleep listening to the wind's harmony in the branches above.

When he woke it was late in the afternoon, and he was hungry. Silas rose stiffly, his ankle sore and swollen, and limped back to his car. From the trunk he took a bag of granola bars but when he looked at them he felt he would rather wait. He started the motor and began backing down the narrow lane.

With a shock he found himself suddenly hitting the brakes, stalling the engine, to avoid a collision with another vehicle. Not five feet from his rear bumper, partially obscured by a tangle of alder along the side of the track, was a gunmetal-blue Jeep Wrangler. He started the Outback again and revved his engine, but the Jeep didn't move. He turned the ignition off and opened his door.

“Hey there,” he called. There was no reply. “Hello?” Nothing. Silas walked to the end of his wagon and looked at the Jeep. There was nobody behind the wheel. He went to the driver's door and looked into the cab. An open can of beer sat in the holder next to the gearstick and there was a six-pack minus two on the passenger-side floor. In the back were several oversized duffle bags and two large water-tight surplus ammo cans, the sort that rafters used to keep their food and belongings dry when running the Colorado River.

“Help you?” came a voice from behind him. Silas turned, his ankle protesting, and saw a man not twenty feet away, partially concealed by the foliage.

“This your Jeep?”

“Yup.”

“Mind moving it?”

The man approached. He was short and powerfully built, thick across the shoulders and broad in the arms. He wore a heavy beard and his hair fell in long curls, nearly touching his shoulders in the back. “Don't mind at all. Just had to take a piss.”

“What did you do, walk all the way back to Moab to do it?”

The man laughed, showing a set of bright white teeth. Silas guessed that he was thirty at the oldest. “Just went off in the woods. Got distracted by a bird.”

“That's what you call it, eh?”

“You Canadian?”

Silas's speech had betrayed him again. “Yes.”

“I'm Josh,” said the man, thrusting out a heavy hand. Silas regarded it momentarily and then shook it.

“Silas Pearson.”

“Good to meet you. Want a beer?”

“I'm actually just heading home.”

“Whatcha doing up here?”

“Just getting out of the heat.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean, man. Hot as fucking hell down there. Nice to be up in the trees. I got a place up here, just over by Oowah Lake. Don't tell the fucking rangers on me.”

“You live up here?”

“Sometimes. In the summer. Winter I head down into the canyons.”

“Sounds nice,” Silas said. “I won't tell. Do you mind?” he said, pointing to the Jeep.

“Sorry, fuck. Let me move my machine.” Josh jumped behind the wheel. Silas noticed a heavy revolver tucked in the waistband of the man's khakis. America, he mused, home of the heavily armed. Josh gunned the engine and deftly navigated the trail in reverse. Silas followed at a more cautious pace. When he reached the T-junction a few hundred yards back, Josh had pulled over and cut his engine.

“Come up for a visit sometime?” he said when Silas leaned out his window.

“How will I find you?”

“I'll find you,” Josh said with a wolfish grin.

Silas turned around in the narrow track and drove down the trail. He glanced in his rearview mirror and saw the young man leaning on the front of the Jeep. Silas hoped he wouldn't see him again.

THERE WAS A
message on his machine when he arrived home. He dialed the number to play back the message and stood in the dark by the big picture windows, the last light draining from the Adobe Mesa.

“Dr. Pearson, this is Kathleen Rain calling. I wonder if you'd be so good as to give me a call. I'm heading back to Salt Lake in the morning and I have a few questions I'd like to clear up before I go. No lawyer necessary. Okay, give me a call. Here's my cell . . .”

Silas thought he detected a hint of a laugh when she made the crack about the lawyer. Obviously the team had debriefed his interview that morning. He jotted the note on a slip of paper by the fridge and took out a frozen dinner and a can of beer. Back in the living room with the food, he picked up the phone and dialed.

“Rain,” she answered on the third ring.

“Not much here in the desert,” he said, deadpan.

“Dr. Pearson?”

“Returning your call.”

“Thanks. I hope you don't mind. I've got a few questions I could use your help with.”

“I don't mind. That's why I called back.”

“I know this might sound foolish, but I'm trying to reconstruct the original grave and I wonder if you could help me with something.”

“I can try.”

“How much water do you think came down Sleepy Hollow when you were caught in the flood?”

He laughed.

“You may think it's a stupid question, but I'm trying to estimate how deeply she was buried, and how far the grave site might have moved.”

“I can't see why that makes a difference.”

“It might help us estimate how long ago she was buried.”

“You mean, if she was buried right after she was killed, or if she was moved there sometime later?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, Sleepy Hollow is about thirty or forty feet wide at the most, so you've got to assume a wall of water, what . . . ?” He paused to think.

“One hundred and fifty, maybe sixty, feet square?”

“Sure. Of course. But it wasn't square. It went on for some time. Certainly five or six minutes' worth of water. Can you do that in your head?”

“No, I'm an anthropologist, not a hydrologist. I'll touch base with the
USGS
. But that helps.”

“You said you had a couple of questions.”

“Yes. What time of day did this all take place at? The report doesn't list the time of the actual flood.”

“I'd say four in the afternoon.”

“And you were found at eight or so the next morning?”

“That's right. I came to sometime around three or four that morning and started to, you know, crawl out.”

Rain was silent. “Okay. Again, that's helpful.”

“Is your boss getting anywhere on this?”

“Who, Taylor?”

“Yeah.”

“God, he's not my boss. I report to the head of Trace Evidence back in Virginia. Taylor, is like, three steps down the pecking order from where I sit. I exist outside of the hierarchy for the most part. There are only three forensic anthropologists in the entire
FBI
, and I'm the first one to work out of a state field office. The others are at Headquarters.”

“Lucky you. Salt Lake City.”

“I like it there.”

“Takes all kinds,” said Silas.

“It does.”

“Anything else?”

“No. Thanks for calling back. Listen, I'm going to tell you something that maybe I shouldn't. You have a right to know, I think.”

“Taylor isn't coming to arrest me, is he? Is this a trap, you keep me on the phone while he breaks down the door?”

“You watch too much
TV
, Dr. Pearson.”

“I don't own one,” he said, looking around the austere room. “What do you want to tell me?”

“Kayah Wisechild.”

“Who's that?”

“The young woman you found.”

Silas was silent. He sat down on one of the chairs at the tiny table at the center of the room.

“Are you there?” she asked.

“I'm here.”

“She was twenty-four years old. A graduate of Northern Arizona University with a degree in anthropology. She was from Third Mesa.”

“The Hopi Reservation.”

“That's right.”

“Have next of kin . . . ?”

“Yeah, we reached her mother and father this afternoon. Not married, three siblings, all living on the reservation.”

“You do quick work.”

“I try. Anyway, I thought you'd like to know.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“Thanks for your help, Dr. Pearson.”

“It's Silas.”

“Okay. Silas. It's Katie. And thanks again.”

Rain hung up the phone and Silas sat in the dark. He drank his can of Molson's and watched stars pop out of the firmament above the Mesa. She thought Silas would like to know the name of the woman he found and had believed to be his wife. She had a name and a family. But Rain was wrong. He wished she hadn't told him. He wished that he could be left in peace to look for his wife and not be troubled by the murder of a young woman he had never met.

ON FRIDAY MORNING SILAS WAS
determined to restore some semblance of normalcy to his life. He intended to go into Moab and open the Red Rock Canyon bookstore for a few days, and he wanted to plan another week of searching for his missing wife. His sprained ankle was healing quickly. It might not allow rugged desert hiking, so he thought he would take the last week of August off from the bookstore and search a new section of the canyon country. By nine-thirty he was in Moab, flipping the sign on his storefront to “Open” and settling in behind his desk with a store-bought Americano and a muffin. An email from his oldest son, Robbie, popped up:

Hi Dad. I saw the headline in the Salt Lake paper. Yes, I am keeping tabs. I guess I would have heard from you if it was Penelope. I just want you to know I'm thinking of you. Things are fine here. Summer has been pretty laid back. I've been working for a security company, mostly doing criminal record checks and background research. I start my master's in the fall at Simon Fraser University in criminology.

Jamie is well. He's “taking a year off” to consider his options. I think he wants to study English but doesn't want to seem like he's following in your footsteps. He'll come around.

Anyway, I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you and hope that the news coming so close to home didn't upset you too much.

—Robbie

Silas sat back. Robbie was keeping tabs on him, or at least on his search for Penelope. That gave Silas some comfort. Neither Robbie nor his younger brother, Jamie, had liked Penelope much. They had only met her twice, and both times the week-long rendezvous near Flagstaff had felt strained. Silas knew that both boys blamed her for the breakup of his marriage to his second wife, their mother. The truth was that their relationship had never really worked. The mechanics of producing offspring was reasonably simple; the means by which you create a life with another person much less so. When he had accepted the teaching position at
NAU
twelve years ago, he believed that his marriage to the boys' mother was already over. A year into his tenure he met Penelope and officially filed for divorce.

A year later, when Robbie was fourteen, and mature for his age, Silas and Penelope got married. Jamie was just nine, and fragile. He focused his anger on his father's young wife. It made for very uncomfortable gatherings the following two summers. So much so that after the second time they decided not to do it again. Penelope was game, she claimed, but Silas was not. Twice a year he flew solo to Vancouver and took the boys sea kayaking or mountain biking or camping on Vancouver Island, and that was the extent of his parenting. For the last three and a half years, he hadn't even done that. Silas had been distracted.