Stone Butterfly (33 page)

Of its own accord, McTeague's chin lifted, her right hand went to examine the alleged sag.

“Ha-ha—I was just teasing you.” Daisy's knobby little frame jiggled with merriment. “Don't worry, your skin's still tight as rawhide on a drum.” Reverting to form, she shook the finger again. “But it won't be long—next winter, maybe the one after that—some cold, gray morning you'll pick up the looking glass and won't like what you see. So now's the time to marry yourself a good man and start making babies!”

McTeague tried to smile. “My—you make it all sound so terribly romantic.”

“You listen to me, young lady—I've outlived three husbands and what matters is these things.” Daisy counted them off on her fingers: “One—does he earn a decent living. Two—does he stay sober most of the time. Three—does he leave other women alone. Four—does he take a bath at least once a week. Five—does he understand that if he ever hits you, he'll wake up dead the next morning.” Having folded up fingers and thumb, she raised a fist for the punch line: “Romance is for storybooks and picture shows.”

The white woman drew in a long breath. “If I was willing to discuss such a personal matter with you, I might begin by saying that I am rather surprised.”

“Surprised at what?”

“At your matchmaker's choice—I have always been under the impression that you did not approve of me.”

“Well, I'd naturally rather Charlie married a nice Ute girl, or even one of them peculiar Pueblo women.”
And one of them Mexican
señoritas
might be okay.
Daisy glared at the white woman. “But for whatever reason, my nephew seems to be stuck on you.” She shook her head at this impenetrable mystery. “So I guess I'll have to go along with it.”

“That is very generous of you, I'm sure.” McTeague prepared to score a point. “But you seem to have overlooked a critical issue.”

“What's that?”

“Charlie has not asked me to marry him.”

Daisy was quick as a flash. “Well of course he hasn't.” Charlie's aunt explained with an air of weary patience: “Amongst us Utes, it's the woman that asks the man.” She looked up to heaven.
I ain't exactly lying—more like joking.

McTeague blinked. Twice. “Do you actually mean to tell me that—”

“Sure.” The way Daisy saw it, once a person told a whopper she might as well get as much mileage out of it as possible. “You might not know it, but Charlie's more of a traditional Ute than he lets on—especially when it comes to serious things like buying horses and getting married.” Not one to deny herself the protection of a
matukach
superstition, the Ute storyteller crossed her fingers. “My nephew's been waiting for you to pop the question.”

McTeague stole a quick glance at the tall, silent man who had by now wandered halfway across the canyon. “Has Charlie actually
told
you that he's…I mean, waiting for me to bring up the subject of…” She could not make herself say the word.

Daisy's little-used conscience was beginning to prickle. Going on the assumption that a deceptive gesture was not so sinful as a spoken-out-loud lie, she settled for a nod.

The old trickster's probably making all of this up, hoping I'll say something to her nephew and make a perfect fool of myself. Then again…Charlie is an uncommonly shy man. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt if I were to simply mention—No, that's absurd. On the other hand…
Uncomfortable with being Lila Mae, she assumed her Special Agent McTeague demeanor, addressed the Ute woman in a stern tone: “Let's drop this subject.”

“Suit yourself.” Daisy shrugged. “But someday when you're an old maid living with some fuzzy poodles and Charlie's got a dozen children and grandchildren playin' on his cabin floor, don't say I didn't warn you.”

The victim closed her eyes, started counting to ten. Settled for seven. “Tell me how you discovered the corpse.”

Knowing she had gotten under the white woman's skin, Daisy took a deep breath and began.

The FBI agent held a microcassette recorder under Daisy's chin while the woman gave a detailed account of her experiences on that grim morning.

The witness completed her narrative with a scowl: “And after I chased them ugly buzzards away, I covered up the body with some rocks and sticks and stuff.” There was nothing left to say.

A damp breeze brought a pungent scent of juniper-spiced rain from the upper reaches of the canyon, paused to rustle about in the willows as if searching for something lost, whispered a melancholy sigh, drifted away.

In Quiet Shade House…

The silent figure has neither moved, nor altered her gaze.

Her spotted cat dozes in the shadows, beholds visions of spotted leopards stalking prey in steaming equatorial jungles.

The chuff-chuff of an approaching helicopter awakens the feline dreamer.

While Charlie Moon remained on the canyon floor, and the skilled technicians meticulously dismantled the grave the Ute elder had so cunningly constructed, Daisy Perika led Special Agent McTeague up the long path to the shelf at the crest of the talus slope. The federal agent spent almost an hour poking around, making measurements with a steel tape measure, recording various coordinates with a miniature GPS receiver, penciling numerous entries into her notebook, and, of course—taking dozens of digitized color photos.

As inky shadows poured out of fissures and crevasses, Daisy and McTeague retraced their steps to the canyon floor, arriving in time to witness the shattered corpse being removed from its lonely place of rest.

After a hushed exchange with forensic experts, the FBI agent set her face toward Charlie Moon.

From the corner of her eye, Daisy Perika watched her nephew and the white woman. For some time, they stood at arm's length, evidently engaged in earnest conversation.
I wonder if Miss Fancy-Pants'll ask Charlie to marry her.
Hoping to count such a coup, the Ute shaman strained all of her senses to hear. The effort was in vain. Daisy winced as they laughed and glanced her way—
I bet McFigg told Charlie what I said about Ute women asking the men to marry them.
The old woman's annoyance faded as the couple drifted ever closer. Suddenly, there was a brief embrace and the
matukach
woman departed. Daisy muttered to herself: “I wonder what happened between those two. Not that Charlie Moon would ever tell me anything.”
But by and by, I'll figure it out.

In the meantime, she stood by the empty grave, waiting as only the very old can wait.

Observing Charlie Moon's limping gait, Sarah Frank realized the time had come to depart from the place of shadows. When he ducked his head under the rock shelter's overhang, the thin girl reached out, took the tall man's hand.

The Ute looked down at her. “You doing okay?”

She nodded, grimaced at a sudden flicker of pain on his face. “Where Groundhog shot you—does it hurt awfully bad?”

He grinned. “Only when I do cartwheels.”

Sarah bit her lip to keep from smiling. “Charlie, I'm
really
sorry I called Marilee from Father Raes's cabin—that was a dumb thing to do.” She waited for him to insist that it wasn't really so dumb. He did not.

Moon was occupied with his thoughts.
Aunt Daisy should've never left you at the ranch without telling me. I probably ought to have a hard talk with her.
He grunted.
Right. Lot of good that would do.

Believing the grunt was meant for her, Sarah tried to explain: “I just wanted to let Marilee know I was all right. I knew she would be worried about me.”

The Ute assumed a stern look. “I was worried about you, too.”

The unspoken question hung in the air between them.

“I wanted to tell you I was there, Charlie.” The girl looked at her dusty shoes. “But Aunt Daisy told me not to talk to
anybody
except Father Raes.”

“Don't give it another thought.” Moon's expression softened. “You didn't get hurt—that's what matters.”

The forgiveness Sarah had been seeking did not satisfy her. “But if I hadn't used the priest's telephone, Al Harper wouldn't have found out I was hiding on the Columbine and Mr. Oates wouldn't have sent Groundhog and Bearcat to find me and if Father Raes hadn't hit Bearcat with the poker, he would still be…”
Alive.
The word had caught on the lump in her throat.
But the priest is dead. And all because of me.

Sarah was right, of course.

And wrong.

And therein is concealed a fragment of the eternal mystery.

Moon saw the haunt of guilt in her eyes, felt its dreadful weight. “You're not responsible for what happened to Father Raes.”
Raymond Oates will have to answer for that. And before another Judge, Groundhog and Bearcat.

The Ute was
almost
right. But not quite.

“Charlie…”

“Mm-hmm?”

“If Bearcat had found me, do you think he would've
killed
me?”

As the tribal investigator considered this innocent question from the sole witness to Bearcat's murder of Ben Silver, Sheriff Popper's words echoed in the dark corridors of his memory:
No matter how nasty the job is—you can always depend on Bearcat to get it done.
“There's no point in thinking about things like that.”

She jerked at his hand. “But I can't
help
thinking about it.”

Moon pretended to shrug it off. “Let's go get a dose of sunshine.”

Still hand in hand, they left the gloom of Quiet Shade House.

Though reluctant to abandon the stalking of a fat black cricket, Mr. Zig-Zag gave up the game and followed the human beings into the light.

The Tribal elder watched her nephew approach with Sarah Frank. “All them government people are gone.” As if it hardly mattered, she added: “Including that FBI lady.” At the mention of the pretty white woman, Daisy Perika thought she saw a sparkle in Moon's eye.
Aha—I knew it! But I'll let on like I don't suspect a thing.
“I don't know why you two had to be so standoffish.” Eyeing the girl, Daisy said: “Charlie wanders off like he's lost, and you go hide in the shadows.”

“I was afraid of the grave,” Sarah murmured. “That man in it tried to throw me off the cliff.”
And if I hadn't kicked him, Aunt Daisy would've buried
me
under those rocks.

“Well, I can understand how you'd feel that way.” The shaman patted Sarah's thin shoulder. “His spirit decided to follow me home.” Realizing that this was an opportunity to provide the half-Ute girl with some useful information, Daisy proceeded with the lesson: “Once a day-old ghost gets inside your house, getting rid of it is like trying to wash sorghum molasses out of your hair. What you want to do is to keep 'em from crossing the threshold in the first place. So I tried to act like I'd lost my mind.” A sideways glance at her nephew dared Charlie Moon to smile. “Sometimes that'll scare a ghost away.” At the puff of a clammy breeze, Daisy pulled her woolen shawl tightly around her shoulders. “But it didn't work. That white man's spirit has been hanging around my house ever since. Rattling pots and pans. Turning lights on and off.” She released a hopeful sigh. “But now that they've hauled his sorry carcass away, I don't expect he'll be bothering me anymore.”

Moon's expression made it clear that he disapproved of such talk in front of the girl.

When Daisy became aware that her overly tall nephew was looking down his nose at her, she tilted her head back, glared up her nose at him. “Well, what's your excuse, Kaw-Liga?” Catching Charlie off-guard was her specialty.

“What?”

“Kaw-Liga was a wooden Indian in an antique store.” She smirked. “Us
real
Utes know stuff like that.”

Moon smirked back at the Real Ute. “Kaw-Liga wasn't in the antique store.”

“Don't correct me—I'm older than you and I know what I'm talking about!”

The alleged Wooden Indian asked: “What exactly are you talking about?”

It took Daisy a moment to gather her thoughts. “Ol' Kaw-Liga never did ask that white woman whether she'd like to be the mother of his—”

“There wasn't any white woman.” Knowing it would irk his aunt, he launched into the lesson with a combination of patience and courtesy. “Way it happened, was like this: Kaw-Liga never could get up the nerve to speak to that Indian maiden—who was the one in the antique store—and it was too late when a rich man came and bought her and—”

“Listen to me, you big gourd-head—I was singing along with that Hank Williams song years before you were born and I know every word in every song he ever sung. So don't you go correcting me—I'm not interested in anything you have to say!”

“Then I might as well be ‘Howlin' at the Moon.'”

Daisy was in no mood to let the subject drop. Unconditional surrender was what she wanted. “Then admit you know I was right!”

“‘I Saw the Light.'” He hung his head. “‘You Win Again.'”

Emboldened by this unexpected capitulation, Daisy raised her oak staff. “Charlie Moon—tell me
right now
what plans you and Lola Fay McFigg worked out, or I'll whack you across the shin with this stick!”

Looking like a man suffering from the “Lovesick Blues,” he muttered: “‘I've Just Told Mama Good-bye.'”

Daisy's petals wilted.
And I'd hoped they'd name their first daughter after me.
“Does that mean there won't be no—”

“‘Wedding Bells'?” He exhaled a wistful sigh. “Looks like ‘I'll Be a Bachelor Until I Die.'”

“Well, it'll be your own fault.”

He nodded. “‘I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry.'”

Charlie don't sound quite like himself.
The elder's overworked brow furrowed with concern.
And he's got a kind of glassy look in his eye.
“Don't let that high-tone white woman bother you overly much, Charlie. You know what they say—‘There's lots of other fish in the ocean.'”

Moon shook his head with an uncharacteristic vehemence that alarmed his aunt. “There's other fish in the
bucket.
”

“Okay, have it your way.” The concerned relative reached out to touch his hand. “Them other fish are all in a
bucket.
”

Gotcha!
“But ‘
My
Bucket's Got a Hole in It.'”

Barely suppressing a shudder, Doctor Daisy made her grim diagnosis:
Charlie's losing his mind. But I shouldn't be all that surprised—most of the men on his daddy's side of the family was a little peculiar.
She tried to recall an appropriate herbal preparation for treating his mental malady.
I could make him some yarrow tea. No, that's for a toothache. What I need is some peony or valerian roots. I wonder if I've got any left over from last year's batch.

Moon was trying to think of a way to work ‘I'm a Long Gone Daddy' into the conversation, when his concentration was interrupted by a squeeze from Sarah's hand.

She was smiling at him. Reassuringly.
Poor Charlie—you've still got me.

Assuming Sarah had caught on to his game, he returned the smile.

Assuming her nephew was about to mutter another absurdity, Daisy thought she might distract him by changing the subject. “Something's been bothering me ever since I buried that Utah deputy here in Spirit Canyon.”

Moon had anticipated that his aunt would raise this issue. “You've been wondering: ‘If the deputy's under the sod, who drove his Bronco into the Piedra? Was it some person who came to the reservation with Packard, then hightailed it when things went sour? Or was the reckless driver a third party, whose identity and motive remain a mystery?'”

Grateful for this apparent return to normality, she waited to see how long it would last.
Well, do you know and are you gonna tell me?

He did and did. “The driver of the ill-fated Bronco was Yadkin Dixon.”

“That
matukach
good-for-nothing who walked off with my ax!”

Moon nodded. “Seems Mr. Dixon stumbled onto the spot where Deputy Packard had stashed his car, hot-wired it and took off like a bat outta—” He remembered the little girl who was holding his hand. “Uh—outta a barn loft.” The tribal investigator went on to describe how the enthusiastic felon was driving too fast in the rainstorm, missed the bridge, ended up in the river, barely managed to get out before Packard's Bronco washed downstream. “When some kindly motorists stopped to help, Dixon thought it was not in his best interests to admit he was a car thief.” He shook his head, grinned. “So he told 'em he'd almost drowned himself trying to save the driver.”

Daisy grudgingly admitted that as thinking-quick-on-the-spot lies went, this one was up there in the top 10 percent.

Her nephew agreed. “And Mr. Dixon might've gotten away with it, but yesterday he borrowed a fancy red Jaguar from a tourist who'd stopped in Pagosa to buy herself a T-shirt. The lady saw him drive away, called 911 on her cell phone, and SUPD was notified by the state police dispatcher. Just as Dixon hung a left at Capote Lake, Officer Danny Bignight pulled him over. When Danny recognized the hero of the Piedra Bridge incident, he got suspicious and started asking some hard questions. After our SUPD cop leaned on him for a while, the truth came out.” Moon raised a hand to forestall the venting of his aunt's pent-up I Told You So. “Dixon told Officer Bignight that he wasn't responsible for his actions—all his life, he's suffered from an overpowering compulsion to test-drive other people's automobiles. You can read the details in next week's
Drum.
”

Daisy had puffed up like a tree frog about to chirp. “I told you that rascal would steal anything that wasn't nailed down.”

“Yes, you did.” Moon gave his aunt a gentle pat on the back, which she thought was well deserved.

Having resolved the who-was-the-Bronco-driver puzzle, Daisy turned to Sarah with another query: “So why didn't you tell me that white man gave you his pink butterfly?”

Sarah put her hand over Ben Silver's canvas neck wallet, which made a slight bulge under her blue cotton blouse. “He made me promise not to tell anybody about it while he was alive.” His exact words had been
until my corpse is six feet under the sod.

Daisy detected a sizable flaw in this argument. “He was dead before you got here.”

The girl nodded. “But by then, lots of people thought I'd killed him. If you'd found out I had his stone butterfly…” Her words trailed off into the twilight.

Daisy understood.
I'd have been
sure
you murdered that
matukach. “So what're you gonna do now?” Before the girl had a chance to respond, the tribal elder gave her the Look. “I don't think you should go back to Utah and live with your Papago cousin and her boyfriend.”

Sarah tossed a shy glance at the tall man, squeezed his hand. “Maybe Charlie would like for me and Mr. Zig-Zag stay at the Columbine.”

Moon was about to extend the invitation when he looked down at the hopeful fourteen-year-old—and realized he was staring Serious Trouble straight in the eye.
I'm a Long Gone Daddy.

The phrase is admittedly overused, but—“There was a taut silence.”
Extremely
taut. Indeed, if a mischievous musician had reached out and plucked it, the resultant
TWANG!
might have fractured the brittle atmosphere into shards.