The Widow's Revenge (19 page)

The Daisy half of the duo hears Loyola say,
Oh, go away, Wallace—you’re stinking the place up!

Hideous, odorous apparitions are not bereft of feelings. The rudely dismissed specter withdrew toward the cottonwood grove, presumably to sulk therein. Considering what occurred on the way, perhaps the shadowy presence was not looking where it was going. Or, the collision may have been deliberate.

AS SARAH
Frank appeared on the headquarters porch with a loaded and cocked Winchester carbine tucked under her arm, Daisy-Sidewinder were watching the retreating residue of Wallace Montoya pass directly
through
Charlie Moon.

As would be expected, the sensible rancher caught neither sight nor scent of such an unlikely phenomenon. And if Mr. Moon did experience a sudden clammy coldness in his bones during the unseemly intersection, that sensation was undoubtedly due to a slight breeze stirring the chill of night.

AFTER HER UNSETTLING ENCOUNTER WITH THE INVISIBLE LOYOLA MON
toya and the all-too-visible corpse of the Apache crone’s strangled grandson, it is hardly surprising that Daisy Perika did not sleep well. But the hardy Ute elder was up with the sun to help prepare a hearty Columbine breakfast. While tending to a dozen pork sausage patties sizzling in a sooty-black Tennessee Forge iron skillet, she said to her nephew, “I need to make a quick trip down to my house today.”

“I’ll be glad to drive you down to the res.” Charlie Moon was breaking brown-shelled eggs over a twin to the sausage skillet. “We can leave right after we eat.”

“Oh, you don’t need to do that.” She patted his arm in motherly fashion. “You being so busy nowadays, I wouldn’t want to bother you.” Even
pretending
to be nice rankled, so she dropped the pretense. “Seeing as how you’re a big shot who kills robbers in hardware stores and has his face on every TV screen in the country—you’re bound to have better things to do than drive an old woman someplace.”

He took the low blow with a grin. “That’s mighty thoughtful of you.”

“No matter how much I might need help from somebody, I always try to take the other person’s problems into account.” She smiled benignly at the third member of the breakfast club. “Sarah can drive me in her red pickup.”

The teenager, who was filling coffee mugs from a blue enameled percolator, responded with a cheerful, “Okay.”

Daisy gave her nephew a sly sideways glance. “I only need to pick up a few things, like that leather beadwork I’ve been working on for Myra Cornstone’s new baby.”
How many kids has Myra got now? I guess I stopped counting at six.
“We’ll be back before the sun goes down.”

Sarah stirred the first of two teaspoons of honey into Moon’s coffee. “I’ll take Mr. Zig-Zag with me.”

This was just the cue Daisy needed. “That’ll be nice.” As an apparent afterthought, she added, “We’ll take that flop-eared dog along too—so your cat will have some company.” The counterfeit Lover of All Creatures Great and Small sighed with feigned compassion. “That sad-eyed old hound never gets to go anywhere. A little trip down to my house will do him good.”

Busy scrambling eggs, Moon seemed not to hear.

Which pleased Daisy.
Charlie’s got a lot on his mind and lots of things to do.

He did.

Immediately after breakfast, the rancher’s busy day began when Foreman Pete Bushman dropped by for a south-porch conference. At the top of Bushman’s list was letting the boss know that he’d hired a nice young woman to “help me look after Dolly.”

Moon expressed his pleasure at this news, but he had to be getting along now to take care of some other business.

Bushman was not finished. “And I hired some men to give us a hand while we’re raising the new horse barn. What with the hard times and so many folks out of work, there’s a better crop to pick from than most years.” The foreman spat tobacco juice through his beard and hit his target—a startled horsefly who had stopped to rest awhile on the porch step. “None of ’em are actual stockmen, but one of ’em worked for a year on a dairy farm and the other three are jackleg carpenters—or so they say.”

“Well, I expect they’ll be worth their pay.” Green Columbine hands drew low wages, slept on the hardest cots in the bunk house, and helped themselves to all the high-calorie food and strong black coffee a hardworking man could get down his gullet.

Bushman watched the assaulted horsefly buzz away in search of a friendlier neighborhood. “If they don’t tow the line, I’ll send ’em packin’.” Looking vainly for another live target, the aggressive tobacco chewer aimed his surplus spittle at a lime-green cottonwood leaf that had just floated down from a lofty branch. Ready.
Splat! Shoot—I missed the dad-blamed thing by a good inch.

During the foreman’s misfire, Moon had managed to slip away.

About a minute after that, Daisy and Sarah—the latter carrying her cat—appeared on the front porch, which faces west. The tribal elder paused to nudge the somnolent hound with her walking stick.

Without raising his muzzle from the porch, Sidewinder opened his eyes halfway. He glared at the old woman as if to say,
Don’t bug me, Granny
.

Exposing most of the peglike teeth she had left, Daisy presented the dog with the kind of smile that sends terrified little children screaming into their mothers’ clutches. “G’morning, pooch. You want to go for a nice little ride?”

The hound yawned, closed his eyes.

Sarah eyed the lazy dog. “I guess he’d rather stay here.”

“No he don’t, the old tick-mattress is just playing coy. Wants me to sweet-talk him.” Daisy pointed her walking stick at the red pickup. “Go on out there and lower that tailgate. Me’n Lassie’s ugly cousin will be along directly.”

Though doubtful of the predicted outcome, the girl did as she was bid.

As soon as Sarah had turned her back, Daisy nudged the hound more urgently. The precise location of her prodding was that tender orifice under the base of his tail.

Getting the point, the canine lurched to his feet. He turned to bare his teeth at the rude aggressor.

Pleased by this display of spirit, Daisy cackled a wicked laugh. “I like dogs with spunk, but don’t mess with me, you mangy old fleabag, or I’ll lay your skull wide open!” To demonstrate how that task would be accomplished, she raised her oak staff like the club it was. “Now go get your butt in that truck before I lose my temper.”

Sidewinder kept his hindquarters where they were.

Blood in her eye, the tribal elder raised the oak staff a tad higher.

For a few strained heartbeats, the determined descendants of wolf and Eve stood toe-to-toe. Eyeball-to-eyeball.

Daisy (ready to strike!) did not blink.

The hound (prepared to bite!) did not budge.

This gut-wrenching standoff might have gone on for ever so long, except—

Thunk!

This was the sound of Sarah lowering the F-150 tailgate. The girl turned, gaped at Daisy.
She’s going to hit him!
To prevent such a dastardly deed, the teenager clapped her hands and called to the dog, “C’mon, Sidewinder—let’s go for a ride.”

The beast raised his nose to make a disdainful sniff at the old woman. Following this cutting insult, the hound turned, departed for the truck in a deliberate gait, and loped into the bed of the F-150. Before the girl had raised and latched the tailgate, Sidewinder had laid himself down again.

Daisy ground her teeth at the annoying animal and glared at the upstart teenager.
There was no need for that. Another few seconds, I would’ve had that dog on a dead run for the pickup—with his tail tucked between his legs.

THE PICKUP-TRUCK RIDE SOUTHWARD FROM THE COLUMBINE WAS
mighty fine for humans, also for canine and feline creatures. It could hardly have been otherwise: this was one of those delightful summer days when feathery cloud skiffs skim effortlessly over glassy-smooth turquoise seas and sweet heavenly breezes refresh the world-weary soul. Moreover, ecstatic little bluebirds flittered about their joyful business, and carefree butterflies fluttered hither and yon amongst wildflowers so lovely that even the most jaded eyes would have ached at the vision.

No wonder Sarah Frank was happy. Until—

Until, when they approached a familiar crossroads, which the youthful driver intended to pass directly through, and her aged passenger barked an order: “Make a left.”

“But that’s not the way to your—”

“We’ll go to my house later.” Daisy whacked her walking stick on the dashboard. “Turn here!”

Sarah did, and after Daisy commenced to yell and wave her arms, she made a hurried U-turn. When the unnerved driver was certain that she had the F-150 headed in the direction Daisy wanted to go, she posed that deep question that philosophers and sages have pondered through the ages: “What are we doing here?” And another, almost as profound: “Where are we going?”

Her surly passenger did not care to be interrogated by impertinent young whippersnappers. “You’ll find out when we get there.”

Some twenty-two minutes later, Sarah nosed the pickup into a weed-choked driveway very near the middle of Nowhere, Colorado. “That rickety old house with all the black-and-yellow tape wrapped around it—is that where the elderly woman died in the fire in her kitchen?”

Having arrived at her intended destination, Daisy was in a jovial mood. “This is where Loyola Montoya lived before she died.”

Sarah cut the ignition to a heavy silence. “I don’t think we should be here.”

As Daisy eased her aged frame out of the pickup, the spotted cat slipped past her heels. Once on the ground, she leaned on her oak walking stick and turned to instruct the driver. “Go around back and let that dog out of the truck.”

Sarah raised the door on the fiberglass camper shell and lowered the tailgate in the expectation that the Columbine hound would come bounding joyfully out, eager to explore this virgin territory.

It was not to be.

Sidewinder approached the tailgate, but, apparently having taken a liking to the amenities of the pickup bed (which included straw and a tattered old quilt), he showed no sign that he intended to disembark. Not that he was lacking the normal canine interest in unexplored real estate. The dog raised his nose to sniff the fragrant scent of moist sage, the tempting aromas of a variety of succulent rodent species, and . . .
something else.
He stared suspiciously at the older of the human beings.

Shaking her wooden staff at the hesitant creature, Daisy barked, “Get out of there, you lazy old son of a bitch!”

The object of this insult might have taken offense at being labeled “lazy” by Daisy. Or perhaps something else was on Sidewinder’s mind. For whatever reason, the animal refused to budge.

Which situation called for direct action. The Ute woman reached for Sidewinder’s black leather collar and gave it a healthy jerk.

Caught off guard by this unwarranted act of aggression on his person, the four-legged creature had little choice but to disembark.

But as soon as the hound hit the ground, he attempted to hide himself under the pickup. And no doubt would have if the old woman had not grabbed him again, this time by the tail. At Daisy’s touch, the animal froze. Once again, the shaman smelled through his nose, saw through his eyes—spoke to him through his mind.
We ain’t leaving this place till you go and find that dead man—so get to work before I tie a knot in your tail!

We vertebrates who are not endowed with tails cannot imagine the horror of having such an appendage
tied into a knot.

The dog capitulated.

Within a few heartbeats, Sidewinder was slowly circling Loyola Montoya’s dreary old barn of a house. After completing two revolutions, the canine satellite zigged and zagged a couple of times before following his nose into the sad little apple orchard where the dry husks of last year’s crop had rotted on the ground.

Pleased, Daisy hobbled off after the dog.
That’s right. Head for the stream.

Sarah did not like the looks of this. “Where are you going?”

Daisy called over her shoulder, “You want to find out, come along.”

The girl followed her cat, who followed the Ute elder, who followed the hound.

This odd quartet passed through the dismal orchard and down a narrow path that went under a wasp-infested grape arbor to an outdoor privy. The dog veered off the privy path to follow a lesser branch through tick-infested weeds. This latter thoroughfare terminated abruptly at the bank of Ignacio Creek. Sidewinder paused to look back at the Ute elder.

Daisy pointed her stick at the gurgling water. “Keep going.”

After a moment’s hesitation, the hound loped across the stream to the opposite bank, where he disappeared into a thick cluster of willows.

The old woman braced herself, then stepped into the rippling waters.
Ohhh, that’s cold!
She slipped on an unseen stone, almost lost her balance, but just in the nick of time—