Wild Inferno (11 page)

Thursday, 0800 Hours

I'd missed the Navajo Hotshots before they left camp, but I figured I would catch up with them before the day was done to talk about setting aside a ceremonial area for them to use. I headed for Ignacio and called the number Roy had given me.

Nuni Garza gave me directions and an address, and a few minutes later, I pulled up before a large ranch-style house on a few acres on the outskirts of town. A woman was standing on the porch watching for me. She waved to me from amid a bevy of chairs, a metal table piled with auto parts, a gas can, two small chain saws, and assorted junk. The path to the porch was lined with two riding mowers, two push mowers, a wheelbarrow, and what looked like a collection of starter motors.

“Thanks for coming here,” Nuni Garza said. She was a beautiful woman, perhaps in her late thirties, maybe early forties.

“You're Clara White Deer's daughter, aren't you?” She was almost as attractive as her mother.

“Yes. Come on in.” She led me into a small entry hall. There, a coatrack was heaped with jackets. Countless pairs of boots and shoes lay tangled in a pile beside the door. A plaid wool muffler hung from the chandelier, and cobwebs tied it to every curve on the light fixture. I could see a large living room to one side, with a big stone fireplace at the end. Every available space in the room besides the seats of the well-worn leather sofa was full of bags, stacks of papers, or boxes and baskets with myriad items peeking out the tops. In the other direction was a dining room, where the chairs had been pushed against the wall and mounds of folders and papers obscured almost all of the long wooden table. “Let's go through to the kitchen,” she said, “and I'll fix you a glass of iced tea. It's going to be another broiler today.”

The kitchen was just like the rest of the house. Towers of red plastic cups, hills of disposable plates and bowls, unopened cans of soup, cereal boxes, and bags of tortilla chips littered the countertops. The table was stacked with more papers and files—some in cartons—and about twenty phone books, half of them with aged, brown edges. A small square of space in front of one chair was clear, just enough room to set a plate and cup. At the back of this tidy frontier was a line of amber plastic medicine bottles, perhaps a dozen of them.

Nuni Garza handed me a red cup with iced tea inside. “Don't worry,” she said, “the place is full of clutter and it's dusty, but it's not dirty. That's a new cup, and I made the tea myself yesterday, in a clean jar.”

I took a sip. “It's good, thank you.”

“Dad likes iced tea, so I try to keep some made up in the fridge.”

“Your dad lives here with you?”

She smiled. “I don't live here. This is my dad's house.”

“Oh,” I said. “My mistake.”

“He's a pack rat. He saves everything. He's a collector and a saver and a never-throw-awayer. Is that a word?”

“Close enough.”

“Let's go out back to the covered patio,” she said. “It's got a couple of nice chairs where we can sit, and it's shaded. Dad had that room built on last year.”

Just then, the doorbell rang. Nuni wound her way among the accumulations of things into the front entry. As she did so, my sat phone rang.

“Fire Liaison, Jamaica Wild speaking,” I said.

“Crane, FBI. We've finished the autopsy…”

“Nooo!” Nuni screamed from the doorway. “No, it can't be him! It can't be him!”

I looked through the entry hall and saw a uniformed tribal police officer standing, cap in hand, in front of the wailing woman. His face was as sober as a stone. He looked at me and gave a slight nod.

“Agent Crane?” I said into the phone. “Let me call you right back.”

Thursday, 0840 Hours

I offered to wait with Nuni until her mother or husband could get there, but she told me she wanted to be alone. I quickly expressed my condolences to the sobbing woman, scribbled my sat phone number on the back of my regular BLM card for her, and left.

When I got to my Jeep, I could see that the rear passenger tire was flat. I went around to the back to get out the spare. The tail end of the car was sitting suspiciously low. I looked at the other rear tire. It was flat, too. I threw up my hands and blew air through my puckered lips. It was already so hot outside that my own breath felt cool as it tickled my nose.

A blue pickup pulled up behind me alongside the road. A magnetic sign on the door read,
LEFTHAND CONSTRUCTION
. An Indian man wearing overalls, a ball cap, and braids got out and came up to the car. “Somebody got a grudge against you?” he asked, looking at the two flat tires.

I shook my head. “I don't know.”

He smiled and tipped his green John Deere ball cap. “I'm Alto Lefthand. I betcha I can help you out. I got a compressor in my truck. We can try giving them some air and see if the tires will hold long enough to get you back into town to the gas station.”

Later, at the service station, while the mechanic took both tires off to patch them, I returned Agent Ron Crane's phone call.

“It's a homicide, just like I thought. No smoke in his lungs, no carbon particles in his throat like the ones you would see from breathing smoke from a forest fire, which means he was dead before the fire got to him. Struck on the back of the head with a sharp-edged object, probably that shovel, since the blade has a slight bend in it on one side. No evidence on the blade; of course no handle to get prints from. Since the body was so badly burned,” Crane said, “we used dental records for identification. Fortunately, the Southern Utes have good medical and dental care. Anyway, it's Ned Spotted Cloud all right.”

“I know. I was with Nuni Garza when you called, and a tribal policeman knocked at the door and told her. I guess Ned was her father.”

“Yeah, one of the tribal investigators called on Clara White Deer to question her, and she told us that he had a daughter.”

“
They
had a daughter. Clara White Deer is Nuni's mother.”

“Oh, really?” Ron Crane said. “Let me make a note of that. I didn't get that from what the officer said.”

“Yes, she told me she had a daughter named Nuni yesterday. Then today, Nuni told me she was at her dad's house, but I hadn't yet found out whose house it was until the tribal policeman came. And you called.”

“Does Nuni Garza have any children?” Crane asked.

“No, I don't think so. Why?”

“Just wondered,” Crane said.

Alto Lefthand had been hanging around the gas station talking with the mechanics and watching them patch my tires. He came over as I was getting off the line. “Like I said, somebody must have a grudge against you, or they were playing a real bad practical joke.”

“Yeah, not my lucky day, for sure.”

“No,” he said. “I mean, for real. Look at these.” He held up several short, thick bead-headed tacks. “About eight of them were driven into the tires between the treads, right in the center. Somebody knew they'd cause a slow leak, I betcha. Could have left you stranded somewhere. You got lucky. I'll bet driving up that gravel road on the way to Ned's house, you busted the heads off a few of them, and that's why the tires went flat so quickly. Otherwise, you might have driven all day and then found yourself somewhere after dark, stranded.”

“Well, I'm sure glad you happened along, Mr. Lefthand. Thanks so much. Can I pay you something for your trouble?”

“Nah, it wasn't no trouble, don't worry about it. They're just putting the tires back on now. Shouldn't be more than a couple minutes.” He paused to look back at the Jeep in the service station's bay. “You working on that fire up by Chimney Rock?”

“Yes, I am. I'm the liaison officer with the incident management team.”

“So, do you know Grampa Ned?”

“Not really,” I said.

“Weren't you at his house when I pulled up?”

“Yes. I was talking with his daughter.”

“Oh, yeah, her. She just came back to the rez. Grampa Ned never owned having any children before that. We all knew he had 'em, but he wouldn't own up to it. Then suddenly, here she comes, and she's taking care of him and coming over to his house and making him food and doing his dishes and stuff, telling everyone she's his daughter.”

“Well, that must have been nice for both of them.”

“It's more than that old coot deserves.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Ned Spotted Cloud is a rat bastard, and everyone here will tell you so. His daughter doesn't know how he is because she's been living someplace else. Old Ned's screwed everybody on this reservation one way or another.”

“Including you?” I asked.

“Yes, ma'am. Including me.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“I haven't figured out a way to get even yet, but I will.”

I hesitated a moment. I might have mentioned that there was no need to worry about that anymore, but we had strict guidelines regarding the dissemination of information on our management team, and we were never to inform the public of a death until all of the next of kin had been notified, and only then through our information officer or a qualified public official.

Alto Lefthand didn't need any prodding to continue, however. “Yeah, Grampa Ned had me build that big covered porch on the back of his house last year. Had to get a Cat in there and level out the ground, then do a concrete pour to make that patio. Hired my nephew to help. It took the two of us over a week. When I got done, Ned refused to pay me.”

“He did? Why?”

“I don't know. He said the sliding door on the back of his house wouldn't ever lock after I did the work, but I didn't touch his sliding glass door. You know, he's got plenty of money. He's an elder, so he gets seventy-five thousand a year from the tribal growth fund, plus more for holidays, birthdays, and special occasions. And he owns a rental property, plus he's got that big house. He has it pretty good. It's not about the money. Ned Spotted Cloud just screws everyone he meets, that's all. And I'm not the only guy trying to figure out a way to get even.”

“Oh, really? Who else is mad at Ned?”

“Well, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who ain't. But I heard that Ned's renter, Gary Nagual, is costing Ned money, which has to be getting Grampa's goat. That guy ain't paid rent in six months, I betcha. He likes to gamble. And drink. Even though he gets good money from the growth fund, too, he's always broke. I think Ned's getting ready to evict him. That's just one example. I could give you more.”

Thinking of Agent Crane's question, and my own mandate from the burning man, I asked, “Well, since you mentioned you knew Mr. Spotted Cloud had kids, do you know if he has any grandkids?”

He laughed. “Why do you think everyone calls him Grampa Ned?”

“I mean that he admits having, like he admits Nuni is his daughter.”

“I don't think he would've admitted she was his daughter if she hadn't marched in there and started doing so much for him. He never admitted it before, and everyone knows he ditched Clara White Deer when she was pregnant and just out of high school. So if he wouldn't admit it then, he probably never would have. It was all Nuni's doing. Somehow she made her way into that cold heart of Ned's.”

Before I could reply, my sat phone rang again.

The moment I punched the talk button, I heard, “Jamaica, this is Roy. Meet me at the entrance road that goes up to Chimney Rock. The fire's jumped Highway 160 and is headed for those power lines.”

“I've got to go,” I said, snapping the phone off.

Thursday, 1000 Hours

When I arrived at the entrance to Chimney Rock, Roy was pacing around in the wide turnout area, his satellite phone jammed into the side of his jaw, talking with the power company. I parked and got out of my Jeep and waited for him to get off the line. A hot wind started to lift my hat off. I caught it as a woman came toward me. I recognized her from earlier that morning when she had opened the blessing ceremony and from the storytelling the night before. She had been standing with a tall, lean man wearing a cowboy hat and Western boots and jeans.

“Are you the one who talks with the Utes?” the woman asked.

“Yes,” I said, offering my hand. “I'm the liaison officer. My name's Jamaica Wild.”

She took my hand and shook it. “I am Mary Takes Horse. I'm on the Southern Ute Tribal Council. That guy I was talking to over there is Oscar Good. He's the owner of the Laughing Dog Ranch.”

“Hello,” I called, and waved at Oscar Good. He gave me a nod and then went toward a pickup parked to one side.

“We are very worried. Camp Honor is our Ute tribal youth camp. We have some cabins and a gathering hall in the woods there. Everyone has been evacuated from the area, and we want to know what is happening.”

“Let me find out the latest information,” I said. “I'm about to talk with the incident commander. He called for me.” I looked at Roy, but he was still on the phone. “In the meantime,” I said, “I'd like to know if there is anything I can do for you, if you have places for everyone to stay, or if there are any specific things I might help you with.”

“We just want to know what is happening to our land,” she said.

“I'll find out as soon as the IC gets off the phone. While we're waiting, I want to say what a beautiful story that was that you told at the blessing ceremony this morning.”

“My grandkids all like that one,” Mary Takes Horse said. “We have many stories about fire. You know, Indians used fire in many ways. We used it to manage the land for hunting, and to keep the brush down around our camps and our medicine plants and sacred sites. We used it to send signals, and to keep the enemy from hiding nearby. A lot of times, we even used fire to keep our trails clear to and from our different camps and hunting places. And the fires we set always allowed for new things to grow to feed the animals we hunted. We believe that fire is a good tool.”

I smiled. “We're beginning to understand that in the natural resources field. We could learn a lot from your stories and traditions.”

She studied me. “Why don't you come to the storytelling tonight? It's the Utes' turn to tell the story again.”

“I'd love to, so long as I'm not needed otherwise on the fire.”

“Isn't your job to talk with the Utes?”

“And the other tribes here, yes. I'm the liaison between the fire team and the native peoples.”

“Well, you need to come to the storytelling then. It's tonight at nine o'clock, at the visitors' center on the road up there before you climb the ridge.” She pointed across the flats to the forested section inside the Chimney Rock Archaeological Area.

“Let me go talk to my boss,” I said, “and find out the latest on the fire.”

I walked across the dirt turnout to where Roy was talking to the information officer. The Boss waved a hand at me to follow him. When we got to the side of his truck, he turned and looked to the west. The two stone towers of Chimney Rock stood in sharp relief against a sky filled with surging brown smoke. “We're getting ready to do a press conference here,” he said, “and there's a lot of ground to cover. The highway's closed, the fire's approaching those power lines, we had to evacuate all the homes there along the Piedra River, the youth camp, and that little ranch and the quarry. We've set up an evacuation center at Pagosa Springs Elementary School, and you'll need to check and see if there are any Utes there.

“The meteorologist is forecasting even hotter weather today than yesterday, with gusting winds, which is going to give this fire everything it needs to keep growing. But the worst news of all is that we still don't have any intelligence on our hotshots—they're still all in the burn unit in Albuquerque, and the doctors haven't released their updated condition. And we've had a homicide. Your Ute guy.”

“I know. The FBI agent called me just a little while ago.”

“Yeah, they're supposed to have someone here for the press conference to talk about that. Have you spoken with the local guy from the Bureau of Indian Affairs?”

“No, I—”

“You haven't even talked with the BIA rep yet?” he snapped.

“No, I—”

“Damn it, Jamaica, we're doing a unified command here—the BIA, the Southern Utes, the local agency, and this team. We're supposed to be working together, and you don't even know the key players? The BIA is your guy; you get with him right away and get him on your side. Do it first. Then I want you to talk with the governor's office in Denver. Here's a name and a number.” He handed me a slip of paper. “See if you can get someone down here to help us talk to the Native Americans doing ceremony here. We're going to have to evacuate them, too.”

“But Boss—”

“No buts.” He held his hand up. “We've had enough losses on this fire. We're not going to risk any more.”

He paused a moment. I nodded and then started to walk away. But Roy called after me. “Hey, Jamaica?”

I turned back.

“I wasn't done.”

“Sorry, I thought you were.”

“Well, when I'm done, I'll let you know.” His voice had an edge. “Did you get with the Navajo Hotshots this morning like I told you to?”

“No, Boss. They'd already left camp by the time I got back from the top of the ridge.”

“I told you to get with them before they left camp.”

“But you told me to go up to Chimney Rock first, and they'd already gone by the time—”

“Well, you're going to have to kiss and make up with them now. I hope to hell they're not all stirred up. You're not taking care of your end of things, Jamaica.”

My mouth hung open. I couldn't even think of a defense, I was so taken aback. Finally, I said, “Look, I got here early yesterday before anyone else, I tied in, I went after a guy—”

Roy interrupted again. “Take one of those archaeologists with you—you know those two that were in the war room last night? Don't take one of the summer field assistants, I don't want to leave anything to chance in this case. The Navajos don't want to be near any grave sites, and I want someone who knows what they're doing to work with that crew. We sent them up to Division Charlie; they're doing structure protection. Get in and put your resource advisor with them as soon as you get someone headed here from Denver. Don't wait, and don't do anything else but the things I told you in that exact order. You got that?”

I bristled. “Get with the BIA, get him on my side, call the governor's office and get someone down here to evac the Native Americans, get one of the lead resource advisors with the Navajo Hotshots at Division Charlie, check to see if any Utes are at the evac center, and get ready to have a big fight with the indigenous people up on top. Anything else?”

“No, that'll be it,” he said as a gust of wind tried to take his hat. He grabbed the crown and pushed it down and got into the cab of his truck.