Authors: John Donohue
The main building was a big two-story adobe affair. The
door was unlocked, and we moved gratefully into the dark
coolness of the interior. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust
after the glare of the courtyard. The first floor featured a great
room with a cathedral ceiling and a stone fireplace big enough
to cook a bison . There were clerestory windows high up along
the walls, and shafts of indirect lighting cut through the space.
There were smaller rooms for conference groups and a kitchen
and dining area to the rear. The second floor was entirely
occupied by Eliot Westmann’s personal quarters, including his
library. It was where I’d spend most of my time.
We walked up the wide flight of stone steps that led to the
second level. I tried not to look down for stains.
Charlie read my mind. “This is where the old man took the
fall,” he confirmed. The staircase grew wider as it led down-
ward, a dramatic architectural sweep that must have been
designed to permit truly memorable entrances from above.
Unless, of course, you got totally smashed, lost your footing,
and tumbled down. The stairs had small risers and the steps
were made from gray flagstones, dense and hard-edged. I imag-
ine that falling down them would not be an esthetic experi-
ence—the only thing they offered was a series of punishing
blows on your bounce to the bottom.
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Westmann’s library had a wall of tinted windows that pro-
vided a vista of the dusty hills as they tumbled down into the
rough and broken desert terrain that stretched out to Mexico
and beyond. His desk was set at an angle to the wall of glass,
and I could imagine him sitting there, rubbing tired eyes and
turning to face the wide world, to escape for a time into the
expanse of tan and brown and faded ochre that waited out
there under a wide and uncaring sky.
The other walls were windowless and packed from floor
to ceiling with books and unbound papers stuffed in dark
brown file folders. There was a worktable in the center of the
room with a few hardback chairs around it. The desk itself was
devoid of clutter. A flat computer screen stood in isolation on
the polished expanse of cherry wood. I looked around the room
expectantly, as if something there would help give me a sense
of Eliot Westmann. I looked in vain. There were no posters or
paintings. No decorations of any type. None of the other typi-
cal junk you find in people’s offices, either: plaques, odd stat-
ues, paperweights, souvenirs. And no photographs. There was
nothing in the room to give me a sense of the former owner’s
personality, that he had been connected to places and things
other than those in his own mind. Eliot Westmann’s sparse
legacy was a steely-eyed daughter and the books and papers in
the sagging shelves all around me.
I looked at Charlie. Wiped my hand along a bookshelf.
“This place has been cleaned since he died, hasn’t it?” It looked
too tidy. Most writers I know have working spaces that look
like a tornado has recently blown through them.
He nodded. “Sure. The Criminal Investigations people
from the State DPS took a look, dusted for prints in various
rooms.”
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John Donohue
“Anything unusual?” I knew I wasn’t supposed to be
involved in this end of things, but hanging around with my
brother has had an effect on me.
Charlie smiled knowingly. “No identifiable prints other
than Westmann’s and the staff. Some smudges of indetermi-
nate origin. Mostly, the state guys were just going through the
motions to make Lori happy. Short of a message written in
blood on the wall that said ‘I did it,’ it was pretty clear that
Westmann got loaded and took a header down the stairs. End
of story.”
“And yet…” I started.
“… here we are,” Charlie finished.
“I hate spinning my wheels,” I told him.
“Easier to take when you’re on an expense account,” he
reminded me.
Cop wisdom.
We agreed that I had better get started, not that I was entirely
sure what that meant. Contrary to appearances, Charlie said
there were staff members around and they’d take care of me. I
walked him downstairs and out onto the porch. A big van with
the hotel logo on its side curved into the courtyard, kicking
up some dust. A bunch of people swathed in sunscreen, large
floppy hats, and sensible shoes emerged. The driver popped out
and began unloading daypacks and camelback water units out
of the rear of the van. He was dressed in hi-tech outerwear—
what looked like climbing pants, a white sleeveless shirt, and
well-worn hiking boots. His long jet-black hair was pulled back
into a ponytail. His skin was burnished a deep reddish brown
and his eyes were hidden behind wraparound sunglasses with
lenses that shimmered in a rainbow effect. The man with the
ponytail glanced at us, but gave no sign that our presence had
registered at all.
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I looked at Charlie and nodded at the van. “What’s this?”
“Desert hike. Part of the service from the hotel. This place
has lots of trails and Lori’s been encouraging their use.”
“Who’s the driver?”
Charlie snorted. “The Chief? His name is Rosario Contre-
ras. Outdoor freak. Hiking. Rock climbing. He works at the
hotel setting up desert excursions.”
“Chief?” I asked incredulously.
He grinned. “Nah, I just call him that to needle him. He’s
big into Native heritage on both sides of the border. Calls him-
self Xochi.”
“Showchee?” I asked, and Charlie spelled it for me.
“That’s not Spanish,” I observed.
“No. It’s something different. Aztec or something.” He jut-
ted his jaw out in mock seriousness. “Reflects pride in heritage.”
We watched the group get organized and head off down a
path that led out into the surrounding hills. I peered out at the
sky from the cover of the porch. “Call me crazy, but if I were
taking a walk around here, I’d do it really early or really late.”
Charlie nodded. “So you would think. But you’re a practical
guy. Not an entrepreneur.” I looked at him quizzical y. “He takes
them out for a hike,” he explained to me. “They stumble around
for twenty minutes, worried about rattlers. He tel s them about
rocks and stuff. By this time, they’re swimming in sweat. They
take a break for a while and drink most of their water. They gasp
their way back to the van. Then back to the hotel and into the
bar for something cold and frosty. They pay for the hotel room.
They pay for the guided trip. And they pay for their drinks.”
“Ecotourism,” I commented. “It’s a beautiful thing.”
“Lori says it’s a form of recreational synergy,” Charlie
commented.
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John Donohue
“What’s that mean?”
“That she’s found another way to squeeze money out of her
guests, I guess.”
“She’s an evil genius,” I laughed.
Charlie Fiorella made his way to the car and looked at me
over the open door. “Hey. That’s my employer you’re talking
about. I prefer to think of her as a fearsome yet creative pres-
ence.” He gave me a grin and drove away.
I spent most of that day getting organized and dreaming up
a strategy. I had some biographical stuff on Westmann and a
list of all his book publications. I’d also searched the Internet
for any related sites that could flesh out his profile. I got into
some on-line archives that had old reviews of each of his works.
I did a lot of cutting and pasting and saving stuff to disk.
But I knew that I was simply dodging the inevitable. Even-
tually, I was actually going to have to
read
all the stuff he wrote.
I had a vague recollection of looking at his books years ago
when I was young and impressionable. Even then, as naïve as
I was, I had put Westmann’s work down, convinced that the
guy was a fraud. And I had seen nothing in the literature from
the academic community that suggested anything different.
Yet it was a type of opinion that was widely held even though
the reasons were not particularly well documented. People had
suggested that Westmann had recycled excerpts from various
obscure tomes, fit them together into an outlandish fantasy of
his own making, and then tried to pass it off as scholarship.
In some ways it was a beautiful scheme. The world of aca-
demia is like most other worlds—filled with fine people, but
also with its share of freaks and phonies. Mainstream schol-
ars dismissed Westmann, but somewhere in the few thousand
obscure little colleges around the country you could always
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find some charlatan with a shaky Ph.D. who’d defend what one
book dust jacket described as “a groundbreaking exploration
of a secret world of mystic warriors, penned by a courageous
scholar.”
In the post-modern academic world, truth is often alleged
to be relative. Westmann’s stuff didn’t seem plausible? Who are
we to denigrate an individual’s unique perspective? Nobody
seemed to be able to substantiate his claims? Nobody could
locate the leader of the secret society who was his main infor-
mant? Easily explained. It’s a
secret
society.
It all made me roll my eyes. Serious readers with any famil-
iarity with the topic would simply dismiss Westmann’s stuff.
And few people would have the need or the time to do a very
thorough research job to prove or disprove his veracity. Only a
nut would devote any time to this.
Or someone in the pay of Westmann’s daughter.
I sighed and pulled his books off the shelf, lining up cop-
ies of reviews for each of them. Then I went back to the Web,
tried to track the book reviewers down, and e-mailed a message
outlining my purpose to the ones who were still alive, asking
whether they could point me in any direction. No sense rein-
venting the wheel.
The task was uninspiring and I grew antsy. I looked out
through the wall of glass at the shifting patterns on the des-
ert floor below me. I thought about the group from the hotel.
Maybe a little hike to end the day?
The van with the tourists was long gone. I headed over to
the gravel path that led out into the rough terrain around the
property. A finely-crafted wooden sign with a vaguely Indian
stick figure pointed the way onward. Who was I to argue?
The sun was dropping down and the wind, while hot,
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John Donohue
offered the illusion of relief. I wandered down the track, think-
ing of nothing in particular, just glad to be moving. I could see
boot prints from the tourist group in the dust on the path. It
wound up and down slight inclines. In a few places, it paralleled
the edge of the ridge to permit panoramic views of the desert
floor. The rocks around me were awash in the rose-orange glow
of a setting sun, silent watchers, stolid sentinels who would
never voice an alarm.
After a time, the path ended in a small, boulder-studded
cul-de-sac. This was obviously the limit of hotel adventure. I,
however, am made of sterner stuff. I noticed a very narrow trail
leading up through the boulder field and over a ridge. I fol-
lowed it up.
Here, the view was even better. I could look back and see the
buildings of the Kiva, lit up by the sunset, and an even wider
expanse of desert terrain, studded with lengthening shadows.
The pathway arced away around the hillside and out of sight.
In another ten minutes or so of walking, the ridgeline began
to soften and the incline leading to the lower elevation became
more gradual. I came across what looked like a four wheeler
track. It crossed the path I was on and sloped down the hill. I
looked at the setting sun, aware that I didn’t want to get stuck
out here after dark. But I figured that I still had time. Roads
always lead to something. Way out here, I wondered what that
was, so I took a left and began to follow it down.
In retrospect, I should have been more alert, more sensitive
to the subtle vibrations that could have warned me that this
was not a good idea. I could argue that I was in a strange place,
a very different environment and that the sensations, while
present, were not familiar enough yet for me to interpret. But
there’s no real excuse. My
sensei
admonishes us that there are
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Kage
two important things in a warrior’s life: intention and result.
And results matter more. Excuses are both meaningless and
potentially distracting. Which means they’re dangerous.
I was bounding along the track as it switch-backed down
the slope, loose limbed, and just enjoying the hike. So I pretty
much blundered into their midst before I or they knew what
was happening. The old battered Jeep Cherokee was covered in