Shadow Man (22 page)

“I’ll go along with that. For years now, my motto has been: ‘Don’t blame me—it’s all Charlie Moon’s fault.’”

“Ahem.” This was Louise-Marie’s way of making her presence known. “I’ve got all my stuff in the trunk of your police car.”

“I thank you,” Parris said.
Now I have to decide where to stash the Olds so it doesn’t get spotted by one of my officers.

Unable to stand the suspense any longer, Pokey Joe emerged from the her place of business to confront the lawman. With a closer look, his face seemed familiar. “Hey—ain’t you that cop from town who came out here last year and arrested the jerk who kept breakin’ into my store at night and stealin’ all my sugar-cured hams and free-range eggs?”

Scott Parris tipped his felt hat. “Yes ma’am. It was me that put the pinch on the breakfast burglar.”

She flashed him a toothy smile. “Well, I’m glad to see you again. If there’s ever anything I can do for you, I hope you won’t mind asking.”

“As a matter of fact, there is and I don’t.” He gave her the ignition key. “These ladies, who are friends of mine, have had a bit of trouble with their automobile. It appears that someone has substituted a Mexican plate for the legal one that was issued by the great state of Colorado. Until we can get this straightened out, I would appreciate it if you would keep an eye on Mrs. LaForte’s vintage Oldsmobile. I would appreciate it even more if you would park it in an out-of-the way spot, so some ardent collector of classic automobiles doesn’t steal it.”

Pokey Joe eyed the key, the car, the fine-looking man. “Why, I wouldn’t mind a-tall.” She hopped into the Olds, drove it behind her store.

Parris gave Daisy a hearty one-armed hug. “Please get inside my fine black-and-white automobile and make yourself extremely comfortable.”

Daisy gave the cop car a thoughtful look.
I don’t want Louise-Marie where she can talk to him.
“I’ll sit up front.”

“Sorry,” the lawman said. “The front passenger seat is reserved for petty criminals like jaywalkers, shoplifters, and little boys who pull the rabbi’s beard. But the man behind the wheel—which happens to be me—needs protection from truly dangerous felons, like tribal elders who corrupt sweet little French-Canadian ladies, hit-and-run drivers, and meddlers who make a general nuisance of themselves. By departmental rules, such hardcases are required to ride in the backseat, behind the bulletproof partition.” He looked down at the Columbine hound. “Along with any nonhumans that happen to require transportation.”

Sidewinder emitted an eager whine, wagged his whiplike tail.

Daisy was miffed. “If you don’t like that bolo tie that I scrimped and saved for, you can give it back.”

“I will,” Scott Parris said. “Soon as you return the expensive radio I gave you.” He opened the rear door.

“I already told you,” Daisy muttered, “that contraption was burned up in the fire. If you know how I can give you back something that’s nothing but ashes scattered to the four winds, please explain it so I can understand!”

“Get in the car,” he explained.

Scott Parris thought long and hard about how best to deal with this sticky issue. They had left Pokey Joe’s General Store miles behind them before the Granite Creek chief of police came to a decision. He addressed himself to the tiny woman in the passenger seat. “I’ll work out a way to get your car back to Ignacio. But from now on, you’ll have to keep the plate up-to-date.” He could see only the patched eye, thought she might be asleep.

Louise-Marie LaForte was wide awake. “Whatever you think is best.”

“Do you think you could find a qualified driver to take you places—like to the grocery store or the doctor’s office?”

Louise-Marie nodded. “There’s Henry, who lives next door.”
He’s only eleven, but he drives almost as good as me.

“Well, I hope you’ll talk to him.”

Daisy Perika was seated directly behind the driver. The hound was curled up on the seat beside her, his head resting in her lap. The angry woman was barely aware of the dog. Her entire attention was on a spot between the lawman’s collar and hairline. The shaman was doing her best to raise a blister.

Her victim felt an itch on the back of his neck. He tried to scratch it away.

The Ute woman grinned.
I ain’t quite lost my touch.

Parris scratched again.
I must’ve got a mosquito bite.

Residue of a life

Charlie Moon was wandering around the grounds of his aunt’s former home, picking up bits of this and pieces of that. A ballpoint pen here, a plastic hair clasp there, a little blue bottle filled with ground-up leaves, a scorched coffee can wedged into the crotch of a piñon branch. There was no way of knowing what might constitute a treasure for the tribal elder. He had just squatted to retrieve a blackened dime when the telephone in his jacket pocket warbled. The tribal investigator checked the caller ID, smiled. His best friend’s voice would be just the tonic.

Smoothing things over

Daisy knew perfectly well whom Scott Parris was calling. “You’re not supposed to use one of those phones while you’re driving,” she said. “There’s a rule against that!”

“There are exemptions for us sworn officers of the law,” he said over his shoulder, and heard Charlie Moon’s hello in his ear. Parris responded in his usual hearty tone. “Hey, pardner—how’re you doing?”

Straining to eavesdrop on both sides of the conversation, Daisy leaned forward, turned her ear toward a patch of tiny perforations in the plastic partition. She was able to hear the white policeman’s words, but her nephew might as well have been on Mars.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Parris said. “Oh, I’m fine as frog’s hair.” He listened to a query about what he was up to. “Oh, nothin’ much. Had to make a little run out east of town—to assist a pair of elderly motorists.” Two heartbeats. “They were experiencing problems with an old, black Oldsmobile.” A longer silence. “No, nothing like that. Turns out they had a faulty license plate.” He smiled at the response. “I’ll give you one guess, ’cause that’s all you’ll need.” Parris snickered. “Well, that’s one of ’em.” He nodded at the invisible communicant. “Right again, your aunt was with her Canadian sidekick. But you don’t need to worry, they’re both all right. I’ll deliver Daisy to the Columbine in about an hour, then I’ll run Louise-Marie down to Ignacio.” He listened to a welcome offer.
That’d save me a long and tiresome round trip.
“I’ll ask her.” Parris spoke to the passenger beside him. “Charlie would like for you to stay the night at his ranch. He says you’d be welcome as a warm breeze in December.”

Louise-Marie shook her little gray head back and forth.

“She appreciates the offer, but I think she’d like to sleep in her own bed tonight.”
Which means I’ll be on the road till way after dark.
“Okay, pardner. See you later.”

Daisy thought her thoughts.
Scott never intended to put me and Louise-Marie in no lineup. And I don’t think he means to tell Charlie about the run-in I had with that pockmarked pimp or how I run over that white cop’s foot. Scott’s doing everything he can to keep me and Louise-Marie out of trouble. So I guess I’ll stop trying to burn a blister on his neck.
She waited until they had passed through Granite Creek, then tapped on the Plexiglas shield.

Parris glanced at the rearview mirror. “Yeah?”

Daisy spoke through the patch of tiny holes. “I had some time to think about it.” She took a deep breath. “I guess you can keep that expensive bolo tie I gave you.”

“I am much obliged.” He grinned at the reflection. “And you can keep the cinders and ashes from that expensive radio that got toasted.”

The sly old woman smiled.
Scott’s all right. For a blue-eyed
matukach
devil
. Despite some setbacks, this had turned out to be a pretty good day. A hundred times better than sitting alone at home, wishing something interesting would happen. She leaned her head back on the seat, stared at a dim image of herself that looked back from the Plexiglas shield.

Sidewinder mumbled something in his sleep.

Daisy’s hand was resting on the hound’s head.

For a hundred ticks and tocks of the cosmic clock, nothing unusual happened.

Then—

Daisy was mildly intrigued when her reflection faded away from the polished plastic. She was absolutely electrified by the image that replaced it.

Why, it’s me and Louise-Marie. And we’re walking down that little road toward Pineapple Head’s house. But we look really tall, like someone was looking up at us—someone whose face is close to the ground. Could it be the
pitukupf? She did not think so. The little man rarely strayed more than a few miles from his badger hole in
Cañón del Espíritu.
And then she knew—

In an instant, and with a flash of opalescent light, she was jerked away from ordinary consciousness into that timeless, twilight place.

The Shaman’s strange world was without color. But it did not matter that Daisy’s vision was limited to shades of gray—she could smell dozens of wonderful scents that she had never known before. Underneath her, four soft feet padded along—her black nose sniffed and snuffed at this and that. She was searching for something. Something warm, something fleshy. Now she was moving more quickly along a dirt lane, beside an old fence row. Then the rabbit jumped up from a clump of sage, bounded off. Her heart raced with the most elemental joy she had ever known—she chased after the cottontail with a wild abandon! Her world was a forest of leafy bushes, her own hoarse barking—and the overpowering odor of the fleeing rabbit’s fear. The chase seemed as if it would never end, then she was digging in the earth with her front paws. The terrified rodent was not there. She heard herself whining.

Quite unexpectedly, there was someone standing beside her. She looked up at the young woman, who smiled and said something. The human’s words were unintelligible, but friendly, even empathetic—as if she was also familiar with struggle, anguish, loss.

Daisy jerked with an unpleasant twitch, as if a spike of electrical current had passed along her spine. She looked at the sleeping dog’s head in her lap, and understood.
You seen her, didn’t you? Pansy Blinkoe was in that house with Pineapple Head, all right—but when she saw me and Louise-Marie coming, she must’ve slipped away, run off to hide in the bushes.
For a moment, she considered telling the white policeman what she now knew for a fact.
But he’d want to know
how
I could be so sure, and I could never tell him how I’d seen what was in this dog’s mind. So I’ll keep this to myself until I can figure out what to do about it.

Scott Parris was pleased with how he had managed a potentially sticky situation.
Eddie Knox won’t try to find out who ran over his foot; he’ll just be relieved when I change my mind about putting him and Slocum on suspension. Louise-Marie will get a legal plate put on her Olds, and that man who lives next door will do the driving for her. And I put enough of a scare into Daisy that she’s finally learned her lesson.
He exhaled a gratifying sigh.
By tomorrow, this business will have all blown over.

They moved on down the road, along the arrow of time—into an unknown, unknowable future.

After Scott Parris had deposited Daisy at the Columbine and departed with Louise-Marie LaForte, the Ute woman went directly to her downstairs bedroom and shut the door. An hour later, hearing Charlie Moon drive up, she slipped into bed with all her clothes on and switched off the light. When he tapped lightly on her door, asked if she was all right, she pretended to be sound asleep, even to the deceit of faking a snore. She listened tensely while he had his evening meal, then made his way upstairs to his bed.

Even after the entire house was dark, Daisy could find no rest. Well past midnight, she lay wide-awake in the comfortable four-poster, staring up at a dark void where the ceiling ought to be. The events of this singular day kept racing through her mind. Louise-Marie LaForte, with a patch over her eye, almost running the car off the Too Late bridge. That mean white policeman, telling her to get out of the car, then dancing around after she ran over his foot. The police car chasing after her, then running off the road. Pokey Joe in her tentlike overalls, dispensing sandwiches and Twinkies. Pockmarked Pineapple Head DeSoto, his bulging belly hanging out from under his sissy yellow shirt.

Finally, at a small hour, Daisy drifted off into a troubled sleep. Almost immediately, she was plagued with the most bizarre dream. She was running and tumbling through the brush and the brambles. At one moment she was the terrified rabbit, then she would assume the role of the pursuing hound. But always—in the background—was the slim form of the yellow-haired white woman. Pansy Blinkoe watched the chasing game, clapped her hands to see such sport.

The first hint of daylight came absurdly early.

When she heard her nephew moving around in the kitchen, Daisy put her feet on the cold hardwood floor.
Oh, God. I am too old to keep on living—I should’ve been in the ground a dozen years ago.
She took a deep breath and tried to think a positive thought.
Once I get myself up, I’ll start to feel better.
One creaking joint at a time, she got herself up. She did not feel the least bit better. On the contrary, what she saw in the full-length mirror made her shudder.
What a pitiful old woman—I look like death warmed over.

Charlie Moon tapped on the door. “You ready for some coffee?”

“I’m ready for a coffin.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Once I manage to pull myself together, I’ll be out.”
If I stay alive that long
. But the wonderful scent of fresh coffee seeped through the cracks around the door, and this did the trick. As she began to pull on her day clothes, the old woman started thinking about yesterday, and the week before—all the things she was angry about. And what she could do to get even. By the time she stomped into the big ranch-house kitchen, Daisy was glaring at her nephew, ready to tear into him tooth and claw. She was momentarily deterred by something that struck her as quite odd. “Why’re you dolled up in your best suit of clothes?”

Moon hitched his thumbs in his vest pockets. “I aim to go see a lady.”

“A
white
woman, I’ll bet.”

“You would win the wager.” He gave her a sly look. “You and Louise-Marie have a good time yesterday?”

“Good enough.”
Just you say one smart-aleck thing about what me and her was up to, and I’ll pick up this chair and break it over your head.

Moon pulled the intended weapon away from the table, helped her settle into it. “I’m glad you got to spend some time with your friend. Going for a nice ride must’ve been just the thing to cheer you up.” He patted her shoulder. “I’m sorry there was trouble with the car. Lucky thing Scott happened by, and brought you back home.”

“Hmmph,” she said.
He’s just softening me up.

He seated himself across the table. “Did you get a good night’s sleep?”

Hah—now the questions start. Well, I’ll just ignore him.
She sipped at the coffee, made a face. “This is weak as Sister Sarah’s mint tea.”

Moon stared at the tar-black brew. “I’ll make another pot, just for you.” He was getting up from his chair when she waved him back.

“Never mind. I’ll eat and drink whatever’s put in front of me.” She tried a forkful of scrambled eggs, was highly annoyed that she could find nothing to complain about. “After all, it’s not like I’m family or nothing—I’m just a guest in your fine big ranch house. Who’m I, to expect things should be made to suit me?”

He grinned over a plate of eggs and chili. “I guess you didn’t sleep all that well.”

“I slept just fine.”
I’ll ask him before he asks me.
“So what did you do yesterday?”

He shrugged the broad shoulders. “Had a confab with my foreman about the fence repairs along the north pasture. Stopped over at the Big Hat to check on my new hands. Then I spent the rest of the day down at your place, cleaning things up some.”

She shot him a look. “I didn’t know there was anything left to clean up.”

“There’s still quite a bit of odds and ends scattered around. I thought I’d gather some of it up for you.”

This aroused the old woman’s curiosity. “Well where is it?”

“There’s a couple of cardboard boxes out in the pickup.”

“You could’ve brought ’em inside.”

“I’ll do that later. But I did bring you in a sample.” He got up, went to an oak cabinet, found what he was looking for. He placed the blackened coffee can on the table by her coffee cup. “I put some of the smaller things in this.”

She glared at the thing. “Where did you get that?”

She must not be quite awake yet.
“These are some things that I picked up around your yard—”

“No. I mean
that.
” She pointed at the container.

“The coffee can?” He seated himself. “The blast had blown it into a tree, so I picked it off a branch, and—”

“Then you can put it back.”

Moon arched an eyebrow. “Beg your pardon?”

“That ain’t mine.”

“What ain’t yours?”

She turned the can so he could see a small patch of paint that remained. “What color is that?”

I bet this is a trick question.
“Well, I’d say…green.”

“What color can does Folgers regular coffee come in?”

“Oh, right. Red. I guess you don’t buy much decaf—”

“During my whole life, I never bought nothing but good old red-can regular coffee. I wouldn’t have no other kind in my kitchen.” She gave her cup a suspicious look. “You surely wouldn’t—”

“No,” Moon said quickly. “That’s not decaf.”

She sniffed. “What’s wrong with your well-water? This smells like kerosene.”

“I’ll be glad to make another pot—”

“Ah, don’t bother. I’ve drunk worse stuff than this and liked it.” She peered into the can. “Looks like a pile of burnt-up junk to me.”

“That’s not far from the truth. But before we toss it, you might want to scratch around some. There might be a pretty pinto pony in there somewhere.”

“A pony?”
That is just about the dumbest thing I ever heard.
She turned the can upside down to dump the junk on the table, proceeded to sort through the odds and ends. “Except for this old silver dime, I don’t see anything here that’s worth a thimble of monkey spit.” It hit her hard. Tears began to well in her eyes. “After all these years, I don’t have nothing left.
Nothing.
”

He watched her across the table, not knowing what to say. “You still have that nice telephone I bought you.”

She lifted the bulky pendant in her hand, blinked at it. “This ain’t worth the kindling wood it’d take to burn it up.”

Moon buttered a biscuit. “What’s wrong with it?”

I’ve been really hateful this morning. I shouldn’t complain about this silly little telephone.
But remembering a particular grudge against her nephew, she could not help herself. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it—when you call a person on it and leave ’em a message, they don’t ever call you back.”

The grin found his face again. “That might not be the phone’s fault.”

Her scowl trumped his grin. “And what do you mean by that?”

Moon realized he’d gone a wisecrack too far. “Well…uh…I…”

Daisy knew she had him by the neck. “Ask me
who it was
I called that didn’t call me back.”

“Okay. Who it was?”

“I’ll tell you who—it was a big smart aleck that goes by the name of Charlie Moon.”

I might’ve known.
“When did you call me?”

She had to stop and think back. “The day before that night my trailer burnt down.”

“Was the message about something important?”

“It might’ve been.”

“Want to tell me what?”

“No I don’t. I left you a phone message. If you wasn’t interested enough to call me back then, you wouldn’t care to hear about it again.”

“Try me.”

She shook her head.

He got up from his chair, came to her side. “Let me have a look at your pendant phone.”

“You can keep it for all I care.” She took the loop from around her neck, returned the birthday present to her nephew. “A broken telephone is worse than not having one at all.”

“I’m going into town today, I’ll drop it off where I bought it, see that they get it fixed.” He inspected the small instrument. There was no obvious sign of damage. “Now show me exactly what you did.”

He thinks I’m too dumb to call him on the phone.
“I don’t care to be cross-examined this early in the morning. Not before I’ve finished this fine cup of kerosene.”

“If you don’t show me what you did, I won’t know what to tell the technician.”

“Oh, all right.” She snatched the miniature marvel of modern technology away from him. “First, I pushed this button to dial your cell phone, but all I got was a recording. So I pushed the other button, for the phone here at the ranch house. Dolly Bushman answered and told me you’d gone to see that lawyer fella. The one with the beady eyes that’re too close together.”

“I”m guessing you mean Trottman.”

“That’s the one. Dolly gave me his number, and after I punched it in with a toothpick, all I got was another stupid recording. So then I pushed that other button to get your cell phone again.”

“Which other button?”

“This button right here,” she snapped. “Can’t you remember nothing?”

There was a merry sparkle in his eye. “What happened then?”

“Just like the time before, you didn’t pick up—all I got was that dumb recording. But this time, I left you a message.”

He nodded. “Oh, sure,
that
message—the one about how you wanted a new TV set and—”

“It wasn’t about no TV! I told you I knew exactly where that Pansy Blinkoe woman was hiding and—” She caught herself. “That wasn’t fair—you know I didn’t mean to tell you that. You
tricked
me.”

“Did I?”

Her high-temperature glare fairly sizzled his skin.

Moon thought he’d try again. “So where is Mrs. Blinkoe hiding?”

“After you get this dumb thing fixed, I’ll tell you.” She slapped the pendant telephone into his hand. “I’ll call you, and leave you another message.”

He got the message.

Charlie Moon strode across the yard with a brown paper bag in his hand, got into the Columbine Expedition, sniffed at the paper bag, put it on the passenger seat. He rummaged around in the glove compartment for his cell phone, turned it on, dialed a very smart lady he had not seen for years. Her answering machine responded with a recording of the familiar voice.

Guess I’ll just have to go knock on her door.
He called the FBI office in Durango, listened to an automated response which informed him that no one was in, but to leave a message and “…if your business is urgent, please dial the Denver Field Office.” Moon shook his head.
Don’t anybody answer their phone anymore?
The tribal investigator left Special Agent McTeague a message to the effect that at three
P.M
. today, he would be at Big Tony’s, desperately lonely, and hoped she could find time to join him. “And if you do, I’ll have something for you—not to mention a free lunch.” With this double-barreled incentive, he disconnected.

The tribal investigator started the engine, was about to pull away when he remembered the “important message” Aunt Daisy claimed to have left him. He dialed his cell phone answering service. There were no messages.
Maybe the phone company has messed up.
He removed his aunt’s pendant telephone from his shirt pocket, pressed the button Daisy said she had used to call and leave him a message. His cell phone did not ring.
Maybe it’s on the blink. When was the last time I got a call on it?
Unable to remember, he pressed Daisy’s pendant telephone to his ear, listened to a few final rings, then the computer-generated voice.

After inspecting each tiny label on each tiny button, squinting at the telephone number on LCD screen, Moon concluded that his aunt’s miniature telephone was working just fine. The problem was on the other end.

He dialed the foreman’s residence, heard Bushman’s gruff hello.

“G’morning, Pete. Listen close, because I’m a little pressed for time. First, I’m on my way to town and I’m going to lock the Columbine’s front gate. I want it
kept
locked till I say otherwise, so make sure all the cowboys know that. Second, I want you to post three men in eight-hour shifts to ride herd on my aunt. I don’t want her leaving the ranch without my say-so, and if she goes for a walk, the man on duty will have to keep a close eye on her.” A pause. “Yeah, I know how we’re already shorthanded, but that’s how it’s gonna be. And one more thing—issue the man on guard a rifle and a sidearm.” Another pause. “Because if a cowboy is assigned to guard duty, he expects to be armed. Now see to it, Pete. I’ll listen to all eleven dozen of your complaints when I get back.” And
they’ll go in one ear and right out the other.