The Juliet (34 page)

Budge finally stopped when he saw a plain green utility truck parked on the side. The door displayed a county decal. Not far from the truck, a man in khaki and a government cap picked his way through the short brush. The man had a shovel, a rake, and a bucket. He did not seem to be doing anything other than moving dirt from one spot to another. Earning a paycheck.

When Budge stepped off the bike and removed his helmet, the county man stood straight and grinned. Waved in slow motion.

Theo
. The shadow man. Under the full sun, Theo was tan and trim with hands that glowed from the blood of work. He looked almost normal, save for the predatory smile. Theo’s grin was sharp and flawless. Budge reflexively put his hand near his own mouth, hiding his stained teeth.

Theo said, “You’re back. Come to pay your respects?”

“I think I’m lost.”

“You’re not lost. This is the Apollo-Centenary cemetery.”

“Then I’m definitely lost.” Budge now noticed flat stones and iron plates sunk in the ground, some of them with barely discernable letters and numbers. A few of the plots were marked around the edges with stones and pottery shards. The more Budge looked, the more evident the plots became. The big giveaway was the shells. Someone had brought conch shells from the sea to mark where the dead rested in the desert.

When his perception shifted, the scatter of boulders and brush became less random, revealing a grid that surrounded him. He said, “Good lord. How many graves are out here?”

Theo was pleased. “We have forty citizens underfoot. A pretty good haul when you consider that the Apollo mines were in operation for just a few years.”

Budge took the “underfoot” comment seriously. He felt uneasy with the idea he might be treading on a forgotten grave. “And the shells?”

“Smart system. They’ve been here since the thirties when The Ladies Auxiliary took it upon themselves to recover the site. The shells came all the way from Florida and can stand up to whatever the desert dishes out.” Theo dragged his rake over a patch that posed an invisible challenge. “I keep the place tidy.”

“What about that grave in Centenary? You take care of that one too?”

The rake slowed. Theo spoke to the ground. “That’s not a grave. It’s just a story. A legend. There’s no one buried there.”

Budge supposed that was possible. “That
old gentleman thinks there is. Calls himself the Mayor? He lives in a little house on the other edge of Centenary, back up on the eastern bluff.”

Theo switched his rake for a shovel, but he didn’t do much more than lean on it. “I know it. That’s Hogg’s House. It’s made of old whiskey bottles covered in plaster.”

“Right. I’m trying to find it. I got turned around I guess.”

Theo found the notion amusing, or at least his eyes did. “You know this fellow, do you?”

“I talked to him the last night we were in camp. He said Lily Joy was his wife,
buried down in that grave.”

Theo ran his tongue over his teeth and said, “No one’s lived in Hogg’s for years. County claimed it for taxes, so it’s part of the park, unofficially. Folks camp there sometimes. I wouldn’t though. It’s not easy to get to, what with the canyon road in the condition it is.”

Budge shook his head. “He wasn’t a camper.”

“Then maybe he was a ghost. Or a joker. The Mayor was a man named Skinner. His wife was a fortuneteller. It’s a popular story around here.” Theo stepped forward, as if he had secret gossip not suitable for the lizards and the dead to hear. “Back in the ‘30s, they were going to open a casino in the Opera House, but I guess the missus saw something pretty bad in her crystal ball. I think they had some gambling trouble. She shot herself and took the maid to hell with her. I’m pretty sure the old man’s been dead for years.”

“I met the Mayor,” Budge said.

“You met someone. Maybe. As I recall, you like a drink now and then.”

Budge ignored the jab. The distance between the men was about a shovel’s length. “You’re the expert. I’d still like to see for myself. Can you help me find the house?”

“Good luck getting there on
that
,” Theo grumbled, nodding at the beat up motorcycle. He began to scrape lines in the dirt with the tip of his shovel. “Goud’s Trail will rock you to pieces and take most of the day to do it.” Theo stepped back. He had drawn a map in the dirt, providing Budge with a direct but arduous route, no doubt designed to teach humility and respect for the desert.

Budge examined the gouged lines at his feet. “When I was here before I took a trail from Centenary that intersected with the road. That road was Goud’s Trail?”

Theo wasn’t going to answer any more questions. He nodded to the dirt. “This is the way to Hogg’s House.”

“I see. Thank you.”

“Good luck.” Theo was suddenly bored with Budge. “Need to tend my souls.”

My souls.
What a load of horse shit. Theo wasn’t so impressive when he was on the clock. He was just a civil servant who fancied himself as some spiritual officer.

Budge climbed back onto the Hummer and put on his helmet. He drove a slow circle around Theo and headed north again, back the way he came, ignoring the county man’s advice.

Theo met Budge’s disrespect with a coyote grin.

* * *

Budge returned to the camp in Centenary and parked the bike on the cusp of High Street. From here he retraced his wanderings on foot. Nothing was familiar once he entered the basin, nothing except the tilt and pull of gravity.

The deeper he went, the longer the shadows became. It was early afternoon. When he reached the jailhouse ruins, he saw the scar of the burro trail winding up the hill behind it; had he really climbed that narrow path at night? He proceeded over the gullies. Scat piles marked the way to the trailhead.

Budge paused when he came upon Lily Joy’s grave. The memorial’s bright colors screeched against the dun monotony, and that meant he was close. He couldn’t quite make out the edge of the bluff as it bled into a sunny blue sky.

Budge found a gouged scar in the hillside and started up, putting his trust in whatever animal had made it. As soon he was breathing hard and sweating enough to remove his jacket, he crested onto a plateau seemingly blocked by enormous boulders, but as he picked a path around them he saw that he had made it.

Hogg’s House. The odd shack was nestled against a backdrop of high canyon walls. It looked ancient and eroded, almost grown into the sloping rock slabs behind it. Somehow Budge had discovered a more direct route than the one he’d taken ten days ago, never intersecting Goud’s Trail, after all.

Goud was a sucker, Budge decided.

Even before he approached the house, Budge knew the place was empty, lifeless, and still. The windows didn’t even reflect his own shape.

“Mr. Mayor!” he called out. He turned a slow, full circle to enjoy the echo. The view over Centenary was indeed spectacular. From this vantage point, he could see the whole town, and no one in the town could ever see him.

He wondered how far his voice carried, and if Theo was laughing at him now.

Budge tried the door. It was unlocked and creaked open, releasing a stale odor from within.

“Mr. Mayor?”

When he stepped inside, he felt as if he’d traveled through time. What had been lit by the rosy warm glow of a lantern was now cold and barren. There were books on the shelves, but no phonograph and no brandy on the sideboard. The house was both spotless and lifeless, fully furnished, but in the way that a pharaoh’s tomb is furnished, with everything waiting on hand for use in the afterlife.

Budge moved through the rooms, looking for signs that the Mayor had been there, but he found nothing to suggest recent habitation. It felt like a camp, temporary, just as Theo’d said. A shelter, but not a home. There were a few basic tools for living in the drawers, a couple of cans of food in the cupboards. Taped to the side of the cupboard was a faded note with instructions for priming the pump.

The entire house smelled like Ajax and rocks. Budge felt his soul shrink a little. What the hell was he doing here?

In the bedroom in the rear there was a single bed with a thin mattress over which a nubby, worn spread had been laid out perfectly. Not a wrinkle. On it lay a square, rose-colored pillow, barely big enough for a child’s head, with the picture of a bouquet of flowers printed on it. Budge was suddenly overcome with exhaustion. He sat on the bed’s edge and listened to the squeal of the springs before stretching out on it. The wee pillow fit under his neck, and though it was hard, for some reason that felt good, like an anchor to reality as he floated away on a dream-bothered sea.

* *
*

When Budge woke it was dark and he was hungry. In the kitchen he found a can of beans and potted meat. Not the worst supper he’d ever had. He lit the old lantern, which filled the room with shadows, and he ate his dinner cold off a knife, sitting at the tiny dining table under the window.

The Mayor was gone. He had said he’d be gone. He’d also said Budge would come back, but Budge never believed him.

He announced to the empty house: “Well here I am.”

There was no answer save the humming of the refrigerator. It was plugged in, running. Budge tried to pretend the detail was unimportant. He crossed to the fridge and opened the door.

Three cans of Blatz inside, chilling. Nothing else. His brand. Theo’d said the next round was his, but that was in a dream.

The beers were real, though.

The smart thing to do was run for it.

Budge took one can out and popped it. He moved to the sofa in the front room, and waited, drinking deep. It wasn’t much of a house, but he wanted to stay. He was half way through the beer when he noticed a smear of darkness under one of the low cabinets, a razor edge defining the swipe of a mop. Whoever cleaned up had missed it.

He assumed it was blood. No reason not to.

Budge put the beer on the table where it started to sweat a dark ring into the wood. Blood and Blatz.

My souls,
Theo said
.
What if they were? A cemetery that no one gave a damn about would be useful to a bad, bad man. Maybe he’d just finished burying what was left of the Mayor.

Budge grabbed a second beer.

Theo had been here while Budge slept, and he was coming back, too. If not tonight then the next. Theo was an inevitability. Theo was fate.

* * *

By the time Budge finished the beer, the door creaked open. Theo’s steps were heavy and slow.

“Sorry. Drank the last one.” Budge held the third Blatz can aloft and wiggled it, proving that it was empty.

“That’s all right,” said Theo. He angled towards the sofa, stepping, not walking. Budge could smell the dust coming from Theo’s boots. Theo took a place on the sofa, leaving a manly distance between him and his host. He leaned an elbow on the arm of the sofa in a strange but familiar angle.

Budge asked, “You got back pain?”

“I’m a working man.”

“I believe the Mayor left a dose or two of laudanum behind.”

“You some sort of
beep-nick
dope fiend?”

“‘Beatnick’ is the term you’re after. And no, it’s just all I have to offer.”

Theo moved his hand across his stomach and chest. It looked as if he was confirming that his body was still where he’d left it, under his head. He flexed his fingers, remembering them as well.

Budge said, “I need a drink of water. You mind?”

Theo nodded slightly, and his smile tipped like sand in a sack. Budge walked through the lantern light into the shadows of the kitchen, locating a tin cup in a cupboard. He tried the tap. It gurgled before it gushed. In the darkness Budge couldn’t tell if what came out was clear enough to drink, but he didn’t care.

The water was sour. Or maybe that was the poison of his nerves. He sought his reflection in the window over the small dining table, but there were two. One, slow with fear. The other, shifting, fidgety.

The second figure was not Budge but someone else out there on the rocks looking in.

Jub. Damn it.

Budge turned away, trying to pretend that he hadn’t spotted the kid. Now he stared back at Theo. The bad man was where he’d left him, but now he cradled a large, gleaming hunting knife on his lap.

Theo said, “Look at this here,” and he tilted the blade to catch the lantern light that he then bounced across the ceiling and wall. “It’s just light, but I can make it move like an animal.” He held the reflection steady and moved it across Budge’s body. Then he stopped. “My Momma used to play with the candles and a little hand mirror to make the light crawl across my bedroom wall at night. She said it was a tiger’s ghost to keep me in my bed. She was fun like that.”

“I only came here looking for the Mayor.”

“And I wonder why that is. I wonder what you want with the Mayor of shit.” Theo scooted forward on the sofa so that Budge could see his eyes. They were so pale they seemed golden. “Caught him messing in that whore’s grave you’re so fond of.”