Changer's Daughter (34 page)

“I’d like you to arrange for Tommy Thunderburst’s
Pan
tour to take the road a few weeks early. We’ll find someone to fill in for his dates. Maybe Blind Lion will be ready by then.”

“
Oui
,” Lil answers, “maybe so. What will you give us if we do this great favor for you?”

The man blinks. He’s not used to this. The Blind Lion tour is far more extensive, far higher profile than the
Pan
tour would have been, but this woman is acting as if she would be doing him a favor. For a single moment, he gets angry enough that he forgets her charm; then she smiles and her full lips pout just a little and he’s wondering if she just might be free for lunch.

“Well,” he says, “perhaps we can discuss what you need over lunch?” He names a restaurant so high-profile and so expensive that the waiting list for tables is months long. Lil actually pauses to consider.

“I might do that,” she says, “but first, promise me that if I convince Tommy to take this earlier date, you will make certain arrangements for us.”

“Arrangements?” he says, his hand already on the phone to tell his secretary to make certain his table is being held.

“
Oui
, for security. Tommy is a great
artiste
and we have some surprises that we do not wish... unveiled.”

The way she pauses before the word “unveiled” sends images into the exec’s mind, very distracting images.

“Unveiled?” he says, and his voice is a croak.

“Is that not the word?” she asks. “Revealed. Unmasked. Stripped naked.
Non?
”

“Right.” The man presses down the intercom button. “Sarah, make certain my table is ready and have the limousine brought around.”

Lil leans forward, preparatory to rising. “Then I have your promise?”

“My promise,” he says, then, almost without volition, his hand strays to paper and pen. “Let me give it to you in writing.”

Lil smiles. Males are so easy to manipulate. It’s hardly worth the effort, but it’s fun, too.

Something is definitely up. Katsuhiro notices when the
harmattan
ceases to blow, but his first real proof of some major disturbance is when Regis fails to follow up on the previous day’s meeting.

He had waited in solitude for a full day, his isolation broken only by the arrival of his meals. The guards who deliver his tray won’t tell him anything, but he can tell by the wideness of their dark eyes and the nervousness of their motions that something has frightened them badly.

Midmorning the following day, young Taiwo Fadaka drops in for a chat. The young man is apparently as agitated as the guards, but he hides his feelings better. His urbane poise is marred, however, by the way he fidgets: pouring a glass of water, lighting a cigarette, shifting his seat in his chair. Despite this, Katsuhiro is happy for his company.

“Have you heard about the change in the weather?” Taiwo asks.

“I noticed that the winds have dropped,” Katsuhiro replies. “Is this unusual?”

“Very, but they have not dropped,” Taiwo’s tones soften, like a professional storyteller drawing his audience in. “They have changed.”

He pauses for effect, then says succinctly, “We are trapped by a wall of wind. The
babalawo
say that it is Oya’s doing. The preachers call it the wrath of God. The imam say Allah is holding his breath. I call it damned inconvenient.”

Taiwo’s accent, Katsuhiro notes, becomes more British when he is distancing himself from local beliefs. The boy is scared, then, very scared. Katsuhiro pretends not to notice this, instead concentrating on learning as much as he can about the wall of wind. Within twenty minutes, he knows all that Taiwo can tell him.

“Damned inconvenient,” Taiwo repeats, this time sounding as if he means it. “Just when business was getting nicely under way. I can’t even get the stock market reports.”

“Yes, quite inconvenient,” Katsuhiro agrees, but his meaning is quite different. As he sees it now, the inconvenience is all on Regis’s side. As long as the wall of wind lasts, the Chief General Doctor cannot communicate with the outside world and as long as he cannot do that, Japan is safe from his threat.

There are too many uncertain elements for Katsuhiro to escape immediately, but he can begin to plan. Perhaps Teresa will be an ally, perhaps even this Taiwo can be turned to his use. If only he knew how long this wall of wind would last! If only Regis’s guards were less trigger-happy!

Even with such uncertainties to plague him, for the first time since he has been taken captive, Katsuhiro feels himself again, free to act without worrying that his impulsiveness will cause the death of a nation.

“Yes,” he repeats, “very inconvenient, indeed. Still, we must resign ourselves to the turning of the Wheel. Would you care to pass the time with a few hands of cards?”

The November Colorado air, even at midday, holds a crispness that speaks of winter rather than autumn. Still, the day is sunny enough that for hard work Wayne Watkins has stripped to the garishly striped shirtsleeves of an old Western shirt.

Along with the Mexican he has hired as foreman, he jounces about his newly hired land in a four-wheel-drive pickup truck. The foreman, Jesus Carlos Martinez, sits in the passenger seat, stolidly soaking up the jolts. He would have been the better one to drive, since he’s been living out here for the past several days and has had a chance to learn the temper of the land, but he knows better than to argue with his boss.

So far, the arrangement between them suits them both fairly well. Wayne likes having power over those who work for him and, short of holding an inheritance over their heads, as he does with his kids, he’s found that the best way to have power over his employees is to know something about them that they wouldn’t want widely known.

Jesus Carlos Martinez is an illegal alien, a wetback as Wayne frequently reminds him. He has aged parents back in Mexico who rely on him for support, as well as a wife and three young children he dreams of bringing to the United States. This is a suitable whip for Wayne to hold over his head, a whip sharp enough that Jesus tolerates Wayne’s crude humor and occasional incompetence. The paycheck is good and steady, and Jesus is saving for the day he can leave.

“How’s the grazing, Hey?” Wayne asks. His fundamentalist Baptist upbringing cringes at the thought of calling a Mexican “Jesus,” even when the name is pronounced “Hey-soose.” He’d tried “Carlos” or “Carl” but the dumb greaser hadn’t seemed to know that was his name. He uses “Martinez” sometimes, but it doesn’t crack the whip the same as calling a man by his first name when he’s gotta call you “Mister.”

“Not great,
señor
.” Jesus shrugs. “It is winter, you know.”

“I know it’s winter,” Wayne grumbles. Then he brightens. “But it beats shit having the cows out here tearing up the government’s land while my pastures recover.”

Jesus remains discreetly silent. He might even agree, but he’s learned from long experience that volunteering his opinion is a good way to invite a harangue.

“Anything you and your boys need out here?” Wayne asks. The question isn’t from kindness. He’s paying the three Mexicans to keep an eye on this herd and on four others he has out in this general area. Ever since unexpectedly severe winter storms a few years back wiped out several hundred head of cattle in southern New Mexico and northern Texas, the insurance companies had gotten snippy about paying off on cattle that they felt had not been properly overseen.

“Perhaps, señor, a couple of good horses,” Martinez gestures at the hilly land with its arroyos and sudden drops. “There are places the truck cannot go easily.”

“And you don’t want to walk,” Wayne grunts. “We’ll see.”

They’ve come up to the area where Wayne’s government land borders on the Other Three Quarters Ranch. To Wayne’s displeasure, since he’d counted on running his cattle all through the area, he sees that a new fence has been strung along the boundary.

“When’d that go up?”

“Almost as soon as we brought the cattle.” Jesus waves his hands expressively. “It went up like magic. We were greatly surprised.”

“Magic, eh?” Wayne grunts again. “Just good American technology, barbed wire and posts.”

Seeing what looks like a potential weak point in the fence, he stops the truck and walks over, Jesus trailing politely behind. Wayne pulls experimentally at the wire, decides that it’s set more securely than he had thought, and is about to retreat when he catches sight of something in a shady hollow amidst a cluster of rocks. There’s snow there, just a little, left over from an early storm.

Stepping on the bottom strand of wire, and raising the middle, he climbs through the gap. Martinez, more respectful of property lines—other than those dividing nations—waits, lighting a cigarette from the crumpled pack in his shirt pocket.

Several steps take Wayne to the hollow. He crouches and inspects his find, feeling a sharp thrill of elation. It’s a track, just a single track, but he’s been a hunter since he was a boy of six and can read sign like a scholar reading Latin.

Wayne’s certain what he’s looking at is a canine track, but something about the shape makes him certain that it’s not a dog track. It’s too big to be a coyote track. That almost certainly makes it just one thing—wolf.

He puts his finger in the track, feeling its depth, guessing its age from the amount of blown snow and degree of icing. It isn’t brand-new, must have been made a couple of days ago, but wolf! Here, on his own land, or what might has well be his own land. Wolf!

Thoughtfully, he creeps back through the fence, already making plans. There will be no trouble at all if he shoots a wolf on his own land. Even in those places where the bleeding-heart conservationists are trying to reintroduce wolves, provisions have been made to permit ranchers to protect their property.

“Come on, Hey,” he says, walking briskly toward the truck. “We’ve got more land to inspect.”

“
Sí, señor.
” Wayne is too excited to hear the hint of mockery in Jesus’s voice, a nasal intonation like that of Pancho in the
Cisco Kid
. “I come.”

“I’ll even let you drive.”

“
Gracias, señor.
”

Wayne hardly listens as Jesus reports on the condition of the surrounding land, of the herds wintering on them, of the availability of water. He only asks one question.

“Any problem with predators?”

“No, Mr. Watkins. On this land we have not even seen a coyote. On the other parcels, some few coyote, maybe some wild dogs, nothing else, not even a mountain lion.”

“But nothing on this piece?”

“No, señor. We have seen nothing.”

Wayne debates letting Jesus in on his secret, decides not to. It’d be just like a greaser to shoot the wolf before he does.

“Well, keep a careful eye out. I’m worried about those dogs you mentioned. Let me know if you see any tracks at all but don’t”—Wayne turns a gimlet eye on his foreman—“don’t shoot anything unless it’s actually attacking the cow. Let me know first.”

If Jesus thinks this odd, he doesn’t say anything. Still, Wayne feels a need to clarify.

“If it’s dogs, we don’t want you shooting somebody’s hunting dog out for a bit of fun. So don’t shoot anything, unless you’ve let me get a look at it first.”

This time Jesus barely, just barely, cocks an eyebrow, but his tone is as respectful as ever.

“
Sí, señor.
I understand. No shooting of anything, unless it is actually attacking the cows.”

“Good.” Wayne thinks that he’d better change the subject. “I’ve been musing over your request for horses. I’ve got some, but it occurs to me that just over the way is a horse ranch. Maybe MacDonald’d be glad to move some stock. I think when we’re finished here, I’ll just mosey over, introduce myself, and find out what might be for sale.”

And maybe,
he thinks,
just maybe I’ll be able to get a line on this wolf.

13