The Shape Shifter (28 page)

“The beginning? Where do you think that would be, Lieutenant?”

“I know where it was for me,” Leaphorn said. “It was when you stole those two five-gallon cans of pinyon sap from Grandma Peshlakai.”

Delos was frowning. “Are you going all the way back to that fire at the trading post? How does that—” He stopped. “You’re stalling, Lieutenant. Remember what I promised you I’d do.” He aimed the pistol. “Was it the left leg you chose?”

“If you don’t believe that was a mistake, let me tell you another one. This one more serious.” Leaphorn stopped, grinning at Delos, trying desperately to think of some Delos error he could come up with.

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“Make it fast, then,” Delos said. “I am losing—” Delonie emitted a sort of choking groan, and moved one of his legs.

The Delos pistol swerved from Leaphorn to Delonie.

He aimed it, carefully.

Then he raised the gun and focused on Tommy Vang.

“It seems your diagnosis of Mr. Delonie’s health was far too pessimistic, Tommy. And now you’ll have an opportunity to correct it.”

“I think his arm is hurting him,” Vang said. “The bone is broken. I think—”

“Stop thinking, Tommy. Pick up the rifle there. Now you have a chance to demonstrate that you are—just as I always tried to teach you—that you are good enough material to become one of the predator class.”

“Oh,” Tommy said.

“Pick it up,” Delos said.

Tommy picked up the 30-30, looked at it, looked at Delonie.

“Make sure it’s loaded,” Delos said.

“It is loaded.”

“Now remember what I taught you. When something has to be done, don’t hesitate thinking about it, simply decide the best way to do it and get it done immediately.

Here, for example, where do you shoot Mr. Delonie to save him from his pain, and you from your problem? I would suggest the center of his chest. But it is your choice.

You pick your place.”

Vang raised the rifle, swung it past Delonie’s body, and shot Delos in the chest.

Then, as Delos staggered backward, he shot him again.

22

The first step now for Leaphorn was to deal with Tommy Vang, who was standing at the edge of the porch, rifle dangling from his right hand, as pale and wan as his brown skin would allow, and looking totally stricken. Leaphorn stepped off the porch floor, took the rifle, tossed it away, and hugged him.

“Tommy, Tommy,” he said. “You did exactly what you had to do. You saved our lives. Saved not just Mr. Delonie, but me and yourself. He was going to kill us all. You saw that, didn’t you.”

“I guess Mr. Delos is dead,” Tommy said. “Did I kill Mr. Delos?”

“He is dead,” Leaphorn said, and hugged Tommy again. “We thank you for that.”

“I didn’t want to shoot anyone,” Tommy mumbled.

“Not even Mr. Delos.”

“Well, don’t feel bad about it,” Leaphorn said. “We are very proud of you. Mr. Delonie and I.”
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“But now . . . now what I do? What do I do?”

“First, you’ll help me get Mr. Delonie into the house there, and then we will bandage his arm and put a splint on it, and see about getting him some medical attention.

Then we’ll think about that.”

Getting Delonie into the house was no problem. As Delos had suspected, Delonie was not nearly as badly hurt as he’d been pretending. He stepped onto the porch, cushioning his broken arm with his good one, grimacing, and pausing a moment to look down at Delos.

“Well, Shewnack, you dirty son of a bitch, you finally got what you deserve,” he said. He prodded Delos’s shoulder with his foot, went into the cabin, and the cleanup work began.

Vang dashed back to the truck to get the first-aid kit Delos always kept in its glove box, and Leaphorn peeled off Delonie’s jacket and his bloody shirt. The cabin had been supplied to meet the needs of tired and dirty hunters. Leaphorn filled a pan with water from the twenty-gallon tank labeled FOR COOKING, which stood beside the stove, got towels from a cabinet drawer, ordered Delonie to sit by the table, and started carefully washing away the dried blood from the entry and exit holes the bullet had made about three inches below his elbow. By the time he’d finished that—with Delonie watching, expression grim and teeth gritted—the water was steaming and Vang was back with the kit.

“Here something for the pain,” Vang said, holding up a paper package and a small bottle, “and here is something to kill off the germs.”

“Hand me the bottle,” Delonie said. He glanced at it, said, “Wrong kind of alcohol,” and laid it on the table.

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“Ah,” Vang said. “I look in the cabinets. I go find the whiskey.”

Leaphorn used the contents of the small bottle on Delonie’s wounds, both arm and chest, and then applied the prescribed salves to the proper places. Vang handed Delonie a large brown bottle, cap already removed.

“Tommy, Tommy,” Delonie said, with a huge smile,

“If you decide not to go home to your Hmong mountains now, you can move right in with me. This is Black Label Johnny Walker you just handed me. Just what the doctor ordered.” He raised the bottle, admired it, tilted his head back, and took in a large mouthful. Then another. Sighed.

And smiled again.

Vang was watching this, looking forlorn.

“Better I go home to my Hmong people. But I guess there’s no way to do that now.” He sighed. “I guess there never was. I guess I just never did get smart enough to know that.”

Delonie, who had been watching Leaphorn wrapping strips of torn toweling around his arm splint, was studying Tommy now.

“There’s a way you can go back, if that’s what you want,” he said. “Just collect some of all that money Delos owes you, and get yourself a ticket.”

Vang stared, looking baffled.

“Go out there on the porch right now and see if the bastard has a wallet in his hip pocket. Or in his jacket.

Fish it out and bring it in here. I figure he owes you about twenty-five years’ wages. He won’t have that much on him, probably, but let’s see what he has.” Tommy was shaking his head. “I wouldn’t do that. Not take the wallet from Mr. Delos. I don’t do that.”
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Delonie said nothing to that. Neither did Leaphorn, who was securing the last strip around Delonie’s arm.

Leaphorn was wondering what Delonie was thinking.

Leaphorn was thinking of what he had here. A dead victim of a homicide, done deliberately but in self-defense.

A victim of an attempted homicide. Two witnesses to the homicide, and two witnesses to the attempted homicide, one of them the perpetrator of this whole mess. And himself, a sworn officer of the law, more or less retired but still carrying deputy badges.

“Well,” Leaphorn said to Delonie, “I guess that’s as good as I can get you fixed. Any ideas of what—” Delonie stood up abruptly and walked out the door onto the porch, rolled Delos’s corpse enough to feel the hip pocket, then felt through the jacket pockets. Finally he extracted a large leather wallet. He brought it back into the cabin.

“Here we are, Tommy. Let’s see what your employer left for you.”

He slipped an assortment of bills out of the wallet onto the tabletop and separated them into piles while Tommy watched.

“Here you have five one hundreds,” Delonie said, tapping the money. “And here you have nine fifties, and here are four twenties, and five tens, and an assortment of fives and ones. You do the arithmetic for me, but I’ll bet it would be right at a thousand dollars, maybe a little more.”

Tommy Vang was separating the bills, counting. “I say it would be one thousand one hundred and ninety-three dollars,” Tommy told them.

“Enough to fly you to where you find your Hmong THE SHAPE SHIFTER

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family, you think? Maybe not. But you could pawn that expensive rifle Delos was carrying. That would bring a couple of hundred more, at least.”

Tommy considered that, standing rigid, rubbing his hands against the side of his trouser legs, worried, deep in thought.

Leaphorn was also thinking. Homicide charge, attempted homicide, armed robbery now. What else? What could he be charged with? Aiding and abetting about everything, he guessed. The list for him would be less violent but quite a bit longer when the attorneys got involved. But why worry about it now?

“If you’re ready to move, we better tidy up here some and get going,” Leaphorn said.

“What about Mr. Delos,” Tommy said. “We leave him?”

“I think Mr. Delos deserves a decent burial,” Delonie said. “He dug a nice little grave out there for you, Tommy.

I think we should let him use it.”

Leaphorn had been thinking the same thing. “Better than just leaving him out for the coyotes and the ravens,” he said. “We could say a little prayer over him.”

“I don’t think he would have cared about that,” Tommy Vang said.

They slid Delos off the porch, Tommy carrying his legs, Leaphorn holding his shoulders, sat him beside the grave, and slid him sideways into it. The body lay on its right side, legs folded. Delonie picked up the shovel, handed it to Leaphorn.

“I think we should let Mr. Delos take his luggage with him,” Leaphorn said.

“Oh,” Delonie said. And laughed. “I guess we wouldn’t
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want the ranch cleanup crew to worry about his driving off and leaving all his stuff behind. That would cause a lot of trouble.” He secured the shovel and handed it to Leaphorn. “Tommy, why don’t you look around in there and bring out his bag, or his shaving stuff, or whatever he brought with him. Want to leave the place tidy.” Wordlessly, Tommy stepped back onto the porch and disappeared into the cabin. Leaphorn followed him, picked up the 30-30, returned with it, and tossed it into the grave beside the body.

“Hey!” Delonie shouted. “That’s my rifle.”

“Was it?” Leaphorn said, staring at him. “Folks out of prison on parole are not allowed to have guns. Violates the parole. If you get down there and get it, I guess I’ll have to take you in. Turn you over to your parole officer.”

“Well, then,” Delonie said, and shrugged.

Tommy appeared carrying a large satchel in one hand and a small briefcase in the other. He sat the satchel on the porch, nodded to Leaphorn, and displayed the case. “When he travels, this is the one he carries to keep his special money in,” he said. “There’s money in it now.” Leaphorn took the case, clicked it open, looked in. The money was there, in bundles secured by rubber bands. He took one out, checked it. All fifties. Delonie, who had been watching this, said, “Wow!” Leaphorn pulled the satchel over, opened it, and checked the contents. He found clothing, toiletries, electric razor, spare shoes, nothing unusual. He looked at Delonie, whose eyes were still focused on the briefcase.

“I think we will keep the satchel out,” he said.

Delonie grinned. “I agree.”

“Maybe there is enough in there to give Tommy Vang THE SHAPE SHIFTER

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something to live on when he gets back to Laos and his mountains,” Leaphorn said. “And I am going to take out two of those fifty-dollar bills to pay Grandma Peshlakai for that pinyon sap he stole from her, and two more to pay her for about thirty years of interest.” Shoveling in the pile of humus took less than five minutes. Toppling the stone slab, with Delonie helping out with his undamaged arm, took only seconds. Leaphorn stepped back. It had worked even better than he expected. He spent another few moments collecting leaves, pine needles, and assorted debris, and scattering it in places that looked unnaturally fresh. Then he stepped back, inspected it, and said: “Finished.”

“What we do now?” Tommy asked.

“We get Mr. Delonie to a doctor, and then we go home.”

“Back to Flagstaff ?” Tommy asked.

“There first,” Leaphorn said, “because you have to pack your stuff and make your reservations and all that.

And then—”

“And then I go home,” Tommy said.

23

Daylight now, the sun just up, and Tommy Vang driving.

Driving a little too fast for this road, Leaphorn thought, but Leaphorn was just too worn out to object. They bumped along down the creek, across the culvert, through the gate they’d vandalized, and back on the bumpy gravel.