Alibi Creek (2 page)

2

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 29, 2007

W
ALKER WINKED AT THE SECURITY
guard, pushed his hip against the metal bar on the EXIT door and pranced out of a two-year stint at the Central New Mexico Low Security Correction Facility, head back, yipping, imagining folks in Dax County reacting to his release. They'd grin, hands reaching inside their back pockets to confirm the location of their wallets.

First thing, after Edgar came to collect him, they stopped at Palms Trading Post in Albuquerque where Walker picked out a silver bracelet inlaid with turquoise and coral for his big sister, Lee Ann. Next stop Walmart, for a Coleman cooler and bag of ice. At Save-on Floral he had the girl cut the stems on a long bouquet of glads (Mother's favorite) to fit that cooler without crimping a single bloom, leaving enough room for a six-pack of Corona. He ordered Edgar to spread his legs and set another six-pack between the old ranch hand's boots, caressed the hood of the '84 pickup, beat it like a bongo drum, and climbed into the driver's seat. Destination: Alibi Creek.

Whooee! Blue September sky. BIG sky. Bigger than the ocean, 'cause even though the ocean was deep, it had a bottom. Using snorkeling gear, a man might study sea life spawning beneath the water's surface, but a space ship hadn't been invented that could scope out the heavens. The sky owned the sun, stars, and clouds. Its moon pulled tides,
its winds churned up waves. Every single person's hopes and dreams flew up there and the sky held them all, with still room for more. God lived there.

Speaking of God, he was sorry. At this moment, he truly was. He did “borrow” that jewelry from Harry Simmons' wife to cover the debt on some land he'd bought. And although he'd needed the money in a hurry, he'd been a fool to take the stuff to Gallup, hockshop capitol of the United States of America. No sooner had he got Chase Cummings off his back over the late real estate payments, state police had come a-knockin', asking about the origin of the turquoise rings, bracelets, and necklaces at Big Boy Pawn. He explained he had every intention of buying back each item as soon as he raised the money. That didn't go over with the cops.

But, hey, he was out. He'd lost the Cummings place, but he might get his hands on Ross Plank's piece, a prize two sections not far from Mother's ranch, and turn it over to a prospective buyer in Arizona, the name given to him by Pat Merker, his cellmate.

Man, look at those harmless, cotton-ball clouds scattering shadows over the Plains of San Agustin. Sunflowers bowing and waving on each side of the black highway. Bordering Arizona and encompassing the west central mountains and high plains, Dax County happened to be the most isolated region in New Mexico—seven thousand square miles of wilderness, three thousand people, ten thousand elk, and not one traffic light or fast food restaurant. In the last several years, retirees from Arizona and California had started creeping into the area around Brand, the county seat, voicing their opinions at commissioners' meetings, organizing a Health Council, and instructing folks on how to conduct local events, their ideas on “improvement”
upsetting old timers. Tucked in a fold of the Mariposa Mountains, Brand had been overrun by unfamiliar faces, the locals showing their disapproval by shunning greetings, refusing to indulge in small talk, and forgetting names. Walker, however, saw this small, steady influx of newcomers as Opportunity for Lucrative Creativity. He'd have a close look at Ross Plank's 1,280 acres, figure an angle to get him to part with it. The old skinflint had moved to Sierra Vista, Arizona, twelve years ago. What did he want with it, anyway?

Skinny as a pencil line, flexible as a wet strand of spaghetti, Walker seated his hat so far back a sneeze might knock it off. He never strolled, but scampered, took steps two at a time, three if he wasn't hung-over, swung around porch posts, jumped off fence railings and landed easy, lips sculpted in a permanent smile, no matter what the circumstances.
Modus operandi
: never allow a lady to open a door or struggle with a bag of groceries. Never let a man finish a sentence without topping his story.

At birth, his parents called him Gaylan, after his maternal grandfather, the name originating from ancient Greek, meaning “calm.” After six months, they admitted their mistake, for he never kept still. Green eyes darted. He scooted across the floor like a wind-up toy, pulling himself up on any object within reach. At eight months he took his first steps and never stopped going, into the next room, onto the porch, across the yard, around the barn, and down to the creek. Edgar, watching his father chase him around the place, tipped his whiskey glass and said, “Well, you got half his name right,” and dubbed him Walker the Walker, then just Walker Walker. Now a man of forty-two with ropey limbs, cantaloupe head, big ears, and long nose, Walker wore
two-inch heels to add to his height (5' 10”
with
the boots). Extra tall hats, straw in summer, felt in winter, shaded silky hair the color of caramel candy. His presence seemed innocuous until he moved, then folks watched out. He jerked, leapt, hopped and sprinted, stirring up a mini dust devil all his own.

After three hours heading southwest, Walker turned the pickup north onto Highway 34, past a row of empty chairs on the Alibi Creek Store porch. Ahead, lumpy Bruja Mountain rose behind the west mesa, the Randall Range sprawled to the east. He checked the sun's position—one o'clock, too late for the morning coffee crew, too early for the mail. Taking the corner, he leaned on the horn and waved anyway.

“Ain't nobody there but Shelley and she's probably out back,” Edgar said.

“When they hear I'm home, they'll be hanging around all day tomorrow until I show up.”

A mile north he swung left onto the dirt road leading to the Walker Ranch. The pickup splashed across Alibi Creek, low after the seasonal monsoons, cottonwood roots like straws sucking up moisture, the water a silver thread looping through rugged mesas covered with piñon, scrub oak, and pine. Cattle grazed on strips of lush bottomland. An eighty-year-old weeping willow draped its limbs over the dark cedar-sided house he shared with his mother, partially concealing a black walnut loaded with nuts just outside the back door. Directly south, the chalk-white stucco walls of Lee Ann's place bounced off the landscape, assaulted by early afternoon light.

3

L
EE
A
NN PULLED ASIDE THE
maroon living room drapes and opened the sliding glass window. Below her, along the length of the house, red hot pokers and beds of annuals had suffered from the first frost. Yesterday, she'd crushed a few precious remnants of summer, letting the petals and leaves sift through her fingers. God had His plan for rest and renewal, for flora and fauna, for beginnings and endings, bounty and famine, floods and drought. And God had His plan for people, for mothers and children, husbands and wives. Brothers and sisters.

The dark blue pickup crept its way up to Mother's, the dogs racing out to greet it. Walker lifted a bouquet from the back of the truck. Edgar, rumpled and weary as the hat he wore, limped off to the bunkhouse, shaking his head as Walker bowed to the trees, his words delivered by the breeze whether she wanted to hear them or not.

“Hello there, old willow and handsome cottonwoods. Well, howdy, you ugly mutts. How've you been? No, no, get away from them flowers. They're for Mother. I said, no. Go on, now. Git!”

But Patch and Blue, like all Lee Ann's pets since childhood, begged for his hand. Her loyal companions played aorund his legs as he danced up to Mother's house, flew up the steps and charged in without knocking.

“Never mind who feeds you,” she mumbled, “hauls you to the vet for shots, and picks stickers from your ears. Go ahead, lie in front of Mother's door and wait. He'll come out when he's good and ready, maybe in five minutes, maybe tomorrow, some hair-brained notion on his mind, and not give you a second thought. It's me who cares. Me.”

She ran her hand along the plaid sofa. A catalog order form blew off the windowsill and she stooped next to the front door to retrieve it. Everyone entered the house through the mudroom off the kitchen, so the door handle was as shiny as the day it had been installed. Other than that, the room was lived-in, with a threadbare rag rug, a pine coffee table stained with rings from forgotten coffee mugs, end tables stacked with Northern and Cabella catalogs, cream-colored light switches smudged with fingerprints, and molding dinged by work boots. Anasazi and Mimbres pottery discovered on the Walker Ranch and surrounding mesas lined a high shelf on the west wall, and bone tools and ancient rock implements covered the fireplace mantle. First husband, Wayne, who'd helped Dad build the house the year before they married, had mistakenly placed the big picture window sixteen inches off center. Despite Dad's horsing around and Mother's blueberry muffins, he hadn't smiled once during construction, or many times afterwards, hadn't ever apologized for this mistake, or anything else.

She frowned at the asymmetry. A naive girl with romantic dreams, she'd chosen a husband in haste, without consulting the Lord. At twenty, marriage had been expected—the white dress with lace bodice, party shoes, a rose bouquet (bought at the Safeway in Round Valley and kept fresh in a Styrofoam cooler)—as were the babies she longed to birth and nurse.

Wayne used silence, which at first seemed like a clean slate on which to write the future, as a weapon. Comfortable alone, he avoided family occasions, tolerated affection, seldom returned it. A fire lookout position on Solitaire Peak came up and without consulting her, he took the job, leaving for four months every summer. When he returned, attempts to draw him out were met with indifference. Come for a walk along the creek.
Not today.
Let's treat Mother and Dad to dinner at the café for their anniversary.
You take them.
The kids need help building a fort.
I'm busy.
Normal household activities, games, and roughhousing drove him outside. A portrait of Dad covered the patched wall where, during an argument over disciplining the boys, he'd thrown an Anasazi stone axe, missing her head by inches.

She'd tried, for herself and for God, for forever and ever, whenever, however, whatever the circumstances. When Eugene stepped in, as if he'd been Lee Ann's intended partner all along, as if Wayne's sole purpose had been to participate in conceiving the boys, the eight-year marriage ended.

She closed the window and straightened the drapes. They were faded and shabby, in need of washing. The color had once seemed elegant—a joke in the country. She stood on a dining room chair and unhooked the curtain rod and let everything fall to the floor. Time for something light and colorful. The window frame filled with knee-deep golden grass, almost concealing the narrow path to Mother's. The sky to the north was cloudless and brilliant above willows crowding each other along the creek where it swung west and east again. More than once, Eugene had offered to center the window. It would take only a day or two, but it seemed more important to live with the irritation—a nudge, reminding her to appreciate Eugene all the more.

For two years, with the help of visiting nurses from Socorro and the daily care of Grace Delgado, Mother's health had held steady. Eugene and the boys had managed the livestock and run the place without distractions, two calves dying last winter the only catastrophes. But now Walker's truck was parked at Mother's, the bumper dented from drunken accidents, the doors scratched from swerving into the corral, the windshield cracked straight across.

She'd been a mild-tempered two year old when Dad brought Mother home with an adorable bundle of trouble and all eyes turned away from her brown hair and soft brown eyes, as if captivated by a brilliant star dimming all others in the heavens. She'd coped with Walker by faking amusement, imitating her parents' adoration of this towheaded marvel. Oh, they'd loved her, no question of that—Mother, with that sure hand and no-nonsense voice, had taught her to bake, sew, and garden. Dad, at once ornery and kind, had set her in the saddle, held her waist as they practiced the two-step, and let her tag along to the cattle auction. But even as a toddler, Walker dazzled, and each year his exaggerations doubled, tripled, his voice grew louder, his arms waved, his body bowed forward, bent back, mouth blabbing as he played the room, everyone exclaiming, “Oh, no, impossible!” while laughing, enrapt.

He'd follow anyone, especially her—get so close she'd shiver at his breath on her neck as he yapped at her back, blurting a stream of nonsense. She'd raise her eyebrows, lips frozen in a smile, for indifference led to yammering, pestering, pleading, until she responded with put-on enthusiasm. Arguing was pointless. He out-talked, out-convinced, and out-smarted the most rational line of reasoning. She'd sneak off to walk the dogs up the canyon, or tiptoe onto the back porch with a glass of lemonade and her Bible, identify and
mimic bird songs down by the creek, or snuggle up under the bedcovers with a Nancy Drew mystery. Walker couldn't be alone. An empty room held no challenge, an open field little interest. He thrived on the manipulation of people and events.

Shortly after her eleventh birthday, he'd stolen money from Mother's bureau and placed one of her barrettes on the floor. She'd been questioned and punished. Crying, she pointed her finger at him and retrieved her jewelry box to prove the contents amounted to nothing more than her allowance. Sent to her room, responsible for all the chores for two weeks and ordered to stay home from the 4-H dance, she hid behind the bathroom door and jumped him, pulled his hair, punched his stomach, and kicked his legs. He absorbed the assault without a peep and went limp, his mouth curling into a grin as he left her whimpering with sore knuckles, runny nose, and red cheeks.

With no one to turn to, she hiked up the canyon and fell on her knees asking Jesus how to handle hatred of a wily sinner who could appear innocent as an angel, who displayed affection, but would as likely throw her into the pigpen. A hand reached down and lightly touched the top of her head and Jesus answered, saying He understood, that reading and heeding scripture would instruct how to approach Walker and all troublesome situations with love and compassion. Pastor Fletcher had preached those words, but coming directly from the Lord, they took on deeper significance.
Love
meant more than
feeling gushy about. Love
implied deep appreciation, devotion, and acceptance. And
compassion
meant more than
feeling sorry for. Compassion
called for sympathizing with the suffering and struggles of all creatures. In her bedroom, she propped her pillows, kicked off her boots, and tucked her toes under the folded
pink and white gingham quilt at the foot of the bed. Delicate fingers turned the Bible's pages, thin as tissue paper. Words written in old-fashioned language transported her to the
beginning,
when people wore loose clothes belted with ropes and lived in tents without toilets or running water. The stories were complex—full of intrigue, twists, and turns, woven from intricate family histories, tales of betrayal and loyalty, good and evil, feuds, and acts of forgiveness. She named her sheep and rabbits Samson, Delilah, Esther, Rachel, Moses, Sarah, and Solomon and would sit among them in the barn dressed up as Queen Esther, reading aloud Ruth's story, plopping one of her rabbits, David, before the milk cow, Goliath. “How will you, a mere bunny, gain enough power to destroy this giant? With God's help, of course, with Him on your side!”

The kitchen door burst open and boot heels clattered down the hall. He waved his hat and swooped her off her feet, set her down like a precious object and holding her shoulders, peered into her eyes.

“Welcome home,” she said, patting her hair in place.

“Lannie, you don't know how good it feels.
This
good.” He spread his arms as if to embrace the entire world and everything in it, twirled around and hunkered over, dug into the pocket of his jeans and slipped the Zuni bracelet over her wrist. “Got a beer?”

How he got anything done with one hand permanently around a beer can, she never knew. Later in the day it would be a tumbler of Jack Daniels. Her body leaned slightly to the right, in need of Eugene in his sweat-stained denim shirt, hat shielding blue eyes outlined in deep purple, the iris just like an iris. When Eugene was around, rules were obeyed, the truth was spoken, equipment was maintained, and property respected. But Eugene was out among the
cattle, repairing fence, or checking the stock tanks. She adjusted her weight evenly on both legs and called on Jesus and He appeared in a crimson robe with gold trim, haloed, semi-opaque, and stood behind her as a guide.

“In the fridge,” she said, running her thumb over turquoise and coral, the inlay smooth as polished river rock. “Then we'll go out to the barn. I want to show you what the boys have been up to before they come in.”

She heard the pop, waited while he took the first gulp off the top, and they set off across the field.

“Jesus, man alive! Look at the color of those leaves! Yellow as egg yolk. Prettiest fall I ever seen. Guess those trees heard I was coming home. Guess they're putting on a show just for me. Mother cried like I'd been gone twenty years.”

“You must have found her improved.”

“About the same. No better, anyway. I thought she'd be talking by now.”

“Our routine is so regular, I can pretty much read her thoughts.” And yours, too. You think you're going to liven up the house, bring joy to an afflicted old woman.

“You want to be careful,” she said. “Or you'll not ease her condition, but make it worse. The light you've put in her eyes will turn dull if your shenanigans confuse her.” Not to mention the liquor on your breath, your quick step, and fast talk.

“Don't you worry.”

Worry she must, for he flung a stick high in the air, catching it like a boomerang, as if he hadn't a care, as if Mother, disabled and mute due to a stroke, would be thrilled to witness anything he did, from burning his breakfast toast to playing cards to resting his feet on the coffee table switching TV channels fast as he blinked. Had she, just once,
commanded the same attention, she might have become gregarious, even daring, whooped and hollered at the rodeo, allowed the boys to lead her around the dance floor at the Volunteer Fire Station Bar-b-que, shared the thrill of her first kiss with girlfriends, plotted tricks on Halloween.

They climbed the slight incline to the barn, feral cats jumping into hiding as they passed the open doors. He took a deep breath.

“Oh, yeah! Hay, manure, and mouse shit!” he said, detouring inside to run a circle around the old lime green Yanmar tractor.

She plodded on around the corner.

“Well, look-ee here,” he said, catching up.

A sow sprawled in damp earth, six piglets snuggled up to her belly.

“Yes, ma'am!” Walker said. “I see honey glazed ham with raisin sauce and mashed potatoes.” He ran his hand along the pipe fence. “You done your research, I suppose. Remember when Dad brought home those half-dozen baby turkeys? Christ. They trailed after me like I was their mother. I'd hear them pecking at the door while I ate lunch, sending a message in code: ‘Hurry up! What are we going to do next?' If Dad and I drove off, I'd glance out the rear window and I swear, they'd be staring at the pickup through the dust, lost as orphans.” He leaned back and gave Lee Ann the once-over. “You're getting some gray in your widow's peak, but you know, it becomes you. Makes you look sort of dignified. Wise. Of course, you're still damn good looking, in a quiet sort of way. If I compared you to an animal, it'd be a doe.” He jumped the fence. “Don't be alarmed, Mama. I ain't going to steal your babies. Just want to hold one of these darlins. Hey there,” he said, raising a piglet to his face. “You're going to make a mighty fine dinner.”

“Pastor Fletcher and Harley McKenna are each taking one,” she said.

“Harley looks like a sow. He doesn't need but the skinniest. The fattest goes to Fletcher. It's beyond understanding how he keeps on a pair of pants.”

He oughtn't talk. Prison food hadn't done him much good. His chest sunk slightly, as if his stomach muscles had been tied in knots that wouldn't come loose. His Adam's apple poked out of a scrawny neck too skinny to support a head with a nose that size. Still, he looked younger than his forty-two years.