Heaven's Keep (36 page)

“I’ll have Rude fly them back,” Kosmo said, then he addressed Cork. “You able to ID the guys?”

“I didn’t see them, but I have a good idea who they were. One calls himself Gully. The other is Mike.”

“Last names?”

Cork shook his head. “They were the two who tried to take us out at the plane.”

“Them and Dewey, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Where’s my deputy, Andy?”

“In a holding cell in back. He’s got himself a pretty good flesh wound. I had Grace Lincoln from the clinic come over and clean him up and sew him closed. He’ll probably have a nasty-looking scar, but he’s in no danger. Want to talk to him?”

“In a bit.”

Rude strolled in and stood just inside the door. “Good to see you two alive,” he said. “Want me to stick around, Sheriff?”

“Yeah, I want you to give these two a lift back to Hot Springs. For a while we’ll need to keep them out of harm’s way.” Kosmo turned back to Cork and Parmer. “We found the plane. DCI’s on their way up from Cheyenne. They’ll process the scene.” He looked at No Voice. “I asked ’em to send someone over here to go over Ellyn’s house, too.” He eyed Cork. “Five bodies onboard, all male. So. Where’s your wife, O’Connor?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to Ellyn Grant about.”

“Did she tell you anything?”

“Yeah. She said Jo’s behind a white door.”

“What’s that mean?”

“She didn’t have a chance to explain.”

“Got an idea?”

“None.”

“You came straight to Red Hawk from the plane site?”

“No. We stopped at Nightwind’s ranch on the way. He wasn’t there.”

“Find out where he is?”

“The Arapaho there—”

“Ben Iron.”

“Right, and his wife, they claimed they didn’t know.”

“You thought Nightwind might have an idea where your wife is?”

“I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask him.”

“These two guys, Mike and Gully, would they know?”

“I doubt it. They seemed genuinely surprised that she wasn’t there with the others.”

“Maybe she dug her way out?”

“Maybe. But we didn’t see any sign of that,” Cork said.

“She was definitely onboard?”

“I found her briefcase under the only seat not occupied.”

“So how do you explain her absence?”

“I have no explanation.”

“All right. I’m going to head down and have a word or two with my deputy.”

“Mind if I come along?” No Voice said.

“Be my guest, Andy. You two gentlemen just relax. I might want to talk some more after I hear what Dewey has to say.”

When the two law officers had gone, Cork said to Rude, “So, you’re the sheriff’s personal escort these days?”

Rude grinned. “I’m the fastest transport to a remote location. Around here we all lend a hand when we can. Truth is, when Kosmo called and told me what was going on, I wanted to see for myself. Any idea what’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you, Jon, I’ve been looking at it from every angle, and it’s got me stumped.”

“You think she’s alive?”

Cork rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, overcome with weariness. It was the long day, the hard labor of the dig, the fact that he had no answer to Rude’s question.

“I’m not going there yet, Jon,” he said.

“Sure.” Rude nodded. “I understand.”

Kosmo came back. “You two are free to go. I’d like you both in my office early tomorrow. I’ll need formal statements.”

“Did Quinn tell you anything?” Parmer asked.

“He’s reluctant at the moment, but I’ll be talking to Dewey all
night. By the time I see you in the morning, there won’t be anything he knows that I don’t.” To Rude he said, “I’ll have one of No Voice’s men transport me and Dewey. Thanks for your help.” He didn’t leave immediately. Instead he turned to Cork. “O’Connor, I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time. I apologize. But this, hell, this is such a bizarre situation. Look, from here on in, I’ll do everything I possibly can to help you find your wife. That’s a promise.”

“Thanks,” Cork said.

Kosmo gave a parting nod and left.

“All right,” Rude said. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

The moon was up. All the way back, Cork stared at the ground below, a vast emptiness punctuated at great distances with solitary yard lights. It made him think of the cold universe where an eternity separated the stars. Jo was somewhere in all that hollow space. God alone knew where. Alive? No, that was too much, too painful a hope to lose again. If she was alive, wouldn’t she have let him know? And how could it possibly be? She’d been in the plane with the others. Mike shot her in the heart. There was no sign that she’d dug herself out. Hell, she couldn’t even have opened the door, the dirt had been packed against it so firmly. Yet she was not there. It was Houdini. It was magic. Or, it was a miracle.

They landed at Rude’s ranch. He gave them a ride from there to where they’d parked their Jeep on the Horseshoe Creek Trail that morning. By the time they were ready to separate, it was well after midnight. They stood among the cottonwoods beside the trickle of the creek. The moonlight was so bright it was like silver fire burning shadows into the ground.

“What do you have planned for tomorrow?” Rude asked.

Cork shook his head. “I’m fresh out of ideas. I’ve followed every lead I can. I expect Lame Nightwind knows we’re on his trail, and I’m guessing he’ll stay vanished. From what you told me, Jon, he knows those mountains well enough he could disappear there and never be found.”

“True. But he’d be leaving everything behind.”

“With Ellyn Grant dead, maybe there’s nothing for him to come back to,” Parmer said.

Rude crossed his arms and looked up at the moon. “You want my take on it, Lame won’t be satisfied until he’s dealt with whoever killed her. At the moment, he probably thinks that’s you.”

“We won’t have to worry about Nightwind. Gully and Mike’ll be gunning for him. Another thread they need to cut,” Cork said.

“I’d love to be there when those guys face off,” Parmer said. “Little Bighorn meets the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.”

Rude extended his hand in parting. “You need anything from me, Cork, just holler.”

“Thanks, Jon.”

Rude took off, heading home, and Parmer got in the Jeep. Cork stood by himself, staring at his shadow, black against the ground. It seemed to him he was looking into a bottomless hole, and he felt empty. He’d been so close to finding Jo, and then he’d lost her. Again. And he had no idea anymore where to look.

“Cork?” Parmer called.

After a long moment, Cork said, “I’m coming.”

T
he next morning, the ring of the phone in his hotel room startled Cork awake. He fumbled with the receiver.

“Yeah?”

“Mr. O’Connor? This is Father Frank Grisham.”

“Yeah, Father. Just a second.” Cork sat up and tried to blink the sleep from his eyes. The room was bright with sunlight. He looked at the clock on the nightstand. Eight thirty. “Okay, Father. What can I do for you?”

“I need to speak with you. It’s urgent.”

“Can we talk over the phone?”

“No, this needs to be done here at St. Alban, face-to-face.”

“All right, Father. I can be in Red Hawk in an hour.”

The call had awakened Parmer. Cork told him what was up, and Parmer threw back his covers and got out of bed.

Cork was dressed and had just finished brushing his teeth when Sheriff Kosmo called.

“O’Connor, I thought you’d like to know this. The DCI team from Cheyenne started working the scene at the plane first thing this morning. They figured out why those passengers just sat there and allowed themselves to be shot. The masks that dropped and they put over their faces? The oxygen tanks that fed them had been switched for nitrogen. The DCI people tell me that would have knocked out anyone wearing a mask. Except for the pilot. His mask was fed from an oxygen tank. These people, O’Connor, they thought of everything.”

“Has the DCI team found anything else?”

“Nothing we don’t already know about, but it’s early. I still want to see you and Parmer here at the department for a formal statement.”

“We’ll be there before lunch.”

Parmer had already gone downstairs for the hotel’s complimentary continental breakfast. Cork joined him and grabbed coffee and a roll to go. As they headed out to the mission in Red Hawk, he filled Parmer in on his conversation with Kosmo.

“So, Jo was probably unconscious like the others,” Parmer said. “And if what Gully and Mike said is correct, she was also in the plane when they buried it. Did she wake up and get herself out somehow?”

“If she did, why didn’t we see any evidence of her digging?” Cork replied. “And why didn’t I hear from her?”

“Maybe she got out and got lost in the area. Out there, there’s nothing for a million miles.”

“And the pixies filled in the hole she dug?”

“I know. Nothing makes sense.”

The morning sun was behind them. Cork was at the wheel. He looked west across the empty country toward the Absarokas, where a dark bank of clouds was pushing up from the back side of the range.

“You happen to hear a weather report?” he asked Parmer.

“Yeah, a front’s moving in. Rain down here, maybe a lot. Snow at the higher elevations.” He yawned and settled back against the headrest. “Wonder what the priest wants to talk to you about.”

“I’m thinking it has to do with Ellyn Grant. Maybe he knows something about her and Nightwind that might be useful. We’ll find out soon enough.”

As they pulled into Red Hawk, they spotted Andy No Voice coming toward them in his Blazer. Both vehicles stopped as they came abreast, and No Voice leaned out his open window.

“What are you doing here, O’Connor?”

“Business with the priest at the mission. Any word on Lame Nightwind?”

“Nothing. Kosmo and me made a visit to his place at daybreak. He wasn’t there, hadn’t slept in his bed. Possible, I suppose, that those two men who took out Ellyn Grant did the same to him and left his body
for the coyotes somewhere, but I’d be surprised if anybody could get the drop on Lame Nightwind. More likely he’s lying low, trying to figure his next move.

“I’ve got most of my force out patrolling the back roads, what of ’em we can. We might get lucky. I’m headed to the hospital in Hot Springs. They got Deputy Quinn there for observation. The DCI folks are going to interview him this morning. I want to be there for that.”

“I’ll talk to Kosmo later,” Cork said, “see if Quinn gave up anything new.”

No Voice looked back at the quiet town. “This might not be the safest place for you two. There are still people in Red Hawk who think it was you killed Ellyn.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Cork promised. “And we’ll be careful.”

“All right then.” No Voice lifted his hand briefly in a parting gesture and headed away.

Cork parked in front of St. Alban, and he and Parmer got out. The mission door was open, and the priest stood just inside, out of the sun. When they approached, Father Grisham said, “Your friend needs to wait outside. This is for you alone, Mr. O’Connor.”

“I’ll be in the Jeep,” Parmer said.

Cork followed the priest into the mission. It was a small sanctuary with a lot of statuary that looked locally made. The crucifix above the altar was hewn from wood and roughly carved. The windows were opaque gold, and the light coming through had a golden hue. There were flowers everywhere, as if in preparation for a wedding, and Cork thought about all the women who’d been there the night before, decorating. Two people sat in the last pew, a woman and a boy. When they heard the men coming, they stood and turned. Cork recognized them. The Arapaho woman and the kid from Nightwind’s ranch.

After glancing into his face for a brief instant, the woman looked down.

“You know who these people are, Mr. O’Connor. They’re good people, and they have something they need to tell you.”

Cork waited. The mission was quiet, peaceful. It felt safe.

“Go ahead, Adelle,” the priest urged gently. “Tell Mr. O’Connor exactly what you’ve told me.”

The woman spoke toward the floor. “We didn’t mean any harm. We didn’t know what else to do.”

“Just tell him, Adelle.”

The woman glanced at her grandson, who also looked at the floor. “When Nick was not much more than a baby, his father killed a man in a fight and went to the prison in Rawlins. He’s still there. His mother died two years later. We’ve raised Nick. My husband is a good man, and he tries to do right for our grandson. But a boy, he wants adventure. Lame Deer Nightwind is adventure. Nick, he follows Lame everywhere. One day late last fall, Lame loaded his big machine onto a trailer and got ready to leave.”

“Big machine?” Cork asked.

“His backhoe,” the kid said.

“When Nick asked him where he was going, Lame wouldn’t say,” Adelle went on. “He was very mysterious. As soon as he was gone, Nick saddled a horse and followed. He does this kind of thing.”

“You knew where Nightwind was going?” Cork asked the boy.

Nick shook his head. “But out here there’s nobody. It was real easy to follow the tracks his truck and trailer left.”

“Did he go to the box canyon north of the ranch?”

“Yes,” Nick said. He risked a glance upward into Cork’s face. “I hid in the rocks on top of the canyon wall and watched him clear a long strip with the blade on his backhoe. I figured right away what it was, but then he did something I didn’t understand. He dug a big hole at one end. When he was finished, he left the backhoe and the trailer and drove off. I rode home. The next day he put Dominion into a trailer and headed toward the canyon again.”

“Dominion?” Cork asked.

“His favorite horse,” Adelle said.

“Go on, Nick.”

“He came back riding Dominion.”

“What did he do with the truck?”

The kid shrugged. “I wondered that, too. The next morning he flew away. He was gone for a couple of days, then the clouds came and
I knew there was going to be a big storm and I worried about his truck. I saddled one of the horses and rode out to the canyon to make sure things were all right there.” He hesitated.

“And were they?”

“I could tell there was a lot of snow coming down in the mountains already, but nothing was falling here yet. Just before I got to the canyon, I heard a plane flying low over the foothills. I saw it come out of the clouds and bank for a landing on the strip that Lame had cleared. It touched down and taxied into the canyon and then I couldn’t see it anymore. I tied up my horse and climbed the canyon wall. I saw the plane in the big hole Lame had dug, and Lame was there with two other men. The two men went into the plane, but Lame didn’t go in with them. Then I heard a bunch of shots inside and they came back out. Lame got on his backhoe and buried the plane. Then he loaded the backhoe on the trailer and hauled it away with his truck. The two men who were with him drove away, too.”