Monkey on a Chain (24 page)

Between them, however, the canyon floor is covered with taller trees: poplar, oak, and cottonwoods. The soil is rich, and enough water reaches it to nourish the gardens and pastures of the people who live there.

Tierra Amarilla means “Yellow Earth.” The village lies more or less in the center of the triangle. It was settled in the early eighteen hundreds. Today, the population of the whole county is just a little over thirty thousand. It might be possible to find two citizens who didn’t know each other, but it would be a sure bet that they would know at least one person in common. And if their families had been around awhile, they would be related.

We took a cabin at a small lodge that catered to the fishermen who came for the nearby Heron and El Vado reservoirs, or the Chama River and the small streams that feed it. The room was small and primitive. A bed and dresser filled it. There was no television, and I had a feeling that few of the guests spent much time in it. We followed suit. It was only three-thirty, so we asked directions to the courthouse.

The woman who brought us the land records we asked for was in her early fifties. She was friendly and eager to help until she heard the name we were looking for: the Quintana Holding Company. Then she told us that there was no such land holder in the county. I told her to bring the books over anyway. She did it reluctantly, then left the room.

We found the parcel immediately. Four thousand acres. I wrote down the section numbers of the land, and we continued the trace. Quintana Holding had sold out in 1979 to the Lower Chama Investment Company. Two years later, the parcel had been sold to a man named Felix Romero.

We had just found that transaction when the woman returned with a deputy sheriff. He was a brown bear of a man with a broad face and a thick black mustache.

“Can I help you folks?” he asked.

“We’re doing just fine,” I told him. “The lady is taking good care of us.”

He hooked his thumbs into his pistol belt and stepped closer to me. “She says you’re being rude, causing trouble.”

The woman wouldn’t meet our eyes.

“I’m sorry she got that impression. We didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

“Maybe you better leave now.”

“We aren’t finished here.”

He shifted his pistol belt self-consciously. “What are you doing?”

I decided there wasn’t much point in hiding anything. It would be hard to make inquiries without attracting attention in any case. “I’m looking for the family of a friend of mine. Some people named Cisneros. They had a son named Juan.”

“Never heard of them,” he said. “Come on. It’s closing time anyway.”

“The sign says the office closes at five,” I pointed out. “It isn’t four-thirty yet.”

“It’s an old sign,” he said. “They’re closing now.”

I put down the book. “Okay. We’ll come back tomorrow. What time do you open?” I asked the woman.

She looked at the deputy.

“Closed tomorrow,” he said.

“A holiday?”

“Think of it that way. What do you want with the Cisneros family?”

“I knew their son. In Vietnam. I just want to talk to them about him.”

“I’ll ask around,” he said. “If there is a family named Cisneros around here, I’ll ask if they want to talk to you. They say no, you’re out of here. Understand me?”

“I understand,” I told him.

“Then go. Now.” He followed us out and stood watching as we drove away.

I found a gas station and filled the tank. I asked the attendant where I could get a USGS map of the county.

“Fishing?” he asked. “A fishing map would be better. I’ve got some inside. Shows all the trout streams and lakes. You want one?”

I told him no, I was thinking about doing some hiking. He told me to try the park office out at Vado Lake.

It was a twenty-minute drive. The office was closed when we got there. The deputy sheriff’s car picked us up on the way back and followed us to the motel. I turned into the parking lot and he pulled in behind me. His lights began flashing.

I got out and met him between the cars. “I’m beginning to feel unwelcome,” I said.

“Let’s see your license and registration.”

I shrugged and walked back to April’s side of the car. I leaned in and opened the glove compartment and fished around until I found the registration. When I came out, he had his pistol pointed at me.

“Keep your hands where I can see them!” he barked.

“You can see them now, Sheriff.” Two fishermen were standing in the door of the next cabin, watching us. “Everyone can see them.”

He looked around. “You shouldn’t go into a glove compartment like that without telling me. I don’t know what you got in there.”

“My registration,” I held it out to him. I kept my hands in sight and well away from my sides. “That’s where everyone keeps their car registration. You asked for it.”

He ignored that. “And your driver’s license.”

“It’s in my wallet. You want me to get it out?”

“Don’t be a smart-ass.”

I took my wallet out carefully and held it toward him.

“Take the license out, please.”

I did so carefully. I almost gave him the new license, the one in the name of Roger Bacon. But I caught myself in time and passed over the Porter license. He carried it and my registration back to his patrol car and got on the radio. A few minutes later, he holstered the pistol and brought the papers back to me.

“Sorry about that, Mr. Porter. I had a report of a stolen car. The description was sort of like yours.”

“Report from the state police?” I asked.

He looked at me carefully. “No. It was a verbal report. The state police don’t have it.”

I didn’t believe him. “Be sure you pass it on.”

“If I confirm it. No point in passing on a mistake.”

“No point in shooting a man over a mistake either,” I said.

“Yeah. That would be sort of regrettable. You planning on being around long?”

“Depends on how long it takes to find my friend.”

“I asked around. Nobody of that name in town.”

I looked at his name tag. It said CISNEROS.

He caught my glance. “Different branch of the family,” he said. “Don’t bother people, Mr. Porter. We’re very serious about disturbing the peace around here.” He nodded and returned to his car.

April was shaking when I opened her door. I didn’t feel exactly calm myself. She put her arms around me and hugged me. That helped some. I hugged her back. I could feel the monkey sharp between us.

We ate at a restaurant on the highway to Chama and sacked out early. The food was terrible but filling. The mattress was lumpy, but the company was good. The next morning I drove to the Sheriff’s office and left April in the car with the keys and instructions to find the state police if I didn’t return in half an hour.

The sheriff was a short thin man named Peña. He didn’t smile when I introduced myself and offered my hand, but he shook.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Porter?” he asked.

He didn’t offer me a chair. I took one anyway. “I think your deputy has a problem with me. I’d like to get it straightened out before someone gets hurt.”

“What makes you think that?”

I described what had happened at the motel the day before. “I haven’t broken any laws,” I added, “and I’m not here to make trouble for anyone. I just want to find an old friend.”

“I checked around. Your friend is buried in Santa Fe. His family moved away from here over forty years ago. There is nothing here for you, Mr. Porter. I think you would be smart to look somewhere else.”

“The grave is empty. You know it and I know it. And I think the family moved back. I want to talk to them.”

He looked at me expressionlessly. “Suppose they did,” he said. “You have no right to bother them. If they don’t want to talk to you, it is my business, the business of my whole department, to protect their right to privacy. And we will do that.”

“Have you spoken to them? Did they say they don’t want to talk to me?”

He smiled at me. “I can hardly talk to people who don’t exist, can I?”

“If they don’t exist, I’m hardly bothering anyone by looking for them, am I?”

“Don’t nitpick, Porter. You’re bothering people. You’re bothering me right now. Stop it. Leave town.”

“I’ll leave when my business is done,” I said. “In the meantime, if I have another run-in with your department, I’ll file a complaint with the state police. If you want to cover your ass, you’d better play by the book from now on. That means protecting law-abiding citizens like me. Your deputy frightened my friend badly last night. Don’t let that happen again.”

He glanced pointedly at his watch. “My ass is very well covered, Mr. Porter,” he said quietly. “If you want to avoid trouble, you should begin by avoiding trouble. And I’m afraid there is only trouble here in Tierra Amarilla for you. Goodbye.”

He stared at me until I left.

When I described the conversation to April, she acted as though I should be outraged.

“They’re just protecting their own,” I told her.

“But we aren’t threatening anyone!”

“You don’t know that. If Sissy was involved in those killings, I’m a threat to him. A serious threat. And he knows it.”

“So you think he was involved?”

“I think he’s alive, somewhere in Rio Arriba County.”

We drove up to Chama and found a survey map of the county. I studied it long enough to locate the land that had been owned by Quintana Holding Company and sold to Felix Romero.

Since we were having trouble finding the front door, I planned to hike around to the back. We did a little shopping. Jeans, boots, wool shirts, and heavy jackets for each of us. A small backpack and a canteen. After lunch in Chama, we drove back to Tierra Amarilla. The deputy picked us up on the way and followed us to the motel. He parked out front for forty minutes, but didn’t come to the door. Eventually, he drove away.

We spent the afternoon in our cabin, going over the map and discussing the plans for the night. I’d wanted to leave April behind, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She maintained that her presence might provide a hold of some sort over Sissy. I had to agree that she could be right. If he turned out to be her father. And if he wasn’t doing the killing. Anyway, if there was an effective way to leave her behind, I hadn’t found it.

The property wouldn’t be hard to find. There was a turnoff near a place called Nutrias. The map showed it as a primitive road. I hoped it wasn’t too primitive for the car.

We left at dusk. I had hoped to be unobserved, but a patrol car was waiting across the street. It escorted us when we pulled out of the parking lot. When we turned south on 84 and started out of town, it fell back and paced us from a distance.

Nutrias was no more than a collection of homes with a small store. I drove past it. The patrol car pulled off there and we drove on, alone in the night.

April turned in her seat and stared back into the dark as the headlights diminished behind us. “He stopped,” she said. “Why did he stop?”

“It’s an old tradition in the west. We’ve just been escorted out of town.”

“We’re a long way out of town.”

“That was the turnoff to Sissy’s place. He followed us long enough to make sure we didn’t take the turn.”

Ten minutes later, I pulled over and turned out the lights. We climbed into the backseat and changed into the jeans and boots. I got the weapons from the trunk, checked the clips, and put them on the front seat. Then we turned around and headed back toward Nutrias.

It was almost nine. There were lights in several of the houses scattered around the turnoff. There was no sign of the patrol car.

I cut the headlights and made the turn slowly, trying to minimize our engine noise. We moved up the dirt road at fifteen miles an hour. The terrain was rugged and climbed steadily. We were soon surrounded by tall pines that nearly met overhead and blocked what light the moon gave. I had to turn the lights back on. I rolled the windows down and tried to listen for other vehicles, but the sound of our own passage prevented that.

The road hadn’t been graded in years, though it showed signs of regular use. In several places it was no more than two ruts winding between the boles of the surrounding trees. The car bucked when the tires climbed out of the ruts and then fell back in. A couple of times I heard or felt earth scrape on the undercarriage when the mound between the ruts rose too high.

April found the second turnoff. I would never have seen it. It was hardly even a pathway. The ruts split and a faint trail cut into the trees on the right. She said, “There!,” and pointed. I had to back up to make the turn.

A hundred yards up, the trail widened abruptly. It was graded again. I stopped and turned off the lights and engine. The silence was overwhelming. We sat in the dark for a few minutes, listening. An owl hooted in the distance, and a faint breeze rustled the needles of the pines.

I turned on the interior light and rechecked the clips in the pistol and the AR15. I chambered a round in each and set the safeties, then turned off the light and waited for night vision to come. The wait did no good. There wasn’t enough light penetrating the trees to see a damned thing. If the map was right, the Romero property was about a mile ahead. I intended to take the next opportunity to turn the vehicle around and then finish the trip on foot.

As I reached for the ignition, I heard an engine, very faint, somewhere behind us. I froze and glanced at April. She had heard it too.

“Are they following us?” she whispered.

There was no way to tell. Chances were good that we were being followed. There was nothing else out here. I started the car and drove ahead as quickly as I safely could.

Within a quarter mile, I could see headlights flickering between the trees behind us. There must have been a watcher in one of the houses. But the headlights were higher than they would have been on a patrol car. More like a pickup. I didn’t know if that was good or not.

I told April to hide the M16 under the front seat. There was no point letting Sissy know I’d come armed.

Our tail caught up with us a couple of hundred yards later. He approached to within fifty feet and then followed. I slowed down. There was no longer any hope of surprise, and I saw no point in taking chances. I handed the pistol to April and asked her to put it in the glove compartment.