Shadow Man (28 page)

Special Agent McTeague stared at this remarkable man. “Do you actually believe that?”

He nodded. “I’m not saying there wasn’t still some romantic attraction between them.”

“But you really believe it was a…a chaste relationship?”

“That’s the way I see it.”

“Charlie, you are a hopeless romantic.”

“I certainly hope so.”

“There is one thing you don’t know.”

“If I don’t, it’s because Miss Atherton didn’t tell me.”

“Six days ago, Roger Culpepper, aka Clayton Crowe, was stopped near Garden City, Kansas.”

Moon raised an eyebrow. “Stopped from doing what?”

“Not from. Stopped
for
doing what. By a Garden City police officer.”

“Okay. What was what?”

“Driving Pansy Blinkoe’s pickup truck. Through a red light.”

“Where was Pansy at the time?”

“Not with her high-school sweetheart.”

“And how did Culpepper aka Crowe explain having possession of Mrs. Blinkoe’s fine motor vehicle?”

“He lied, of course. Said she had loaned it to him. Along with her credit card, which he’d used an hour earlier to purchase fuel at a truck stop in Dodge City.”

“‘Loaned it to him,’ eh? Culpepper must’ve been rattled. A six-year-old with his hand in the cookie jar would’ve thought up a better story.”

“After he had a few hours to think it over, he came up with another one.”

“I bet it was a dandy.”

“Culpepper claims he returned to his garage apartment late one night, realized his ‘sister’ was gone. This disturbed him, because ‘sis’ generally wasn’t away so late at night. He rode his motorcycle into Granite Creek, intending to cruise around. He claims he spotted her pickup parked at the Lullaby Motel. Key was in the ignition, her spare credit card stashed in the ash tray. Culpepper says he figures Pansy is shacked up with some guy in the motel, so he decides to teach her a lesson. He muscles his motorcycle into the pickup bed, drives away. He intended to leave the truck a few miles out of town, but before he knew it, the sun was up and he was across the border in Kansas.”

“And he never admitted to being anything but Pansy’s brother?”

“He was only interrogated twice.”

“Please don’t tell me they turned him loose.”

“I won’t, because that would be a lie. During the second day of his incarceration in the Finney County lockup, he faked a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital. While in the emergency room, Culpepper apparently experienced a remarkable recovery. Feeling no urgent need for medical care, he apparently left the premises while no one was looking. And has not been seen since.”

“A slippery fellow.”

“Indeed.”

“Tell me, McTeague—did you say that Mr. Culpepper used Pansy Blinkoe’s credit card to purchase gasoline in Dodge
before
he was picked up near Garden City?”

“That’s right.”

“Then he was heading west on Route 50. Toward the Colorado border.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps he was coming back to visit his ‘little sister.’”

“One cannot entirely rule it out.” Moon edged closer to the pretty lady. “How about we stop talking shop?”

She was agreeable to this proposal, and said so.

After the intense work of the morning, the afternoon was spent in a most pleasant fashion.

But like a breath of honeysuckle perfume or the trill of a mockingbird, such sweetness passes all too quickly.

While the sun was still over the Buckhorns, Lila Mae McTeague said her good-bye, drove away in the government-issue Ford Motor Company product.

After a light supper of broiled beefsteaks, baked potatoes, and great-northern beans—during which Sweet Alice and the hot-tempered FBI agent were the chief topics of conversation—Cap closed the Big Hat kitchen for the day. There were disputes among the cowboy gamblers about whether or not those few seconds when the horse didn’t move counted as honest time in the saddle, but the point was moot because it turned out that during all the excitement, no one had kept the boss’s time. Staying aloofly above the fray, Charlie Moon wrote Jerome Kydmann a check for an extra month’s pay. All in all, it had been an outstanding day. In twos and threes, the cowboys drifted away. Most to the drafty bunkhouse, a few to night duties.

It was generally assumed that the boss would head back to the other side of the Buckhorns. But before he returned to the Columbine, Moon had some unfinished business to attend to. And so he hung around, finding this and that to do, until a silver-dollar moon was rolling high over the prairie—and he was alone. He headed for the corral, which had been repaired during the afternoon. Under his breath, he hummed a few bars of “Strawberry Roan.”

She was waiting for him.

He climbed the mended fence, seated himself on the top rail.

Sweet Alice whinnied, brushed off a horsefly with her tail.

Moon pushed back his Stetson, looked the horse right in the eye. He delivered a stern monologue, explaining the hard facts of life on this planet. What the owner of the outfit had to say can be summed up pretty much as follows:

1. Broncs who cannot be gentled are of no use on a working ranch.
   
2. Horses who try to murder their riders can’t be sold even for rodeo stock.
   
3. There is a steady demand for horseflesh over at the Pueblo packing plant, where Perky Puppy Pet Food is ground up and put into fifteen-ounce cans.
   

He paused to let this sink in.

Alice approached, put her nose against his leg.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll give you one more chance.”

In a moment, the cowboy was back in the saddle again. Almost every muscle in Moon’s body was sore from his earlier experience. He waited for the inevitable explosion. Very few things are inevitable. There was no explosion. He gently flicked the reins, nudged S. Alice with his knee. The mare trotted gaily around the corral, yielding to the horseman’s every whim. After a few minutes of this exercise, he opened the gate.

Off they went at a canter.

The Ute was overflowing with joy.
Wait till the boys see this!

He rode the horse along the spine of Dinosaur Ridge, south along the skyline fence, back along the lane from the highway. Moon fairly beamed with pride.
This horse is gentle enough for a little girl to ride.
He realized that she might still get snuffy from time to time, and maybe Sweet Alice liked to show off when she had an audience. But all she had ever needed was a good talking-to. “You’ve been a good ol’ nag tonight,” he said. “You’ve earned your sweet self a long drink of water.” He patted her on the shoulder, rode her up to the stock tank.

Concealed by the night and a grotesque grove of dwarfish oak, the bushwhacker lay on his belly. He squinted through the 9X scope mounted on the silenced Savage 110FP Tactical Rifle. As the horse loped along in an easy gait, the target in the saddle was bouncing up and down four or five inches.
But that don’t matter—not at this range.
And there was not a hint of a breeze. This time, it would be a dead-easy shot. He centered the crosshairs on the rider’s spine.
Now won’t you be surprised when I knock a big hole in your back….

As they approached the stock tank, Sweet Alice trotted along like there was nothing in front of her but dry land. She did not respond to the reins, and when the anxious rider yelled “whoa!” she did not slow. Perhaps the command sounded too much like “go!” But near the edge of the water, the horse seemed to experience a sudden change of mind. She lowered her head, planted stubby forelegs firmly in the mud, stopped like she’d hit a brick wall.

Aside from going along for the ride, there was not much Charlie Moon could do—it was a matter of forward momentum. In barely one momentum, he had slid down Sweet Alice’s neck, sailed past her pointy ears.

Because his entire concentration was focused on the upcoming landing, Moon heard neither the small “pop” of the silenced rifle shot—nor the 190 grains of lead that hummed past his head.

In a cartoon, the caption would have been “Ker-splash.” The actual sound was more like
splat
as he landed on his butt in about two feet of muddy water. As he sat there, the chocolate-tinted liquid lapped around his chest.

Because he had his back to the beast, she walked a full half-circle to reach the other side of the tank. It was evident that Sweet Alice went to this place because she hankered to see the rider’s face.

It was a waste of equine effort.

Moon’s expression was a black hole under the black Stetson. Which is to say that no light whatever came from within. Not a solitary photon. Moreover, no words proceeded from his mouth. Considering what he was thinking, this was just as well.

The outlaw mare pawed at the bank, whinnied a brash horse-laugh.

Having slipped away into the night, the rifleman did not witness this low comedy.

Special Agent McTeague was working late when the telephone rang. She glanced at the caller ID, noted that the call was from a public telephone somewhere in Granite Creek. Brushing aside a wisp of coal-black hair, she pressed the instrument against her ear. “FBI.” She counted three raspy breaths before the caller spoke.

“This the FBI lady?”

I didn’t think I’d ever hear from you again.
She switched on the digital recorder. “This is Special Agent McTeague at the Bureau’s Granite Creek office. Who’s calling, please?”

“This is you-know-who.”

“Thanks for not making me guess.”

“It’s me.” His voice dropped to a throaty whisper. “Scarf.”

“Oh,
that
you-know-who.”
This should be good for a giggle.
“What’s on your mind, Mr. S?”

“It’s not
Mister
—just plain
Scarf.
”

“So what’s up, Just Plain Scarf?”

His tone suggested that he did not appreciate the flippancy. “You got the twenty bucks for me?”

“Depends on what you’ve got for me. Don’t be wasting my time.”

“I figured you might like to know where that Mr. Blinky is holed up.”

The telephone felt like ice in her hand. The Bureau had not released the results of the dismembered-arm DNA tests to the media. As far as the general public was concerned, Manfred Blinkoe had died when his boat exploded in Moccasin Lake. “What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s alive and spry as a spring chicken—and I can tell you where he is!”

“Before you say another word, I must inform you that any attempt to mislead an official FBI investigation is a very serious offense and—”

“Don’t be wasting
my
time, FBI lady. Put twenty bucks under that flower pot I told you about, and I’ll be in touch with you.”

McTeague heard a click on the line.
Troublesome old crank. He doesn’t know a thing about the Blinkoe homicide—he’s simply attempting to extort a few bucks from the Bureau.
She placed the headset back in the cradle.
Still, twenty dollars isn’t all that much money.

When Daisy Perika opened her eyes, the promise of another dawn was merely a grayish glow over the Buckhorn range. The sleepy woman rolled over under the quilt, wondered whether her nephew was already up, attending to his beefy business. For a full minute, she lay very still, listening. Aside from the occasional creak or groan in the timbers, there were no sounds in the big log house. As elderly folk are apt to, she got up slowly, making certain that knee and elbow and shoulder joints were equal to the task. With a few grunts and groans, Daisy pulled on a cotton dress, slipped her cold feet into a pair of fleece-lined moccasins, padded down the hall and into the parlor. Charlie Moon’s wide-brimmed black hat was not hanging on the peg by the door. She pulled a heavy drape aside, peeked out the window. His automobile and the stake-bed GMC were gone, so she knew he was off somewhere with a truckload of cowboys. The Columbine was a huge ranch, and now Charlie owned another big piece of property on the east side of the Buckhorns. What with hundreds of cattle to deal with, fences that always needed mending, hay crops that needed tending, her nephew had too much work to do.
Charlie’s way too ambitious, even for a young man.
That was what came from living among the hard-driven
matukach.
The Ute elder’s mouth wrinkled into a wry smile.
But I’m old and wise, so I’ll spend my last days having a good time.
She marched into the huge kitchen, put the percolator on the stove.

Minutes later the tribal elder stepped out onto the east wing of the wraparound porch, prepared to enjoy the day’s first cup of strong coffee. She leaned her walking stick against the wall, plumped her bottom down into a cane-back chair, rested her gaze on a long, rocky ridge that someOne had lovingly decorated with aspen and spruce. She watched dawn’s liquid gold spilling extravagantly over the jagged edge of the Buckhorns.
God is no miser.

Daisy sipped at the steaming black liquid. Weary of trials and troubles and regrets, she tried to think of nothing. This is almost impossible to do—especially when something is nagging at you. And something was. She tried very had to dismiss whatever it was. Which was about as effective as trying very hard to go to sleep.

Shortly after the sun topped the snowy peaks, it came to her.
Today, something’s different here.
The shaman knew this was true—she could feel it in her marrow, smell it in the crisp morning air. For some time, she puzzled about it, wondering what had made everything seem so fresh and new. Daisy was about to go inside for a second cup of coffee, when she felt the warm breath on her ankle. She gave the hound a long, thoughtful look. “Good morning, Mr. Dog.” She refused to address Sidewinder by his given name.

The animal fixed her with a piercing canine stare, whimpered. Looked away in a particular direction. Looked back at her.

Daisy wondered what was on his mind.
He’s acting kind of fidgety.
She considered various possibilities.
Maybe he didn’t sleep good last night. Or it could be he’s worried about something
. But what did dogs worry about?
I expect what he needs is some conversation.
Completely relaxed, and happier than she had been in months, the Ute elder talked to the dog. She offered the beast a juicy selection of tales, parables and fables about her long life and hard times. Though most of her tellings were about the usual day-to-day things (the best way to bake a pan of biscuits, how to take skunk smell off your clothes), there were accounts of quite remarkable events (like that Sunday morning when the
pitukupf
came to church). She even confessed two or three dark secrets—like about that time she had stolen a Navajo charm pendant from a superstitious
matukach,
and how her third husband had
really
died, and one other misdeed that cannot be mentioned.

As the narrative flowed along, the dog listened with rapt attention. At the proper moments, Sidewinder would respond with a wag of the tail, a knowing jerk of the head. He also made small noises. An urgent growl, a canine whine, an occasional ruffing bark.

None of these attempts to communicate made the least sense to the human being.

Finally, something of quite a different nature did arouse the shaman’s curiosity. This occurred when she happened to close her eyes, and in little patches here and there—saw snatches of black-and-white pictures in the creature’s memory. There were woolly-gob weeds and tall saw grass. The corral down by the river. More weeds and grass. A startled deer leaping over a rotten log. But what was this? Cone-shaped trees. A little log cabin. Parked by the hitching post, an old automobile that hadn’t been there for months! So
that
was what was so special about this day.

Immediately, Daisy got up, took hold of her oak walking stick.

Knowing where she was going, the hound did his following up front.

A stiff breeze whipped at her skirt.

Little Butch took his duty seriously. Every day when he showed up for his eight-hour shift, he would check the Marlin rifle and the heavy pistol holstered on his side. Happy to have something more to do than stand around, the armed Columbine cowboy trailed forty paces behind Daisy Perika, ready and willing to gun down any man or beast who posed the slightest threat to the boss’s aunt. The hound was aware of the guard’s presence, but Butch managed to stay out of Daisy’s sight.

It took the frail woman almost twenty minutes to top the ridge. She paused at the edge of the glade, where quivering aspens and blackish blue spruce provided a welcome shade. Having gotten her wind back and having gotten the wind to her back, she found a deer path and trudged through the small forest. The boisterous dog bounded through an undergrowth of ferns, sniffing at the delectable scents of rodents and toad-stools. Occasionally, when the woman paused and closed her eyes for a moment, she caught flashes of what the animal saw. The twisted root of a dwarf oak. A perfectly formed brown pine cone. A fat chipmunk, scampering into a hole under a mossy bank.

Daisy emerged from the sunny side of the woods to see a rolling prairie reaching out to embrace the alpine lake. Over to her left, isolated on the open land like a tiny island in a sea of grass, was that smaller cluster of trees. And nestled among them, the log cabin that was several years older than the aged woman. She was not surprised to see the priest’s venerable black Buick parked at the hitching post. Having been sniffing the scent of a dead something or other, Sidewinder decided on a detour, trotted off across the prairie.

Father Raes Delfino was in a deep, restful sleep. The sound came from very far away. Louder now. Insistent. Painful. It was, he thought, as if someone were banging his head with a knobby shillelagh—and this was not an Irish priest. The bone-weary man kept his eyes tightly shut.
It must’ve been my imagination. Perhaps if I keep quite still, I will be able to go back to sleep and—

Bam-bam-bam!

He turned on his side, scowled at the clock on the bedside table.

Bam-bam-bam!

It was like a nightmare. When the priest had retired from his parish on the Southern Ute reservation, Charlie Moon had offered him the use of this rustic cabin so he would have a quiet retreat from the noise and tumult of the world.
Who on earth would be banging on my door at this hour? Certainly not Charlie. And the cowboys mostly leave me alone. It could be that cranky old foreman, come to annoy me about something. Perhaps if I don’t respond, whoever it is will go away.

Bam!
“Hey—I know you’re in there. Open the door.”
Bam!

God help me. It is Daisy Perika. But what on earth is she doing here?
He got up, stepped into his black gabardine trousers.
Charlie must’ve invited her to the Columbine for a few days.

Bam-bam-bam!

He pulled on a shirt, padded through the small parlor to the door.

“You might as well open up—I ain’t goin’ away.”
Bam-bam-bam!

Father Raes opened the door. Blinked at his visitor.

“Hah,” she said. “I knew you was in there!” Daisy Perika stared at the unbuttoned shirt, the bare feet. “What—you was still in bed?” She pointed her walking stick at the sun, used a distinctly accusative tone. “It’s almost an hour into daylight.”

The kindly man yawned.

She regarded him with a beady-eyed frown. “Why didn’t you let me know you was back?”

“For one thing,” he mumbled, “I didn’t know you were here at the Columbine. For another,” he grumbled, “I got in well past midnight.” Another yawn. “It was about three
A.M
. when I finally got into bed.”

She shook her head in mock dismay. “You shouldn’t be staying out so late at night.” Daisy bumped her way past him, gave the parlor a close inspection. As she had expected, it was neat and clean.

“Come right in.” He closed the door. “Make yourself completely at home.”

“Thank you,” she said brightly. “I don’t mind if I do.”

He sighed. “Would you like some breakfast?”

Daisy raised her brows in mock surprise. “Breakfast—this late in the day? Why, it’ll soon be time for lunch.” She clucked her tongue. “Not having a regular job has caused you to slack off some.”

He mumbled something she could not hear.

Daisy followed him into the kitchen, watched the sleep-deprived man muddle through his preparations. The fruits of his labors were a saucepan of pasty oatmeal, a pot of black tea.

She seated herself across the table, watched him eat and drink.

After he had washed his bowl and cup, the priest suggested they go to the parlor.

Before he could get there, Daisy had plopped into his rocking chair. “So tell me about your travels.”

Father Raes sat on a lumpy couch. Somewhat refreshed by breaking his fast, the priest proceeded to tell the Ute woman about strange cities, grand palaces, a visit to the Vatican, even an audience with the Pope.

She listened to the entire account without interrupting.

Finally, he said: “What’s been happening in your life?”

“Oh, not much.” She watched an agitated little beetle scuttle across the hardwood floor. “Nothing I’d want to talk about.”

He knew she was aching to tell him about her latest misadventures. “Very well. I would not wish to intrude upon your privacy.”

Annoyed that he would not press her, Daisy was obliged to tell him why she was staying at the Columbine.

The kindly man was horrified to hear about the destruction of her home. But so thankful she had escaped alive. He paused to thank God for her deliverance from the fire.

The tribal elder assured him that she would buy another trailer, and be back at the mouth of
Cañón del Espíritu
before the first snow fell. Moving on to more interesting things, she told him about meeting Manfred Blinkoe and his lawyer, Spencer Trottman, and how Blinkoe had hired Charlie Moon to find out who’d taken a shot at him and accidentally killed that poor woman at the restaurant. Sensing that she had his full attention, Daisy gave a brief account of the terrible explosion that had destroyed Blinkoe’s houseboat, and how a mangled arm had been dragged in by a fisherman.

The priest winced at this.

The storyteller told him how Mrs. Blinkoe had disappeared. The wily old shaman would not reveal
exactly
how she knew where Pansy Blinkoe was hiding. Though she would not dare mention the
pitukupf,
Daisy thought it would be all right to describe her vision of Pansy Blinkoe. Even in the Bible, prophets and the like had dreams and visions. But as she told him about “seeing” Pansy in that little room, chatting with Prudence and Alonzo, Daisy thought the priest’s expression suggested some suspicion that the “little man” might have been involved. She hurried on, describing how she had talked Louise-Marie LaForte into driving her to Garcia’s Crossing. She left out certain irrelevant events, like the wild encounter with the policemen in Granite Creek. But when she got to the part about that lying pot-gut, pineapple-head pimp who was hiding Pansy Blinkoe in his house, Daisy gave the priest an accurate, word-for-word account of the encounter with DeSoto.

Father Raes Delfino shook his head. “Daisy, Daisy,” he said. “What am I going to do with you?”

She was wide-eyed with surprise. “What do you mean by that?”

“Those terrible things you said to that man—a practicing Christian would never do such a thing!”

Daisy snorted. “Well, I guess I’m a little out of practice.”

Already wound up, he threw her a low curve. “When was the last time you were inside a church?”

The old slugger knocked his best pitch right back at him. “When was the last time you said Mass at St. Ignatius?”

His mouth gaped. “Daisy—that was more than a year ago!”

She could have told him that Charlie Moon took her to church practically every Sunday morning, even admitted that the visiting priest was a pretty decent fellow. But pulling Father Raes’s chain was lots more fun. “My, my—you haven’t said Mass for that long?” She gave him a sorrowful look. “Well—I guess you must be out of practice too.”