The Searcher (4 page)

“C
RASHED
?
W
HAT DO YOU MEAN CRASHED
?”

The Cherokee was kicking up dust, Mulcahy at the wheel, eyeing the smoke rising fast to the west as they drove away from the airfield. “Planes crash,” he said. “You know that, right? They're kind of famous for it.”

Javier was staring out at the smoke, the obscene cushions of his lips hanging wet and open as he tried to get his head around what was happening. Carlos was in the back, hunkered down and saying nothing. His eyes were wide open and unfocused and Mulcahy knew why. Papa Tío had a reputation for making examples of people who messed up things. If the package had been lost in the crash, this package in particular, then the shit was going to hit the fan like it had been fired from a cannon. No one would be safe, not Carlos, not him, probably not even cousin Lips in the passenger seat.

“Don't panic,” he said, trying to convince himself as much as anyone. “All we know is that a plane has crashed. We don't know if it's
our
plane or how bad it is.”

“Looks pretty fuckin' bad from where I'm sitting!” Javier said, staring at the rapidly widening column of smoke.

Mulcahy's fingers ached from gripping the wheel too tightly and he forced himself to let go a little and ease off the gas. “Let's wait and see what shakes out,” he said, forcing calm into his voice. “For the moment, we follow the plan. The plane didn't show, so we relocate to the safe house to regroup, report, and await further instructions.”

Mulcahy's instinct was to run, put a bullet in his passengers, dump them in the desert, and take off to give himself a good head start. He knew it didn't matter that the plane crash wasn't his fault—Papa Tío would most likely kill everyone involved anyway to send one of his famous messages. So if he killed Javier and Carlos right now, then disappeared, Papa Tío would definitely think it was him who was behind the crash, and he would never stop looking for him. Not ever. And despite his less than honorable résumé, Mulcahy didn't especially like killing people, and he didn't like being on the run either. He had a nice enough life, a nice enough house, and a couple of women with kids and ex-husbands who weren't looking for anything more than he could offer, and who didn't seem to care what he did or ask how he had come by all the scars on his body. It wasn't much in the grand scheme of things, and it was only now, when faced with the prospect of walking away from it all, that he realized how badly he wanted to keep it.

“We stick to the plan,” he said. “Anyone unhappy with that can get out of the car.”

“And who put you in charge,
pendejo
?”

“Tío did, okay? Tío called me up himself and asked me to collect this package as a personal favor to him. He also asked me to bring you two along, and like the dickhead that I am, I said fine. If you want to take over so all this becomes your responsibility, then be my guest, otherwise shut your fat mouth and let me think.”

Javier slumped back in his seat like a teenager who'd been grounded.

Mulcahy could see flames to the west now. A twisting wall of fire curling up from the ground and spreading fast. He could see emergency vehicles too, which meant at least the cops would be well occupied.

“Plane!” Javier shouted, pointing back to where they had just come from.

Mulcahy felt a flutter of hope take flight in his chest. Maybe it was all going to be okay after all. Maybe they could turn the truck around, pick up the package as arranged, and have a damn good laugh about it all over some cold beers later. Maybe he would get to keep his nicely squared-away, uncomplicated life after all. He took his foot off the gas and twisted in his seat, taking his eyes off the empty road for a few seconds to see what Javier had seen. He saw the bright yellow plane banking in the sky above the airfield and spun around again, stamping down hard on the gas to claw back the speed he had lost.

“The fuck you doing?” Javier said, looking at him like he was crazy.

“That's not the plane we're waiting for,” Mulcahy said, feeling the full weight of the situation settling back on him. “And it's taking off, not landing. It's a tanker of some sort, probably MAFFS.”

“MAFFS? The fuck is MAFFS?”

“They've been talking about them on the news ever since this dry spell set in. Stands for Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System. It's what they use to fight wildfires.”

The chop of propellers shredded the air as the plane flew directly overhead, the sound thudding in Mulcahy's chest.

Javier slumped back in his seat, a teenager again, shaking his head and sucking his teeth. “MAFFS,” he said, like it was the worst curse word he had ever heard. “Tole you, you was some kind of a military motherfucker.”

S
OLOMON
'
S SKIN GLOWED UNDER THE LIGHTS
,
THE MARK ON HIS SHOULDER
standing out vividly against it. It was red and raised and about the length and thickness of a human finger, with thinner lines across the top and bottom making it resemble a capital
I
.

“Looks like a cattle brand,” Morgan said, leaning forward. “Or maybe . . .” He left the thought hanging and pulled his phone from his pocket.

Gloria gently probed the skin around the raised welt with gloved fingers. “Do you remember how you got this?”

Solomon recalled the intense burning pain he had experienced when the name James Coronado had first appeared in his mind, like hot metal being pressed to his flesh, only he had been wearing his shirt and jacket when it had happened and it had felt like it had come from inside him. “No,” he said, not wishing to share that information with Morgan.

Gloria dabbed the reddened area with an alcohol wipe.

“You visited our town before, Mr. Creed?” Morgan asked.

Solomon shook his head. “I don't think so.”

“You sure about that?”

“No.” He glanced over at Morgan. “Why?”

“Because of that cross you're wearing around your neck for one thing. Any idea how you came by it?”

Solomon looked down and noticed the cross for the first time, a misshapen thing hanging around his neck from a length of leather. He took it in his hand and felt the weight of it. “I don't recognize it,” he said, turning it slowly, hoping his scrutiny might shake a memory loose. It was roughly made from old horseshoe nails welded together and twisted at the bottom so the points stuck out at the base. There was a balance and a symmetry to it, as though whoever made it had been trying to disguise the precision of its manufacture by constructing it from scrap metal and leaving the finish rough. “Why does this make you think I've been here before?”

“Because it's a replica of the cross standing on the altar of our church. You're also walking around with a copy of the town's history in your pocket that appears to have been given to you by someone local.”

Someone local. Someone who might know him and tell him who he was.

“
May I see it?” Solomon asked.

Morgan studied him like a poker player trying to figure out what kind of hand the other man was holding, and Solomon felt anger simmering up inside him at his powerlessness. His body started to tense, as if it wanted to spring forward and grab the book from Morgan's hand. But he knew he was too far away and the nylon bindings were still strapped tight across his legs; he would never be fast enough, and even if he was, Gloria would react and stick him again with whatever she had knocked him out with the first time—propofol most likely, considering how quickly he had recovered from it—

. . . how did he know this stuff?

How did all this information come to him so easily and yet he could remember nothing of himself?

I have an
I
burned into my skin and yet I have no idea who
I
am.

He breathed, deep and slow.

Answers. That was what he craved, more even than an outlet for his anger. Answers would soothe his rage and bring some order to the chaos swirling inside him. Answers that he was sure must be contained in the book Morgan held in his hand.

Morgan glanced down at it, deciding whether to hand it over or not. In the end he chose not to. He held it up instead and turned it around for Solomon to see. It was opened at a dedication page, something designed to encourage people to give the book as a present.

A GIFT OF AMERICAN HISTORY

—it said—

TO:
SOLOMON CREED

FROM:
JAMES CORONADO

Pain flared in his arm when he read the name and again he felt what he had experienced back on the road, a feeling of duty toward this man he couldn't remember but who apparently knew him well enough to have given him this book.

“You have any idea how you might know Jim?” Morgan asked.

Jim
not
James
—
Morgan knew him, he
was
here. “I think I'm here because of him,” Solomon replied, and felt a new emotion start to take shape inside him.

The fire was here because of him.

But he was here because of James Coronado.

Morgan tipped his head to one side. “How so?”

Solomon stared out of the rear window at the distant fire. A yellow plane was flying low across the blue sky. It reached the eastern edge of the fire and a cloud of vivid red vapor spewed from its tail, streaking across the black smoke and sinking to the ground. It sputtered out before it had covered half of the fire line. Not enough. Not nearly enough. The fire was still coming, toward him, toward the town, toward everyone in it. A threat. A huge, burning threat. Destructive. Purifying. Just like he was. And there was his answer.

“I think I'm here to save him,” he said, turning back to Morgan, certain that this was right. “I'm here to save James Coronado.”

A shadow flitted across Morgan's face and he stared at Solomon with an expression that could not mean anything good. “James Coronado is dead,” he said flatly, and looked up and out through the side window toward the mountains rising behind the town. “We buried him this morning.”

What lies behind and what lies before are tiny matters compared to what lies within.

                                                    —
R
ALPH
W
ALDO
E
MERSON

Extract from
Riches and Redemption—The Making of a Town

The published memoir of Reverend Jack “King” Cassidy,

Founder and first citizen of the city of Redemption, Arizona

(b. December 25, 1841, d. December 24, 1927)

It is, I suppose, a curse that befalls anyone who finds a great treasure that they must spend the remainder of their life recounting the details of how they came by it. I therefore hope, by setting it down here, that people might leave me alone, for I am tired of talking about it. I had a life of a different color before riches painted it gold, and if I could return to that drab and unremarkable life I would. But you cannot undo what is done, and a bell once rung cannot be unrung.

The story of how I found my fortune and used it to build a church and the town I called Redemption is a brutal and tragic one, yet there is divinity in it also. For God steered my enterprise, as He does all things, and led me to my treasure. But He did not do this with a map or a compass, He did it with tools of His own choosing: with a Bible and with a cross.

The Bible came to me first. It was delivered into my possession by the hand of a dying priest, a Father Damon O'Brien, who had fled his native country under a cloud of persecution. I made his
acquaintance in Bannack, Montana, where he had been drawn, as had I, by the promise of gold, only to discover that it had all but run out. He was already close to death when our paths crossed. I was down on my luck and short on money and I took the bed next to his at a discount as no one else would have it, too fearful were they of the mad priest's ravings and his violent terror of shadows that he could see but no one else could. He believed they were after stealing his Bible away, which he later told me in confidence would lead the bearer to a treasure that must finance the construction of a great church and town in the western desert.

The foundation is here
—he would say, clutching the large, battered book to his chest like it was his own child.
Here is the seed that must be planted, for He is the true way and the light
.

The owner of the flophouse was too superstitious to turn the priest out onto the street, so he slipped me some extra coin to take care of the old man, keep him in drink, and, most important, keep him quiet. Being close to destitute, I took the money and mopped the priest's sweats and brought him bread and coffee and whiskey and listened to him mutter about the visions he had seen and the riches that would flow from the ground and the great church he would build and how the Bible would act as his compass to lead him there.

And when his time came, he told me with wide, staring eyes that he could hear the dark angels' wings beating close by his bed, and he pressed that Bible into my hands and made me swear solemnly upon it that I would continue his mission and carry the book south.

Carry His word into the wasteland
, he said.
Carry His word and also carry Him. For He will protect you and lead you to riches beyond your imagining
.

He also told me he had money hidden in a bag sewn into the
lining of his coat, a little gold to seal the deal and help me on my way. I took his money and swore I would do as he asked and he signed the Bible over to me like he was signing his own death warrant, then fell into a sleep from which he never awoke.

To my eternal shame, those promises I made to the dying priest were founded more on baser thoughts of the riches he spoke of than the higher ones of founding a church. For I believed he had lost his mind long before he let go of his life and all I heard in the clink of his gold was the sound of release from my own poverty.

I used it to fund my passage west and I read that Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, in railroad diner cars, then mail coaches, and finally in the back of covered wagons all the way to the very edge of civilization in the southernmost parts of the Arizona territories. I expected it might contain a map or some written direction telling where to search for the fortune the priest had promised, but all I found was further evidence of the priest's cracked mind, passages of scripture marked by his hand and other scrawlings that hinted at desert and fire and treasure, but gave no specific indication as to where any such riches might be found.

During my lengthy travels and study of the book, and to keep it safe from thieving hands, I used it as my pillow when I slept. Soon the priest's visions started leaking into my dreams. I saw the church in the desert, shining white like he had described, and the Bible lying open inside the doorway, and a pale figure of Christ on a burned cross, hanging above the altar.

The church I had to somehow build.