Threepersons Hunt (15 page)

“That's two questions. I think I can answer both of them,” Watchman said. “Question one, why did they kill Maria. What if she got greedy, decided to blackmail them, held out for more money than they'd agreed to? If they felt she was getting too expensive or too risky, they might kill her. But that brings us to question two. As soon as they kill Maria they've got to expect trouble. Joe wouldn't automatically react to the news by breaking out of slam. More likely they'd expect him to go to the police and tell them everything he knew about the case. So it only makes sense one way. If they helped Joe break out of jail, so that they could get at him. To kill him. Wipe him and Maria and the kid off the books, all at the same time.”

Stevens said, “Then it's not just that Joe's out gunning for this killer. The killer's also gunning for Joe. Maybe setting a trap and waiting for Joe to walk into it.”

“And Joe doesn't know anything about it.”

“It's farfetched,” Stevens said.

“Most things people do are far fetched.”

“Well where do we go from here?”

“I keep hunting around here in Whiteriver. You go down to Florence and find out if Joe had any outside contacts the day Maria died—visitors, phone calls, telegrams, anything. Keep digging until you get us a name.”

“That's assuming the name belongs to the guy that helped him break out. That's the theory?”

“I'm taking an option on it. Maybe even a down payment. When we find out more we'll know if we're ready to buy it.”

“And you're staying in Whiteriver.”

“Aeah,” Watchman said. “I think I'll find out if the department's willing to spring for a couple of hounds and a handler. Try and nail Joe before the shooting starts.”

“Dogs. Where's the fun in that?”

“It's not a game,” Watchman murmured.

4.

He coaxed the ailing Volvo into Whiteriver at one in the afternoon after a fruitless half-day of scouting and found the dog handler waiting at the trading post with three mournful hounds in his camper-pickup. The handler introduced himself, “Leroy Flagg,” and gave Watchman a smile as doleful as a Basset's. “I hate man-trackin', it ain't natural sport.”

“It could save somebody's life,” Watchman said and saw a kid in a bright crimson shirt wobbling up the road on a bike. The flash of color drew his eyes in that direction and he saw the screened back door of the council house fly open.

Tom Victorio came through the door quickly, his drugstore-cowboy jacket awry; he was waving in Watchman's direction and ran toward him full of excitement.

“He showed up. He was here.”

“Joe?”

“Last night.” Victorio was a little out of breath. “He busted into Rufus Limita's house.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“No—no. But he ripped off Rufus' best rifle. And the Land Cruiser.”

Watchman made a face. “What time last night?”

“Two, two-thirty. Pete Porvo said—”

“Hang onto it a minute.” Watchman turned to Leroy Flagg and spread his hands. “I'm sorry we wasted your time.”

“It's okay, I'll get hourly and mileage for it. Just as soon not have to man-track anyway. Nice meeting you.” Flagg shook hands and climbed into the pickup.

Watchman turned back to Victorio. “You want a Coke?” He went up the trading post steps without waiting an answer.

Victorio hurried in after him. “What's the matter with you?”

“If he's been gone eleven hours another five minutes won't make much difference. Maybe you'd like to calm down and tell me what happened. Want a Coke?”

“Root beer.”

Watchman bought a couple of cans and they carried them outside. They talked in the car.

“Where's this Limita's place?”

“About six miles. Take the road down toward Fort Apache, hang a left where it says East Fork.”

“Anybody home right now?”

“I suppose so.”

Watchman got it started and pulled out of the lot. “Okay, what happened?”

“Why'd you send those dogs away?”

“You can't track a car with dogs. You said he stole a car.”

“Toyota. One of those four-wheel-drive jobs.”

“Well then.” The road unwound through the trees and went past the silent rodeo grounds. The pavement was chipping away at the edges from frosts and flash floods. Watchman said, “Anybody actually see Joe to recognize him?”

“Pete Porvo saw him.”

“In the Land Cruiser?”

“Naw, it was before. He was on foot, lugging a rifle and a gunnysack. Pete says he was driving up this road here and he saw Joe plain as day going into those trees back there, the ones we just came through.”

“But he lost him in the dark.”

“Yes. This is where you turn left.”

Watchman downshifted for the corner and went hustling up into the hills on the dirt road. Bits of gravel thumped the undersides of the fenders like buckshot. The road followed the side of the creek, in and out of the line of trees. They passed the occasional wickiup, corrals, here and there a dusty house trailer up on chocks.

“Now that's funny when you think about it,” Victorio said.

“What is?”

“If he already had a rifle why'd he steal one of Rufus' guns?”

“Let's find out what kind of rifle it was.” Watchman shot a quick sidewise glance at him. “Have you got a prescription for Seconal?”

“Huh?”

“It'd be easy to check,” Watchman warned.

“What the hell would I be doing with Seconal?”

“You paid a few visits to Maria while Joe was away, didn't you.”

Victorio went silent for a while. There was a bit of pout on his face. Finally he said, “Yeah.”

“But you didn't get anywhere with her.”

“She was trying to do a brother-and-sister number.”

“And you didn't like that.”

“It wasn't exactly what I had in mind,” Victorio admitted. “But I had to settle for it, it was all she'd go for. The first time I went down there I really wanted to see what I could do to help. But I took one look at that place of hers and I could see she wasn't the one who needed help.”

“Who was paying for that, Tom?”

“She wouldn't tell me.”

“Somebody was grubstaking her.”

“Sure, I could see that. But every time I tried to ask questions she'd turn me off like a faucet.”

“You must have made a few guesses.”

“I figured she had a boyfriend she wasn't talking about.”

“Is that a fact.”

Victorio's face swiveled toward him. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“You're not the kind of guy who'd take it quietly if you thought she had some other man. It must have made you a little sore.”

“Sure I was sore. Who wouldn't be?”

“You'd have tried to find out who the boyfriend was.”

Victorio's lips peeled back from his teeth; it wasn't a smile. “Matter of fact one time I spent a whole God damned two weeks driving down there every night after work and hanging around outside her place like some kind of peeping Tom. But nobody ever showed up.”

“So you just gave up?”

“I kept trying to worm it out of her. But it wasn't easy to rattle Maria. She was one of those people, you know, sometimes they're so damned self-confident they make you grit your teeth. There just wasn't any way to shake her up. That was one of the things I guess I loved her for—she wasn't your average hysterical female. This is the place, you drive in the gate here.”

Victorio pointed and Watchman turned off the dirt road into a narrow drive with tufts of grass growing on the ridge between the ruts. The suspension clanked once or twice.

It was one of those outfits that accrued structures over the generations. There must have been a half dozen ramshackle buildings—wickiups and shacks—and there were a windmill and two sagging corrals and a profusion of wheeled vehicles in various states of collapse. Chickens and dogs ran loose in the caked hardpan of the yard and five small children played in the trees under the guardianship of two obese women who sat in the shade gossiping.

Getting out of the car Watchman said, “Limita's a medicine man, isn't he?”

“That's right.” Victorio turned to look at two of the shacks alternately and scowled. “I've only been here a couple times, I don't remember which one he lives in.”

A butterfly chopped heavily across Watchman's line of sight. A squat figure appeared at the larger shack, the one under the cottonwoods, came out and let the screen door flap shut behind him.

“That's him.” Victorio waved and walked around the hood of the car. Watchman went up to the shack with him.

Rufus Limita wore mud-crusted boots and limp khaki pants and an old tee-shirt, its fabric strained by his outthrust belly. His face was almost a perfect square with a big triangular nose in the middle. He had a wide mouth and amiable eyes overhung by fierce shaggy brows. He was probably in his sixties and couldn't have been much more than five feet tall. His legs were bowed into parenthetical arcs and if the bones had been straight he might have been four inches taller.

Victorio made the introductions with the peculiar respect that elders like Limita commanded. Limita shook his hand and said, “Somebody sure made it bad luck for that boy Joe.”

“Did you see him yourself?”

“No, no. That boy is still a pretty good Innun, maybe you don't see him unless he wants you to. But he set the dogs to ruckus, so I know somebody was here, I got up right away and look around. He got my good rifle I guess. Anyhow that time I heard the Land Cruiser start up. I went out but he went away in my Land Cruiser.”

Limita held the screen door open and followed them inside. There were good rugs on the floor and the furniture was old but sturdy, some of it handmade of lumber from the tribal sawmill. One wall had a tall gun rack on it and one of its slots was empty; the others were filled with expensive hunting rifles that had been taken care of with knowing attention: their steel gleamed with oil.

Watchman said, “Do you know how much gas was in the tank?”

“I keep them full, all times. Got my own tank pump out there in my yard.”

That was a bad break; a full tank would give Joe a hell of a working radius. Watchman approached the gun rack. “This rifle he took.”

“That boy sure knows guns. That sure was the best elk rifle I ever had.”

“Elk,” Watchman said and turned slowly to face him. “Big game rifle, then.”

“Sure. Three-seventy-five magnum.”

“Jesus,” Victorio said. “That's a God damn elephant gun.”

Watchman had his notebook. “Weatherby?”

“No,” Limita said. “She's a Winchester Model Seventy.”

Watchman knew the model. A precision-made bolt-action rifle, high-priced and worth it. “Any telescope?”

“You bet,” Limita said. “Eight power Bushnell.”

Victorio was standing there with his eyes squeezed shut as if in great pain. “Good God.”

If you knew the drill you could reach out and pluck the life from a man half a mile away from you with a rifle like that. And Watchman already had firsthand evidence of the quality of Joe's marksmanship. The shooting last night had sounded like a medium caliber, probably a standard old .30-30 Joe must have swiped somewhere.

Victorio talked quietly out of the side of his mouth. “Man that's an assassin's rifle. He's not out to bag an elk with it.”

Watchman said to Limita, “Do you have the license number of the Land Cruiser?” Not that it would likely do any good; of all the cars in Limita's yard Joe had selected the cross-country four-wheel-drive vehicle and that meant he didn't intend to drive too far on the highway.

“I gave it to Pete Porvo that time,” Limita said. “But I think it is writ down someplace here.” He had an old school desk in the corner; he pried up its lid and pawed through papers, taking a frayed tally-book out and setting it aside. “Maybe Pete took it with him but I think he give it back to me.”

Watchman spoke to Victorio in a voice too low to carry across the room to the old man. “You mind waiting outside for me?”

Victorio resented the rebuff but went out. His shoulders were very stiff.

Watchman approached the desk. “Some folks think Maria Threepersons was witched, Mr. Limita. She died last week you know.”

“I heard about that.” Limita looked up at him and then resumed rummaging in the dog-eared slips of paper.

“Do you think she was witched?”

“Sure, it could happen you know.”

“Who would want to witch Maria?”

“I don't know who was doing that to her.”

“Do you know anybody who might have had a reason to?”

“Maybe lots of folks don't like that boy Joe. But I don't know who could want to hurt his wife like that. Maybe her own people, those San Carlos kin. I guess they got witches down there too.”

“Did Joe know about your rifle collection before he went to prison?”

“Sure. That boy I took him deer hunt two, three times.”

“He's a good shot, I hear.”

“He is sure a good one. That time I seen him shoot some real long bullets. Good hands on Joe.”

Watchman glanced toward the door. “You think maybe Tom there might have had anything against Maria?”

“Maybe so, but that boy's too young for witching. A man got to grow up before he get the power.” Limita found the car registration. “This is your paper.”

Watchman copied down the license number. “Thank you.”

“That boy Joe been that way since he was just a boy. Sometimes he drink all the time, even his baby go hungry. Even when folks give him money he spend it on drink. He was crazy to do things like that. You should watch out, I think. He took some cold beer out of my springhouse down there on the creek.”

“Thanks for the warning.”