Cactus Heart

25

I walked Gretchen to her truck, reveling in the cool, dry evening. She wore a lightweight leather jacket over a dark blouse and tight blue jeans. The leather felt soft and supple as I slipped my hand around her. She leaned into me. The Christmas lights were up in downtown Scottsdale, and tourists sauntered along window-shopping, pairs of shadows down the street.

“Do you want some company?”

She put her hand in my back pocket. “That would mean I would have to give you my address.”

“Do you trust me, Gretchen?”

“If you came to my place, you’d fuck me,” she whispered, her voice husky. “You might just fuck me crazy.”

I ran my hands down her sweet, denim-encased hips, pulled her closer.

“That would be the idea.”

She checked her watch. “Why don’t I come to your place later? Will your high-powered roomie be put out?”

For a moment I wondered if she were married. That might be one reason to not give me her address, to not ride out here with me. We stood beside her big white SUV. I caressed her face and she leaned in, kissing me deeply. As we were parting, I told her the latest news on the twins.

“It is definitely them,” I said. “Either the DNA test was inconclusive, or they had a different mother from Max and James.”

She turned her head away and I could see her eyes were full of tears. They gleamed off the streetlights like new stars.

“Gotta go, David. Thank you for a nice evening.” She gently but firmly pushed me away, and soon the Ford’s taillights disappeared around the corner. I was left alone on the street.

I drove slowly down Main Street, past the rows of tony galleries. The car was a warm haven for a man mellowed by two Negra Modelos and aroused by Gretchen’s kisses. Clots of white-haired tourists milled along the street. Then, past the traffic circle with the bronze of the bucking bronco, Main Street emptied out. I was just about to accelerate over to Goldwater Boulevard when another white head caught my eye. A man in a checked shirt and khaki pants, sitting on a bench. It was James Yarnell.

“I’m seeing you more often than I see my wife,” he said after I stopped and got out. We had interviewed him on Sunday.

“Are you all right?”

He looked me over in an unfocused way. I could smell booze on him.

“I’m just closing up for the night.” He gestured over his shoulder to the Yarnell Gallery’s large, well-lit windows. I sat on the bench beside him, and for a long time we just listened to the night noises in a city of cars.

“Eventually you lose everybody,” he said.

“I’m very sorry about your brother.”

“I didn’t love him,” he said. “I won’t pretend that.” I thought of Lindsey’s anguished words about her mother. “It’s just he was family. We were the last of the famous Yarnell brothers.”

James stared into the sidewalk. “Max wasn’t always the man he became, the man you met. He was a link to my parents and my grandpa and my little twin brothers.”

A little group of tourists speaking German walked behind us, wowed by a large painting visible in the gallery.

“What do you think happened to Andrew and Woodrow?”

He shook his head, his handsome face a mask.

“Deep inside, I always knew they had to be dead. But when you never have a resolution, you never really know. So you always hold out hope. Grandfather hoped nearly to the end. He’d been able to do so much in his life out of sheer will. Then, he just seemed to give up one day. This great life force went out of the man.”

The tourists moved down the street and we were alone again. I said, “You don’t talk about your father much.”

He leaned back on the bench and sighed. “Morgan Yarnell had the misfortune to be the son of a larger-than-life man, and the husband of a very strong woman, my mother. Even his brother, Uncle Win, was colorful and loud. Dad wasn’t a bad person. He was just so…” he searched for the word, “…eclipsed. I guess he deserves more memory than that from his son. But, you see, when you’re a boy, those big personalities stay with you. By the time I came back from the war, Dad was dead. I guess I never really knew him.”

I hunched down, feeling suddenly cold. “How much did you know about your family’s affairs back then?”

“How much does a kid know?” he said. “We weren’t the happiest family in the world, but we weren’t the unhappiest either.”

“The records you let me see, they show a company that was in trouble.”

“It was the Depression.”

“Morgan took more of a role in the company.”

“Yes, Dad was the reliable son.”

“What about Win?”

“Win wasn’t in the business.”

“So no problems with the Yarnell Land & Cattle Co. other than the general economy?”

James shook his head. “Mapstone, I had my head more on horses and girls, not necessarily in that order, than the family business. In fact, I couldn’t wait to get away from it. Max was the businessman, always was. Let’s walk down the street and get a drink.”

“I’ve got to go,” I said. “One more question. Are you sure your brothers were blood kin?”

For just a moment, he looked remarkably like Max: the piercing, impatient glare. “What are you talking about?”

I told him about the dental records.

“That’s impossible.” He stood and started to walk away.

I followed him. “Why would it be impossible?” I demanded. “People are adopted all the time.”

“You’re crazy,” he shouted, in a breathy, drunken voice. I was surprised by his reaction. Gone was the easy-going demeanor of that night at Gainey Ranch, when I had first asked about the adoption issue.

“Those remains are your brothers. But they’re not your mother’s children. Help me solve this!”

“Leave me alone!” He walked faster, his gait turning oddly effeminate. Then he ran, a sad little-old-man run, back toward the gallery.

That’s when the air behind me exploded with a single whip-crack.

Ahead of me a shop window shattered into a thousand shards of plate glass. A woman screamed. James Yarnell gaped at me, his eyes overtaken by terror. I ran and jumped on him, throwing him roughly to the ground behind a little wall that separated the shop fronts from the sidewalk. My handgun was in the bedside table at home and my cell phone was in the car. Some Boy Scout I was: Be prepared, hell.

He was whimpering beneath me. “Are you hit?” I whispered. He shook his head.

Then everything was silent again. Even the traffic over on Scottsdale Road seemed to have disappeared. We were safe behind the wall-unless whoever shot at us was mobile, and coming our way. “We’ve got to move,” I said.

I scuttled down the sidewalk, keeping the wall between us and the street. Come on, I motioned, and James crawled after me. But after about ten feet the low wall ended, and the next protection was a dark breezeway in the next building, an additional, eternal ten feet away.

“What is going on?” James gasped.

“You tell me. Have you received any threats, anything at all?”

“No, no, nothing!”

“Can you run?”

“I don’t know,” he whispered.

“You’ve got to try,” I said viciously. “We can’t stay here.” The streetlights burned down on us, the bright, dry air emphasizing our vulnerability.

James looked at me.

“Ready?”

He nodded. His eyes were wide and bloodshot.

I grabbed him by the arm and hauled him up. My knee and ankle were hurting again, but I felt every muscle in my legs tense and pulse with energy. We bolted to the breezeway, our shoes echoing loudly off the concrete.

I heard that whip-crack sound, louder now, and I knew we were dead. But I was too hyped to be scared. A wooden post shattered just ahead of us. I felt the splinters against my face. I dragged Yarnell and made us keep running. Then I threw us down into the darkness of the breezeway as another shot snapped behind us. The bullet ricocheted violently off the walls, adding in a weird tuning-fork kind of sound.

“Go!” I whispered and pulled him along. We ran through the breezeway and through a gate into an alley.

Turning right, I pounded toward Scottsdale Road. Yarnell fell onto the dirty asphalt. I picked him up and pulled him by his arm and his belt until he was running again. We kept to the backs of the buildings and the sheltering darkness. Then we burst onto Scottsdale Road and the beloved sight of people and traffic.