Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 108, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 661 & 662, September/October 1996

Devil’s Wind by Michael A. Black

© 1996 by Michael A. Black

Chicagoan Michael Black began writing fiction seriously in the 1970s, at about the same time he became an officer on the Matteson, Illinois police force. The following piece marks a change for Mr. Black, whose previous work, published in magazines such as Hardboiled, has focused more often on crime than on the traditional whodunit.

I’d just finished bagging my samples when I saw the cloud of dust roaring toward me about one hundred yards away. Bolo, my horse, began nervously stomping and pawing at the ground as he too eyed the approaching pickup.

“Easy, boy,” I said, patting his dapple-gray neck. This seemed to do little to calm him. Perhaps he sensed my uneasiness, for I had little doubt who was in the truck or that they meant trouble.

My apprehension was reaffirmed moments later when, with a shrill squealing, the pickup skidded almost to a halt about twenty feet below me and began climbing the shallow rim of the desert basin. I put my equipment in the saddlebags just as the truck stopped. Joe Threestalks got out holding a pump-shotgun at port arms.

“You’re trespassing, washichu,” he snarled, his dark brooding eyes barely visible under the brim of his hat. Charlie Onehorse got out the other door. He didn’t have a gun, but he locked open the blade of his buck knife and sauntered forward.

“Look, guys,” I said cautiously, “I’m sympathetic with the tribal lawsuit. I really hope you win it. Honest. I was just out collecting some fossil samples.”

“So you didn’t mean no harm, huh, washichu?” Joe sneered. He brought the pump back, then snapped it forward, chambering a round with an ominous chunking sound.

“Dump out those saddlebags,” Charlie said. “Then empty your pockets.”

Since I’d just spent two hours in the hot sun sweating over a hill of poisonous harvester ants to collect the fossil fragments the ants brought to the surface during their excavations, I wasn’t too happy about complying. But I didn’t want to argue with a man carrying a shotgun. Carefully, I removed the bag and opened it, trying to explain what it was.

“Just drop it!” Joe yelled. “Charlie, get his wallet.” Charlie was reaching with one hand, the knife held in the other, when an authoritative command stopped him. We all looked around toward the source of the voice. At the top of the basin rim, silhouetted by the midday sun, I could see two legs and the outline of a hat. The rest of the figure was obscured by the brightness. But I could still tell that he was holding a rifle.

“If you touch him, Charlie, I’ll take you in for armed robbery,” Jim Buck said. “Drop that knife.”

“But we caught him trespassing,” Joe yelled.

“I heard,” said Jim, still looking down the rifle barrel.

Charlie threw the knife down angrily.

“Joe,” Jim continued in his strong voice. “Put your shotgun on the ground. Now.”

As Joe obeyed, Jim’s boots scuffed through the crusty red earth of the basin rim and he came down to us. He stopped by me and regarded each of us with his deep-set eyes. His face was flat-looking, with high chiseled cheekbones and an amber complexion. The barrel of his rifle rested on the shoulder of his khaki uniform. In the bright sunlight the reservation police badge shimmered like sterling silver.

“I shoulda known you’d take his side,” Joe said, gesturing at me.

“Taking a washichu’s side over us,” Charlie muttered in support. “Still a white man’s boy, huh?”

“First of all,” Jim said slowly as he stooped to pick up Joe’s shotgun, “I’m not taking sides. Second, I’m confiscating this gun until you prove you’re cooled down enough to handle it.”

“You got no right,” Joe protested.

Jim stared at him piercingly.

“You’d better get out of here now,” he said. “Before I change my mind and run you both in.”

Reluctantly, Joe and Charlie retreated to their truck, muttering an occasional profanity. The engine kicked over a few times, then caught, expelling an effluvium of dark, oil-laden exhaust. Joe popped the clutch, circled, and sped down the hill.

Jim watched them leave, then turned to me. I smiled.

“Sure glad you came along, Jim.”

“They meant you no serious harm,” he said. “But they might have roughed you up some. You’d best not come on reservation land anymore.”

“I think I got all the fossilized samples I need today. But this area’s still not officially reservation territory. At least not until the lawsuit’s settled.”

“And if McKitrick has his way, that’ll be never,” Jim said bitterly. “Just the same, you’d best stay away.” He pulled the slide on the shotgun back and a double-aught buck round snapped out.

“Thanks again,” I said as I watched him ascend the hill, his rifle in one hand, Joe’s shotgun in the other.

He turned back to me when he got to the top. “How’s Carol?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll tell her you said hello.”

He nodded and disappeared over the rim.

I scanned the mesa for the dust trail of Joe’s pickup. It seemed to be heading back toward the reservation. Or the official border anyway. If I rode Bolo along the top of the canyon, I could get to Carol’s without risking another confrontation. I swung up into the saddle and steered Bolo to the crown of the hill. Jim Buck’s brown four-wheel-drive Bronco was only about a hundred yards off, its light-bar and reservation police insignia reflecting the sunlight like mirrors. He was running a parallel course with me. Good old Jim, keeping a watchful eye on me even though I’d stolen the girl he loved.

Jim and Carol had been an item in college until her father, Paul McKitrick, found out she was dating an Indian and put a stop to it. He’d used his wealth and political connections to get Jim’s athletic scholarship revoked. Jim had no choice but to drop out. He enlisted in the army and spent three years in the military police. When he came back, Carol and I were engaged.

As Bolo trotted along at a slow pace I looked over the basin again and appreciated its beauty. Rows of cactus punctuated the dry brown landscape. Distant mountains with layers of shale separated by varying hues of red loomed majestically on the horizon. More than a hundred years ago, back when the plains Indians had signed a treaty with the U.S. government, the buffalo had roamed here alongside the nomadic Indian tribes. Back before the concept of land ownership became a pertinent issue. And long before anybody suspected that vast quantities of uranium lay beneath the shale. As I got farther from the basin, the more oppressive heat seemed to recede. Except for the hot dry wind, which the Indians say always precedes doom. They call it Viento del Diablo — Devil’s Wind.

As I came to the border of the McKitrick ranch, another rider approached me from the opposite direction. The horse, a huge white stallion, was as unmistakable as the broad, powerful shoulders of the rider. I eased Bolo to a stop as Paul McKitrick abruptly reined in his horse next to me.

“Rick,” he said with a forced grin. “I figured you were around when I saw that wreck of a Jeep and trailer parked in my drive.” I’d brought Bolo out from town in the trailer and parked it at his ranch. Mr. McKitrick took every opportunity to remind me that he always went first class.

“Why don’t you sell that old nag to the dog-food company and let me give you a real horse?” he said, glancing at Bolo. His own stallion stirred uneasily.

“He’s like a member of my family,” I said, trying to muster a smile. “Besides, he gets me where I’m going.”

McKitrick snorted, removed his brown cowboy hat, and wiped a sleeve over his artfully graying pompadour.

“Sentimentality doesn’t win the ball game,” he said. “You’d better learn that if you expect to make something of yourself.”

“I had some trouble with Charlie Onehorse and Joe Threestalks out by the basin earlier,” I said, trying to change the subject. “Jim Buck ran them off, but they still might be in the area.”

“I hope those bastards are,” he said, patting his belt. A pancake holster was strapped to his side, the black checkered grip of an automatic pistol sticking out from it. He pulled out the gun and held it up for me to see. “Have I shown you this beauty? It’s a German-made nine millimeter. A Sig Sauer.”

The gun was flat black, with a boxlike slide.

“This’ll take care of those freeloading troublemakers,” he said, re-holstering the weapon. “They mess with me and they won’t be around to get their free pickup truck from the government next year.”

He gave me a fractional nod and kicked the stallion’s sides, taking off at a fast gallop. As I watched him go, I thought that a hundred years ago he would have ridden with the Seventh Cavalry to fight the Indians. Now he carried a German-made automatic and used a high-priced lawyer to maintain a holding pattern in a courtroom where the legality of a disputed 1876 treaty was endlessly debated.

Bolo trotted the rest of the way in, as if he’d understood McKitrick’s disparaging remarks. When I dismounted, I patted him reassuringly. As I walked him into the trailer, Carol strolled out of the big white house. She was wearing a tan blouse, tight jeans, and a handsomely sculpted pair of boots.

“Hi, cowboy,” she said as she got close. I put out my arms to embrace her, but she took a quick step backwards. “Not till you shower.”

“Is that any way to talk to your betrothed?”

“Obviously you haven’t smelled yourself lately,” she said, wrinkling her nose. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail. “Want to shower upstairs?” she asked coyly.

“I can’t,” I said. “Got to get back to the lab. And Uncle Dede needs me to help out at the shop tonight.”

“Oh, okay,” she said. “Maybe I’ll come by the shop later and let you satisfy my craving for ice cream.”

“Craving? You’re not pregnant, are you?”

Giggling, she shook her head. “No. Not yet, anyway. But I’ll let you know if it happens.”

“In that case, I think it’s totally appropriate for the beautiful heiress to buy the starving assistant professor the ice cream.”

“We’ll see,” she said alluringly as she turned and walked away with an exaggerated wiggle. “If you’re good.”

“I thought I was always good,” I called after her as I got into the Jeep.

Pulling out onto the main highway, I made the trip back to Pueblo in a fast ten minutes. I put Bolo in his stall in the barn at my uncle’s house and took a quick shower. With the desert dust washed out of my hair, I felt a bit more presentable. When I pulled into the parking lot of Uncle Dede’s gun shop, I noticed a dilapidated old pickup in the spot next to the door. There was something vaguely familiar about it. I pushed open the door and stepped into the air-conditioned comfort. Uncle Dede was sitting with his feet up on the counter and a cup of coffee in his hand. He showed me his lopsided grin as he straightened up.

“About damn time you got here,” he chided.

“I had to wash the desert dirt off me,” I said. “Whose pickup is that outside?”

“Oh, that’s Sonny’s,” Uncle Dede said. “He’s drifted back into town and stopped in. Wants to stay for a while this time and asked me for a job.”

I raised my eyebrows. Uncle Dede and Sonny Lord had been friends for over thirty years. Sonny had been a local legend around these parts, having won the gold buckle on the rodeo circuit twenty-five years ago. Unfortunately, he’d spent much of the intervening time trying to crawl out of a bottle.

“What’d you tell him?” I asked.

Uncle Dede took a sip of his coffee. “I told him to put in applications over at the stables and the stores first,” he said. “But I guess I’ll carry him till he finds something better, or moves on again.”

“The latter’s probably more likely,” I said, withholding further comment on my uncle’s friend. Sonny’d been drifting back to Pueblo like a migrating falcon for as long as I could remember. He’d come back for a while and straighten up, then fall back off the wagon and vanish for a few more years. Usually he would work the rodeo circuit. But not as a champion anymore. Now he was only the clown or cleanup man.

“He says he’s taken the oath,” Uncle Dede said solemnly.

“Haven’t we both heard that one before?” I said sceptically.

“Heard what?” Sonny said, slipping up behind me. I turned, somewhat startled. He was tall and angular, and looked better than the last time I’d seen him. The grip of his rawhide hand felt strong and sure. He strolled over to the counter as Uncle Dede handed him a fresh cup of coffee. Despite all his problems with the bottle, Sonny still had a picturesque look about him. Sort of like Gary Cooper. And like Coop, he had a way with the ladies. The tales about his romantic prowess were virtually legendary. He nodded thanks to Uncle Dede for the coffee and struck a wooden kitchen match to light up a cigarette. Removing his hat, he sat down on a stack of boxes and swallowed some of the dark brew.

“Ah... Just the way I like it,” he said. “Nice and hot, just like a good woman.”

Uncle Dede handed a second cup to me, and I sat across from them and listened to their stories. It was hard not to like Sonny when you sat listening to him spinning a yarn. After about twenty minutes there was a lull in the conversation.

“Like I was telling Dede, Rick,” Sonny said. “I done took the oath. And this time I intend on keeping it.”

I nodded, swallowing the last bit of my coffee.

“I don’t blame you for being doubtful,” he said. “But there’s just one way for me to prove it. Say, you still going out with that pretty little gal Carol?”

“Yeah,” I said. “We’re engaged.”

“Well, congratulations,” he said, extending his hand. “You set the date yet?”

“No, that’s still a ways off,” I told him. “I gotta finish school first.”

“She’s gonna inherit a lotta money, I hear,” Sonny said slowly.

“Yeah,” I said, wondering how he knew so much. When she turned twenty-five, Carol would inherit control of the trust fund that had been set up in her mother’s will. I think it stuck in McKitrick’s craw that she’d be able to do what she wanted then. In the meantime, he could pretty much call the shots.

I pulled out my wallet and showed Sonny a snapshot of Carol and me. He grabbed the plastic case and paged through the folders, stopping when he found one of Carol’s graduation pictures.

“She sure is pretty,” he said, staring at the picture and shaking his head. Then, handing the wallet back to me: “You sure are a lucky man.”

“Thanks.”

“How you get along with old man McKitrick?” he asked.

“How does anyone get along with him?” I joked. At first McKitrick sort of approved of me. After all, I was white and pursuing a Ph.D. in a respectable field. But we’d had a minor falling out when I rejected a job with his company in favor of a teaching position at the university that would enable me to finish up my geology degree.

“I just saw him a little while ago.” I told Sonny. I related the brief encounter in the desert, and told them about his comment regarding the Indians.

“Damn,” Uncle Dede said. “I sold him that Sig Sauer. I hope he don’t go shooting nobody with it.”

“If he does, it better be in self-defense,” I said.

We chatted for about five minutes more. Long enough for Sonny to gulp down the rest of his coffee. He seemed suddenly agitated and said he had to take off. After he’d left I asked Uncle Dede if he really thought that Sonny had straightened himself out.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “He’s looking better than I’ve seen him in a long time, but it’s sorta like putting a cougar in a pen. He might be dying on the inside.”

I told Uncle Dede that I’d be back, and went over to the university geology lab and sorted out the samples that I’d bagged along the basin. After fixing the slides I needed and writing up about ten pages of crude notes, I glanced at my watch and realized it was close to five. I’d promised Uncle Dede that I’d help him with the store inventory that night, so I put everything away and stored the samples in my lab locker. Then, after grabbing a quick burger and fries to eat on the way, I drove back to the gun shop. Uncle Dede had a cup of coffee all ready for me and we settled in to work. It took us a couple of hours, and afterwards I watched the counter while my uncle worked on some guns that people had brought in for repairs. Because he owned the gun shop and was the best smith in the territory, Sheriff Pete Gunther had made Uncle Dede a special deputy. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when the sheriff telephoned about twenty minutes before closing.

“You want to talk to Uncle Dede, Sheriff?” I asked.

“No, Rick,” he said. “I was trying to get ahold of you. I’m out at the McKitrick place. You’d better get out here pronto.”

“Is Carol okay?” I asked, panic edging into my voice.

“She’s not injured,” he said slowly. “But the doc’s on the way to give her a sedative. Her father’s been killed.”

“Killed?” I said. Uncle Dede’s head popped up from the trigger mechanism he’d been working on.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Apparently Mr. McKitrick went riding earlier today out on the north forty. His horse came back in riderless about four hours ago, so they figured he’d been thrown or something. They went out lookin’ and found him out by the canyon. Dead.”

“Did he fall?” I asked.

“No,” the sheriff said. “He’d been shot.”

By the time we got out to Carol’s, the drive was a maze of revolving red and blue lights. Sheriff Gunther, visible because of his extreme height and white Stetson, was barking out orders. Uncle Dede strode up to him and asked if he needed any help.

“Not right now, Dede,” he said. “But, Rick, you might want to look in on Carol. Doc Gleason’s with her now.”

I hurried into the house and ran upstairs to Carol’s room. The doctor and McKitrick’s fourth wife, Christene, were with her. He’d already given her something, and I held her for a few minutes before she drifted off to sleep.

Christene put a hand on my arm and thanked me for coming. Only a few years older than Carol, she was normally a very attractive woman, but tonight she looked totally spent, her face swollen from crying.

“You all right, Christene?” I asked.

“It’s just such a shock,” she said, breaking down again. “There’re so many people I have to call.”

“Why don’t you let me call Mason Gilbert?” I said. “He can handle things while you get some rest.”

Mason Gilbert was McKitrick’s lawyer. He lived in Deming, which was about twenty miles away.

Christene nodded and went down the hall toward the master bedroom. As I was paging through the Rolodex by the phone, Sheriff Gunther and Uncle Dede came in.

“How’s Carol?” Uncle Dede asked.

“She’s sleeping,” I said. “Sedative.”

He nodded, then said, “Rick, I was telling the sheriff about that little run-in you had with Threestalks and Onehorse this morning. Would you mind going over it with him?”

I was still holding the phone in midair, staring at the sheriff, who gave me a reassuring little nod.

Things began to heat up pretty fast after they arrested Joe Threestalks and Charlie Onehorse. After hearing the story of my confrontation, the sheriff put out a broadcast to bring them in for questioning. One of the county units spotted Joe’s pickup at the Wigwam, a local Pueblo bar, and they grabbed him and Charlie as soon as they got back in the truck. Mr. McKitrick’s nine millimeter Sig Sauer was found wrapped in a rag under the front seat. Joe and Charlie swore up and down that they didn’t know how it got there, but they were both charged anyway.

The next day, when he heard about the arrests, Jim Buck drove into town and demanded custody of the Indians because the crime had occurred on the disputed tribal land. Sheriff Gunther practically threw Jim out of the jail, and Indian/White problems began to escalate all over Pueblo, the reservation, and at the university. Uncle Dede and I closed up the gun shop, which we normally did in tense times, and put the Gone Fishin’ sign in the window. I went out to Carol’s and helped her and Christene with the funeral arrangements and notifications. Mason Gilbert handled everything else. Carol’s trust fund was safe. Christene, who’d married McKitrick nearly twenty years after Carol’s mother drowned on vacation with McKitrick in Cancun, had signed a prenuptial agreement and would receive a substantial one-time cash settlement. She seemed to be taking it better than Carol, who seemed listless and depressed.

“It’s so sudden,” Carol said, the tears brimming in her eyes again. “So abrupt. Just like when Mom died.”

I held her close and let her cry, searching for the right words, but unable to find them.

Christene came in and asked Carol to help her pick out some of her father’s clothes for the undertaker. Figuring that it’d be better if she was occupied, I urged her to do it. I told them I had to go feed Bolo, after which I’d come back. I got into the Jeep and sped down the long asphalt roadway that intersected with the highway. As I slowed to a stop at the end of the road, Fred Perks, the mailman, pulled up beside me in his mail car.

“Sorry to hear about Mr. McKitrick,” he said, handing me a stack of mail through the open window.

“Yeah,” I said, slipping the mail into the inside pocket of my jacket. Fred knew everything about everybody and could talk the legs off a chair. I had no desire to engage him in a long conversation. “I’ll give them the mail when I get back, Fred.”

“Sure thing, Rick. And tell ’em that I hope they fry those dirty red bastards.”

“We’ll have to see, Fred,” I said, pushing in the clutch and putting the Jeep in first gear. “They haven’t been convicted yet.”

“They will be. They did it, didn’t they?”

As I drove back to town I couldn’t help wondering if Fred was right. The case did seem pretty open and shut.

When I got to the shop, I went in the back way. Uncle Dede was leaning over the table with the works of a shotgun spread out in front of him. Sonny sat across from him, elbows on his knees, holding a cup of coffee. He grinned and nodded.

“Figured with the way things are heatin’ up I’d better get the sheriff’s gun fixed,” Uncle Dede said.

“How’s Carol?” Sonny asked.

“As good as can be expected,” I said. “She lost her mother a number of years ago.”

“Yeah,” Sonny said. “I remember.” Then he shook his head with a wistful smile. “Her mama, she was something.”

“You knew her?” I asked. To me, Carol’s mother was only an exceptionally beautiful woman in some old photographs. Carol’s recollection wasn’t much more complete.

“Everybody did,” Uncle Dede said. “Pueblo wasn’t as big back in them days. Didn’t have the university. She was the town beauty. Everybody dreamed about her.”

“And McKitrick got her,” I said.

“Yeah,” Uncle Dede replied. “Always said she married for love, and he married for money. They produced a good girl, though. Carol’s a winner.”

“She took after her ma,” Sonny said caustically. “Not McKitrick.”

Uncle Dede looked up with a sly smile.

“Why, Sonny,” he said, “if I didn’t know better, I’d swear that you ain’t gonna miss him.”

“Oh, I’ll miss him all right,” Sonny said slowly, letting the implication of his sentence drop. He stared at me over the rim of the coffee cup as he drank the rest of the liquid.

Things remained tense in the town and Sheriff Gunther moved Charlie and Joe to the county jail, which was about thirty miles away. The judge had ordered them held without bond until the preliminary hearing. The wake for Paul McKitrick was held the next day. I got out my one decent sport jacket and stayed at the funeral home with Carol and Christene. To make things more tragically ironic, Christene confided to us that she was two months pregnant.

“I don’t know what to do now,” she said.

“I’ve always wanted a baby sister,” Carol told her reassuringly.

Practically the whole town showed up for the wake, and it was early evening when we got back to Carol’s. As I pulled into the driveway, everything looked normal. But when we got to the door, I saw that the jamb was splintered.

“What’s that?” Carol asked.

“Stay here,” I said. “Somebody must have broken in.”

I cautiously pushed the door open and looked inside. The drapes had been drawn and it was pretty dark. I reached for the light switch and flipped it on. Nothing seemed out of place. The only damage I found was in the main study, which McKitrick had used as his office. Everything was turned upside down. Papers were strewn everywhere, and the locked desk drawer of McKitrick’s big oak desk had been pried open.

When the sheriff got there, he chastised me for going through the house before calling him.

“I’ve got enough problems without somebody surprising a burglar and maybe getting shot,” he snapped. “Now go stay in the kitchen, all of you, till we can process the scene.”

Christene suddenly began to feel ill, and Carol helped her upstairs to her room. As I sat at the kitchen table, the phone began ringing. After about five rings I figured that the women were still busy, so I answered it.

“McKitrick residence,” I said.

“This is Dr. Frank Hardy,” a masculine voice said. “To whom am I speaking?”

I identified myself, and asked if I could help him.

“I was out of town for a few days,” the caller said, “and I just heard about Mr. McKitrick.”

“I see, Doctor. Did you know him well?”

“Not really,” Hardy said. “My practice is located in Buffrington. Mr. McKitrick sought out my services about a month ago.”

Buffrington was the next large city to the north of Pueblo. It was a good fifty miles away.

“I see,” I said, somewhat perplexed.

“In fact, I just sent Mr. McKitrick a letter he requested a few days ago. You can imagine my surprise when I found out he’d passed away.” He exhaled loudly, then continued. “I do have a slight problem, of a somewhat sensitive nature. You see, the bill for the tests I did for Mr. McKitrick has not been paid.”

I rubbed my hand over my forehead and asked him for his address and phone number. “I’ll have the family attorney get in touch with you,” I said.

“The invoice was enclosed in the letter,” he said genially.

“I’ll look for it,” I said. And as I hung up, something stirred in the back of my memory.

Hours later, I found Dr. Hardy’s letter in the pocket of my jacket, which I’d absentmindedly hung over the back of a chair in my room. I remembered pocketing the McKitrick mail the day after the murder. The call from Hardy had seemed annoying at the time, but my curiosity as to the nature of the tests kept gnawing at me. Why would McKitrick have gone all the way up to Buffrington when he had a family doctor right here in Pueblo? Was the letter something that was going to cause more grief for Carol and Christene?

The steam from the teakettle rose upward, accompanied by a sharp whistle that seemed like an alarm signal for my guilty conscience. But by the time I had the flap worked open, I had rationalized that I was doing it for the greater good: trying to shield the girl I loved from any needless pain.

The letter, with Dr. Hardy’s invoice inside, documented the results of some DNA tests that McKitrick had requested on himself and Carol. I remembered that she’d told me casually that Christene, her father, and she had blood drawn about a month ago after a trip to Mexico, but Mr. McKitrick had said that it was to check for hepatitis.

I read the letter over twice before I accepted what it said: The results of the tests on Paul and Carol McKitrick showed conclusively negative patterns. Carol was not his natural daughter.

After the funeral, the house was full of mourners and I finally told Carol that I had to get out for a while. I left her surrounded by relatives and drove back to the gun shop. The front door still had the Gone Fishin’ sign on it, so I let myself in the back. I wanted to ask Uncle Dede’s advice about what to do with the letter, but couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. Instead, I asked him what kind of a man Paul McKitrick had been. Even though Carol and I were engaged, Mr. McKitrick had always seemed distant to me. Maybe, I thought, if I knew more about the man I’d be able to figure out what to do.

“He was what you might call a collector,” Uncle Dede said, leaning back from the tabletop. “He always had to be in total control, or seem like he was if he wasn’t. And it really bothered him if he wasn’t. Not that he didn’t lose occasionally, but he hated to. And would always try to cover it, if he could.”

“Just like the treaty war with the Indians,” I said.

Uncle Dede nodded and smiled.

“Now, you want to tell me what’s bothering you, Rick?”

“You can see right through me, can’t you?” I told him about the letter, which I’d stowed in my lab locker for safekeeping. Uncle Dede bit his lip when I mentioned the contents.

“Only one thing you can do at this point,” he said. “Go get that letter and turn it over to McKitrick’s lawyer.

“Mason Gilbert? Do you think that’s wise? What’ll that do to Carol?”

“McKitrick might already have confided in him,” Uncle Dede said. “Whatever his reasons were, and I suspect, knowing him, they weren’t good, you can’t afford to put yourself in the middle of something like this.”

I sat silently pondering what he said.

“If you love Carol, Rick,” Uncle Dede said, “I think you’ll see it’s the right thing to do.”

Our conversation was interrupted by the phone. It was Sheriff Gunther. He told Uncle Dede that a group of Indians had driven through the north end of town and taken a couple of shots at one of the squad cars. The sheriff wanted Uncle Dede to get in uniform and ride shotgun patrolling the main highway between the town and the reservation. Uncle Dede told him he’d be right there. He hung up the phone and looked at me.

“So what you gonna do?” he asked.

“Drive up to Deming and talk to Mason Gilbert,” I said.

He smiled fractionally, then put both hands on my shoulders.

“I’m proud of you, Rick. But do me a favor. Let me call Sonny to ride up there with you. With all these Indian problems, the sight of a lone driver on the highway is asking for trouble.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll shoot over to the lab and pick up the letter and meet him back here.”

If Sonny was worried about the Indians, he didn’t show it as we drove north toward Deming, past the Reservation. He nonchalantly flicked a coarse thumbnail over the end of one of those wooden kitchen matches and lit his cigarette. The big twelve-gauge shotgun on his lap seemed reassuring.

A squad car passed us as we drove by the Reservation. In a few more minutes we’d be nearing the turnoff for Carol’s.

“Hold on a second,” Sonny said, his eyes narrowing on the roadway ahead. “Slow it down.”

I stared ahead, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“Why?” I asked. “You see something?”

“You see this?” he retorted harshly as he slammed the slide of the shotgun back, then forward, chambering a round. The hollow tubelike end of the barrel rested on my shoulder, pointing at my head.

“Turn off the road here,” he said. “Do it now!”

I braked and eased the Jeep onto the hard ground. We headed west toward the canyon. The layered red shale loomed ominously before me.

“Sonny, what’s going on?”

“Shut up!” he said. “Just keep driving.”

The Jeep bounced and rocked slightly as it rolled over the desert floor. We neared the canyon rim. He looked at me.

“I’ll take the letter,” he said.

“The letter?”

He bumped the end of the shotgun barrel against my temple.

“Don’t get smart. Pull up over there and give it to me.”

I coasted to a stop near the edge of the canyon. He prodded me again with the barrel, and I took the letter out of my inside pocket and gave it to him.

“Get out,” he said, reaching over to shut off the ignition and pull out the key.

I slipped out the door, and he directed me backwards about ten feet, then told me to stop. He scrambled out himself and came around the Jeep, still pointing the shotgun at me. There was a hot wind blowing from the southwest. A devil’s wind.

“Who else knows about this?” he asked, indicating the letter.

“Uncle Dede,” I said. “Others, too. Now, what’s going on?”

“You can’t lie for crap,” he said, removing the contents of the envelope and glancing over them. He reinserted everything. The corner had Dr. Hardy’s return address printed on it, and Sonny tore it off.

“Have to pay him a little visit,” he grinned. Then he took out another kitchen match and squatted on his haunches, the shotgun tucked under his arm. With quick glances from me to the letter, he snapped the match with his thumbnail and lit the envelope. I watched as the yellow flame trailed the black semicircle of expanding ash over the white paper. He dropped it to the desert floor and the flame consumed the last part, leaving only a smoldering wisp of smoke and crumpled carbon.

Sonny stood up.

“What you got planned for me, Sonny?” I said. “An accident?”

I knew if I tried to run he’d get me in the back before I’d gone ten steps.

“I ain’t got no choice now, Rick,” he said, licking his lips. “Can’t afford to let that letter get out. Too bad I couldn’t have found it while you all were at the wake.”

“The burglary? It was you?”

He nodded.

“But why?” I said, desperately trying to keep him talking. Trying to prolong whatever time I had. “What does it all mean?”

He exhaled slowly and raised the shotgun to his shoulder. Then he hesitated.

“McKitrick was gonna disinherit Carol,” he said. “Told me so right out here that day we met. He knew all the time she wasn’t really his blood. Been buying my silence all these years. But now, with that young filly of his pregnant, he’d decided that it didn’t matter no more. He was gonna get rid of her. Cut her off without a cent, and I couldn’t let that happen.”

“You couldn’t?”

He scratched his cheek. “Move over toward the edge of the rim,” he said, gesturing with the barrel.

My feet felt leaden as they scuffed over the dusty surface.

“Why, Sonny?” I yelled. “Why couldn’t you let that happen?”

“Ain’t you guessed by now, boy?” he said. “I’m her real daddy.”

“Sonny, wait,” I said. “It wouldn’t have made any difference. Carol would have gotten what was coming from her mother’s estate anyway.”

“Just like them Indians are getting their fair share, huh?” Sonny grinned ruefully at me as he raised the shotgun again and pointed it at me. “You don’t know much about going up against a rich man, do you, boy? And I reckon you ain’t gonna have no more time to learn.”

My legs felt too weak to run. Paralyzed with fear, I closed my eyes. The shot came and my knees gave out, and I rolled in the dirt, anticipating the terrible pain. Suddenly I heard a gurgling sound and realized I wasn’t hit.

Sonny was. He staggered convulsively in front of me. The shotgun discharged explosively, scattering a cloud of dirt off to the right.

Another shot, and Sonny’s body jerked violently for a few seconds as he curled over and fell in a twisted heap. I ran forward and pulled the shotgun from under him. Jim Buck came running up carrying his 30–30 Winchester. I cradled the dying man in my arms.

“Rick, you all right?” Jim asked. “I was out patrolling when I saw you...”

Sonny’s body shook again, and he brought a darkly stained hand up and looked at it.

“Dark blood... Hit my liver,” he said haltingly.

“I’ll call for an ambulance,” Jim said, turning to run up to his squad car.

“No,” called Sonny. “Got to hear... this...” A couple more labored breaths and Sonny told us that he’d killed McKitrick and planted the Sig Sauer in Joe’s truck.

“Saw it outside the bar.” His mouth twisted in a pitiful attempt at a smile. “Seemed a neat way to tie things up.”

“Why’d you do it, Sonny?” Jim Buck asked.

Sonny’s eyes darted from Jim to me. Then he shook his head. “Tell Carol I’m...” He started to whisper to me, then his mouth dropped open and a blood bubble spread over his lips, not bursting until I moved his head. His hands fell limply to his sides. “What’d he say?” Jim asked. I shook my head. “Wonder why he killed McKitrick?” Jim said.

The scrap of the envelope with Hardy’s return address stirred in the hot wind, then fluttered out over the edge of the canyon and disappeared. “I guess that’ll be his secret,” I said.