Apache Country (12 page)

“He won’t get physical,” Easton said.

“Kind of wish he would,” Basso growled. “Be a
pleasure to kick his fuckin’ ass.”

“Shinii’godoléh hela’!” Ironheel growled, and
Basso’s face twisted with anger.

“Anytime, asshole!” he growled,
bristling.

“Go on out, Jack!” Easton said, pointing at
the door. “I won’t be long.”

Basso’s face set surly, like he wanted to
disobey. He looked at Ironheel again, his hands working, then
turned on his heel and went out, slamming the door hard. The hate
in the room went out with him. Easton sat down facing Ironheel. The
prisoner’s face and body were totally immobile. Only the eyes were
alive.

“What was that you said to him?” Easton
asked.

“Don’t make me angry.”

Basso’s reaction suggested it had been
something stronger than that, Easton thought, but he left it there.
Ironheel’s dark eyes bored into his, as if the Apache was trying to
see right into his soul. The silence submerged them like deep
water. How did the Conquistadors communicate with them, Easton
wondered, before they spoke Spanish or English? Sign language,
maybe. Did anybody still talk the sign language they had used? A
minute went by, another.

“So,” he said into the silence. “Here I
am.”

He thought he detected a faint glimmer of
what might have been surprise

in Ironheel’s eyes. Like, maybe you’re not as
stupid as I thought you were. He wondered if from Ironheel’s point
of view that might almost be considered a compliment. The seconds
ticked away silently into perhaps two more minutes.

“So?” he said again.

“Baa natsékees ni’,” Ironheel said.

“You’ve been … thinking it over?”

Ironheel showed genuine surprise. “You speak
Apache?”

“Not really. A few phrases.”

“Pretty unusual.”

Easton shrugged. “I talked to your sister,”
he said.

Nothing showed on Ironheel’s face.

“She said to give you a message.
Ahaga’he.”

He thought he saw another fleeting glint of
amusement in the dark eyes, but it was gone before he could be
sure.

“Did I say it right?”

“Close enough.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s an old Apache warning,” Ironheel said.
“They don’t use it much anymore. Something like, Enough, no more of
this.”

Easton nodded. “I got the impression she’s
good and mad at you. Not just this, but generally. Why is
that?”

“Sisters,” he said with a minimal shrug, as
if no further explanation was necessary. Easton knew there was a
whole protocol in the life of a male Apache where sisters were
concerned.

“That how you feel?”

Twin furrows appeared between his brows.
“Huh?”

“Ahaga’he. No more of this.”

Again the minimal shrug, like the question
wasn’t worth a reply. Ironheel stared fixedly at the wall as if it
was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen. The same look
Easton had seen in his eyes the night before was back. Unease, or
maybe uncertainty was nearer the mark. A picture of Jessye when she
had been mischievous and knew it, flashed into his mind.

What have you been doing?

You’ll be mad if I tell you.

“There’s something you want to tell me,
right?”

“Doo begots’ííd da,” Ironheel said. That
meant something like, it’s useless, no point.

“Why not?”

No answer. He was getting used to that.

“You’re looking at life, Ironheel,” Easton
said, reminding him. “The rest of your life in jail.”

Nothing. No reaction, not even a blink.

“For something you didn’t do?”

Ironheel’s eyes came up, locked with
Easton’s. Like he was searching for something. Hope?

“Tell me what really happened,” Easton
said.

Ironheel turned his head away, staring at the
side wall again. Every nuance of his body language shouted psychic
pain. Easton tried again.

“It wasn’t you,” he said, sure now. “Somebody
else killed them, right? Who, Ironheel? Who was it?”

No answer, no movement. He waited. There was
no way to hurry this. He remained seated as Ironheel got up and
shuffled around the room, looking closely at the walls, his eyes
narrowed with concentration. The steel shackles on his ankles
clinked arhythmically as he moved from one wall to the next, and
then the next.

“There are no cameras or recording devices in
this room,” Easton said.

Ironheel grunted. Oh yeah.

“That’s why Weddle brought you in here.
That’s why you and I are here now. No one but me can hear what you
say.”

The Apache made another derisive sound.

“I can’t make you believe it,” Easton
said.

It was one of the few universal rules in law
enforcement, as mandatory in California as in Connecticut: no
eavesdropping, no filming, no recordings of any kind in interview
rooms. As all too many prosecutors had discovered to their cost,
listening in on a defendant’s privileged conversation with his
attorney was the shortest known route to deepest shit. It was an
obvious temptation, of course, but if it happened and a judge got
to know about it, your case was down the toilet before you even
scribbled your notes for an opening statement.

“Take a chance, Ironheel,” he said. “Trust
someone.”

Ironheel sat down again and rested his
forearms on the table, looking him straight in the eyes. Again
Easton waited, saying nothing. There was no need to fill up the
silence with words. Ironheel was an Apache. If he was going to say
anything, he’d say it. If not, not.

“Aasidilí. Cops. You stick together,” he
said.

“You don’t trust cops? You don’t trust me?
Which?”

“Both.”

“You don’t know anything about me. Yet you
already made up your mind.”

Another scornful look. “Got no reason to
trust you.”

“True. And I can’t give you one.”

Ironheel fell silent again, his face
completely unreadable. It was like being in a cave with a Stone Age
man. Again Easton waited. The silence lasted what seemed a very
long time. It might have been three minutes, maybe more. Then
Ironheel’s head moved. It was no more than a minimal nod, but it
hinted at a decision being made, and Easton felt a tiny tremor of
anticipation.

“Nohwegodeyaa,” Ironheel said. “Time to
talk.”

Easton held up a hand, wait. Ironheel
frowned.

“Before we start, you must understand the
rules,” Easton told him. “You talk, I listen. That’s it. No matter
what you tell me, I can’t make any kind of a deal with you.”

“Not looking for a deal.” His tone was
disdainful. “But …” He hesitated. “This thing would bring shame on
my sister.”

“You care about that.”

Ironheel said nothing, and Easton remembered
the Apache protocol. Never interrupt the speaker until he has
finished.

“Sorry.”

Ironheel shrugged an acknowledgement. “That
lawyer who got killed, Weddle,” he said. “That was my fault.”

The admission was so candid Easton had to
work hard to suppress his reaction. “What makes you think
that?”

“He knew the truth,” Ironheel said. “About
the hastiin. The old man and the boy.”

“The truth,” Easton said, fighting the
impulse to rush it, instinctively knowing that if he uttered any of
the hundred questions forming in his head Ironheel would clam up.
Ironheel nodded as if confirming the thought, his dark gaze
unwaveringly direct.

“Da’adiihi,” he said. “You want the
truth?”

“If you want to tell it to me,” Easton
replied gravely.

“Ha’ah,” Ironheel said, letting out his
breath. “N’zhoo. This is my story now from the beginning. That day,
the day of the murders, there was a piece in the Riverside paper
about a couple from the East who had just bought a big place up at
Yellow Lake. It sounded like they had plenty of money and I figured
maybe, them being new, they might need someone to do yard
work.”

“You went there?” Easton said, making a
mental note to check the newspapers. “On foot?”

“Tried this.” Ironheel made a hitchhiking
gesture with his thumb. “But nobody stopped.”

Nobody did anymore, not around Riverside
anyway. A couple of years back a custody had escaped from the State
detention center south of town, hitched a ride with an elderly
couple, butchered both of them, dumped the bodies in a ditch and
lit out for Texas in their Toyota. He was still on the New Mexico
Most Wanted list.

“So you walked up to Yellow Lake. That’s
quite a hike.”

Ironheel shrugged.

“And then?”

“It was locked up tight. Steel shutters,
padlocks. Nobody there.”

“So what did you do?”

A shrug. “Headed back to the highway.”

Easton called up the map in his mind. Yellow
Lake lay a mile or two north of Garcia Flat. To get back to the
highway, Ironheel would have had to follow a twin track that ran
south till it met the dirt road running west. The arroyo where
Casey and the boy had been killed would run pretty much parallel to
that track.

“What kind of trail was it?”

“Just a twin track, running south.”

That checked. “And?” Easton said.

“Took a shortcut, over the rimrock,” Ironheel
said. “Saw two men down below, one a big guy, the other older, not
so tall. Hunkered down, waiting. Then a big black Lexus came up the
draw.”

“Casey,” Easton said.

An impatient nod, don’t interrupt.

“The hastiin, the grandfather got out, left
the door open. The three men talked a few minutes. Then the boy
shouted something and the old man started arguing with the big guy,
angry. The other guy just stepped up and blew his brains out,
sproosh. Like in that Zapruder film when they killed Kennedy.”

He drew in a long breath, let it out slowly.
His eyes searched Easton’s for any hint of disbelief. He need not
have bothered. Easton believed him.

“Then nchaahi, the big one, dragged the boy
out of the car but the boy broke loose and ran into the brush.
Nchaahi went after him. I couldn’t see where. Couple of minutes
later he came back. He had a knife in his hand. He stuck it in the
ground to clean it.”

“Describe him.”

“Cho. Big. Blond hair, leather jacket, jeans.
Like that Terminator guy.”

“Schwarzenegger?”

“Ha’ah.”

“What happened then?”

“He got the hastiin’s billfold, took the
money. Then his watch, put it in his pocket. Then the two of them
headed up the arroyo on foot.”

“Not toward the highway?”

A headshake, no. “Hadah,” Ironheel said. “Up
the arroyo. North.”

“Did you hear a car starting up?
Anything?”

Ironheel shook his head, his eyes blank with
remembering.

“What did you do then?”

“Went down when they were gone. The hastiin
was dead. There was blood everywhere. Found the billfold and got an
ID. Went up the arroyo, found the boy. You know what that was
like.”

“That’s when you got the blood on your
clothes.”

“Ha’ah.” His eyes were watchful now,
waiting.

“Why didn’t you report the murders?”

Ironheel made a contemptuous sound. “Cops
don’t believe anything Apache say.”

“So you took off.”

“Ha’ah.”

“Tell me about when the two State Policemen
arrested you.”

Ironheel looked at the wall. “There could
have been some killing there. But there was none.”

“You saying you could have killed them but
you didn’t?”

Ironheel nodded, his eyes hooded.
“Ha’ah.”

“What happened?”

“One of them said ‘This fucking Neanderthal
killed an old man and a kid in cold blood, let’s just blow his
fucking brains out and save everybody a lot of time and
money.’”

“They were going to kill you?”

“Ha’ah.”

“Wait a minute. If they were going to kill
you, why did the officer fire into the air when you ran?”

“Doo ágágot’éé da lehn,” the Apache said
impatiently. “It wasn’t like that. They had their guns out, told me
to start running. That could only mean one thing, ley fuga. Killed
trying to escape.”

“Why didn’t you tell us all this right at the
beginning?”

“Would you have believed it?”

“What makes you think I will now?”

Ironheel made no reply, keeping his face
still, watchful.

“You could have asked for an attorney as soon
as they brought you in,” Easton said. “And told him what had
happened.”

“Doo bigonedzaa do,” Ironheel said. “Not
possible.”

“Why?”

Ironheel’s eyes burned with the message in
them: no matter what else you choose to accept or reject, this,
whether you want to or not, is the part you have to believe.

“Because the man who shot the hastiin was
standing there.”

Easton felt his mouth go dry. It was as if he
was the director of a movie behind a camera high up on a crane
looking down at himself and the Apache sitting at the table, the
truth a hammer pounding in his brain. He knew exactly what Ironheel
was going to say next. He knew, he knew, and there was agony in the
knowing.

“Aasinilí binan’ta’,” Ironheel said,
confirming it. “The sheriff.”

Sleep was out of the question. Although it
was now well after two a.m., Easton knew if he went to bed he would
just lie there, tossing and turning, the same unanswerable
questions coming at him like drones. The decision he had to make
loomed in front of him, the way the shining mountains must have
loomed ahead of the emigrants crossing the plains a hundred and
fifty years earlier, waiting, implacable. No way to ride around
them then; no way to ride around this now.

Which came first, his duty to the
commonwealth or his deep-seated loyalty to Joe Apodaca? No contest.
But before he condemned him, wasn’t it only fair to first give Joe
a chance to state his side of the case? In principle, yes. But did
he – did anyone – have the right to put Ironheel’s life on the line
– and that was what he would be doing – in order to give Joe that
chance? The answer was no, he did not.