Apache Country (19 page)

“I heard all that on TV,” she said, cutting
him off with an impatient movement of her hand. “Tell me about the
other man who was killed. The attorney.”

“His name was Weddle. Your brother told him
the Sheriff of Cháves County was one of the men who killed Casey,”
Easton said. “And a few hours later, Weddle was murdered.”

“Easton didn’t know what Weddle knew,”
Ironheel told her. “Until I told him.”

She gave him a sharp, don’t-interrupt look
and he fell silent, staring moodily out of the window.

“Sunday morning,” Easton told her, “I told
the District Attorney, a man named Olin McKittrick, what your
brother had told me. McKittrick said he’d made arrangements for
your brother be taken into a Department of Justice witness
protection program, and instructed me to get your brother to Rio
Alto and hand him over to them. On our way there someone tried to
kill us.”

“Can you prove any of this?”

“I’m going to.”

She was silent for a moment. When she spoke
again there was a shade less antagonism in her voice. “How,
exactly?”

“Good question,” Easton said. “First, I need
to get us some help. Otherwise we won’t last two days.”

“Maybe not you,” he heard Ironheel
mutter.

It was true. Alone, Ironheel could go bronco,
disappear alone into the wilderness, live off the land. It would be
a long time until anyone found him unless he wanted to be
found.

“Do you know why the old man and the boy were
killed?” Joanna Ironheel asked.

“I have no idea,” Easton said, letting a
little of his own frustration out. “The only way I can find out is
by staying alive. If they catch us, they’ll kill us. Case
closed.”

Nobody said anything. There wasn’t anything
to say.

Other than that they were high in the
forested wilderness south of the River Alto, Easton had no idea
where they were. The track they were on led downhill between dense
stands of pine trees, and then made a long double bend before
climbing up to a point where three trails met. They took the
right-hand fork, traveling roughly southwest.

“Where are we?” Easton asked, trying to roll
with the pain that fizzed up his ribcage like an electric shock
every time the truck bounced on the rocky track.

“Turkey Canyon,” Joanna said. “Trail runs
more or less parallel with State 244.”

State Highway 244 cut through the heart of
the Mescalero Apache Reservation from US70 to Highcroft. They
passed a couple of abandoned cabins and then climbed a steep
rock-strewn rise. Up ahead, set back from the trail, were two
ramshackle single-story wooden cabins with corrugated iron roofs,
smoke wisping from one of the chimneys.

“Kúde,” Ironheel said. Right here.

Around the side of the other cabin Easton
could see a rusted Ford short-bed pickup jacked up on bricks, its
windshield and windows missing. Beyond it was a pile of worn tires
with weeds growing in and around them. Scrawny -looking chickens
foraging on the hard-packed earth scattered in alarm as they
approached.

As they pulled up, a short, thickset man came
out of the cabin on the right and stood arms akimbo. His face,
shaded by a battered baseball cap, looked as if it had been carved
from a very old piece of mahogany. His gray-white hair was long and
straggly. He could have been anywhere between fifty and eighty. He
wore a patterned shirt with the tail hanging out over his pants
like Apache in old photographs.

“Gonit’éé,” Joanna Ironheel called. “Fine
weather. How are things here?”

No greeting, Easton remembered. Apache who
observed the old ways and the old rules didn’t call each other by
name face to face. This was partly because so many Apache names
could be both male and female, such as One Who Likes Horses, or
Broken Foot, or Little Face, but mostly because a man’s name was
called only when there was special need. Then, because his name had
been called, he would—he must—help in any way he could.

“Done any hunting?” Ironheel asked the old
man. The Apache nodded, never taking his eyes off Easton. There was
not the remotest hint of welcome in them.

“This the pinda’ lick’ oye everyone’s talkin’
about?” he said.

“Dadíí,” Ironheel said. “Holzéé David Easton.
Easton, this is Mack Gallerito. He owns this place. Mack, I’d be
grateful if you would let him use your phone.”

“Nagont’l’odí. He smells like trouble,” the
Apache said, his gaze still fastened on Easton. His tone was
truculent. Aversion came off him like heat off a stove. He turned
away so his back was toward Easton, and spoke directly to Ironheel.
“Better he finds a phone someplace else.”

“Sir, I’m a law enforcement officer,” Easton
said through the open window, observing the rule of not using
names. “Requesting your assistance.”

Mack Gallerito gave no sign he had heard. He
didn’t even look around. That Apache thing again: it was like
Easton wasn’t there. Joanna Ironheel laid a hand on Easton’s arm to
still the response she could see he was about to make.

“Shhh,” she said softly. “Ndee nlii. He is
Apache.”

Easton let out his breath and his annoyance
with it. She was right. The old man would ignore anything he said
anyway. This wasn’t about using his phone. It was about power.
Having power was very important to an Apache.

“Mack,” Ironheel said firmly. “Isaa sáá. Hear
what I ask. Your people are of my clan. My people are of yours.
Ich’ídísts’aa’. I am asking this of you.”

Easton watched fascinated, remembering what
Grita had told him. If an Apache asks another for help, it must be
given. It made no difference how poor a man might be, if he was
called by name, he will—he has to—do whatever he can. It was not a
matter of punishment later. It was about doing what was right
because it was the right thing to do.

Now Gallerito’s shoulders squared up. He made
a gesture and Ironheel followed him off to one side. They stood
talking urgently in Apache. The older man stood immobile,
listening, nodding occasionally, his face showing nothing.

As they watched, two Apache children with
huge dark eyes, a girl about ten and a boy maybe two years younger,
came to the door of the cabin and stared at Easton as if he was one
of those little green slant-eyed aliens some people believe landed
back in 1947.

“Nígósah,” Joanna Ironheel said. “Ni’l gozhóó
née?”

Something like, I’ve been thinking about you,
Easton silently translated. Are you happy?

The little boy edged shyly behind his sister,
whose wary expression did not change. They were like deer that will
pass close to humans without any sign of fear, but always poised
for instant flight.

“These Gallerito’s children?” Easton asked,
keeping his voice low.

“Grandchildren,” she replied. “I delivered
both of them.”

To Easton’s eyes it didn’t look as if either
of them had been near soap and water since, but he didn’t say it.
Ironheel and Mack Gallerito were still talking. It didn’t appear
they were getting any nearer agreement. It was getting sickly hot
inside the pickup and he opened the door of the truck to step out.
Joanna Ironheel reached over to stop him but she didn’t need to; he
had already stopped stock-still as three young Apache men
materialized soundlessly around the side of the cabin on his
right.

One moment they were not there, the next they
were. Dressed in work clothes, Levi jackets and pants, straw
Stetsons and work boots, they were stocky, powerful-looking men,
their wide, high-cheekboned faces dark and unreadable, their Stone
Age immobility in itself a bone-chilling threat.

“Shut the door,” Joanna Ironheel hissed
urgently. “Dahahgo!”

The injunction to move fast was unnecessary.
So tense was the atmosphere Easton felt as if he had suddenly been
transported back to a time when young Apache just like these would
kill a white man for no other reason than that he was crossing
their land. The sheer menace of their presence made him feel even
more alien and alone. This was Apache country and he was the only
one not Apache. He shut the door and let out the breath he didn’t
know he had been holding. The young Apache men watched,
reptile-still.

After a minute or two, Joanna Ironheel opened
the door on her side, got out of the pickup and went over to her
brother and Mack Gallerito. The three young Apache acknowledged her
presence without taking their eyes off of Easton. They could not
have been more menacing if their faces had been painted and they
were wearing breechclouts.

Joining the two men, Joanna Ironheel asked a
question, and her brother nodded, yes. She laid a hand on Mack
Gallerito’s forearm and looked up earnestly into his eyes, talking
fast. The old Mescalero looked annoyed, as if what she was doing
was unfair. Then he looked over at Easton and shrugged.

“Ch’ik’eh dolee’l,” Easton heard him say. And
then again, more crossly, “Ch’ik’eh dolee’l!”

You didn’t need to speak Apache to know what
that meant. The exasperated tone said it all. All right, okay, but
with a sour note of unwillingness in the acquiescence. He saw
Joanna Ironheel’s lips part in a smile, her brother’s shoulders
relax. When he looked again, the three young Apache had vanished as
silently as they had appeared. No wonder they scared the shit out
of the US Cavalry, he thought.

Ironheel came over to the truck. “Thought for
a moment he was going to sic his boys on to us,” he said.

“That might have been interesting,” Easton
said.

Ironheel nodded, not smiling. “My sister
talked him round. She’s good with the old ones.”

“Do I get to use the phone?”

“N’zhoo. It has been agreed. So do it,”
Ironheel said, “and let’s get out of here.”

Easton got out of the cab and they went
inside. Coming out of the bright mountain sunshine it was like
walking into a cave. The cabin was cluttered and shabby. Baskets,
pots, an old bridle, the moth-eaten head of an elk mounted over the
door, a couple of Navajo rugs on the floor, a bearskin on the
wall.

There was dust and grit everywhere, and over
everything lay a sharp, strong smell, the combined odors of
woodsmoke, the rabbit stew cooking on the butane stove and the
bundles of dried meat hanging from the rafters above his head.

Apart from a shiny new Mitsubishi wide-screen
TV, the furniture consisted of a plastic-covered sofa, a couple of
battered old armchairs, a table covered with a red-checkered
plastic cloth, and an antiquated icebox that looked as if it was
used for storage.

Mack Gallerito stood inside, waiting. “Kugo,”
he said. “Through here.”

The unconcealed hostility in the old man’s
eyes made Easton glad Ironheel was around. He followed them into a
hallway dividing the house. On his right a bedroom door was open.
An unmade bed stood beneath the single window. The linoleum on the
floor was dusty, pitted and cracked. A two-door cupboard stood
against one wall, a three-drawer wooden chest against the other, a
spindly rocking chair in the corner between. He wondered whether
there was a Mrs. Gallerito and if so where she was.

“Bésh biti’yá’iti’í,” Gallerito said,
gesturing.

To Easton’s surprise the phone was digital;
he had half-expected one of the old candlestick kind you saw in
black and white movies on the late show. A battered and dog-eared
Rio Alto phone book hung on a cuphook beneath it. The old man
rattled off a staccato question at Ironheel.

“He wants to know if it’s long-distance,”
Ironheel said.

“Tell him it’s okay, I’ll use a charge card,”
Easton told him, intending it to be reassuring. The mahogany face
twisted into a scowl of displeasure and it took Easton a couple of
seconds to figure out why. He got out his wallet and handed the old
man a five dollar bill.

“Noshkaa,” he said. “Please.”

Gallerito took the bill, folded it three
times and put it into his shirt pocket without a word. Easton
punched in the numbers and waited, still trying to work out exactly
what he was going to say.

“Sheriff’s Office,” a familiar voice
answered.

“Tom,” Easton said. “It’s Dave Easton. Can
you talk?”

“Jesus, Da—” Cochrane said, biting back the
name. “We were told the In’din was holdin’ you hostage.”

“All lies, Tom. I’m okay.”

“But McKittrick—”

“Tom, trust me on this, I don’t have time to
explain. Just listen. You remember I told you Ironheel said he saw
Joe Apodaca kill Robert Casey.”

“You think I’d forget?”

“He told Weddle, Tom. You know what happened
then.”

Cochrane didn’t miss a beat. “You believe
him?”

“Yes,” Easton said. “Otherwise why would they
try to kill both of us?”

“Say what?”

“Tom, I told Olin McKittrick what Ironheel
had told me and why I believed it. He said he’d arranged to get him
into a DOJ witness protection program, told me to take him to a
meet in Rio Alto. On the way we were ambushed.”

Silence. Easton wanted to push harder but he
knew he had to give Cochrane time. The problem being, time was the
one thing he didn’t have.

“You know who ambushed you?”

“Two guys. I never got a proper look at them.
I was hit and passed out. Ironheel said we killed them both.”

More silence. Easton could almost hear
Cochrane thinking.

“You said we? Where did Ironheel get a
gun?”

“He used mine.”

“There’s been no report of anyone being
killed.”

“If they were hired muscle, no one would
report them missing. My guess is Joe and McKittrick probably mopped
it up. Then they put out a story that Ironheel had taken me
hostage.”

He could sense Tom was still having trouble
getting his head around what he was hearing. A thought occurred to
him.

“Tom, did you get those Frontier Motel
payphone records from Ma Bell?”

“Check.”