Apache Country (43 page)

Ironheel glanced up at the sun. “Too early
for the Feebs,” he said.

Easton nodded tense agreement. The oncoming
vehicle was a silver gray BMW 540i. He recognized it
immediately.

“McKittrick,” he said.

The
BMW
pulled smoothly to a stop below, and Olin
McKittrick got out. He was alone. Stepping away from the vehicle he
ostentatiously raised his arms out horizontally from his body and
turned around to show he was unarmed.

“Easton!” he yelled. “Easton, can you hear
me?”

Ironheel scowled. “He expects us to go down
there?”

“Not you,” Easton said. “Me.”

“Watch him.”

“Watch me watch him,” Easton said.

McKittrick smiled as he watched Easton
buck-jump down the steep slope of sand until he reached the access
road.

“Well, Dave,” he said. “You’ve been playing
hard ball.”

“Still am,” Easton said.

“Where’s the Indian?” McKittrick asked, deep
unease in his eyes.

Easton waved an airy arm. “Where the woodbine
twineth.”

McKittrick shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

“I expected the organ grinder, not the
monkey,” Easton said “Where’s Joe?”

“He’ll be here,” McKittrick said, and Easton
saw the lie in his eyes. “But I’m the one you deal with.”

“You’re in no position to make deals
anywhere, McKittrick,” Easton said. “Your dirty little racket is
all washed up. And the fact you’re out here proves it.”

McKittrick pasted on the superior smirk
Easton had always hated. Maybe he thinks it will cover up the fear
I can smell on him, he thought.

“You’re the one who’s washed up, dickhead,”
McKittrick jeered. “Know why? Because your friend Cochrane called
the Feebs and changed the meet. The Seventh Cavalry isn’t coming.
They’re probably arriving in
Alamocitas round about now.
”

“Tom wouldn’t do that,” Easton said. “You
couldn’t make him.”

McKittrick smiled his hateful smile, and
waved a lordly arm at the empty dunes all around. “You see any
Feebs?”

“You’re bluffing,” Easton said.

McKittrick shook his head pityingly. “You’ve
got just one chance of getting out of here alive,” he said harshly.
“Let’s go sit down and I’ll lay it out for you.”

He led the way across to one of the table
units and sat down, waving Easton to the bench opposite as if he
were the host at a dinner party.

“You can’t win, Easton,” he said. “There was
never going to be any way you could. What you stuck your nose into
is going to crush you like a bug.”

Easton lifted his right hand so McKittrick
could see the pistol.

“That still leaves you in the catbird seat,”
he said.

“Wrong,” McKittrick replied, and the way he
said it, a certain tension in the way he held himself, tripped a
switch in Easton’s head. He fell sideways off the bench and hit the
ground as a slug ricocheted off one of the metal struts and the
whiplash crack of a rifle shattered the surrounding stillness.

Apodaca!

Rolling clear of the table and scrambling to
the cover of the nearby chemical toilet, Easton guessed McKittrick
must have dropped the sheriff off on the way in, waiting for
Apodaca to get into position while he set Easton up like a sitting
duck.

Up on the dune Ironheel’s Winchester cracked
and McKittrick collapsed a couple of yards from the BMW, his leg
buckled beneath him. As he fell, the hidden marksman fired again,
the slug whanging off the steel toilet. Half-deafened, Easton made
a crouching run toward the sheltering dunes and hit the soft sand,
breathing hard, trying to get a fix on Apodaca’s location.

Squirming forward, he saw the flash of
sunlight on metal on the crest of a dune about thirty yards away,
and as if he had sprung from the very ground, Ironheel ran like a
gazelle across the open space between two dunes off to the right.
As he ran, he pointed with his rifle once to his right, and once
somewhere behind where Easton lay. The signal told him the shooter
was between the two points indicated.

Easton wormed his way along the flank of the
dune, crawling slowly uphill in a half-circle. The hot sand burned
his skin and his mouth was desert dry. Inching forward, eyes fixed
on the rounded crest above, he reached the shoulder of the dune and
saw the shooter.

It was not Apodaca, but a big,
broad-shouldered man, blond hair shining in the bright sun.

Gerzen!

In the same moment of recognition the German
saw him, and his teeth flashed white in a tight grin as he brought
his rifle to his shoulder. Both elbows already braced, aiming and
shooting instinctively, Easton fired four shots in a diamond
pattern and the big man went backwards as if he had been hit with a
bat, blood and flesh flying away from his body.

Edging warily toward where Gerzen had fallen,
Easton heard the sharp metallic slic-a-slac of a shell being
levered into the breech of a carbine and turned to see Joe Apodaca
standing on the crest of the dune behind him, Winchester leveled.
Caught flat-footed, Easton braced himself against the shock of the
slug.

“Ha-yihaah!”

Once again Ironheel appeared out of nowhere,
running in an arc across the line of fire, his Winchester canted at
his hip, firing as he ran. Easton saw the bullets stitch a bloody
line across Joe Apodaca’s chest, but the sheriff still got off one
round before he collapsed and Ironheel faltered and went down on
his knees. As Easton ran toward him, he heard McKittrick starting
his car in the recreation area below, then that sound was drowned
in the sudden rolling thunder of a helicopter overhead, and the
harsh electronic blat of a loudhailer.

“F.B.I! This is the F.B.I! Throw down your
weapons! Throw down your weapons and lie flat on the ground, hands
behind your heads!”

Taking no chances on being killed by friendly
fire, Easton spread-eagled himself face down and watched the
helicopter land about twenty yards away. For a few seconds flying
sand obscured everything. Then out of it came a running phalanx of
heavily-armed men in dark blue body armor.

All at once there seemed to be vehicles
everywhere, dusty sedans and a couple of big off-roaders. As he was
disarmed and frisked with professional thoroughness, Easton
recognized Millard Goodwin coming toward him at the head of a posse
of agents, sweat streaming down his beefy face.

“Ironheel is hit.” Easton shouted. “Get
someone up there!”

“How bad is it?” Goodwin panted.

Easton ignored the question and scrambled up
the dune to where Ironheel lay, his knees drawn up to his belly.
Ten yards further on, Joe Apodaca lay face up, a bloodstain the
size of a dinner plate darkening the front of his pale blue shirt.
An agent was picking up his rifle, another checking his throat
pulse. A minute or so later Goodwin appeared, and knelt down to
take a look at Ironheel. Easton saw his expression alter.

“Get a medic up here!” he yelled, startling
his agents into action. “Fast, damn it!”

At the sound of Goodwin’s voice, Ironheel
opened his eyes. He saw Easton and smiled.

“We get them?”

“We got them,” Easton said.

“T’lo kahdinadi aha’eh,” Ironheel said. “You
remember that?”

“Come from nowhere,” Easton replied. “You
did. You saved my life.”

“Good team.”

“Damn good,” Easton said.

Two agents sweating in their body armor came
scrambling up the dune with a stretcher. They laid it down and
lifted Ironheel on to it. He gave a little groan as they
straightened him out and for the first time Easton saw the black
blood oozing low on his body above the belt line.

“Get him to a hospital!” he yelled at the
agents. “Now, damn you!”

“Wait,” Ironheel said. The way he said it
stopped them. The agents looked at Goodwin. He nodded an okay.

“Chihi’shka’say,” Ironheel said. “You know
what it means, Easton?”

Easton shook his head. “Don’t talk,” he said.
“We’ve got to get you out of here.”

“Say it.” Ironheel’s voice was getting
weaker. Easton repeated the word until he had it fixed in his head.
Cheesh-ka-say. Cheesh-ka-say.

Ironheel smiled. “Near enough,” he said.

“What does it mean?”

A little grin moved Ironheel’s lips and
Easton thought he saw satisfaction in his eyes..

“Means … brother. I wanted . . . to… thank
you, chihi’ska’say.”

Easton looked at the stretchermen. One of
them shook his head gravely. “Brothers need no thanks,” he
said.

“Beyond that ridge, chihi’ska’say,” Ironheel
whispered. “Remember?”

“No, James,” Easton said. “No.”

Ironheel moved his head and Easton saw pain
fill his eyes. Then his eyelids closed and he died.

Easton stood looking at him for what seemed a
long time. Then he turned away. It was over.

The FBI helicopter’s engine roared as the
pilot increased revs before takeoff. Without any recollection of
having walked there, Easton found himself in the recreation
area.

“Apodaca’s still alive,” Goodwin told him.
“They’re bringing him down now.”

He pointed with his chin and Easton saw two
agents coming awkwardly down the side of the dunes with Joe Apodaca
on a stretcher. His face was paper white and his eyes looked like
holes burned in wood. He looked up at Easton as they drew
level.

“All this for that goddamn Indian,” he said.
“Why, Dave? Why?”

“You know why, Joe,” Easton replied. “You
taught me.”

He turned away, and as he did the sheriff
reached out a beseeching hand.

“Please,” he croaked. “For old times sake,
Dave, listen, please, I’m begging you. Don’t let them send me to
the pen. Shoot me, kill me now.”

There were probably twenty or thirty lifers
in the State penitentiary doing hard time because he had put them
there. His life wouldn’t be worth a tin cup.

“Don’t think I wouldn’t like to,” Easton said
harshly.

He watched, racked with regret, as the
stretcher bearers hurried Apodaca away toward the chopper. Off to
one side, two agents were lifting Olin McKittrick on to a
stretcher. His face was putty gray and there was a bloodstain the
size of a pancake on the right leg of his tan pants. Easton saw him
reach out and tug at one of the tags on Goodwin’s body armor to get
his attention.

“Goodwin, listen to me,” he whined. “Listen,
we can make a deal. I can give you everything. Names, dates,
places, all of it. On a plate.”

Goodwin made an impatient, almost angry
gesture.

“Get this piece of shit the fuck out of
here!” he snapped at his agents. “Before I throw up.”

“You’ll need me if you want to tie it all up
tight, Goodwin!” McKittrick shouted, as the two agents stretchered
him across to the helicopter. “You’ll have to talk to me!”

“Do us all a favor,” Goodwin muttered. “Bleed
to death.”

As soon as McKittrick was loaded, he lifted a
hand and the pilot gave a thumbs-up sign. Fine sand whirled high
again as the big bird roared up and away. Now Goodwin picked up a
loud-hailer and raised his voice over the sound of the departing
aircraft.

“All right, men! Let’s finish processing this
scene and get the hell out of here!”

Watching the criminalists at work, Easton was
suddenly swamped by a feeling of enormous lassitude. Two agents
came down the sloping dune with Gerzen’s body on a stretcher and
slid it into the 4x4 alongside Ironheel.

Goodwin looked across at Easton, then came
over to where he was standing.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “About Ironheel.”

There was nothing to say about that.

“What the hell held you up?” Easton wanted to
know.

“We got a call from Tom Cochrane telling us
you’d changed the rendezvous, the meet was now in Valley of Fires
State Park. We knew something wasn’t kosher because he didn’t use
the password we’d given him. But we couldn’t take any chances, so
we had to put two teams together, one to go to Valley of Fires, and
one to come here. That was what delayed us.”

Easton could feel the lassitude overtaking
him, making it hard to concentrate on what Goodwin was saying. All
he could think was, ‘What am I going to tell Joanna Ironheel?’

“That guy you shot,” he heard Goodwin saying.
“The German. There wasn’t much left of him above the belt. What the
hell were you using, a howitzer?”

For a moment Easton was puzzled, then he
remembered that night on the mountain, loading Moses Kuruk’s
odd-looking Extreme Shock ammunition into his Winchester.

“His name was Carl Gerzen,” he said. “And he
had it coming.”

Two weeks later David Easton was appointed
acting sheriff, pending a November election. One of the first
things he did was name Tom Cochrane as his Chief Deputy, confident
Tom was going to make a great number two.

It turned out to have been the right choice.
Tom took to administrative work like he’d been born to it, running
the day-to-day activities of the civil, court security, patrol and
criminal investigation divisions with ease and aplomb. In addition
he collated and prepared the criminal case statistics and prepared
the reports needed to apply for federal grant money to hire
additional deputies, handled liaison with RPD, and dealt with all
aspects of public relations. It was like he had taken on a new
life.

Which was just as well, because from the time
Easton took over as sheriff, his feet hardly touched the ground.
Following the arraignment of Joe Apodaca and Olin McKittrick, both
of whom took a change of venue to Santa Fe County, the
attorney-general appointed a new district attorney for Baca, Lee
and Fall Counties. His name was Jack Thornton. He was forceful,
frank and tough.

Born in Brooklyn, he had grown up in suburban
Cleveland and graduated from the University of Ohio. His father was
an artist. His mother had worked as a medical receptionist between
raising three kids. He met his wife in college and together they
moved west in 1978. His first job after law school was practicing
civil law in Kansas. A short while after passing the bar, he moved
on to prosecuting cases for the district attorney’s office in Las
Cruces.