Slickrock Paradox (19 page)

He drew a deep breath. The sun was down and the sky was the color of the ocean after a storm. “Okay, well, thanks for the information. I guess I'll pack my pajamas for my trip to the clink.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Good luck.”

He thanked her and hung up. He hadn't dared tell her about his Grand View Point dream. She would have thought him certifiable.

IN THE MORNING HE FELT
the pull of two competing priorities, find Hayduke and venture out to Grand View Point. Standing in front of the maps, Silas fiddled with the notebook for a few minutes and then made a decision. He would re-pack the car for camping and head into Moab to see if he could locate what might merely be a fictional character. Knowing that the
FBI
would likely be requesting his presence at the Sheriff's Office, he took the back road into town.

He parked by the Red Rock Inn and walked the single block to Main Street. He used his cell to dial the number in the journal again. Still no response. He knew exactly where to look for someone calling themselves Hayduke in the town of Moab.

For more than twenty years Back of Beyond Books had been the unofficial headquarters for Edward Abbey groupies. Silas opened the door and stepped into the store. Even if the shop was organized around an Edward Abbey section, Silas still loved it. He heard a voice call from behind the counter, “Oh-oh, Janet, better look out; the competition is in the store.” Silas couldn't help but smile. Mary Avery, one of the owners, always ribbed him when he came in.

“Long time no see stranger . . .” and then, getting a look at him, “Jesus, Silas, what happened to you?”

“That bad?”

“You look like you hitched yourself to a horse and let it drag you clear across Poison Spider Mesa.”

“Had a little argument with gravity,” he lied. “Gravity won, as usual.”

“Come here,” Avery insisted. He did as he was told. From behind the store counter she put a delicate hand to his face. “Well, taken on their own they aren't so bad. It's just that all together you look to be a little worse for wear.”

“I'll live.”

“I hope so.”

“I suppose with me out of the way—”

Avery laughed. “We'd sell at least three or four more books a month. When was the last time you were open?”

“I was open for an hour the other day . . .”

She laughed again. “What can I do for you, Silas? Or are you just here to spy?”

He leaned on the counter. “I'm looking for someone. He goes by the name of Hayduke. Maybe you guys would know him.”

“Half the environmentalists in Moab fancy themselves some kind of Hayduke doppelganger, all big beards and long hair and leather sombreros.”

“I think this guy might have known my wife, Penny.”

Avery's smile faded. “No luck yet?” she asked respectfully.

“Nothing yet.”

“I heard about the girl in Courthouse Wash.”

Silas remained implacable. At least the media didn't know about his involvement yet. “I feared the worse. I still hope Penny will turn up in some little backward town like Hanksville, raising somebody else's kids.”

Avery shook her head. “You know, I saw her a lot before she . . . before she disappeared, Silas. She never once had eyes for another man. Don't listen to that jackass Jacob Isaiah. He's a class A prick and is just getting under your skin because of how rough your wife was on his development plans.”

“Do you know anything about what Isaiah was up to out at Hatch Wash?”

“He's got big ideas for just about every place within a couple of hours of Moab,” she said. “But I don't recall anything. Doesn't mean much;
this
place is a full-time effort.”

“What about this Hayduke?” Avery's colleague Janet Dempsey had come to the counter during the conversation, her arms loaded with books needing to be stocked. “I think you're talking about Josh Charleston.” Silas looked at her. He had recently met a Josh.

“You know him?” he asked.

“Yeah, kid about twenty-eight, maybe thirty. Calls himself Hayduke. Has the beard and the hair. Not really a serious enviro. Just makes a lot of noise. I do remember seeing him with your wife once or twice, Silas. In here, and once on Main Street.”

“Were they friends?”

“I don't know,” said Janet.

“Don't suppose you know how to find this guy? He live here in town?”

“Winters he does. Summers he camps out in the Manti-La Lal National Forest.”

Silas knew exactly where to find Hayduke.

THE ROAD TO
Oowah Lake was rough and winding, but within two hours of leaving Back of Beyond Silas was driving through the aspen parkland that rimmed the La Sals. Mount Tukuhnikivatz rose prominently on the skyline, its symmetrical summit still dappled with patches of winter snow late in August. At over twelve thousand feet, summer never got a handhold on this prominent crest.

Silas parked at the gate to the campsite and unfolded his sore body from the car, holding his cane for support. He began to walk around the lanes, looking for Josh Charleston's Jeep. He asked about Josh when he saw other campers, but nobody had seen him or his machine. Finally, near the back of the site he found an older man who had been there on and off throughout the summer. He told Silas that Josh had moved to nearby Warner Lake.

Silas returned to his Outback and drove for half an hour on the winding, rocky roads, and pulled up at the Warner Lake trailhead. The blue Jeep Wrangler was parked among three or four others. Taking his cane again, Silas started up the trail, but when he reached the campground, it was empty. Josh could have ventured into the high country and might not be back for a week. He could be climbing Haystack Mountain or crossing Burro Pass and be ten miles from here. Frustrated, Silas turned and walked back to his car. The breeze rustled the leaves so they sounded like wind chimes made from rice paper.

When he got to the dirt parking lot he stopped in his tracks. The man he had met earlier in the week—who had introduced himself as Josh—was digging in the back of his Jeep.

“Mr. Charleston?” said Silas.

The man raised his shaggy head from the back of his machine and looked at Silas.

“We met up in Miner's Basin. I'm Silas Pearson.”

Josh looked around. “Not blocking you in this time, am I?”

Silas approached him and stuck out his hand. “You're not. I wonder if you have time to chat.” They shook, and Josh's hand eclipsed his own.

“'Bout what?”

“Would you like a beer?”

“Fuck yeah.”

Silas went to the back of his vehicle, opened the hatch, and took two Canadians from his cooler. He handed one to Josh, who popped the top and drank the foam from the can. Some caught in his beard. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hairy hand. Silas wondered if this young man had been genetically altered to look like his alter-ego somehow; it was eerie, and he watched in fascination.

“What is it you want to talk about?” Josh said after swallowing half of his beer.

“I think you must have known my wife,” Silas said.

Josh stopped drinking and looked at him. “Listen, there have been a few girls, but . . .”

“Not like that. I think you must have done some work with her. Some conservation work. Her name was Penelope de Silva. Did you know her?”

As Silas watched, Josh's face changed from mirthful to dark and somber and back to contentment. “I knew Penelope. She was a kick-ass and take-no-prisoners activist, man. She was rock solid, like rock fucking solid,” he said, and to emphasis his point, stamped his booted foot on the ground.

“When did you see her last?”

“Oh man, it's been years. Like, four years? I heard she had gone missing. I heard
you
were looking, you know, it was in the papers and online. I haven't seen her in so long.”

“Do you remember exactly when?”

“I'd need to think,” said Josh, and as if to facilitate that, he put the can of beer to his lips and drank, his hairy Adam's apple bobbing as he tilted his head back. “I think it was in Moab, maybe May, just before she went missing. Maybe two months, three months before?” he said, and then belched. “We met at the bookstore and talked about issues. Man, she knew so much. She was really amazing.”

“Thank you, I know she was,” said Silas, realizing that he didn't really. He reached into his bag and took out the notebook and flipped it open. He showed Josh the book. “Is this you?” he asked, pointing to the scrawled note, “Call Hayduke.”

“Yeah, that's me! Penelope insisted on calling me that.
She
gave me that name. I sometimes called her Bonnie. But we were never, you know, like in the book. Nothing like that, man.”

“It's okay. I know. Do you know why she would have written that there?”

“Well, like I said, we worked a bit together. I helped her out. You know, with protecting this place,” he said, holding his arms up. “The canyons, the deserts, the mountains. We did some good work together.”

“Why would she have needed to write this?”

“I don't know.”

“Can you remember what she was working on before she disappeared?”

“She didn't tell you? Man, sometimes it was hard to shut her up about stuff.”

“We talked about a lot of other things. Can you remember?”

“I'd need to think about that. It was a long time ago.”

Silas offered another beer.

“Hey,” said Josh, “Why didn't you find me before and ask me this? It's been a long time.”

“Well . . . I didn't know about you. You see, I just found this journal.”

“Where?”

“Well, it sounds crazy.”

“Try me.”

“I found it in a kiva.”

“Like, an Anasazi kiva?”

“Yeah, ancient Pueblo . . .”

“Which one?”

“Well, that's what I wanted to talk with you about. You see, it was in a set of ruins in Hatch Wash. In a little box canyon off the main stem. There's an amazing set of ruins there. Supposedly unmapped.”

“Can you believe it? And so close to town. It's fucking crazy. They're only thirty miles from Moab.”

“So you know about them. I agree, it's crazy. That's what I thought. But I talked with Peter Anton the other day—”

“Bad news, man. That guy is bad fucking news.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He's working for the developmentalists; you know, people who are obsessed with paving this place. He's working for that fucker Isaiah.”

“Not anymore.”

“Once you're in, you never get out, man. Never.”

“What do you mean, you never get out?”

“Those fuckers, they're like the mob, man. You take a blood oath. You don't get to just walk away.”

Silas started to wonder how much sun Josh had gotten recently. He changed the subject. “Peter Anton told me about the ruins in Hatch. It seems that a young woman found dead in Courthouse Wash was working with him there before she disappeared two years ago.”

“I heard about her. Found by a hiker.”

“That was me.”

“Fuck off, no way.”

“Yeah.”

“What were you doing there?”

“Well, I was . . . I was looking for my wife.”

“You found this other chick instead. That is too much of a fucking coincidence.”

“I think so too.” Silas told him about his search, and the maps, and the dream about Sleepy Hollow.

“Right out of
Solitaire
, man. That is too fucking creepy.”

Silas sipped his beer. “I went into Hatch, and there in the kiva is this notebook.”

“You think Pen might have left it there?”

“Pen?”

“Yeah, sorry, it's what I called Penelope. Pen suited her better. You know, the pen is sharper—”

“—than the sword.” Silas tried to keep the sadness of not knowing this nickname from registering on his face. He waited for Josh to take another long drink from his beer.

“This Canadian shit is pretty good,” he said, belching. He crushed the can in his powerful hand. “Look, I have no idea how Pen's book got down into Hatch. Maybe she was there working on stuff and forgot it.”

“I don't think so. It was not like Penelope to forget something this important. The notebook had laid out her plans for something she was calling Ed Abbey Country.”

Josh stopped and looked at him. “You found
that
notebook?”

“Yeah, so?”

“It's just that, man, that was a really important bit of work.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, me and her, and some others I guess, we had this big idea to introduce a bill in the
US
Senate calling for the creation of Ed Abbey National Monument. It would protect a whole bunch of important places from further development, and restore a bunch of places the shitheads have already trashed. Stuff that's not already protected, like Canyon Rims and Back of the Rocks, as well as designate more capital W wilderness in the parks and monuments like Grand Canyon and Escalante, under the Wilderness Act.”