Slickrock Paradox (37 page)

“It's a question we'll be asking our canyon-exploring friend when we find him.”

Silas shook his head. He felt a terrible sadness welling inside of him. So many lives erased by this foolishness. So much waste.

Katie looked at him. “You okay?”

He nodded but didn't say anything.

“Sometimes when I'm doing my thing, you know, with the bones, I let my guard down and imagine what these people's lives were like when they were flesh and blood and oxygen. I imagine what the people they love might be thinking when I'm reassembling a crime scene, or searching for cause of death. It keeps me from building too many walls between me and the vic.”

Silas sipped his coffee. “I didn't ask for any of this. I just want to find my wife. I didn't ask to find these people. I don't know any of them, but now I can't get them out of my head. I just want to find Penelope and maybe, I don't know, find some peace.”

“I think you'll find her,” Katie finally said, after they watched in silence a moment. “I think you'll find peace, and finding these others will help bring some peace to their families too.”

They heard a radio crackle. Katie turned to the park ranger who came up on the slickrock behind them.

“Agent Rain, Agent Taylor was just on the radio. They've got him.”

SILAS SAT IN THE RED
Rock Canyon bookstore. It was the Saturday of a mid-September weekend and he had sold three books that day already. Sales were brisk, on pace to set a record. He drank a cup of coffee and scanned the headlines.

It had been five days since Charles Nephi had been captured in the Grand Gulch. He had been hiding in a set of ancient Pueblo ruins, out of bullets and out of places to run.

The chime at the door sounded and Silas looked up. It was Josh Charleston.

“You got your Jeep back?” Silas asked by way of greeting.

“Fuck, man, what a mess. Never let the
FBI
do your repairs for you. Jesus, it took them three days to get the windshield replaced. But yeah, fuck, I got it back. I told them to leave the bullet holes, adds character.”

“Were they hard on you?”

“Me? Fuck, man, they raked me over the fucking coals.”

“Really? I'm really sorry—”

“I'm just busting your balls. No, they were okay. They accepted that I was just driving by and stopped to aid a fellow citizen . . . or whatever the hell you are.”

“You saved my life.”

“Yeah, fuck, I guess I did. Guess you owe me now, don't you.”

“How did you know?”

“I was driving through Blanding, on my way back from Flag. Remember? We talked that morning.”

“The documents.”

“Yeah, well, fuck, at first I couldn't find you and then I remembered what you were up to. I wasn't going to let you have all the fun, but I didn't want to blow it for you either, so I waited. I saw your little car. I drove around and when I came back, around ten, I saw you drive off with that other motherfucker in the back with you, so I followed.”

“We didn't see you.”

“I know. Pretty fucking smart, right? Lights out. Just like Hayduke in the final chase scene in
The Monkey Wrench Gang
. Like I said, you owe me now.”

“I guess so. What
did
happen with the documents you had?”

“I had to dump them. I didn't want the feds to know you and I were in cahoots, you know? So I trashed them. There was nothing there we can't dig up again if we need to.”

Silas was clearly disappointed. Darcy McFarland's death was the loose end in this whole terrible debacle. The
FBI
had left it open and unsolved for the time being.

He shook off the discontent. “I got you something.”

“Really? What is it?”

“It's a gift. Open it.” Silas reached under the counter and brought out a small, book-shaped package. He handed it to Hayduke, who tore the paper off with excitement.

“Holy fuck, man, where did you get this?”

“It was Penelope's.”

“Fuck, would you look at that.” The cover of the book was purple and tan, with a strange rendition of a Puebloan rock art mountain lion and clear, white lettering:
Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness.

“It's a first edition. Open it.”

Hayduke did. “Holy sweet motherfucker. It's signed.”

Silas smiled. They sat in the air-conditioned comfort of the store. It was only 11:00
AM
, but Hayduke was drinking a Molson Canadian and Silas had a Dr Pepper.

“I don't think they know we're working together,” said Hayduke.

“You're worried about that?”

“I just want to save the fucking wilderness. I don't need to get tangled up with your fed friends.”

“I just want to find Penelope. I could do without the rest of this.”

“Has that fucker confessed to anything? Has he said anything about Pen?”

“Nothing. Nothing yet.”

“What about that guy over in Cortez? The one who was doing the Hopi girl.”

Silas winced. “Peter Anton? Nothing on him yet either. The working theory right now is that Nephi got to Anton and his wife before he came for me, but until Nephi talks, or the feds turn up a body, or some other evidence . . .”

“We're shit out of luck. What next?”

“Sell some books. Keep looking for Penny.”

“They're still going to fuck up Hatch Wash.”

“Maybe. This whole mess is going to turn ugly when Nephi is formally charged. Tim Martin and Canusa are already backing out of the Utah Land Stewardship Fund, distancing themselves from the good senator's office. So far there's nothing to tie either of them in an official way to any of the deaths, but that doesn't make a bit of difference. The media is all over them. They'll be lucky if the dust on this settles in such a way that lets them go ahead with their Hatch Wash project.”

“Fuck, man, that's naive if I ever heard it. You really think that this gets Hatch Wash and Back of the Rocks off the hook? Fuckers will be back. It's just a matter of time. Americans forget fast. They want that oil so they can drive their fucking
SUV
s to the Big Box Store and buy more Twinkies.”

“Maybe. We'll see. The one thing that keeps me up at night right now is something that Nephi said to me: that he had
never been
working for Canusa. The whole time I thought that he had been on their payroll and had gone to work for the good senator to try and grease his palms for the company, but it was the other way around. He was always on the senator's payroll and was dropping into companies like Canusa to bring them on board with the Land Stewardship fund.”

“Slippery motherfucker. Got any proof?”

“No. C. Thorn has distanced himself from Nephi, obviously. Called on the courts to render swift and ultimate justice. Send the man to the gallows before he can spill the beans on his own furtive arrangements, I guess.”

“You want to go after him?”

“Who?”

“The senator?”

“Jesus, Hayduke, I just want to find my wife.”

Hayduke took a swallow from the can of Molson's. He finished it and looked around, as if seeking a place to toss the empty. Silas reached out and took it from him. “You want another?”

“Nope. Got to hit the road. Two six packs to . . . well, wherever the hell I end up.”

Silas wanted to change the subject. “Where
are
you going to spend the winter, Josh?”

The young man shook his shaggy head. “I don't know. Maybe down along the Arizona border. Or New Mexico. Fuck, I might go down to Baja. Old Cactus Ed liked it down there too.”

“Well, amigo. I owe you. You let me know if there's anything you need.” Silas stood up.

Hayduke stood too and the two men clasped hands, mountain man style, palm on wrist.

“I guess this is goodbye.”

“Fuck that, I'll see you again. This thing isn't over, and we still got to find Pen . . . Penelope.”

Silas watched as Hayduke turned and walked toward the door. He spun around at the door and held up the book and then was gone.

“THIS DOESN'T HAVE
to be formal, you know,” said Sheriff Willis. They were in a room at the Sheriff's Office. Silas sat across the table from him. Ken Hollyoak sat next to him, his hands neatly crossed on the table, a look of bemusement on this face.

“Anytime you fellas want to talk with my client here, I'm going to have to insist on being present. Too messy any other way.”

It had been two weeks since the shootout on Comb Ridge and the pursuit across Comb Wash and into the Grand Gulch.

Taylor said, “The Office of Senator Smith has decided not to pursue a breaking and entering charge against Mr. Pearson . . . Dr. Pearson, I mean. The peace bond is still in effect. You're not to be within a hundred yards of the senator or his office.”

Hollyoak turned to Silas. “We'll have that matter cleared up shortly, I assure you.”

“Be that as it may,” said Agent Taylor, “I for one am still not satisfied with your client's explanation for all that has happened in the last month. I'm going to request that you take a lie-detector test and undergo a physiological examination to help the
FBI
get a better handle on your claims of . . . well, your claims of extra-sensory perception.”

“Neither of those is going to happen,” Hollyoak said, his face growing dour. “The
FBI
is just going to have to live with my client's explanation.” His voice rose an octave, taking on its courtroom tone. Silas put his hand on Hollyoak's arm.

“It's okay, Ken.”

“These jokers said this was going to be information sharing. Now they want to strap the lie-detector cuff on you. I say we get up and leave.”

“Do you have anything that you actually want to share today, Special Agent Taylor?” asked Silas.

Taylor leaned back in his chair and looked at the sheriff. Willis shrugged his shoulders. “I guess you must know by now that we've charged Charles Nephi with the death of Kelly Williams,” Willis said.

“Has he confessed?” asked Silas.

“No. He's not making it easy on us. But the
DA
has enough to charge him. We believe Dr. Rain can provide us with enough forensic evidence that we can make this stick. We've followed the paper trail that we found in his office back to the time when Mr. Williams disappeared, and the dates add up.”

At the mention of her name, Silas briefly lost his focus on the hulking man sitting across the table from him. Rain had left for Salt Lake just a day after the showdown in Grand Gulch. He hadn't had the opportunity to say goodbye, and it left him feeling unsettled.

He struggled to regain his focus. “What about Kayah Wisechild?” he asked.

“We don't believe Mr. Nephi is responsible for her death,” said Taylor.

“Then who?”

“Peter Anton,” said Willis.

Taylor held up a hand. “Here's what we think. Dead Horse Consulting was working for both Canusa Petroleum Resources and Jacob Isaiah. During their work for Mr. Isaiah, they dispatched an archaeological team that included Dr. Anton, Ms. Wisechild, and Mr. Williams to investigate resources in the Hatch Wash area. After several weeks of intense investigation, they discovered the ruins and artifacts in the box canyon and reported their findings back to Jared Strom. You understand that there's no paper on this. The only records we've been able to discover—and we've taken Dead Horse apart over the last week—is a cryptic reference in the notes in their files about archaeological finds relating to Mr. Isaiah's project. In our discussions with Mr. Strom he confirmed what you originally told us, Dr. Pearson—”

“About the ruins.”

“That's right. And what we were able to extract from Dr. Anton before he disappeared. What happened next, I'm afraid, is still conjecture. But it adds up, based on the video footage shot by Ms. Wisechild. The discovery of the ruins didn't slow Mr. Isaiah down. That's when Canusa
also
hired Dead Horse to undertake their preliminary environmental assessment. Dead Horse already knew there were class one ruins in Hatch, but went ahead anyway, and we believe that someone, likely Dr. Anton, would have gone to Canusa to explain to them what they were dealing with. The ruins wouldn't have stopped Isaiah's proposal to build a resort. They would have slowed down, and maybe even stopped, depending on the courts and the Department of the Interior, the building of a dam on Hatch Wash. There was no official paperwork at that time—”

“Someone involved in the project ordered the ruins cleared and razed.”

“Yes. Sometime after the initial discovery—and we've got people working to extract an exact date from the digital file—Dr. Anton, Mr. Williams, and Ms. Wisechild returned to Hatch Wash to pillage the ruins. We believe that they were acting on orders from Mr. Nephi at this point. The records you pointed us to regarding the creation of the numbered company, with Nephi, Anton, and Mr. Martin involved, suggest that these three men stood to lose the most in the event that the project was halted.”