Stone Butterfly (7 page)

Moon smiled at Aunt Daisy's caustic response. “Who's calling?”

“What do you mean who's calling—you know as well as I do who I am!”

He heard a familiar knock on the door, yelled: “Come in.”

“Come in? Where do you think I am—standing outside under a tree?”

Moon waved the jar of tartar sauce at his friends. “No, that was somebody else I was telling to come in.”

“Who?”

Moon was in a whimsical mood. “Scotch Parrish and—”

The voice screeched in his ear. “Charlie Moon—have you been drinking hard liquor?”

“Uh—no,” the AA member said. “Not even soft liquor.”
Not for thirteen years, seven months, and four days.
“Actually, it was Pete Bushman that said ‘Parrish'—”

“That wasn't Bushman, I know that fuzzy-faced white man's voice.”

“—and I guess it just got stuck in my mind.” The drowning man treaded water for a time. “Hasn't that ever happened to you?”

“No it has not.” The line went dead for a few heartbeats. “You've got me so mixed up I've forgot what I called about.”

Moon smiled at his friends. “Have a seat over by the fireplace.”

“I'm already sitting by the fireplace,” the tribal elder grumped.

“I didn't mean you.” He grinned. “You can stand up if it suits you.”

“Well it
don't
suit me!” Quite suddenly, the tribal elder recalled the purpose of her call. “I wanted to talk to you about something important.”

“I'm listening.”

“Remember that dream I had?”

The old woman had five or six dreams every night and told him about most of them. And the majority of these sleep-fantasies fell into the same category. The semicompulsive gambler went with the odds. “Uh—was this that dream about something scary?”

“Yes.”
He
did
remember—will wonders never cease!
“Well, I had it again.” Daisy would not mention that she was napping in Spirit Canyon. “And I saw the little girl again.”

What little girl?
“Well, I'm glad to hear it.”

In a wasted but necessary gesture, Daisy shook her head. “Well, you shouldn't be glad—it's bad news.” She paused for dramatic effect. “
Seriously
bad news.”

Prepared for a pleasant afternoon with his best friend and his drop-dead-gorgeous sweetheart, Charlie Moon was not in the mood even for so-so news, and certainly not the seriously bad variety. Having already informed his foreman about his state of mind, he now proceeded to discourage his aunt from sharing her worries. “Uh, look—I have some guests here right now and we're about ready to ride off on a combination fishing-picnic, so how about you tell me about this later?”
Like sometime late next year.

His aunt assumed her I'm-the-closest-thing-you've-got-to-a-mother tone: “Charlie Moon, forget about picnics and fishing. You've got no business having a good time when someone we know is in trouble.”

Good-Time Charlie knew when he was whipped. “Okay. Who's in trouble?”

The tribal elder heard a woman laughing in the background. “Who's that?”

Moon's head was starting to ache, but he strained to sort this out. “You said someone was in trouble. I asked you who. Then you said ‘who's that?'”

“When I said ‘who's that,' I wanted to know who's with Scott Parris.”

He chuckled. “You mean Scotch Parrish?”

Daisy's silence spoke volumes. Volumes that would not be shelved in the children's section at the Quaker Day School library.

Reading her meaning, Moon cleared his throat. “Lila Mae's here with Scott. We're going to ride over to Lake Jesse and drown some worms, then have us a fish fry and then we'll—”

“Lila Mae—you mean that FBI woman?”

The planner of the picnic reset the potatoes under his arm. “Yup. That's the one.” The “FBI woman” looked his way. Moon winked at her, as if to say:
You're my main squeeze.

Miss McTeague winked back, as if to say:
I'd better be your
only
squeeze, Big Boy.

“Oh.” This was Daisy speaking in his ear.

“Oh, what?”

“Never mind.”

“Never mind what?”

“About the little girl in my dream.”

It was coming back to him. “Are we talking about the kid with you-know-what dripping from her hands?”

“I told you to never mind!”

“Plop.” Moon felt entitled to a satisfied smirk. “Plop-plop.”

“You—” his aunt informed him with the assurance of one who had reams of data on the subject, “—are a big jug-head.”

“Sorry. I tried, but I just couldn't hold it back.”

“Well try harder!”

“So did you see the kid's face yet?”

A brief silence. “Maybe I did, maybe I didn't.”

In his mind, Moon carried a snapshot of his aunt. He grinned at the wrinkled, feisty-eyed face. “Well if you did, maybe you'll tell me who she is so I can—”

“So you can tell that fancy-pants FBI hussy you're all hootchy-kootchy with? Hah!” There was a click in his ear.

Hussy? Hootchy-kootchy?
Moon wondered where his elderly aunt picked up language like that.
Probably watching old movies on TV.

Being in the off-duty mode, Lila Mae approached the object of her affections with hips swinging, spoke over her shoulder to the man she'd rode in with. “Turn your head, Scott.”

“Yes ma'am.” Because his neck was stiff, the Granite Creek chief of police turned his entire body, and watched their reflections in a window. “It's not like I'd care to witness whatever disgusting displays unchained lust might lead you two to.” He squinted to see better.
Charlie needs to wash that windowpane.

Being off-duty, Lila Mae was not packing. Her 9-mm Glock automatic, that is. Off-duty, she packed a .32. She wrapped a pair of arms around the tall Ute, planted a kiss on his mouth.

Parris, who was a widower, sighed at the scene in the window.
I should've brought my girlfriend along. Except that Theresa don't like horses or fish or being out-of-doors.

Lila Mae gazed at her man. “What was that all about?”

“If you don't know,” Moon grinned, “I guess we'd better do it again. As many times as it takes you to figure it out.”

“I was referring to the telephone call from your aunt.”

“How'd you know it was my aunt?”

“The look on your face. Like you'd just stepped on a two-by-four with a rusty nail in it. Pointy end up.” She flashed a smile that made his head spin. “That and the fact that you mentioned her by name.”

“Oh. Right.” He held her closer. Wondered where she was packing the off-duty .32 automatic.
Must be in her boot.
“Aunt Daisy calls me whenever she's got something on her mind.”

“Well of course she does. Because you're so sweet. And lovable. And full of empathy.”

“That's all right as far as it goes,” Moon said. “But you forgot to mention my sterling qualities of modesty and humility.”

“No I didn't.”
Charlie is
so
cute.

“Okay,” Parris muttered. “You two break it up. I'm hankering to hook me a yard-long trout.”
Or three foot-long ones. Or six six-inchers. No, that's going too far downscale. Anything less than ten inches, I'm throwing back. Well, maybe less than eight inches.

McTeague gave Moon a worried look. “Charlie, would you mind if I asked you a personal question?”

“Not a smidgen. Go right ahead.”

“Okay. Why do you have two potatoes tucked under your left arm?”

“Because three wouldn't fit?”

Lila Mae McTeague shook her pretty head.

Charlie Moon gave it some serious thought. “Okay, try this. These dudes were kind of cold when I got 'em outta the box in the cellar, and it's not a good idea to drop a chilly spud into hot ashes; that'll split and pop 'em quicker'n you can say ‘who fired that shot!' Under the arm is a good place to do a pre-warm.”

Scott Parris nodded his hearty agreement.

McTeague turned up her nose.

Minutes later, the men and the woman rode off to the south of the ranch headquarters, up a rocky ridge, through a small forest of spruce and pines and ferns and vines, past a sturdy log cabin where a retired, reclusive priest was spending his twilight years, onto a high prairie where a glacial lake was set like a jewel on the Columbine's grassy gown.

The hound came along for the fun. And the outlaw horse, of course.

Considering all the possibilities that might have marred their afternoon, such as tangled lines, broken rods, rattlesnake bites and the like, the outing went tolerably well.

After losing a race with a cottontail, Sidewinder trotted off after a striped lizard.

After watching Charlie Moon unpack the saddlebags, Sweet Alice began to munch the lush grass along the shore.

Scott Parris, who was an inveterate fly caster, toiled and sweated like a coal-mine mule for three hours and reeled in a matched pair of nine-inch cutthroats. Being of that peculiar Midwestern culture which believes that one must work hard to have the least bit of fun, he was gratified with the results of his labors.

The Ute preferred red worms to Parris's fuzzy little artificial lures, and a working majority of the finned creatures cast their votes in favor of the live bait
du jour.
He would affix the wriggly creature to a hook, cast it upon the waters and wait. Which gave him ample time to gaze at the lady's fine form.

As she worked with her bait.

No, fish bait.

Parris watched the lady too, as Lila Mae awkwardly made her first cast of a beef-liver chunk. It landed within a yard of the shore.
The woman simply don't know how to fish.
Though her second cast was only a marginally better attempt, she snagged something. A sunken log, the experienced angler surmised. Parris surmised wrong.

Special Agent Lila Mae McTeague had hooked a famished trout. Sad to say, it was the only fish she subtracted from the vast community inhabiting the alpine lake. Sad from Scott Parris's point of view, that is. There were two reasons for his ill-concealed dismay. First, because—remarking that this was really “too easy”—the rank amateur terminated her effort after making the catch of the day. Second because her rainbow was, as Moon whooped, a real “Jonah.” According to the Trusty Buddy spring scale, Mr. Jonah was a couple of ounces in excess of seven pounds.

Parris grumbled under his breath about
beginner's luck.

To add to his misery, Lila Mae set the magnificent trout free.

And for each of the white man's trout, the Ute caught three.

The fishes were duly filleted and fried in the iron skillet. The picnic was uniformly appreciated by all partakers of the feast. But what with the trout and the baked beans and baked potatoes, none of the diners—not even Charlie Moon—were ready for dessert.

As a rouge-faced sun fell low over the Misery Range, the trio mounted up. The horses, who seemed to have caught the carefree mood of the late afternoon, proceeded in a slow, ambling walk. The Ute—who never passed this way without paying a courtesy call on Father Raes Delfino—led the party toward a modest log cabin that was half-concealed in a grove of spruce. Of all of God's servants, the priest was Daisy Perika's favorite. And for that matter, Charlie Moon's too.

Having perceived their approach while they were still far away, Fr. Raes had put a bookmark in his leather-bound
Imitation of Christ
and set it aside. When he heard the horses' hooves, he opened the door before they had a chance to knock.

Having tied their mounts to an oak hitching post, the trio approached the saintly man, whose white hair formed a snowy halo around his head.

Sidewinder sallied off to inspect the aromatic carcass of a ground squirrel.

Sweet Alice followed Charlie Moon to the door.

The horse's peculiar attachment to the Ute had not gone unnoticed by the FBI agent. Neither had Charlie Moon's apparent disregard of the animal's fondness for his company. On top of that, the horse looked oddly familiar.
I know I've seen that animal before.
Lila Mae McTeague could no longer contain her curiosity, but knowing her man, she avoided the direct question, and went for the query-designed-as-a-comment. “Charlie, I think it is so
cute,
the way that horse follows you around.” She barely heard his muttered response.

“There ain't no horse followin' me.”

“I suppose she is a pet.”

He repeated himself, loud enough for her to hear clearly.

Mildly chagrined at his dismissive tone, she pointed at the animal. “If there's no horse following you, then what do you call that?”

Moon set his jaw.