Leaning Land (20 page)

“… you hear me? You hear me?”

“… unh …”

“I said, you get your som-bitchin’ ass out of here now! You leave now—tonight—or by God, you are a dead man!” The voice was a hot whiskey smell at his ear.

Another hard, solid punch to his ribs, but it didn’t hurt as much because he was still gulping and struggling to suck air into his shocked lungs.

Somewhere he heard another voice mutter something and his arms were let go of, but it didn’t do any good. His legs, empty of strength, buckled to jam a knee in the gravel and he tried to fold his arms up before his head hit the ground, but he could not lift them. Another smacking explosion shattered the dark of his clenched eyes, and he heard more than felt the rush of falling a long, long way.

H
OW LONG
W
AGER
lay there, he didn’t know. What he did know was that he was cold. That was the first thing he felt: the cold. It filled the world around him like icy water and he had a dream-vision of a figure that twisted awkwardly and somehow hung suspended in a lightless void of cold space. The figure looked like him, and he watched it slowly drain of body heat as a wind blew steadily across its flesh from some unseen glacier. The cold made the body tremble in bone-racked spasms that brought a slowly waking sense of recognition: it really was him, Gabe, lying there shuddering, with an arm bent uncomfortably beneath his body and something rough and equally uncomfortable pressing sharply up against the hurting skin of his face, and he made some kind of noise as he struggled to blink his eyes open.

The stab of yellow light grated like hot sand into his eyes and he closed them again, but he knew where he was now: facedown in the gravel of the parking lot beside his own car. He heard another groan, clearly his own, and became aware of his arm folded and pinched of blood beneath his torso. Another heavy spasm of trembling shook his body and, stiffly, awkwardly, he grunted himself on to his side. A rolling ache moved across his skull, starting at the back of his head and slamming against his brow to make him wince and catch his breath. His face felt swollen and numb and like a foreign shape to his clumsily probing fingers. Grunting once more, he pulled himself up by the car’s door handle, his arm needling with the pulse of blood, and the muscles of his back cramping and clutching with cold. The pickup truck was gone and only his car and four or five others sat in the cold night wind, empty and scattered along the row of doors lit by their orange-tinted walk lights. He felt other things now: a sharp stab of pain in one of his ribs when he inhaled shallowly, the rub of the night wind across his stinging flesh, the throb of his head, his nose clogged with swelling and blood that began to drain into his throat and make him cough. The coughing told him that others of his ribs ached and that the muscles of his stomach hurt, too, and he stumbled across the walkway to his door, fumbling the key in the lock and leaning on the handle as it swung open.

He was shaking harder now, perhaps from shock as well as the cold; the heat of the room made the iciness of his flesh seem even deeper, down to the core of his being. Stripping off his bloodied denim jacket and shirt, his jeans flecked with dark-red drops and scrapes of grime, he clumsily turned on the shower to let the bathroom fill with steam as he pressed his clothes into the cold water of the sink. Mechanically, not really sure why he was doing it except as something that had to be done, focusing all his strength on the task, he drained the first two or three bowls of their darkly stained water and then let the clothes soak. Then he could let himself soak in hot water, feeling his body’s taut muscle and sinew begin to relax. The deep tremors grew less frequent and bone-rattling, and the bite of the water on his abraded flesh gradually turned into the throb of bruises.

He didn’t think his rib was broken—it still hurt when he deeply inhaled the steamy air, but its sharpness had faded, which told him it was probably a bone bruise or a minor crack instead of the splintered end of a rib sawing into flesh. His swollen nose had a new bump that burned like fire and said broken when he touched it; he held his breath and tried not to howl as he pushed down hard with his thumbs to realign the ragged stubs of bone and cartilage; he felt something deep inside his skull snap into place with a loud grating noise that made the roots of his teeth ache. Tears of pain ran from his clenched eyes and the bleeding started again; he watched in dull numbness as it washed down his body and swirled into the drain for a while. When he dared touch his nose again, it was sore and swollen, but the sensitive bump was gone. Now he could feel the tenderness in the hinges of his jaw, and the tip of his tongue ran across a sharp, rough edge of lower front tooth where a chip had been knocked off. It was sharp enough to cut the bottom of his tongue, and he tasted fresh blood from that and tried to keep his tongue away from it. But, of course, his damned tongue was curious and kept probing at that unfamiliar change in its world.

Slowly, Wager worked his torso and shoulders and arms, stretching and loosening the muscles in the flow of hot water. It had been a good ambush—give the bastards credit. It was the kind an experienced game hunter would set up—Wager, remembering the slashed tires of two days ago, had focused all his attention on the figure kneeling at his wheels; the assailant simply waited out of sight, hidden behind the high walls of the truck, and hit the back of Wager’s head as he blindly and stupidly lunged for the bait. Liquored up. There had been the smell of whiskey on the muttered curses at his ear. A goddamned dead man if he stayed. And he hadn’t gotten a good look at either of them. Two—at least two—one to hold and one to hit, but after that first slug to the back of his head, Wager hadn’t been able to see anything clearly, and he couldn’t say for certain how many there had been, let alone what they looked like.

The heat of the shower began to ebb, and Wager, skin wrinkled from soaking and the traces of blood finally gone from the water, turned off the squeaky faucets and gingerly patted himself dry. He could use some antiseptic here and there—his knee where the gravel had cut through his pants and into his skin, and his arm, which, for some reason, had a deep scrape. Defensive wound, maybe—maybe, hell, that’s what it was; a homicide detective could spot defensive wounds, even on his own arms. Finally, he wiped a circle in the steamy mirror and looked at his face.

It was his. Except for the nose, already welted and swollen dark with subcutaneous blood across the bridge and spreading under his eyes. That fleshy lump belonged to a much bigger man. But, in general, his face didn’t look nearly as bad as it felt. Lips beneath the shaggy mustache a bit puffy and split here and there with crusted blood, and a red swelling on his sharp cheekbone that would turn blue by tomorrow. And there was the chipped lower tooth that his tongue kept poking at, the front of it lifted off halfway down and its surface now slanting back to a slightly shorter rim of knifelike sharpness. A few light lines in the enamel showed cracks that went down into the gum; a dentist would have to do some work on that, but it looked as though it could be saved. He hoped it could—he’d had that tooth for a long time and was downright attached to it. Those on either side of the chipped one were sore, too, to the pressure of his finger, but they didn’t seem loose and no blood showed at their gum lines. All in all, not too bad; he’d had worse. Whoever those cowboys were, they knew how to hit in a fight, but not how to hit to cripple a victim. Certainly not enough to drive him off. In fact, just enough to really make him mad. Just deeply, coldly, calmly pissed off.

The two pink message slips lay tossed on his bed with the rest of the stuff from his pockets. He dialed one number first but there was no response. Apparently the tribal police office did not have a twenty-four-hour duty watch or an answering machine, so he tried the second number. It was answered after one ring. “Hello?”

“Ray? Wager. I got your message.”

“Man, I tried to raise you on your radio, but I guess mine won’t reach that far. I found out something that might be interesting. Then again, it might not, I don’t know. Anyway, Walter Lawrence’s land reverted to the tribal holdings. He didn’t have any direct heirs, and tribal law says that any portions without direct heirs living on the reservation revert back to communal lands if the owner dies intestate.”

“It doesn’t go through state probate?”

“No. The reservation comes under federal jurisdiction, which supersedes a state’s laws. And in this case, the tribal law governs.”

Wager forced himself to think about that. “Does that mean anyone can buy the land now? Somebody off the reservation, say?”

“I suppose they could if the tribal council wants to sell. But I don’t think that’s likely; council members would really get a lot of heat from the tribe if they started selling off the reservation to outsiders. What it means, in effect, is that the tribal council will keep the land in the collective holding and operate it for the benefit of the tribe, supposedly. My guess is they’re more likely to re-allot it to some other tribal member, probably a relative who needs land, or swap it for somebody else’s reservation property that’s maybe not as good. But by law it’s theirs, the tribal council’s, to do with as they please.”

“That would apply to Rubin’s land, too, if he didn’t leave a will?”

“I don’t see why not. What’d you find out from the county clerk?”

“She hasn’t called me back yet. I’ll have to try in the morning.”

“You catch a cold?”

“What?”

“You sound stuffed up. Sounds like you caught a cold.”

“Stuffy nose.” He told the tribal policeman about the tangled love life of the Del Pontes and Herreras.

“So Herrera and Sharon Del Ponte have something going?”

“I’m not sure. Herrera’s wife didn’t know for sure, either. Didn’t really care.” Wager, squinting through the throb of his sore head, formulated the thought. “It might be they just talk to each other—Sharon Del Ponte got pretty angry at being linked to Herrera, and there’s no reason for her to get defensive about it. Not now, anyway.” Thinking about it, in fact, publicly taking Herrera from his wife could be a means of revenge for Del Ponte’s widow, but she hadn’t done that. “She didn’t know anything about the disposition of Rubin’s land. Thought it would go to Luther. Said she didn’t know of any will or trust either.”

“Still, there could be a motive there.”

Wager started to nod and caught himself before it hurt more. “True.”

They briefly talked over things they both already knew, the way people do when they share an interest in something and get along pretty well. When Ray hung up, Wager dialed Agent Durkin.

This time the telephone rang half a dozen times and Wager, feeling relief, was just about to hang up when the FBI man answered with a groggy mumble.

“This is Wager. I got your message to call.”

“Yeah. Jesus, what’s it—after midnight?”

“A little bit. I’ve been busy.”

“Yeah … .” There was a rubbing sound, as if the man were scrubbing at the flesh of his face with a dry hand. “All right, what’s your report?”

Wager told him.

“That doesn’t tie into the Constitutional Posse, Wager. In fact, it implicates a different motive altogether.”

“It’s what the facts say, Durkin. Theory comes after the facts are gathered, not before. Remember?”

“Yeah, well, the facts I’m interested in gathering concern the killings in federal jurisdiction. I don’t see that Del Ponte’s love triangle has a damn thing to do with that!”

“You wanted me to report, that’s my report.” He had said nothing of Ray’s theory about the value of Rubin’s land. For one thing, the reservation land didn’t seem to have any value for anyone; for another, Wager didn’t want Ray taken away from him. And that’s what Durkin would do if he thought Ray could provide an avenue through Rubin or Walter Lawrence to anyone who might be linked to the reservation murders—Durkin would order Ray to work exclusively with him, cutting Wager off from his access to the reservation on the grounds of protecting the security of Durkin’s own investigation. “What do you have to report to me?”

“What?”

“Your report. What’s your report? I’m supposed to be the liaison between you and Sheriff Spurlock, so what do you have that I can tell him?”

A silence. Then a muffled sigh. “The FBI lab reports have come back and those three bombs were made of C-4—that’s a military explosive. Plastic compound. The lab’s ninety-nine percent certain that the chemical makeup was the same for all of them. It was an older batch distributed to several National Guard engineering units, including some in Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Utah.” He mumbled something about the need for a law requiring manufacturers to put traceable chemicals, taggables, in high explosives.

“The explosives were used for military training?”

“That’s right.”

Which meant that someone had access to the munitions as well as the expertise in using them, and Wager guessed that Durkin had thought of that, too; he was just becomingly modest about that information. “What names did you come up with?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“You did ask Washington to fax a roster of members in those regional engineering units, didn’t you?”

Another brief silence. “Yeah.” Then, grudgingly, “The 138th Engineering Battalion up in Grand Junction has over a hundred members. Maybe ten or so are from around here.”

“Read them off.”

He wasn’t happy about that, either, but he did. Wager wrote and asked about the spellings. He recognized six of the names: Gregory Hunter, the county highway worker who found Del Ponte; Bradley Nichols; Pete Stine; Henry Many Coats, whose last name rang a bell; Louis Cloud, another Ute last name; and Howard Morris, Sheriff Spurlock’s deputy.

“Two of those are Constitutional Posse members, Nichols and Stine,” said Wager.

“Oh, yeah? That’s interesting.”

“And Morris is Spurlock’s deputy for this section of the county, which is where Nichols and Stine have their ranches.”

“Christ!”

Even through the heavy throb in his skull, Wager could almost see the FBI man’s thoughts: with Spurlock’s deputy a possible suspect in a federal crime, the entire sheriff’s office was tainted. The orders from Durkin’s regional director about cooperation with the local police agency might now be reversed—no more “liaison” with Wager and Spurlock—and Durkin’s authority to pursue the investigation off the reservation expanded. Perhaps Wager should not have identified those names for the FBI man, but he would have found out in time. And besides, Durkin was a cop, too; liaison meant sharing the information. Maybe now Durkin would recognize that Wager was playing reasonably straight, and his cooperation with Wager would move from reluctant obedience toward a more effective willingness. “Have you talked to the battalion commander? Checked his demolitions inventory?”