Leaning Land (24 page)

Ray waited until he was certain she had said all she was going to say. “Luther owns the land now, I understand. It went to him as the closest relative on the reservation. Is that right?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t told me much about all that. But Knife Springs is on that land. He wouldn’t take sheep up there if it wasn’t his to use no more.”

Another long pause. “What about the land farther up the wash? The land that belonged to another man who had bad luck.”

She shook her head again. “Sometimes Luther talked with him about sheep, I think. But that man didn’t like people and stayed by himself, so I don’t know much about him.”

“Ramey Many Coats told me that Luther knows a lot about his half brother’s bad luck.”

The woman’s full lips made a tiny sound and a bit of spittle flew towards the ground. “Ramey Many Coats! You can’t believe nothing that man says—unless he says he wants something. You can believe that because he always wants more.” She looked up suddenly. “He was the one wanted Ru—Luther’s brother’s land! I remember, now: just after Christmas. They were talking about maybe selling the land to Ramey Many Coats. Luther’s brother said it wasn’t worth nothing to him and he could use the money. Luther didn’t think it was a good idea because it meant getting rid of Knife Springs. He said it might be better to keep it in the family, you know, because land will stay, but money will go. But Luther said it was up to him, his brother, because it was his land given to him by their father. Luther said even if he didn’t like the idea of selling the land, it was up to his brother. But then his brother decided not to sell it just yet. I don’t know why, for sure. Maybe just because Ramey Many Coats wanted it so bad.”

“Why did he want it so bad?”

She shrugged. “You got to ask Luther that.”

Wager leaned forward. “Did Ramey Many Coats want to buy the other man’s land, too?”

Her eyes, almost black, stared at him for a long moment, wide with thought. Then she spoke as much to herself as to Wager. “I think maybe that was really why they didn’t sell. I think I remember now Luther telling his brother that if Ramey wanted so much land, there had to be some reason for it. He didn’t say so, but I think now he was maybe talking about that other man’s land, too.”

Her answers to the rest of their questions were “I don’t know” and “You got to ask Luther that.” Ray finally thanked the woman and politely declined the offer of something to drink. As he started to turn the truck around, he muttered to Wager, “I’m thirsty as hell, but that invitation was just out of politeness. If she’d really wanted us to visit, she’d have asked us in right away. Besides, I think we better talk to Luther.” Reflexively, he jerked the wheel, startling Wager and lurching the truck to avoid the broad, grainy mound of a large anthill. “Indian grave,” he explained with some embarrassment. “Utes tell their kids that ants build their nests where an Indian is buried, so you don’t step there. I guess driving over one would be the same thing.”

It made sense to Wager; food was scarce out here, and ants had to eat, too. “So Utes didn’t stake their prisoners down across an anthill?”

“And disturb the dead below it? No way, man. Really bad karma! You’re talking Comanche or Arapaho—they’re the mean Indians.” He wagged his head. “Still are—so you don’t want to let any of them get a look at that hair of yours. Might make those suckers revert.”

“Yeah, well, they’d have to catch me first.”

Ray laughed. “Judging by your nose, that’s not hard to do.”

They had to re-cross the desert, but the trip did not seem as long as the ride out. For one thing, they were discussing the possible meanings of what Cerise Del Ponte had told them; for another, Wager was familiar with the track now, and a known road was always shorter than an unknown one. But once they reached the pavement and had cleared Squaw Point Village, Ray pushed the pickup over seventy as they headed for the junction of 181 and 666, a loop of highways and dirt roads that would circle around to Knife Springs and Luther Del Ponte.

“What made you ask Cerise about Walter Lawrence’s land?”

Wager had figured Ray would get around to that sooner or later, and he had been thinking about it himself. But he didn’t have a clear answer. “I’m not sure. You’ve suspected that that land might be a motive for Rubin’s death—that it was the only property he owned that might be worth anything. Now some ideas are starting to fall together a little.” He couldn’t tell the tribal policeman clearly what it was his thoughts groped toward because he wasn’t that clear on it himself. But the only alternative to Rubin’s love triangle as a hazy motive for his death was Rubin’s property as an equally hazy motive. “You have any idea why Ramey’s after all that land?”

The pockmarks in Ray’s cheeks grew shallow and then deep with shadow as he shook his head slightly. “Tribal Council’s been talking about putting up a gambling casino. That’s the big thing on reservations now: casinos for the white man to leave his money in. Call it a new way to scalp him.”

Wager considered that. “Would they need a state-wide referendum to do it?”

“No. Reservation has sovereignty to do it, and it’s under the federal Indian Gaming Act of 1988. If the tribal council votes it in, it’s in.”

Wager wanted to be certain. “Right now, the Squaw Point Council could build a casino without any approval from the state of Colorado?”

“Could do it tomorrow. Like I say, they’ve been talking about it since the other two reservations put in their casinos four or five years ago. The only kind of state control is over what kind of gambling.”

“How?”

“Well, right now, the state gaming commission says the reservations can only have the same kind of gambling that’s allowed in Central City, Blackhawk, and Cripple Creek. Those are the only places in Colorado with legalized gambling. On the Southern Ute and the Ute Mountain reservation, that means slot machines, keno, and low-stakes poker and blackjack. Those are state of Colorado restrictions, but that could change if the Indian Gaming Act is amended by Congress.”

“Is that being considered?”

“There’s a senate bill to take the state regulatory agencies out of it. That would leave reservation gambling under the sole authority of the Interior Secretary in Washington.”

“So the tribes could then offer any kind of gambling?”

“Just like Vegas. But you have to remember, all three reservations are a long way from Denver, Salt Lake City, and any other population center. The other Indian casinos make some good money, especially on weekends and in the summer when the tourists come in. But they’re no way near to making Las Vegas run scared. Here—on the Squaw Point Reservation—they might get a lot of people from Grand Junction, maybe take away some of the players from the three gambling towns in Colorado; but we don’t have a major tourist attraction the way Mesa Verde is for the Ute Mountain Reservation. And we don’t have the major highways the Southern Ute Reservation does. In fact, we’re a long way from any major highway. Not many people are going to drive so far to lose money at roulette when they can get to Vegas faster and cheaper by flying.” The bill of Ray’s cap wagged back and forth. “I think it’s a dumb idea—Ramey and his family will pour the tribe’s money into building the thing, then lose it all because no one’s going to come out this far just to gamble.”

“Didn’t you tell me that the Flying W ranch is just across the reservation line from both Rubin’s and Lawrence’s land?”

“Yeah. Why?”

Wager told him what he’d learned from Liz earlier.

“Development? Out there? Why the hell would anybody build out there?” The truck lost speed as Ray’s foot relaxed. He stared down the ribbon of asphalt toward something Wager couldn’t see. After coasting a mile or so, the speed picked up again. “But if it’s true, that could be why they were killed, both Rubin and Lawrence. And it maybe says why Ramey Many Coats wanted us to know he had an alibi for when Rubin was killed, if someday he ends up with Rubin’s land. But I can’t see any kind of retirement or recreation community being set in a place like that. There’s nothing there! And I don’t see that it has a damn thing to do with the deaths of the two white men.”

“Me either. Maybe it doesn’t.” He explained about the C-4 explosives. “Nichols’s name came up there.” He asked, “You know Henry Many Coats?”

“Henry? Sure—Ramey’s older brother. Why?”

“He’s a member of the National Guard unit that was probably the source of the C-4. Him and Louis Cloud. Are they close friends?”

Ray’s tapping finger moved to the bill of his uniform cap. “Not close, no. But the Clouds generally go along with the Many Coats in tribal business—hell, just about everybody does, sooner or later. But I guess the Clouds are closer to being sidekicks; the Many Coats know they can count on the Clouds to vote with them on everything, and the Clouds know the Many Coats will toss a few crumbs their way when the goodies are handed out.” Ray thought for a few minutes. “But why would they bomb government vehicles? That’s Constitutional Posse stuff—or somebody like them.”

Wager nodded. “Yeah.” Still, something felt like it was there, just beyond his reaching fingers, just past the edge of his vision.

Ray, too, was apparently trying to work something out of the tangle of possibilities. “Harder than hell to cross Narraguinnep Wash from the Flying W to Rubin’s or Walter Lawrence’s land. Have to put a bridge over it somewhere—expensive, man. Need all the infrastructure for a town: electricity, water, streets. An airport, even. Highway, too—there’s no paved road leading to the Flying W.” He wagged his head again. “A major casino with unlimited stakes’ gambling … I don’t know … .”

Neither did Wager. But even if he couldn’t clearly grasp or see whatever it was, something was there.

T
HE TWO-RUT ROAD
leading to Narraguinnep Wash sliced through the sagebrush and cedars of a high plateau, then tilted sharply as it followed a ledge that sloped down the face of a rock-and-sand wall about twenty feet high. It ended in the untracked gravel and dirt of the wash’s wide bed, a twisting avenue of wind-sculpted sand bars and ragged clumps of willow and tamarisk saplings that would, when rain or runoff brought water, form islands of brush nodding in the fast and muddy current. Crossing the plateau above, Ray had pointed out the occasional weathered stake or survey plate that marked corners of BLM land, the Flying W ranch property, and, finally, the Squaw Point Reservation. Now he pointed at a red-and-orange rock formation that rose like a bony finger above the southern lip of the wash. “Over there’s what the white men call Needle Rock. That’s where they found that USGS geologist a couple of months ago. The one who took so long to die.”

Wager studied the spot. “Any idea why he was out this way?”

Ray shook his head. “No. It’s about here that the BLM land meets the reservation, but what he was doing there, I don’t know. You got to ask Agent Durkin that.”

He had, but the FBI man hadn’t known either. “Is that where Lawrence’s or Rubin’s land is?”

“I’m not sure where the boundary is. The geologist was found on BLM land, but I’d have to look at a survey map to know just where the lines are. Lawrence didn’t have any need to mark the boundary with a fence—he’d know from living here where his land ended and Rubin’s or the Flying W or BLM land began. Luther can probably tell us—he’s out here with his sheep a lot.”

They followed the bed of the wash as it twisted generally west, running from behind them out of the higher ground and the mountains on the eastern side of the county, and growing gradually deeper as side gullies formed cracks and fissures that would funnel in more water. “You can’t see it, but Luther’s place is about eight air miles from here. We had to drive about sixty miles around.”

“Where’s the Flying W ranch house?”

Ray gestured toward the right. “On the other side of that ridge. Probably two or three miles.”

“I’d like to drop by there.”

“If you want. But we can’t drive out of the wash anymore. Have to go back a couple of miles above where we came in and pick up a ranch road that comes down to the wash.”

The sandy bed writhed and twisted between its gradually deepening banks toward the foot of a long mesa that began to fill the southern horizon. “That’s Siva’atu Mesa—Goat Mesa. That’s where Knife Springs is. The water collects up on top and seeps down, I guess. Or maybe it’s where the water table comes to the surface. Lawrence’s portion has a couple of small springs, maybe fed by the mesa’s eastern seepage. But I guess they’re not year-round like Knife Springs. We should see the trees in a bit—I hope. Be awful embarrassing for an Indian to get lost on his own reservation.”

“Are we on Rubin’s portion yet?”

“Could be. But we’ll have to ask Luther.”

They ground on in four-wheel drive through the ridges and beds of soft sand, picking up speed where the shelves of firmer gravel or shoulders of water-smoothed rock lifted out of the pink grit, slowing again when the wheels sank and churned. Behind them hung a thin haze of dust, and the baking heat that bounced off the bed and walls of the wash was intensified by the lack of wind in the sheltered gully.

Ray let out a little sigh of relief. “There we are. And there’s the herd up under the mesa. Luther should be around somewhere—probably he’s watching us right now.”

Ahead, where the sandy bed swung close under the towering red-and-orange rock wall of the mesa, a narrow strip of bare cottonwood branches painted a gray band above the ragged lip of the wash. Ray angled toward a gap where the sandy bank crumbled into a wide V and thickly growing reeds and grass marked an entering watercourse. It turned to flow down the sandy wash and brought life to a tangled line of leafed-out brush and tamarisk that curved out of sight with the twisting gully. They ground upward a bit, and Ray stopped the truck on a shoulder of hard earth above the floor of the wash and tapped the horn. Then the two men got out to stretch their legs and wait.

Higher up the bank and in the tangle of cottonwood trunks, Wager could make out a sagging fence of wire and sticks and a small corral that held a horse who looked back warily at the truck. Above the trees on the steeply sloped talus that rose up to the rock face of the mesa, a flock of sheep grazed, yellow-brown dots that moved slowly from one scattered tuft of grass to another. The soft clank of a bell came, muted and distant, the only sound under the vastness of sky and high mesa wall. Then Luther, without seeming to move, appeared beside the small stream.