Leaning Land (5 page)

He sighed and pushed away from the chill metal of the car’s fender and through the sticking glass door that opened to the motel’s unstaffed reception desk. Filling an alcove between the desk and an open double door leading to the restaurant was a small lounge area with a dimly lit three-stool bar fronted by four or five small tables. It reminded Wager of some of those tiny bars in the Far East, the closet-sized kind that popped up in villages just outside a base’s main gate: so cramped that if more than three or four Marines entered, they had to take turns breathing. This one was empty now and had the feeling of usually being that way. The restaurant’s blank sterility echoed the surrounding sweep of empty land. A dozen tables were dressed up in red-and-white checkered cloths that tried to bring some warmth; the only other attempt at decoration was a cluster of potted plants in a far corner—the kind with long skinny leaves sprouting at the top of a crooked trunk, and which Wager associated with a dentist’s office.

Only one table, set beside the plate-glass windows, was occupied. A thin-shouldered, potbellied man in a western shirt and Levi’s stood to shake hands. The chrome badge on his vest pocket said Deputy Sheriff, La Sal County, and the man said “Officer Wager? I’m Howie Morris. Want some coffee?”

Wager nodded yes to the coffee.

“I was about to come out and see if you froze to that car out there.”

“Just admiring the scenery.”

“Well, we got a lot of that,” said Morris. He wagged two fingers toward the open kitchen door. A few seconds later a tall young woman, attractive in a worn but carefully ironed tan waitress uniform that had been tucked and pleated to fit her slim figure, brought out a cup for Wager and a glass pot of steaming black liquid.

“Would you like a refill, Officer Morris?” Her voice was soft, almost shy.

“Sure, honey—just top it off.”

She filled Wager’s cup, refilled Morris’s, and asked, “Anything to eat?”

“Not just now,” said Wager. “I’ll be needing a room, though.”

She looked slightly surprised but nodded her head, the light-brown ponytail bobbing. “Yessir, I’ll tell Verdie.”

“Verdie’s the owner.” Morris admired the girl’s slender legs as she went back to the kitchen.

“And that’s Verdie’s daughter?”

“Naw. I don’t know that Verdie ever had any kids. Or ever wanted any. Only things Verdie’s interested in is this motel and her horses. That’s Paula Ree. Her grandpa runs the welding shop, but I think she makes more from Verdie than he does in his business.” He winked at Wager. “Verdie pays her pretty good because there’s not a cowboy or rancher in the county doesn’t come by a couple of times a week for a cup of coffee and to look her over.”

“She’s very pretty.”

“She is that. Plus, there’s damn little competition around. A few squaws, if you like ‘em darker than Mexicans.” He glanced at Wager’s face with a twitch of guilt and, after an awkward silence, offered a kind of apology made up of free information. “You wouldn’t guess it from her light hair, but Paula’s one quarter Indian. Her grandpa on her daddy’s side, he was a full-blooded Squaw Point Ute. Came back from serving in Korea and didn’t want to live on the reservation anymore. He sold off his share of reservation land or something and used his G.I. Bill to start that garage and welding shop over there back in the mid-fifties. Married a white girl from up around Grand Junction. She died a few years back. They had Paula’s pa, George Ree. He hooked up with an eastern girl going to college down in Durango, Shelly something—strawberry blond, which is where Paula gets hers, that and her grandma. She lasted here about five years, then run off somewhere and left George with Paula. Then he run off, too, and left her with the grandpa. But the grandpa’s done a pretty good job of raising her when he’s not too liquored up; Paula’s turned out real good. She’s real bright—knows all the regulars by name. Hears a name once, and she knows it. Me, I got to write a name down before I can remember it and even then I likely forget if I don’t use it a lot. What’d you say your name was?” He smiled. “Smith?”

Wager’s lips rose and fell in return. With less than five hundred people scattered over his quadrant, Morris probably used the names enough to remember them. And probably knew the life story of each family for three or four generations back. But Wager’s interest was focused on the ones that were more pertinent. “What can you tell me about Del Ponte?”

“Poor old Rubin.” He shook his head. “He was a quarter-breed, too. Used to be a member of the reservation tribe but since he was more Mexican than anything else, the government wouldn’t recognize him as an Indian anymore. His family buried him over near Manassa where his pa’s folks mostly live, Conejos County.”

“Do you think he was murdered?”

“No way to tell.” He asked a question of his own. “The CBI interested in him? That why they sent you out here?”

“That and to work with the federal agents on their homicides,” Wager said.

“You gentlemen need a refill?” The girl, silent in her soft-soled shoes, held the globe of hot coffee over their cups. Wager nudged his toward her. As she poured, Paula told him, “Verdie says to ring the bell when you’re ready to register and she’ll take care of you. She’s in the back.”

“OK.”

Morris waited until the girl had refilled his cup. “Why’d they send you to work with the feds?”

“Mostly on the chance the Del Ponte case is tied in with the killings they’re working on. And because your boss and the federal agencies don’t get along.”

The deputy’s eyes once again followed Paula’s legs as she headed back to the kitchen. But his mind was on what Wager had said. “You talked to Sheriff Spurlock yet?”

Wager shook his head. “I plan to tomorrow.”

“That FBI man, Durkin, thinks he’s pretty hot shit. Henderson might be all right by himself, but he won’t wipe his own nose without Durkin lets him.” Morris pushed his cup in a tiny circle, sending its muddy coffee swirling almost to the rim.

A gust of wind made the large window quiver and hum, and from its surface—darker, now, and reflecting the restaurant’s lights and tables—Wager felt cold air slide down the glass to pool around his ankles. “Was Del Ponte’s death tied in any way to the BLM agent’s death?”

“Not that I ever heard of.”

“You were his contact, weren’t you?”

The deputy’s eyes, a shade between blue and green, studied Wager. “You already talked to Durkin? That son of a bitch as much as accused me of getting Rubin killed. That what he told you?”

“I’d like to hear what you have to say.”

“I say he’s full of shit’s what I say!”

“What do you think happened to Del Ponte?”

“Could have been anything. Rubin could’ve asked too many questions or talked to the wrong people about what he was doing. God knows he couldn’t keep his mouth shut more’n five minutes—I warned him about that. I think he dropped hints to every son of a bitch and his son-in-law that he was working for the FBI. Made him feel like hot shit, but he wasn’t worth a damn as an informant. I told Durkin that.” The deputy gulped at his coffee and winced at its heat. “Could’ve been killed by accident, too—drunk and sleeping on the pavement to keep warm, most likely. Happens all the time with Indians. Or died some other way. Wasn’t any evidence of murder.”

“He was on foot, alone, a long way from anywhere. No car. Did you find any trace of tire tracks at the scene?”

“No. He’d been there maybe a week or more: rain, wind, animals. Wasn’t much left of him, let alone the site. We did pick up a couple of cigarette butts—filter tip. Rubin didn’t smoke, but God only knows how long they’d been there. They could as easy been thrown from passing cars. There was nothing more to show anybody else had been around the body.”

“What had he been working on?”

“Durkin had him looking into something.”

“What?”

Morris leaned back in his chair, its joints making tiny crackling noises that sounded loud in the quiet room. Wager heard a drawer slide shut in the kitchen and the brief hiss of a faucet splash water into a sink. “He probably already told you—his version of it, anyway. I’ll tell you mine: Durkin’s got a hard-on for this civilian militia a lot of the ranchers belong to. Call themselves the Constitutional Posse. He wanted Rubin to find out if they were meeting with anybody on the reservation.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Ask Durkin. It was his idea.”

“Did Del Ponte find out anything?”

“Hell, no. Was a damn-fool idea to start with. The ranchers and the Indians mostly don’t get along, unless a rancher happens to be a Mormon out to save their souls. Ranchers say the government uses their tax money to give the Indians everything they ask for, and the Indians say the ranchers run their cows on reservation land and take reservation water with their wells.”

“Del Ponte told you nothing?”

“Far as I can figure, there’s nothing he could’ve told me that I didn’t already know, so I don’t think he was killed—if he was killed—for knowing anything dangerous.” A snort of disgust. “And like I say, everybody knew he was working for Durkin; a worse goddamn secret informant I couldn’t think of!”

“Is this Constitutional Posse a serious threat?”

“Who to? They don’t go running around shooting and bombing.”

“Somebody is.”

Morris considered that. “Well, I don’t think it’s them doing it, Officer Wager. I know a lot of them—good family men. Hard, by God, working, pay their bills, do the best they can in a hard country that’s having hard times. And generally stay out of trouble.”

“Can you give me some of their names?”

“It’s no secret. Brad Nichols is sort of the organizer—they mostly meet out at his ranch, anyway. And Stan Litvak generally runs the training sessions.”

“Who else?”

“Just drive around the county and read the goddamn mailboxes.”

“All the ranchers belong?”

“I don’t know about all. A hell of a lot of them do.”

And probably all voted alike, which would carry a lot of weight with any publicly elected official such as a sheriff. “Did Del Ponte infiltrate them?”

“You sound just like Durkin—infiltrate! He was maybe invited to join them, I don’t know. Maybe he even went to a couple of meetings. Hell, everybody over twelve years old they ask to join them. They don’t make any secret who they are. Be pretty hard to do around here, anyway. They have monthly training sessions when the weather allows—third weekend of every month, if you’re interested in going: weapons familiarization, target practice, survival techniques. And no, Rubin didn’t tell me this—he didn’t have to. I was told when they invited me to join!”

Wager looked at the narrow-shouldered man. “Are you a member?”

“No. Didn’t feel right about joining since I get my money from the government—it’s county, but it’s government just the same. And, anyway, Sheriff Spurlock said he’d fire me if I did join. Said the deputy’s oath doesn’t allow membership in any outfits that challenge government, local or federal.” He shook his head, voice dropping as the surge of anger passed—or was stifled. “Rubin didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, Officer Wager. That’s what I said to Durkin. Told him just what I’m telling you, but the son of a bitch didn’t believe me. As much as accused me of getting Rubin killed because I was the contact for that sorry son of a bitch and must have shot my mouth off to somebody about him.”

“Who do you think is killing federal agents?”

Morris shook his head. “It might be somebody from around here. Nobody has any cause to love the bastards. But I don’t have any suspects, and I don’t know anybody crazy enough to shoot them.”

“Not even some of the Constitutional Posse?”

The man’s jaw worked a time or two before he answered, his words growing heated again. “Whoever it is, is working on his own. And that’s not saying it’s somebody from around here, even. It could be somebody on the reservation, it could be somebody coming in from another county. If it was somebody doing it for the Posse, Wager, I’d’ve heard about it, because there’s not that many people in this county. Tell me, just how close are you working with the FBI and BLM? You taking your orders from Durkin?”

“I’m an officer of the state of Colorado and that’s who I work for—just like you. But somebody killed two men who happen to be federal employees, Deputy Morris. And a law officer, any law officer, wants to see murderers caught.”

“Didn’t happen in my jurisdiction, Wager. And don’t you tell me how I ought to feel about doing my job. I do my job. I take the county’s money and I do my job. You want to listen to what them goddamn federal people tell you, you go ahead. But don’t you or anybody else tell me what my job is.” He squared his hat on his head, its wide brim shading his flushed face from the now-bright fluorescent lights overhead. “Been nice talking to you.”

Through the glass, Wager watched Morris’s dim shadow rapidly cross the pale gravel, saw the lights of the deputy’s car flick on, and watched the red taillights pull hotly onto the highway and turn right toward Egnarville.

“More coffee, sir?” Paula, silent on her crepe-soled waitress shoes, stood at his elbow with her glass bowl of coffee. As Wager held up his cup, her soft voice asked, “You’re from Denver, ain’t you?”

“Yeah.” Wager, still thinking of Morris and his defensive anger, cleared his throat and tried to make his voice into something polite. “You been there?”

“No, not yet. I’d like to, though.” A quick frown pulled her eyebrows together. “It’s not as big as Los Angeles, is it?”

“No. You like Los Angeles?”

“Never been there, either. I just seen pictures of it. And on TV.” She added shyly, “I’ve never been much of anyplace except here.”

“It’s nice here,” said Wager. “Nice scenery, relaxing.”

“Yessir. But I been here all my life.” There was another question she apparently had planned to ask, “Can you get work there? You know, like a waitress?”

“Sure.” He paid closer attention to her, now. “But you won’t earn much. And it’s still a big place. It could be pretty scary without any family or friends around.”

She considered that while she wiped the lip of the coffeepot with a cloth. Then she glanced toward the cashier’s stand. “If you want to register, Verdie’s there now.”