The Bone Man (32 page)

Where was I? Lost? God, the noise was intense. Every time I thought it was dying down, another bluster pushed me in some crazy direction. I rubbed my forehead. After all the crap with those men, I sure as hell didn’t need this.

The howling was driving me nuts.

I pushed forward, trudged up a small set of stairs, and
there was the tunnel. I leaned against the stone wall. I was beat. I couldn’t make it to the tunnel.

Of course I could. Had to.

I put one leg in front of the other. The wind had steadied, and now a frothy mist drifted onto my face, like a soft caress.

I trotted the last few yards across the round kiva, up and over a small projection, then around a rectangular hole of stones maybe a foot deep. I looked up. Black clouds boiled on the horizon. I didn’t know when the rain was coming. I just feared it.

I ducked inside the tunnel. At the very edge, the howling was even louder. I tightened my fists, took some calming breaths. It was darker here in the tunnel.

Paulie could be lurking. I pointed the flashlight at the ground and pushed it back on. Where had I left him? Not far from the exit.

I hugged the wall. That’s right, they’d had some kind of light in here. So where was it. My mouth dried. He was alive. He’d gotten free. He was going to shoot me.

I flicked off the flashlight, walked forward, so quiet, except of the wind bringing her howls into the tunnel.

Where were Hank and Aric?

A presence. Someone. In front of me. Paulie!

I dropped to the floor. Pulled a rock from my pocket.

Then someone grabbed me in both arms, pressed me tight. I tried to raise my wrist. If I could just nail him with the rock.

He tore it from my hand. Gone. Done.

I was done.

I caught a sob in my throat. Now wasn’t the time to whine.

And then I was lifted by my shoulders, my hands released, and I flipped around and . . .

“It’s me, Tal. Hank. Calm down.”

And I leaned against him, saying nothing, nothing, and all I could hear was the cry of the wind.

The Ring Ding tasted great. God, it was luscious and creamy and just perfect. Perfect! I licked the center and . . . Geesh, what was I doing? Every so often, I’d close my eyes and cry. And Hank would say, “Please, don’t,” but I couldn’t help it. I leaned against the wall of the tunnel. It was surprisingly small and cozy, especially with the neat fire Aric had built. He was gone to get the rangers and call his base and find some way to remove Paulie and Dumb Dick’s dead body.

“Except he wasn’t dumb,” I said to Hank. “I don’t think so, at least. I just called him that to piss him off.”

“Sweetie,” Hank said. “You’ve explained that twelve times.”

My chewing slowed. “I guess. Yeah, I guess.”

“How’s your hand?” He poked a stick at the fire, which danced.

“My hand.” I held up my palms. No cut across either one. Nothing. Something had happened to me in Chaco. Something that I felt more than understood.

“Tal?” Hank said. “Coyote’s bite. Remember?”

“Oh!” I laughed, slapped my thigh. “Coyote’s bite. Yeah. Sure I do.”

He shook his head. “Less than two days. We gotta get back for your shot.”

“Oh, right.” That all seemed like another reality completely. What did anything matter after last night? I rested my head in my hands.

He threw an arm over my shoulder and pulled me tight. He rocked me, and I wept. And then slept.

I dreamed of Chaco and the limping girl with the hope in her eyes.

Noise! I jumped, moved into a crouch.

“It’s okay, okay, Tal.” Hank massaged my hand, kissed my palm.

“No! It could be—”

“It’s Aric. The rangers. We’re all set.”

“Oh. I meant to tell you,” I said. “I recognized Paulie. He was part of a phony National Geographic team I met back in Boston. My gut says he and his buddies were the ones to kill Didi. We’ll see.” I told him the story, and he took notes.

“Once we ID the guy,” he said, “this thing will start to break.”

“I hope so.”

Several rangers filed into the tunnel. Aric was at the head. He led them over to Paulie and pointed.

Two rangers conferred, then hoisted Paulie onto a curved red stretcher, much like they used in ski rescues.

“Aric!” I held open my arms, and he hugged me. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”

“Us. Yeah. Right.” He hugged me tighter.

“How’s Paulie?”

Aric frowned and shook his head. “He didn’t make it, Tally.”

I sprang up and ran to the body that rested in the
stretcher. I tugged back the part of the blanket that covered his face.

I turned away and leaned against the wall. I rested my forehead on the cool stone. What had gone on? I didn’t understand.

“What is it, Tally?” Hank said. “You’ve seen plenty of dead people.”

I nodded. “Yes. But his face. It didn’t look like that when I left last night. Now, it looks . . . well, it looks just like Dumb Dick’s face. Horrible.”

Two of the men looked at each other, and it was obvious they thought I needed a lot more rest. I sucked in a breath, turned to a ranger.

“Come with me,” I said. “I’ll show you where Dumb Dick is. He’s by the stairs.”

“Why don’t you wait here,” Aric said.

I looked from Aric to Hank, both so concerned, so paternal, so wanting to believe none of the things I’d done the previous night. They’d see.

“Do come along,” I said. “Gentlemen, ladies, I’ll show you the way.”

The sun was a fat yellow lollipop, the sky the color of turquoise. The day had warmed, the rain had vanished, and the air was crisp and light.

I wore Hank’s jacket. It was huge on me, and I felt like the abominable snowman as I followed the woman ranger across Chatro Ketl. I wasn’t sure if I could find the staircase again.

Hank held my hand in his huge one, and the comfort warmed me far more than the jacket. Everyone chattered, as if two men hadn’t died in Chaco the previous night.

“Here we are,” said one of the rangers.

And there lay Dumb Dick’s hideously crumpled body. The park rangers loaded him onto a stretcher, and I sure didn’t need to see
his
face. I remembered it all too well.

“You say you climbed the stairs?” the female ranger said.

“Yes.” I nodded, arms tucked at my sides in an attempt to look strong. I think I swayed anyway. “If not for them, I’d have been dead meat.”

“Um, ma’am,” she said. “I’m not really clear about this.”

Aric snorted, shook his head. “What does she have to say? Huh?” He rounded a bend. Silence.

“Aric?” Hank said.

“Hold on!” Aric called.

“Problem?” Hank said.

“Come,” Aric replied.

I felt like I was watching some play, as each person disappeared around the bend. Hank vanished, too, and I was so beat, I slumped against a rock. The two remaining rangers—two others had already left with Dumb Dick’s body—milled around, giving each other and me long looks.

I just wanted to go home. Or, at least, to a warm bed where I could sleep for a week.

Hank reappeared. He slid his arm around my waist, peered down at me, all serious business.

“What?” I didn’t know what else to say.

“Hon, tell us again about last night and the stairway and Dumb Dick.”

“Oh, why not!” I repeated the whole thing, blow by blow. Yawn. I caught Aric listening, too.

When I finished, Hank turned to the rangers. “Another canyon staircase around here?”

They shook their heads, looked down and left, a perfect “tell” that something was off. Maybe they thought I’d murdered Dumb Dick in cold blood. That I hadn’t been pursued.

“Hank,” I said. “He was after me. I know the sign says not to climb the stairs, but I
had
to get away. He was shooting at me. You’ll find the bullets and . . .”

My voice trailed off. Now
everyone
was looking weird.

“People!” I shouted. “I am, after all, a psychologist. What the hell is wrong?”

The wind that had been howling so furiously, quieted. I heard canyon noises. Scurrying and bird chatter and pebbles tumbling to the canyon floor.

Aric held out his hand. “Come. I’ll show you.”

I took it. “Hank?”

“Let Aric take you. I’ll be waiting for you.”

Aric held my left hand, and we walked around the large boulder that hid the entrance to the staircase.

Impossible.

I stared at a jumble of rock, and the vague memory of a stairway cut into the rock. Steps had crumbled. Many no longer existed. Others were impossibly narrow and smooth, and still others gaped or were worn to near nothingness. At the bottom of the stairway, near where we stood, a chaos of rocks and boulders, so that the base of the stairway was pretty much impossible to reach.

The stairway before me
could not
be climbed.

I turned to Aric. “This isn’t it.”

He nodded. “It is, Tally.”

I waved my hand. “I couldn’t climb this in a million years. No one could. There’s nothing to climb!”

He looked at the ground. “I know.”

I threw back my shoulders. “Obviously there’s another stairway around here, one that’s well defined and easy to climb.”

“There isn’t, Tally.” He raised his hand to the stair. “This is the only one nearby. This is where we found Dumb Dick.”

I stormed back around the boulder. The two rangers and Hank stood there wearing expressions of expectation. Hank’s eyebrows inched up. “Well, hon?”

“Don’t ‘hon’ me. Where’s the frickin’ stairway I climbed?” I first looked at Hank, who shook his head, shuffled his feet. I walked over to the rangers. “Well?”

“Um, ma’am,” the man said. “You’ve obviously had a long and terrible night. We understand. We do.” He tried to smile.

“Understand what? I climbed the stairway to get away from Dumb Dick. I got halfway up. I know because of the view.”

“I’m sorry,” said the woman ranger.

“Don’t be,” I said. “Look. Let me explain again. He was chasing me, and I felt along the wall, and then I came to the bottom of the stair. I began to climb. The steps were wide. Wider than four feet, I’d say, and well defined. Well cut, you know. They were deep enough, too, that I didn’t feel tippy. I have lousy balance. So just to make everyone happy, please show me the other stairway, okay? I assume it’s farther away from here, but in the dark, distances can be strange.”

“That’s true about distances.” The woman ranger dug her hands into her back pockets. She looked from me to Hank to Aric to the other ranger, then back to me. “Sure. I’d be happy to do it, okay?”

“Thank you.” I began to walk beside her. “They just think I couldn’t have made it so far or something. Sure, I was beat and terrified, but the adrenaline was pumping like mad.”

“I understand,” she said. “Except we found the dead man at the bottom of the stairway we were just—”

“Humor me,” I said.

“Sure.”

We headed across the canyon floor.

“Wait, please,” I said. “I didn’t cross the canyon.”

She turned to me, her face sad. “Look, ma’am, you’ve had an
ordeal
.” Her voice had a Southern lilt that fell softly on the ear.

“Yes,” I said.

“It was dark.”

“Yes, but the moon was out. It was brighter than you think.”

She tilted her broad-brimmed hat back. “Ma’am, I don’t know how else to say it kindly. It’s either where we’re going, across the canyon, way over there. Or way down the canyon, there.” She pointed, and I knew I hadn’t traveled anywhere near the distances she was showing me.

“But—”

“Or it’s the stairway we just showed you. You couldn’t’ve reached anything else. I
am
sorry, but those are the facts. Even the stairway across the canyon isn’t . . .” Her voice trailed off.

The ranger’s unlined, sunkissed face looked genuinely sad. Squint lines fanned from her green eyes, and freckles dusted her nose and cheeks. Most of all, she wore truth on her face. She didn’t look down or away or anywhere but right at me.

“So, that’s the staircase,” I said, pointing back to where we’d just come from.

She nodded. “That’s it. Right where we found the man you call Dumb Dick.” She held out her hand. “C’mon. Let’s walk back and join the guys. We’re freakin’ ’em out.”

I took her warm, leathery hand in mine. “You’re a good person. Your name?”

“They call me Gimp because, well, I limp. I have a lousy foot.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

She smiled.

On the walk back to the tunnel, I tried not to think about the stairway or how I’d climbed it or the looks I was getting from the other ranger and Hank and Aric.

Gimp held my hand, and, yes, she did walk with a limp.

Her strength seemed to move from our clasped hands up my arm and into my heart. I felt better. I looked at her—with
her confident, limping stride, straight shoulders and flushed cheeks—and saw a face I’d seen before . . . in my dreams or that waking dream or whatever last night’s vision had been.

She must have felt me staring, because she looked straight at me and smiled. The sun was in that smile.

“I’m, um, uncomfortable calling you Gimp. What’s your given name?”

“Doesn’t matter. ‘Gimp’ reminds me of someone I’m fond of. Use it, please.”

“Of course.”

“How ’bout you stay at my apartment today?” she said. “Get some rest. We need to talk.”

I had the strangest feeling that she knew things. Things I needed to understand. “Yes. Okay. I’d love a place to lie down.”

Back at the tunnel, we examined the box of potsherds, which was about the size of a fresh fruit box used at farm stands.

“I’ve seen no stolen pots,” Aric said. “None that are whole.”

Hank paced the breadth of the tunnel. “No.”

With gloved hands, Aric and Hank lifted the sealed wooden box.

Gimp walked over, her hands also gloved. “I figure you don’t want to open it, right?”

“Not a good idea,” Aric said. “We might be able to get some prints, some trace of something off the outside of the box.”

Gimp nodded. “Shake it a little.”

Hank and Aric gently shook the box as the two rangers and I watched. It made a soft, rattling sound.