The Graves of Plague Canyon (The Downwinders Book 3) (2 page)

“No. Just me. I go to classes at DSU every day, then home to
an empty house. Ladies from the ward bring casseroles around, every night. I
have a fridge full of casseroles.”

“Geez, I’m sorry, David,” Deem said, resuming her attention
to his wound.

“I know this just looks like a stupid roller skating trophy
to you,” David said, holding the plaque, “but I was reading my dad’s journal, and
he mentioned it. He was proud of it. I knew they were tearing the place down,
and I wanted to save it. With them gone, I feel this urge to hold onto anything
about them that I can. I couldn’t let them just tear down the place and have this
plaque disappear.”

“I lost my father a couple of years ago,” Deem said. “I know
what you mean. I take it back, it wasn’t stupid.”

They chatted a while longer before exchanging contact
information and David thanked her for the rescue. Deem said she’d check in on
him in a couple of days, to see how he was doing. David replied that he’d
appreciate it.

She watched him walk to his car.
Cute guy,
she
thought.
Really cute. Not my type, but cute.
She considered offering to
give him some River guidance and tutelage, but then she thought about the
trouble she’d had recently with Dayton and the skinrunners, and she thought
better.
He’s way too much of a novice for the kind of shit Winn and I have
been dealing with. It’d just get him killed.

Still, he needs some help,
she thought.
Remember to check in with him in a
few days.

▪ ▪ ▪

Deem had been scanning documents for hours when Carma burst
into the small office. Deem looked up; Carma was panicked.

“So, so, listen, I have a huge favor to ask,” Carma said,
twisting her hands together so tightly Deem was afraid she might break a bone.

“Yes?” Deem asked, lifting a piece of paper from the scanner
and placing it in a cardboard box by the desk. “What is it?”

“I know you’re right in the middle of that,” Carma said, “but
the problem is, I’m right in the middle of something, too, that I can’t drop.
I’ve had some bad news from my niece in Fredonia. Her daughter is very ill.
She’s received a diagnosis from a specialist that she can’t read, and she was
wondering if I could go out there and help make sense of it. I can’t, not right
at the moment. Things are at a delicate stage here, and I can’t leave.”

The tedium of scanning had been wearing on Deem and she was
more than ready for a break. “Sure, I’d be happy to help. Is her eyesight bad?”

“No, her eyesight is fine,” Carma said, looking worried, as
though she’d left something urgent somewhere else in the house and needed to
get back to it. “Her daughter’s illness is River related, and the diagnosis likely
requires the ability to jump into the flow to make sense of it. My niece isn’t
gifted, though her daughter is, and apparently her daughter is so bad off she
can’t be roused. So Ester is desperate to sort it out. Can you go? Figure out
this diagnosis she’s received? I’d do it, but I can’t get away for the next
while — some things with Lyman that I have to see through. I know it’s a huge
imposition.”

“Not really,” Deem said, standing up and stretching. “I’m
tired of sitting here. I could use a drive.”

“Of course I’d normally ask Awan, but with him being back
east right now…”

“It’s no problem, Carma, really,” Deem said, grabbing her
phone and keys from the desk. “I can be out there and back before the end of
the day.”

“Good, then you must plan on supper here tonight,” Carma said
with a look of relief. “I’ll ask Winn to come out, too. You can fill me in on
what you find out. You’re a godsend, truly, Deem. I don’t know what I would
have done without you here to do this for me!”

And with that, Carma hurried out of the room.

I wonder what she’s doing with Lyman?
Deem thought, making her way through
the house and out the front door to her truck. She climbed inside, took a sip
of the Big Gulp in the cup holder, and decided it was too warm.
I’ll stop in
Hurricane for a refill,
she thought.
Fredonia — what will that take?
Maybe an hour?

She started up the truck and pulled around the driveway in
front of Carma’s old, historic house. It was a good hundred feet from the house
to the front gate, and the midday sun was beating down on the hot interior of
the cab, making Deem wish she had a drink already. She cranked up the A/C, but
it had been fritzing out lately and wasn’t doing a good job of keeping her
truck cooled off on really hot Southern Utah days.

She rolled down a window and let the hot air blow through the
cab. It felt good to be outside after sitting cooped up in Carma’s office,
endlessly scanning the documents she’d recovered from Claude’s house. They were
a history of some of the most unusual and nefarious activities of clandestine
underground groups in the area, and Deem had been lucky enough to secure them
when Claude was killed. She knew there were plenty of people around town who
would love to have the documents, and plenty who would steal to get them, so
she’d kept them at Carma’s, where they’d be safe until she could get them all
scanned.

It was hard not to read through them while scanning, but Deem
found that it just made the process take longer when she did, so she’d stopped
looking them over and tried to become robotic, mindlessly placing them on the
scanner and not becoming too involved with their contents. She knew she’d be
reading them soon enough, looking for clues on Dayton and his council, and her
father’s involvement with them. Claude had been tracking their activities for
years, and she was sure that somewhere in his boxes of files and folders she’d
uncover something that might help her take down Dayton and his followers.

That will come later,
she thought.
Scan first. Make a backup, get it into a
safe deposit box somewhere. Maybe two safe deposit boxes. Spread it around in a
number of safe places, so if Dayton ever discovers I have it and tries to
blackmail me or torture me into giving it up, I can reveal a few locations and
satisfy him. He’s a smart man, he’ll expect me to have hidden more than one
copy.

She turned onto the interstate and rolled up her window,
hoping the A/C would kick in. She held her fingers over the vents, feeling for
cold air — but it wasn’t much colder than the air that had been coming in
through the windows.

Damn,
she thought.
That’s gonna cost money I don’t have. I’ll have to beg
more from Mom.

Even though it was uncomfortably warm, Deem was happy to be
outside, the red rock surrounding her on every side, the asphalt racing away
under her. A drive out to Fredonia would clear her mind, allow her to think.
She needed that.

Once she refilled her drink and cleared Hurricane, she felt
even more comfortable and was ready for the drive through the desert. She
realized she’d forgotten to get the address of where she was going to, so she
called Carma, but there was no answer. She called Winn instead.

“Hello?” Winn answered, breathing heavily.

“Winn?” I…” Deem started, then she listened for a moment,
hearing moaning in the background. “Wait… are you… are you having sex?”

“None of your business,” Winn said. “Let’s just say you’re
lucky I picked up.”

“You are!” Deem said. “I can’t believe you’re having sex
while you talk to me on the phone!”

“As I said — lucky you!” Winn replied, ending with a grunt.

Deem paused a moment, listening to the background noise from
the call, then stopped herself. “Really disgusting, Winn.”

“Nope, the exact opposite,” Winn replied.

She couldn’t tell from the sounds, and curiosity got the
better of her, so she asked, “Is it a woman? Or a man?”

Before Winn could reply, she stopped him. “Never mind. I
can’t believe I asked you that.”

“It’s because you have a healthy sex drive you’ve repressed,
like all good little Mormon girls,” Winn said.

“I’m
not
a good little Mormon girl,” Deem replied.

Winn responded by grunting a few times. Deem imagined
thrusting.

“So, sorry to interrupt and all, but you did pick up,” Deem
said.

“Yeah,” Winn replied, his voice rising. “Guess you should
tell me what you want… unless you wanna keep listening.”

“I need a favor,” Deem soldiered through, the moaning in the
background continuing. “Carma’s going to invite you over for dinner tonight. In
the meantime, I’m driving out to Fredonia on an errand for her, but I forgot to
get the address of the place I’m supposed to visit. I tried calling her, but
she doesn’t answer.”

“Yeah, I noticed she often doesn’t pick up,” Winn said,
grunting. “I don’t think she likes using phones.”

“Well,” Deem said, “I’m well on my way out here, and I don’t
want to turn around and go back, so I was wondering if you’d head into her
place a little early, get the address from her, and text it to me? I’ll be in
Fredonia in an hour and can kill time until you do.”

She heard the moaning in the background reach a crescendo,
and Winn panted back into the phone, “Yeah! Yeah, no problem.”

“Did you just…?” Deem asked. “No, no − don’t answer
that.”

“I can only imagine what’s going through your mind,” Winn
snickered into the phone.

“That’s really disgusting, Winn,” Deem said. “I’m hanging up
now.”

“I’ll text you,” Winn said with a long sigh, and Deem hung up
her phone.

God, he’s such a sex fiend,
she thought, and for a moment she tried to fill in
the gaps of the conversation, but then she decided instead to wipe all of the
images from her mind and pretend she hadn’t just talked to Winn while he
climaxed.

Eeeww,
she thought.

▪ ▪ ▪

She checked the address on the white adobe house in front of
her with the address Winn had texted. They matched. Deem turned off the truck
and hopped out.

She stepped over the corrugated pipe that arched over the
cement irrigation ditch running in front of the house and walked up to the
front door, passing nicely tended rose bushes on either side of the path. A curtain
fluttered in a large window by the door, and she suspected someone had seen her
walking up.

The door opened before she could knock, and a large black dog
with a broad yellow collar leapt out at her. She stepped back, and the dog rose
up on its hind legs, landing its front paws on her chest.

“Monte!” came a voice from inside. “Down! Monte! Come here!”

Deem looked up and saw a middle aged woman staring at the dog
over small reading glasses. The woman looked up at Deem. “He won’t bite, don’t
worry,” she said apologetically.

Deem reached out to pet the dog, and the animal, encouraged, leapt
more.

“If you do that, he’ll just keep jumping,” the woman said,
and then patted her legs and called for the dog once again.

“Friendly dog!” Deem said, as Monte finally obeyed the woman
and ran back inside.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” the woman side. “What can I do for
you?”

“Carma sent me,” Deem replied. “Said you needed some help
reading a diagnosis?”

The woman’s eyes went wide, as though she was seeing an
oddity from a circus sideshow.

“Oh, Carma didn’t tell me,” the woman replied. She lowered
her voice. “So, you’re… you’re
that
way?”

“If by that you mean gifted, yes,” Deem whispered back.

“Come in,” the woman said, standing back from the door. Deem
entered and was assaulted by the dog once again.

“Monte! Stay down!” the woman yelled, but the dog was too
excited to listen to the commands.

“Give me just a moment, will you?” she asked. “I’m going to
tie him up in the backyard. Have a seat, I’ll be right back.”

Deem glanced around the room and chose a chair next to a
fireplace. Hung over the fireplace, in an ornately gold frame, was a large
painting of the St. George temple. Within moments the woman returned.

“I’m Ester Tait,” she said, extending her hand. Deem rose to
shake it. “Oh, sit, please,” Ester said.

“I’m Deem.”

“What an unusual name!” Ester replied.

Deem had heard it a thousand times, so she just continued on.
“Carma seemed overwhelmed with something, that’s why she asked me to come out. You’re
Carma’s niece?”

Ester smiled back. “She said niece? More like
great-great-great-niece. Might be more than that, I don’t know.”

“Oh!” Deem replied, surprised. Then she remembered that Carma
seemed a lot younger than she really was.

“My daughter’s been ill for several days now,” Ester said.
“We took her to doctors, but she told us they wouldn’t find anything, and she
was right. She called someone the day before yesterday and asked her to
diagnose what was wrong with her. It came in this afternoon’s mail. I can’t
make heads or tails of it.” Ester held up a small envelope. She handed it to
Deem.