Shadows of Death Page 20

  Bad timing for the man and the dog, Parker thought. A small dust-colored lizard darted to the top of a nearby boulder and tilted its scaly head; a bright yellow eye glared malevolently up at him. It began pushing up and down, warning him off, protecting its territory. He glanced down at the small angry body, and a surge of unease shot through him like the onset of an illness. He had to survive. Sand Canyon was opening in less than three weeks. The man and the dog would have to be casualties. Too bad, it couldn’t be helped.

  He made a hole in one of the sticks of dynamite with his pocketknife and pushed a length of fuse through it. He carefully placed a cap over the end of the fuse and realized he lacked crimping pliers. That meant using his teeth. The caps were pressure sensitive and powerful. Misplaced pressure would remove his jaw. He thought of the cat that had its head blown off. He crimped down the edges with his teeth, guessing at how hard he had to bite down. Then he pushed the crimped cap and fusing into the dynamite, feeding the fuse carefully back through the hole so that its connection to the cap remained secure, leaving six inches of fuse protruding from the stick of dynamite.

  That left him three minutes to get to his truck and get moving. He’d have to scramble. He bundled the four sticks together, tying them up with a length of fusing. He lit the fuse, waited to be sure he’d done it right, then gave the dynamite an underhanded toss, lodging it between two of the rock slabs hanging over the road.

  The large man had dismounted and started down the hill toward Parker’s truck, followed by the dog. As he turned to go, a large white SUV roared over the grade, a BLM vehicle—Flynn.

  Parker began scrambling down the gully leading back toward the road, dislodging rocks and gravel in a noisy cascade. According to his watch, he had two minutes and twenty seconds.

  •

  Frank had been following the ATV for some time, unable to overtake it. It was built for the terrain. After a while, he was able to make out a dog behind the rider. Tucker and his dog, and Tucker was in a hurry. Frank honked the horn, hoping to attract his attention, but no such luck. The ATV drowned his efforts in a cone of noise. Frank increased his speed. His vehicle was in a barely controlled skid as he crested the rise leading into the narrow canyon and found the ATV stopped in the middle of the road.

  At the sound of the braking truck, Tucker turned. Finally something had distracted him from his single-minded course.

  “Mr. Tucker. Wait a minute,” Frank shouted. He threw open the door and trotted in Tucker’s direction.

  “Some son of a bitch wrecked my truck,” Tucker bellowed.

  “Wasn’t the guy I sent to take care of your stock, was it?”

  “Naw, he’s okay. The other guy rammed me over an embankment. I’m chasing him.”

  “I’m chasing him, too, Mr. Tucker.”

  “Okay, then. Let’s go,” Tucker said, walking back toward the BLM vehicle.

  “Can’t do that, Mr. Tucker. No civilians.”

  Tucker’s brows knit.

  “It’s against the rules,” Frank added. “The man is very dangerous. He kills people, Mr. Tucker. I can’t put your life in danger.”

  Tucker threw his head back and laughed. “Too late, Ranger Flynn. Uncle Sam beat you to it.”

  “Look, Mr. Tucker, I have to—” His thought was cut off by a deafening roar accompanied by the pulse of a shock wave. For the briefest of moments there was silence, and then it began raining rocks, followed by a cascade of debris thundering into the ravine, filling the canyon with clouds of brown and yellow dust.

  •

  Parker was long gone before the dust cleared. Ahead of him, the road was empty, and there were no pursuers from behind. He rejoined Highway 168, a narrow strip of asphalt that led into the Inyo Mountains from the Owens Valley through Westgard Pass and then south into Death Valley. He encountered a lone police car speeding up the grade toward the pass. The driver didn’t give the old green Chevy a second look. They were still looking for the man in the red truck. He turned south on 395 and picked up the road leading to the Mount Whitney Fish Hatchery. He drove past the fish hatchery to the upper reaches of Oak Creek. Then he took a dim track into a cluster of pines that wound down the slope, pulled under the trees, and cut the engine. The end of the line—for the truck, not for the rider.

  His good spirits made him smile. He had made a remarkable escape. Moved and improvised. The surprise at Sand Canyon would still be a reality. He retrieved his rifle and his daypack. The rifle was in a hard case and could easily be mistaken for fishing gear. Most likely, no one would notice the truck, thinking it belonged to a fisherman. He hiked back down to the hatchery, following the creek.

  The Mount Whitney Fish Hatchery looked more like a medieval monastery than a fish hatchery. It was a two-story structure of native stone and huge timbers roofed in red tile. It had been built after the turn of the last century, a gift from the people of the Owens Valley to residents and visiting fishermen.

  He took his phone from his daypack and punched in John’s number with his thumb. “I’m at the Mount Whitney Fish Hatchery.” He nodded into the phone. “Okay, I’ll feed the trout while I’m waiting. See you in a few hours. I really want you to see this place. It has a tower overlooking the valley. You could hold off an army.”

  37

  •

  When the rocks began pelting the ground around Zeke Tucker and Frank Flynn, they hit the dirt, covered their heads with their arms, and waited it out. Frank was the first to get up. Tucker’s ATV was farther downcanyon, under the landslide. Jack-the-dog trailed Tucker as he emerged from the swirling dust cloud. The blood running down his forehead completed the picture of Frankenstein’s mad monster. Frankenstein and dog. Frankendog jumped into Frank’s thoughts. He restrained himself from comment.

  “Mr. Tucker, are you all right?”

  “Yeah.” He knelt beside Jack and ran his large hands over the dog’s body. “Jack’s good, too.” He turned back and stared into the canyon. “Can’t see my Yamaha.”

  “That’s okay. I can give you a ride back to your place.” Frank climbed behind the wheel of the white Expedition. “Moby Dick here seems okay.”

  “Wasn’t your ATV that got buried,” Tucker growled as he opened the passenger door. Jack hopped into the backseat, and Tucker filled the passenger side of the cab, puffs of dust flying off him in tiny cascades. Dustyman, Frank thought. Dick Tracy’s archenemy, or maybe Batman’s nemesis, ready to gum up civilization with clouds of brown dust. Frank realized that he had the high that followed a close call.

  “What the hell you smiling about, Flynn? We almost got killed—and with my dynamite.”

  “Your dynamite?”

  “Yeah, he must’ve searched the shed up by the spring.”

  “You’re saying the man who set off the blast—his name is Seth Parker, by the way—used your dynamite.”

  “Yep, unless he just carries it around. Either he found it, or the Indian did, and he took it when he took the Indian’s truck.”

  Frank’s head snapped around. “How do you know he took the Indian’s truck?”

  “It wasn’t there when I went after him, and it was there when I got there. So he must’ve taken it. Looked like your truck.”

  “Damn. That was my truck he was in, Mr. Tucker.” Frank made a sour face. “I lent it to Eddie, so he could take care of your stock.” He glanced over at Tucker’s bloody face. “Let me clean up your wound.” He reached across and opened the glovebox and took out a first aid kit.

  “I can do it,” Tucker said, taking the kit from Frank’s hands. “Let’s get going.”

  Frank put the SUV in drive and shot up the road, tires spitting gravel as he went. When they reached the curve leading into the long straight stretch across the bottom of the valley, Frank brought the heavy vehicle into a controlled skid and pushed it up to sixty. They were pounding up the road and bouncing around in the cab.

  “You quit smiling, Ranger Flynn,” Tucker remarked.

  Frank gave him a sour look.


  “I think your truck’s probably still running. Can’t say the same for my Yamaha.”

  “That’s true, Mr. Tucker. I didn’t think about your ATV.” Frank sighed and eased back on the throttle. “And we’re both still moving, and that’s not all bad.”

  “Nope. Jack’s okay, too.” He reached back and stroked the dog’s ears.

  •

  Eddie Laguna closed Zeke Tucker’s gate and slipped the wire loop over the fence post and climbed into the Bureau of Land Management’s white SUV. Frank waved from the driver’s side window, and they careened down Tucker’s two-track trail to the Saline Valley Road. Frank still hoped that he could report what happened in time for Parker to be apprehended. It was more than an hour back to the junction with Hunter Mountain Road and probably close to that before the damn cell phone would work. If he could get a description of his truck out—his truck, damn, how would he explain that—Parker would be easy to spot, but not easy to stop.

  “Eddie, did Parker say anything to you about what he was doing? Drop any hints?”

  “Nope. He was in a hurry. Told me if I was an impediment—what a shithead—he’d have to shoot me. He’s a cold son of a bitch. Said it like, okay, if I got to kill you, I got to kill you. Ho hum.”

  “He’s killed a lot of people, Eddie. I think he’s planning on killing more.”

  “Who’s he going to kill?”

  “I’m not sure. He’s got a list.”

  “He makes lists of people he’s going to kill?”

  “In a way. Yeah. He’s going to kill people he thinks are cruel. Mostly people who torture animals. Like the men up on the flats. He killed them because they were killing burros.”

  “I got a couple names for him.”

  “You, too, huh?”

  “What?” Eddie looked perplexed.

  “You’ve got a list. ‘They’ll none of them be missed.’ ” He mumbled this last part.

  “Yeah, probl’ly mine’s not as long as his.”

  “He thinks he’s doing the right thing. He killed those poachers up on the flats. He killed another man who was killing vultures.” His face tightened up. “And he killed a man he had hated for a long time.” It was hard for Frank to feel sorry for some of Parker’s victims. The dead poachers were no loss, and by killing Stuller, Parker had improved the gene pool, but shooting the loudmouth kid and running down Greg Wilson was nothing but murder and mayhem. It wasn’t his call, but it was hard not to make the judgments. He thought of Bill Jerome’s remark about justice, “You want justice, look in the dictionary or pack a piece.” That’s what Parker was doing. “Where every man is a law unto himself, there is no law.” He’d have to look it up.

  They were about twenty minutes from Highway 190. Frank checked his phone. No signal yet. He’d been thinking that Parker took his truck to make his getaway just a step ahead of the law. He’d been a man in a hurry, so when did he have time to search the sheds and go up to the spring? Frank looked over at Eddie, slouched at ease against the door. “Okay, time to come clean, Redhawk. Where did you find the dynamite?”

  “Dynamite?” Eddie tried to look guileless.

  “Come on, Eddie, you didn’t bring it with you. Even if Parker brought it in his van, after the roadblock, he was traveling light. So where was it?”

  Eddie glanced from side to side, looking crafty. He would have made a lousy spy, Frank thought. As it was, he was an inept thief. “It was in a shed up by the spring.”

  Frank nodded. “That’s what Tucker figured, that you took his dynamite.” He raised his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t screw around with Tucker, Eddie. He’s not the kind of guy who strikes me as forgiving.”

  Eddie looked smug. “He already said it was okay.”

  “Don’t try to tell me you asked permission to take it.”

  “Nope, but I told him I took it, while you were taking a leak.” He grinned. “He told me not to worry about it, but not to tell people he had dynamite on his place.”

  Frank shifted the SUV into four-wheel as they started up Grapevine Canyon. Why wouldn’t Tucker want people to know he had dynamite? More important, what was he using it for? He must be working an unregistered claim, maybe not on his property. “You see anything that might be mine tailings up in the canyon?”

  “Some old stuff maybe, all covered with brush.” Eddie frowned in thought. “There was some piles of dirt and rock above the springbox. The storms washed a lot of the dirt into it. Took me all day to clean it out. Why you asking?”

  “No reason, just wondering.”

  Eddie nodded. “Okay.”

  Frank’s questions set Eddie to thinking about Tucker. If Tucker was sitting on an old mining claim, it might be the one from Cece’s map. That would be great. He could tell her he found the mine, make her dreams come true. He’d never considered being someone’s hero, but the thought of being Cece Flowers’s hero made his heart race. Then he thought about Tucker and Tucker’s place, a very big problem.

  “Is mining in the Saline Valley still legal?” Eddie asked.

  “Depends on a lot of stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “Whether it’s in Death Valley National Park and whether it’s grandfathered in under the law and whether a legal claim’s been filed. Stuff like that.” Frank looked over at his friend. “Why the sudden interest in the Saline Valley?”

  “It’s Shoshone country.”

  Frank suspected Eddie was feeding him a line, but that was okay. He needed to put the mine thing on the back burner anyhow.

  38

  •

  Ralph put three paper plates weighted down with steaming burritos on the counter, and the trio adjourned to the table on the broken asphalt. Collins was glad to be away from the Joshua Tree Athletic Club and its clientele of ever curious geezers. Even the barest whiff of a treasure hunt sent them into fits of questions and stories of lost bonanzas. Old hands fished flasks of gold flakes from grubby pockets. Then the tall tales started. The fact that they authored their own fabrications didn’t seem to diminish their gullibility. The richer the claim, the more credulous the audience. Jack didn’t need it. He figured they really could be onto something, and they didn’t want a million partners, just a million dollars.

  “What’s payaso mean?” Ben inquired, taking a seat at the sunbleached picnic table.

  “I thought you were the man who spoke the español.” Bill Jerome looked smug.

  “I can cuss in many languages,” Shaw intoned.

  “Clown. He called you a clown,” Collins said.

  “Naw, he called you guys payasos, clowns. He called me a culo, an asshole.” Shaw looked triumphant.

  Collins removed a folder from a battered leather briefcase and shuffled through the papers, making a cursory examination, setting some to one side. “This is Ms. Flowers’s map, the original, at least so she says.” He looked at his companions and lifted a pale ivory page from the rest. “Here’s the letter from her great-granduncle describing its location—sort of.”

  “How’d you come by Ms. Flowers’s papers?” Jerome asked.

  “I told you before. She gave them to Linda so she could look them over and maybe bring us along as investors.”

  They bent forward to read the letter over Collins’s shoulders.

  “Two days’ travel north of Red Mountain. Hell, that doesn’t do us much good. How fast would he be walking?” Shaw inquired.

  “He probably had a burro. Burros don’t move all that fast,” Jerome added.

  “Well, here’s the discouraging part, boys. Linda thinks the map is a phony.”

  “How’d she come to that?” Shaw wanted to know.

  “See how the map and letter are all discolored and wrinkled.”

  “Like your face, Jack. It’s what happens when you’re old.”

  Jack shook his head. “Not so, boys. If you look more closely the color’s even, the same all over the page. That’s not what happens when paper ages, skin either. Linda thinks the pages were soaked
in tea for artificial aging.” Jack paused to look into the faces of his companions. “Take a look at some old faces, gents. Some places are darker, some lighter, some mottled with liver spots. Look at Ben’s nose, all broken out with tiny veins.”

  “Screw you, Jack. You could light your own way in the dark with that knob of yours.”

  “Is that conclusive?” Bill asked. “I mean, couldn’t something age evenly?”

  “Maybe so, but here’s the final proof. Linda dug around in some old newspapers and discovered that Red Mountain used to be called Osdick, up until 1931, when they changed the name. Osdick was the superintendent of the Yellow Aster Mine in Randsburg. I guess his relatives objected to a red-light town bearing their name.”

  “Well, damn it all to hell,” Jerome said, a mournful expression on his face.

  “That’s too bad. I sorta liked that girl.” Shaw shook his head. “She had grit, and she was Eddie’s girl . . . say, does Eddie know he’s been snookered?”

  “Well, that’s a problem, too. Linda said she’d see if she could break it to him. My guess is that he’ll take it pretty hard. You could tell he really likes her,” Jack replied.

  “So what do we do now?”

  “Well, we’ll have to see how things fall out with Eddie and Cece when Linda lets Cece know she’s onto her. She told me that’s where she was going to start.” He reached down and took a bite of his burrito, which was well on its way to growing cold. The others temporarily dropped the conversation to follow suit.

  “I was really looking forward to going on a treasure hunt,” Shaw said around a mouthful of food. “I’ve been reading about lost mines all my life, but I’ve never been on a treasure hunt”—he grinned—“where you go out looking with a map and letter.”

  “Well, Linda did say this,” Collins added. “She thinks the letter was copied from an original, and that Cece, or someone, changed it.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “The language and the information in it point to an original source. Our Ms. Flowers doesn’t know the Mojave, but the letter refers to out-of-the-way locations and descriptions of stuff that match what’s really there. The map might be completely phony, but she thinks there’s a letter behind the letter,” Jack said, washing down some burrito with a swallow of beer.