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  Having developed a tolerable immunity to this toxin, Moon responded in the amiable tone that annoyed his relative, “That’s nice to know. I’m looking forward to seeing the kid.”

  Daisy managed to detect something vaguely like a put-down in the reply. He’s looking forward to seeing Sarah, but not me.

  “So, are you two all packed to come spend some prime time at the Columbine?”

  “Sure.” And now he’ll ask me a whole bunch of questions, just to make sure I haven’t forgot anything. And he’ll remind me to turn off the well pump and the propane valve and all that other stuff.

  Moon asked his aunt a whole bunch of questions. Just to make sure that she had not forgotten anything. He also reminded her to turn off the well pump and the propane valve. And all that other stuff.

  As the conversation gradually wound down, Daisy was playing with the notion of mentioning Chiquita Yazzi and suggesting that her nephew convince the Texas State Police to go looking for the missing woman’s corpse. Charlie, who used to work for the Southern Ute Police Department, had cop buddies all over the Southwest. Not only that, the big-shot tribal investigator’s best friend was Scott Parris, who was chief of police in Granite Creek, which town (about forty miles or so this side of the Columbine Ranch) was where Nancy lived with her mean-to-the-bone stepfather. By the time Daisy had mulled this over for about two seconds, Charlie Moon—who assumed that his elderly relative was getting sleepy—said “Good night, Aunt Daisy.”

  THAT NIGHT, one member of Daisy’s household slept in perfect peace. Mr. Zig-Zag.

  Tired to the bone, Daisy Perika slept like a stone. But not a peaceful stone.

  Sarah Frank? The girl would enjoy a few minutes of heavenly slumbers, in which the bright star of her dreams was invariably the same tall, lean, dark man, who was deeply in love with his new bride—who (in these nighttime fantasies) was much prettier than that aged “FBI woman.” Sad to say, soul-chilling nightmares would shoulder their way in between these blissful interludes. In the worst of the lot, a huge, hairy-armed Hermann Wetzel would slit his wife’s throat with a razor—or beat his screaming stepdaughter with his fists. Inevitably, the sweet dreams were abbreviated, then faded altogether, and the terrible ones dominated the girl’s fitful sleep. To flee from bloody murders and brutal assaults, Sarah opened her eyes long before daylight, determined to wait out the dark night. Over and over, she whispered this consoling mantra: “Charlie Moon will be here today—and take me to the Columbine.” Then, everything would be fine.

  Sarah dared not close her eyes, lest the horrible night-visions begin all over again. But you know what she did. Sarah yawned, drifted off into dreamland for more of the same. Except that Mr. Wetzel had traded the straight razor for a butcher knife.

  Ten

  Sarah’s Extraordinary Adventure

  Not an exaggeration.

  Before this day was over, her bizarre encounter with the “talking gingerroot” would seem like a commonplace event—a big yawn. Which, by coincidence, was how the sleepy girl would greet the dawn. While nothing would seem particularly wrong, neither would things feel quite right. This was to be one of those peculiar awakenings where it is difficult to tell where dreaming ends and reality begins.

  Sarah Frank’s very special day bloomed from the prickly stem of night with a gray, sickly facsimile of light that scuttered under the curtains, and like a shroud searching for something dead that needed wrapping, went creeping across the bed where she was half napping. A chill, funereal breeze moaned dreadfully in the eaves, rattled dry cottonwood leaves, set a woody finger to tap-tapping upon the windowpane.

  Otherwise, things started off just fine.

  WEARIED BY her lurid dreams and wary of what awakening might bring, the frail little girl shivered and shuddered under the covers, pulled the hand-stitched quilt to her chin, kept her eyes closed tightly. If I keep very still and think nice thoughts, I’ll get cozy and warm. The nicest thought of all: Before long, Charlie Moon will show up in his big car to take me and Daisy and Mr. Zig-Zag to the Columbine. A distant second: A hot breakfast of eggs and biscuits. Fleshing it out, Sarah imagined crispy bacon sizzling alongside plump sausage patties in Daisy Perika’s black iron skillet. A big stack of pancakes soaked in syrup thick enough to snare a bumblebee. A steaming mug of black coffee, very sweet—just the way Charlie liked it. Her first sigh of the day. Charlie Moon. Having come full circle to the object of her affections, the youthful optimist managed a wan smile. If I keep really still and think nice—

  Bang-bang on her bedroom door. “Up and at ’em!” Daisy yelled. “Wa-hoo!” As an afterthought, she added, “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!” Whatever that means.

  Sarah bounded out of bed, slipped into her pretty blue dress, pulled on a pair of socks and the brand-new black shoes, and admired herself in the mirror. Almost shrieked at the sight of the wild-girl image that stared back at her, hurriedly ran a comb through her long, black hair.

  Breakfast was lumpy oatmeal, warmed-over biscuits, and a glass of outdated milk that left a slightly sour taste on her tongue.

  There was no indication that Aunt Daisy realized what an important day this was, but Sarah was neither surprised nor dismayed. An elderly woman who sometimes had trouble remembering what month it was, and didn’t give a hoot about Labor Day or Halloween or when Daylight Saving Time kicked in or kicked out, could hardly be expected to pick up on the teenager’s pent-up excitement. And it really didn’t matter. Before long, Charlie Moon would pull up in his Expedition with the blue-and-white Columbine logo on the door.

  Daisy Perika—who did realize how important this day was to her youthful companion—decided that the bad news could wait.

  After breakfast, Sarah leaned on the front windowsill and watched for his arrival. He’ll be here any minute now. Minutes passed like snails going uphill. Old, feeble snails carrying big suitcases filled with rocks.

  Poor little thing. Daisy was just about to open her mouth and tell Poor Little Thing that Charlie would be sending Mr. Kydmann. But if I do, then she’ll ask me, “But why isn’t Charlie coming?” And then I’ll have to tell her: “Because the big gourd head’s going to the airport to pick up Miss Pretty Two-Shoes and then Sarah’ll get all teary-eyed and go off to her bedroom and cry and cry like she didn’t have a friend in the whole world and would just as soon die here and now and I’ll have to go knock on her door and say, “Don’t worry so much about Charlie Moon. He’s not all that special. . . .”

  But he was, of course. Daisy knew that her nephew was one in a million or whatever big number anyone cared to mention. The old woman set her jaw firmly enough to crack a walnut between the molars. Exercised the gray matter. Looked at things this way and that. Came up with a solution to the current difficulty. Passing the buck, of course. I’ll just let Kydmann answer Sarah’s questions about why Charlie didn’t come. Which reminded her that when it came to talking to girls—especially girls with tears in their eyes—she had never seen a cowboy in her life who could put three words together without getting all tongue-tied. Daisy grinned. That should be fun to watch.

  The teenage girl was puzzled when Charlie Moon did not show up shortly after breakfast. Or shortly before lunch, which for Sarah was the dry, butt end of the Velveeta block sandwiched between two pieces of stale white bread, smeared with mayonnaise from the bottom of the jar. Another glass of almost-soured milk.

  After the midday meal, the girl pulled a white cotton sweater over her pretty blue dress, went outside in her shiny-new black shoes, listened for the sound of the big automobile. What she heard was a raven, perched on the top of an electric utility pole. As members of the rude Crow tribe are wont to do, the black bird caw-cawed a rude haw-haw at We Know Who.

  UTTERLY DESPONDENT when her hero did not appear during the midafternoon, Sarah ascended the rocky ridge behind the house, brushed pine needles and dust off a sandstone boulder, and sat down to watch the long dirt road that meandered miles from Daisy’s remote home to the graveled road, w
hich crossed the Rio Piedras bridge to terminate at the paved highway whose name was Route 151, from which junction the rutted road came all the way back again. When a puffed-up cloud thundered overhead, insolently began to spit and sprinkle on her head, she returned to the house and, quiet as a mouse, tried to hold the tears inside.

  AT ABOUT half past three o’clock, Daisy’s telephone rang. Sarah Frank jumped up to answer it, but the old woman got there first. It was Mrs. Bushman, the ranch foreman’s kindly wife. Dolly B. said she had tried to telephone Daisy earlier, but the electric power had been knocked off all the way from Montrose to Salida by a big thunderstorm—even the cell-phone towers had been out of commission. Dolly was very sorry, but not to worry—Jerome Kydmann had left quite some time ago.

  After listening to this report and hanging up, Daisy told the expectant teenager, “We’ll be picked up in a little while.”

  Having some dignity to preserve, Sarah refrained from leaping and dancing. But she did pick up her cat and give him an enthusiastic hug.

  PER DAISY’S promise, not too many minutes had passed before a shiny red F-250 pickup pulled into the grove of piñon and juniper that dotted her front yard. Sarah ran outside, a smile splitting her little brown face. Charlie’s got a new truck! When she saw Jerome Kydmann, aka the Wyoming Kyd (a genuine native of Wyoming, Rhode Island), getting out of the vehicle, her smile drooped at the edges.

  He tipped his white cowboy hat. “Sorry I’m so danged late. I would’ve shown up bright ’n’ early this morning, but just as I was about to leave I found out the starter wasn’t working. Took me a while to get it up and running again.”

  Sarah had no interest in matters mechanical. “Where’s Charlie?”

  Charlie Moon’s good-looking employee flashed the boyish grin. “Ah . . . some important business came up the boss had to attend to, so he asked me to bring you ladies up to the Columbine.”

  Sarah was struck dumb. Important business? The teenager hung her head, but she did not weep. The tough little lady balled her hands into knotty little fists, clenched her teeth. Growing up is hard work.

  It got harder when the Wyoming Kyd, who realized that the girl was upset, figured that she might feel a notch or two better if he explained just how important the boss’s business was. He cranked the engaging grin up to about three hundred watts and said, “Charlie had to make a run over to the airport and pick up a VIP.”

  Sarah asked who the Very Important Person was.

  The Kyd told her. He might as well have plunged a dagger into her tender heart.

  The girl turned her back on Mr. Tact, ran into the house. She passed Daisy coming out.

  The handsome young cowboy’s grin long gone, he looked to the old woman for help. “What’s wrong—was it somethin’ I said?”

  “Oh, no, Knot Head.” Daisy snorted. “You’re a sure-enough silver tongue.” He had, in fact, met her expectations. Nay, exceeded them. And revived her faith in the hairy-legged sex’s innate ability to make asses of themselves at every opportunity. And though Daisy felt sorry for Sarah, to be proven right was quite gratifying.

  The perplexed fellow stared at the peculiar old Indian woman. “I don’t get it.” Truer words had never been spoken.

  Daisy took this member of the clueless gender by the arm and, in her hobbling gait, led him to a shady grape arbor, where a horde of small black wasps whined about in search of something to sting. “Charlie’s change of plans has complicated things, and there’s a few things we need to get straight.”

  The boyish grin appeared again. “Oh, right.”

  Daisy pointed to a hand-hewn pine bench. “Let’s you and me sit down and have a little talk about what’s what and what’s not.”

  And so they did.

  Fine. But what about Sarah’s Extraordinary Adventure?

  Shhhh. Ever so stealthily, it is creeping up on her!

  Eleven

  Small Talk

  After the mind-numbing flights from Dulles International Airport to St. Louis to Colorado Springs, the pleasing prospect of deplaning and seeing the Ute’s smiling face for the first time in months had FBI Special Agent Lila Mae McTeague fairly tingling with anticipation. Charlie Moon was so full of life . . . so—so spontaneous! But he had sounded ever so slightly tense during last evening’s telephone conversation. Like perhaps I might be arriving at an inopportune time. I hope he’s still the same old Charlie.

  The tall rancher—looking mighty fine in his tailor-made gray suit, gray John B. Stetson hat, and hand-tooled gray cowboy boots—enveloped the pretty lady in an embrace that left her—for a dizzying moment—breathless. And not entirely because he had squeezed Lila Mae’s first good whiff of Colorado air right out of her. The moment was all too brief.

  While Moon manhandled her luggage off the segmented track and out to the Columbine Expedition, it was all chitchat about how nice the weather was but it would sure be great to get some rain, and after all that time at thirty-six thousand feet, wasn’t it great to get her feet on the ground again.

  For the first time ever, they were not entirely comfortable together. It was like a first date.

  Not that Charlie Moon didn’t try. For reasons he could not entirely understand, the man could not bring himself to broach the delicate subject. Every time he made an attempt to mention what was on his mind, the words stuck in his throat. There was a deep concern that—If I don’t say it just right, she’s liable to say, “No way, bub.” Or, “Let’s take some time to think about it, Charlie—this is a very important decision for both of us.” Which was just a polite way of saying, “No way, bub.” The engagement ring in his jacket pocket was a fine prop and would be a considerable help when he got around to popping the question. As he drove along the mountain road, chasing the afternoon sun, the prospective groom rehearsed several brief speeches. But as he turned them over in his mind one by one, the cowboy under the fine gray hat rejected them all.

  An Opportunity

  About an hour west of Colorado Springs, Charlie Moon pulled into a rural mom-and-pop grocery store and café that featured a couple of old-fashioned gas pumps that had no slots for credit cards. It was a friendly place, where Mom and Pop trusted their clientele. A handwritten sign on each pump advised customers to Get Your Gas Then Pay Inside. Moon shed his jacket, filled the tank, entered the store to pay for the fuel.

  Lila Mae, who had no great interest in rustic roadside businesses, was staring straight into the future, musing about what it would be like to be Charlie’s wedded wife. Mrs. Lila Mae Moon. The moniker did have a nice ring to it. As the muser happened to glance at the driver’s seat, where Mr. Moon had left his jacket, she noticed something. A small, white plastic bag that was about to fall from one of the pockets. Now, the federal cop was not overly nosy. If the lady had suspected what was in the smallish sack, she would not have touched it with the pointy tip of an immaculately lacquered fingernail. But she was one of those very orderly souls who cannot abide the prospect of something escaping from its proper place, and so had no option but to correct the situation. Which was when she noticed the label on the bag:

  PIPPIN’S FINE JEWELRY

  Granite Creek, Colorado

  Lila Mae reacted instinctively, withdrawing her hand as if it had encountered a hyperactive mouse in her pocket.

  Goodness—that’s none of my business! This was her conscience, bolstered by a formidable sense of integrity.

  The let’s-not-be-too-picky portion of her brain begged to disagree: But it is your business—you’re thinking about marrying the guy, aren’t you?

  In support of this point of view, the sneaky lobe (which was prone to nauseating baby-talk) tossed in its two cents: It won’t hurt to take a teensy-weensy little peeky-weeky.

  Let’s Not Be Too Picky was quick to agree: Charlie’s still inside, paying for the gas. What he don’t know won’t hurt him. Et cetera.

  So she did. Opened the bag, found the black velvet box. Opened it.

  Oh my!

  Well, wh
at could she do? Just look? Not on your life. After glancing at the open door to the grocery store and seeing no sign of her practically betrothed, Lila Mae slipped the gold band onto her finger. It was a wee bit tight. As she held her hand up to admire the ornament, white light that had departed the nearest star eight minutes and twenty-two seconds earlier refracted along the diamond’s multitudinous facets, lit up the lady’s eyes with a dazzle of rainbow hues. It is so lovely!

  Lila Mae is, in a word—entranced.

  She is, in three more words—not paying attention.

  But the lady is not so distracted that she does not hear the characteristic sound of boot heels crunching on gravel. That’s right. Here comes Charlie Moon, big smile on his face, big Styrofoam cup of coffee in each hand.

  “Eeeek—eeeek!”

  No, really. This is exactly what she said, word for word—whilst pulling the ring off her finger, jamming it into the little black box, deftly slipping said box into the white plastic bag, the bag into the gray suit-coat pocket—and Charlie Moon, who is making yard-long strides—is now so close that she can see the whites of his eyes!

  Oh, I just barely made it—

  But wait. What is this small rectangle of paper that has fallen from the bag, fluttered down to the floorboard to rest near the pointy tip of her stylish shoe? A sales slip, no doubt. But there is no time to restore the receipt to its rightful place, so the FBI special agent—who has been trained to make lightning-quick decisions in the most harrowing circumstances imaginable—snatched it up, stuffed it into her purse, snapped it shut. And—like the arrival of the U.S. Cavalry with sabers raised when the war-painted Indians are about to make the final, bloody attack—just in the nick of time!