Raptor Page 21

  “I knew you didn’t kill anybody,” she said.

  So did everybody else in the place, because when Ruthie raised her glass they all stood up and toasted with her. “To March,” they said.

  He was moved, and his soft-up-close eyes got perilously moist, but he deflected the praise by turning it on me. He stood up and raised his own glass. “To my lawyer, Neil. Without her I’d be dining in jail tonight.”

  “To Neil,” they said.

  And then we sat down to finish up our business, but there wasn’t much to finish up (he’d already paid my bill in full) and the champagne was beginning to make it seem irrelevant anyway. March looked great. He’d changed to a plaid shirt and jeans with no holes in them. His hair had been washed recently and the red-gold curls bounced.

  “Who would have believed that Cortland James would turn out to be a poacher and a murderer? The guy ran a conservation organization.” He shook his head; the curls sprang out and settled down again. “What made you suspect him?”

  “A couple of things: the cold that cleared up right away, the fact that he didn’t have a discount fare. He seemed like the kind of nickel-and-dime Eastern rich who would never pay full fare. There was also his lack of enthusiasm about the Conservation Committee. A real conservationist would be passionate; Cortland acted like he didn’t care about anything but his exotic sightings. Jizz, I guess.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you suspected him?”

  Why indeed? “Because you never want to believe anything bad about anybody,” I said.

  “That’s exactly what Katharine says,” he replied. “But it’s not true. I was willing to believe that Pedersen was a poacher, wasn’t I?”

  “The evidence was overwhelming.”

  “Was I so wrong about Leo?”

  “Okay, he turned out better than I expected. His ego is out of control, but he’s not a poacher. There’s Jimmy Brannen, however. He must have sold Cortland the wolf-wiper, then told him I’d been there.”

  “Okay. I’ll reconsider Jimmy.”

  “What a pity that Avery is dead and the taxpayers will have to support Cortland James’s life in jail,” I said.

  “It should be a relief to Avery’s family that the helicopter rescue crew was able to get his body out of there.”

  Maybe, but I hated to think about the tracks in the snow that must have led them to the body. “If it had been my choice I would have left him there. Freezeout seems like the right place for Avery; he loved it.”

  “It’s a terrible loss to the birding community. First Joan, then Avery.” Not one to let a conversation get maudlin, March changed the subject. “Well, I guess you got a taste of Montana in the winter.”

  “I did. It was cold out there and getting colder by the minute.”

  “But not as cold as it will get.”

  “I’ll be back in New Mexico when it does.”

  “I’d like to get down there one of these days, take a look at some of the petroglyphs, see how efforts to reintroduce the Mexican wolf are doing.”

  “You’re invited.”

  “Thanks. One advantage to the kind of winters we have is that it slows down the poaching activities for a little while.”

  “I suppose someday we’ll reach the point where the only wildlife left will be in the Arctic. What do you think? Does wildlife have half a chance?” I wanted to know how someone as optimistic as March Augusta, someone who never liked to dwell on the negative or believe the worst of human beings, would answer that question.

  He poked at his teriyaki chicken. “A chance,” he said. “The trouble is that poachers aren’t always slobbering idiots. They’re people with good and bad qualities just like you and me, people who are hungry, people who are trying to please their fathers or screw them, people who only see their self-interest and don’t stop to consider the global view.”

  Spoken by someone who’d never had to go to court and take away someone’s child or life savings, someone who’d never released a farm full of starving beavers, either. If you couldn’t convince yourself of the rottenness of people in some professions, you’d never be able to act.

  We ate our dinner and drank our champagne while March accepted congratulations from just about everybody who passed by. Katharine was supposed to be joining us for dessert, but she arrived early. I think her watch was regularly set for daylight savings time and in October she’d made the mistake of moving it back another hour. She blew into the room and spun around, stopping at the tables of everyone she knew. When she got to us she kissed March, gave him a little squeeze and sat down. To me she said, “Hello, Neil.” Her hair had been washed, as well, and it was a wild mass of curls. They had that in common. Her brief time in captivity hadn’t broken her spirit, either—she was radiant. I doubt if she’d been habituated any better to civilization, however.

  “Well, congratulations, you did it, you got March out of jail,” she said to me. “I’d say you went even above and beyond the call of duty.”

  “Let’s just say I did my job.” I smiled, she smiled back. We had our desserts. When it was time to go, March stood up to give me a hug and I had the pleasure of feeling his soft, red beard.

  “Thanks again,” March said. “Maybe sometime in good weather you’ll come back to Montana and we can go to Freezeout and pay our respects to Avery.”

  “I’d like that,” I replied.

  By the time I left Denver, the big quiet of Montana was just a memory. Someone at Frontier Airlines liked Whitney Houston and she whined over the loudspeaker all the way to Albuquerque. I thought earphones existed so passengers could make their own choices about music.

  To take my mind off Whitney’s voice I took some phones out of a plastic bag, covered my ears up and started thinking about birds, trained ones to be exact. I’d come late to birds and observation, but, thanks to Joan, not too late. I was returning to the nest myself, but unlike a hawk I brought no trophy from the hunt (with the possible exception of March’s check). That made me think of Blanca, the pigeon, returning to her Kid. The coop that awaited me had gold shag carpeting, stucco walls and a view of elephantine mountains. The lure, maybe, was the dinner the Kid was bringing from Baja Tacos since my refrigerator had gotten empty once again.

  Training birds is a risky avocation and a trainer could easily give his heart and have it broken. The first time he releases the bird there must be great uncertainty. Will she remember where the coop is and that she has become habituated to it? If it’s a falconer, has he stroked his bird, fed her fresh meat, given her reason to come back? There must be intense relief when the bird returns from her first free flight. After each subsequent flight doubt lessens, and the falcon’s fate becomes more deeply entwined with the falconer’s, although no one can ever remain totally certain of his ability to call in the wild. But suppose that time after time the falcon does return; it becomes a repetition, a habit, finally a marriage. Does the repetition make the possibility of an ultimate break less certain or more? No matter how comforting the lure of what is known, how snug the nest or warm the meat, there is still the tug of the winter wind, the lure of the wild—to some birds anyway. There must come a moment when that kind catches a lift and hovers on it weighing the call of what is against what is not. But suppose the curiosity lure isn’t that strong, suppose the bird is a pigeon; she comes back day after day, year after year, relinquishing her freedom to one person, her trainer. And then one day she returns to find it’s the trainer who has left and she’s rewarded for her faithfulness with a thumb in her throat and a broken neck.

  Even though it was dinnertime when I got to Albuquerque, the sun was still shining. I watched the herding elephants as we made our approach to Albuquerque International, gray humpbacked mountains that would probably be around long after the real elephants were gone. As I’d driven myself to the airport, I drove myself home. My Rabbit (el conejo, the Kid calls it) was in the economy parking lot about a half mile from the terminal. They have a bus, but it seldom shows up so I walked to th
e lot. At least I didn’t have a blizzard to contend with.

  I arrived at La Vista Luxury Apartment Complex a few minutes before the Kid. Time enough to stash my suitcase, pour myself a Cuervo Gold, sit down on the sofa and put my feet up. Back in the Sunbelt again. The Kid knocked, but the door was already unlocked and waiting for him. “Come on in,” I called. He carried an enormous bag of food, a six-pack of Tecate and some limes—I already had the salt. He gave me a kiss, put the bag down on the coffee table, sat down, popped open a Tecate, poured on some salt, squeezed a lime and opened the bag.

  “Welcome back, Chiquita,” he said.

  “Thanks, Kid.”

  “They had a special on tacos today.”

  “I guess.” The tacos exited one after another from the bag, followed by little containers of zinger salsa. In Albuquerque they know what picante is.

  “You gave that guy a black eye?” the Kid said, biting into his first taco.

  “At least one.” I shook some salsa on my taco and bit in. The flames licked my throat while the tears from my eyes tried to put out the fire. Either they’d put more jalapeños in, or I’d been gone too long.

  “I didn’t like that guy,” said the Kid.

  “That doesn’t surprise me.” I quickly swallowed some Cuervo Gold.

  “He’s rich, right?’

  “Yup.”

  “You have to watch out for them.” The Kid shook his head and picked up his Tecate. “I feel bad about Avery. He was one something special person.”

  “You’re right. The best.”

  We ate tacos without speaking for a while and then the Kid asked, “What happened to the other guy, the one who was in prison?”

  “ ‘April’?”

  “Yeah, him.”

  “Betts released him. He went back to his girlfriend and his guide service.”

  The Kid nodded as if to indicate that was the right place for them. We finished up the tacos and cleaned up by throwing the papers and the bag in the trash.

  “Listen, Chiquita, I want you to show me how you gave the rich guy a black eye,” the Kid said.

  “You want to see that?”

  “Sure. Show me.”

  “Okay, it went like this.” I had him lie down on the gold shag carpet on his back and then I straddled his skinny body. “You’re a lot taller than he is, Kid.”

  “Go ahead. Show me.”

  I put my left hand on his throat and then I raised my right arm, made a fist, brought it down hard, pulled the punch and tapped him on the eye.

  “You did that, Chiquita?”

  “I did.”

  The Kid tried to shake his head, I loosened my grip. One thing led to another and pretty soon our clothes were on the floor. Without even being asked he got up and went to the drawer where I’d put the condoms. A man and a woman might arrive at an understanding where it wouldn’t be necessary to use condoms. A couple could even get to a place where it wouldn’t be necessary to use a diaphragm. The Kid didn’t suggest it. Neither did I.

  THE END

  Enjoy a free preview of A NEIL HAMEL MYSTERY, #3

  The Other Side of Death

  1

  SPRING MOVES NORTH about as fast as a person on foot would—fifteen to twenty miles a day. It crosses the border at El Paso and enters New Mexico at Fort Bliss. Like a wetback following the twists of the Rio Grande, it wanders though Las Cruces and Radium Springs, brings chile back to Hatch. A few more days and it has entered Truth or Consequences and Elephant Butte. The whooping cranes return to Bosque del Apache, relief comes to Socorro. Los Lunas, Peralta and Bosque Farms take a weekend maybe. By mid-March the season gets to those of us who live in the Duke City, Albuquerque. On 12th Street fruit trees blossom in ice cream colors. The pansies return with purple vigor to the concrete bins at Civic Plaza. The Lobos are eliminated from NCAA competition. The hookers on East Central hike up their skirts. The cholos in Roosevelt Park rip the sleeves off their black T-shirts, exposing the purple bruises of tattoos. The boys at UNM take their T-shirts off, exposing peach fuzz. Women at the Pyramid Holiday Inn pick up their pillows, pay three hundred dollars and go within for a Shirley MacLaine seminar. Guys in Crossroads Park take their camouflage jackets off and lay their bedrolls down for free, burned-out Vietnam vets in spirit or in fact. Tumbleweeds dance across Nine Mile Hill and get caught in a sign that says DANGEROUS CROSSWINDS. Between the snake garden and the mobile home community the Motel Nine offers a room for $12.95 with a video of Wild Thang.

  At my place in La Vista Luxury Apartment Complex, the yellow shag carpet needed mowing; the Kid’s hair was getting a trim. His hair is thick, black and wound tight and the way to cut it is to pull out a curl and lop off an inch. The hair bounces back, the Kid’s head looks a little narrower, the floor gets littered with curls.

  He sat, skinny and bare chested, in front of my bedroom mirror, and I took a hand mirror and moved it around behind him so he could see the effect of the trim. “Looks good, Chiquita,” he said. I vacuumed up the curls and helped him out of his jeans, then we got into bed.

  The afternoon is the very best time: the window open to the sound of kids playing in the arroyo, motorcycles revving in the parking lot, boom box music but not too close, the polyester drapes not quite closed and sunlight playing across the wall and the Kid’s skin. Warm enough to be nice and sweaty, but not so hot as to stick together. And in the breeze the reckless, restless wanderer—spring.

  “Oh, my God,” I said in a way I hadn’t all winter.

  “Chiquita mia,” said the Kid.

  The Trojans that had defined our relationship and been our protection for the last six months had remained in the bedside table. I promised them that would never ever happen again.

  ******

  That was Saturday afternoon. In the evening the Kid played the accordion at El Lobo Bar in the barrio. He works as a mechanic during the day, an accordion player at night—the money goes back home to Mexico. I was on my way to my friends Tim and Jamie Malone’s annual Saint Patrick’s Day party in Dolendo. They were still calling it their annual party, but they hadn’t held it in years and I hadn’t seen them in those years either. They were friends from the Old Mexico days in San Miguel de Allende, where I’d spent the year between college and law school deciding what to do next. In some places the sixties spirit lasted well into the seventies; that was one. It was a small town full of gringos given to excess. Blake said that road leads to the palace of wisdom, but sometimes it leads only to further excess. The San Miguel crowd hung out in the plaza together, drank together, took drugs together, slept together. When the need to make a living intervened, a number of us ended up in New Mexico, the closest thing to Old Mexico, but as the years went by and we went our separate ways, I’d lost touch. I had settled in Albuquerque and was making a living (more or less) as a lawyer. The others lived around the City Different—Santa Fe—poets, artists, waitresses, Roto-Rooter men. It’s a magnet for seekers of all kinds and some people will do whatever it takes to live there. The occasion for renewing the tradition was the end of it—the Malones were moving to Ohio.

  “Ohio?” I asked when Tim called to tell me.

  “I know, I know. I’ll tell you all about it if you come to the party.”

  “You’ll have to do some fast talking to explain Ohio to a New Mexican.”

  “It’s what I do best,” he replied.

  Before sending the Kid off to work, I fixed him a snack of chips and salsa, gave him a beer and a kiss.

  “What time you be home, Chiquita?” he asked on his way out the door.

  “Well…” The last Saint Patrick’s Day party I went to was still alive when I left at three A.M., but the times had changed and Tim had probably changed with them if he was moving to Ohio. “Not too late,” I said.

  The Kid yawned and stretched. “Maybe I go home tonight after I play the accordion.”

  “See you tomorrow?” It would, after all, be the second day of spring.

  “Claro,” he said. “Ma
ñana.”

  ******

  Dolendo, like most towns in northern New Mexico, has a beautiful old church at its center made out of mud and water, sweat and straw. Adobes of God, they call them. Dolendo also has more than its share of artists, poets, seekers and seers. Twenty miles of wide open spaces from Santa Fe, it’s a spiritual suburb. From Albuquerque it’s sixty-five to eighty miles north depending on which way you go, but any way you go is spectacular. In fact, once you get away from the buildings erected by the conquistadors of the last four centuries the whole state of New Mexico is spectacular.

  Spring was four or five days away from Dolendo—more maybe, factoring in an increase in altitude. The cottonwoods, long-limbed dancers on the wind, hadn’t leafed yet; their black shadows stretched across riverbeds and lawns. The Malones’ house sat on a rise at the edge of town with a cemetery behind it and an ocean of piñon in front. As far as you could see to the south there was nothing but green piñon bushes and blue sky and beyond that—more. I took a picture of the house from the cemetery once; both the middle distance and the far came out like deep-water, long-distance blue. Tim sat in his window day after day and wrote poetry but he should have built a wall around him, because in front of a view like that it was hard to believe anything you did or ever could do mattered.

  Tim and Jamie got married when they were teenagers, and had now owned this house—their first and only—for close to twenty years. It’s what is called a puddled adobe, poured mud—the way they used to build houses in New Mexico. The walls are three feet thick and keep the heat in in winter, out in summer. In a puddled adobe house there are no right angles or straight lines. All soft curves and rounded corners, it seems to be rising out of the ground at the same time that it sinks back in.

  I made a right at the church, a left, another right and turned up their bone-rattling dirt driveway, which was corrugated with dried mud. Ten to fifteen cars were parked among the ruts and Tim happened to be outside when I arrived looking for Foxy Lady, his dog. He spotted my orange Rabbit and ambled over.