Chapter 21

We sat there for a while, chewing on jerky and drinking water, thinking about the poor dead cop, and his family who at least knew now what had happened to him, and the fact that the entire San Bernardino Sheriff's Department, and particularly those who worked in Victorville, would be a dangerous bunch to mess with for a while. There's an episode of Dragnet where a citizen sneeringly asks Joe Friday if cops take care of their own, and Friday says something like, "Of course – someone's got to." The last thing you want to be is a cop killer – every cop in the country is after you.

I was glad my involvement in law enforcement was on a fee basis, and no deeper than I wanted it to be. If I were still a cop I'd have to dive in every day, dealing with the dregs and the slime who want to feed off of real people. Natalie probably was glad she was out here in the Mojave National Preserve, where the biggest crime she'd probably ever have to work would be littering or trying to drive off with a desert tortoise. I didn't envy the Victorville cops, and the San Bernardino sheriff's deputies, and whoever else would be working the case. And I certainly didn't envy whoever'd done the crime. When they caught him he'd better not resist arrest, not unless he was eager to commit suicide by cop – as police officers describe it when someone deliberately forces them to kill him.

Finally I drew in a breath and let it out. I dialed Cecelia's phone on the one I still held in my hand. When she answered I said, "We're done here, C. You can meet us where you let us off, or if you want we can start walking back home."

"I'm currently walking with Darlia just off the road south of the Providence Mountains. It will require some time, but I'll start as soon as we can return to the Blazer. Whether you and Ms. Sverdlov walk or wait is entirely your choice; you would find it merely mild exercise, but her feet may perhaps be less callused than yours."

"Okay. I'll see what she wants to do, and we'll either be here or somewhere along the road. Just don't run us over when you get here."

"I might contrive to collide with you, though I would certainly spare her any injury. The only problem I foresee, should I choose collision, is if your head strikes the Blazer; that would do you no injury, but would require costly repairs to the vehicle."

I laughed, and was glad of it. Even though I hadn't told her a thing about what we knew now, her joke had lifted me out of a bit of a depression and that's always a good thing. It might be, I reflected, that she'd heard something in my voice and decided to preempt a dive into darkness. "Yeah, don't wanna hurt the Blazer, do we? Hay te huacho, esposa," I said, and hung up. I told Natalie the plan, such as it was, and she decided to walk. Maybe her feet weren't as tender as Cecelia thought.

While we walked Natalie got on her phone, and so when Cecelia came up to us from behind we had a plan. "What we'll do, C, is run Nat into Needles, where she'll hook up with her people, and then we can eat and spend the night in the motel, or we can come back here, or whatever you think you might want to do."

She nodded as she put the Blazer into first gear. "We could use some more bread, and some perishables; we're down to nothing but cans and boxes at home, and while that is sufficient to sustain you, I prefer actual food on occasion."

"Coolness," I said, and sat back to enjoy the ride.

In Needles we dropped Natalie off, and headed for the grocery store. Needles isn't all that big, about 5,000 or so, though it always seems bigger to me, perhaps because of the freeway running through it, and there's just the one store, and no Wal-Mart. At any rate, Cecelia stocked up on what she wanted, and then we headed for Irene's, for it was by now past lunch time. We all made pigs of ourselves there, and then we piled back into the Blazer for the drive back home, for that's what we'd decided. "As soft as a bed is, my husband," she'd told me, "I much prefer the spangled stars and the songs of coyotes."

So did I.

Though the day was beginning to wane, and we'd spent time doing this and that, it was still light when we got to where the phone booth had been, and I said, "Go on up to the ranch, C." She did, and we got out there, and went to the corral to meet the horses. We spent just a few minutes there, for I heard a hammer on an anvil and led us to a shed where a forge was going, and a man in a leather apron was hammering on a horseshoe. "Hey, Dave," I said, "still keepin' the hooves in shape?"

He looked up from his work. "Hey, Darvin. Yeah, I'm still in charge of that. I'm about done for today, though. You wouldn't believe the wear and tear on shoes around here."

"Yeah, I would," I said, leaning against a post. "Remember how we met."

Dave glanced over to where Darlia was looking into the forge, making sure that she wasn't too close, and indeed she wasn't. She might like the fascination of fire, but she knew better than to approach it too closely. Dave had taught her that lesson with the palm of his hand once, and I'd reinforced it later on with my own hand, one of the few times I've really given her a solid spanking. She'd known not to play with fire, but the forge had been new to her then.

He looked back at me for a moment before returning to his work. "Yeah, your horse had throwed a shoe and you had to walk back from the other side of Lanfair." He named a ghost town east of where the phone booth had been. "Good thing you like to walk."

"Yeah, they's cowboys woulda just set there and waited for someone to come lookin'."

"But you was hungry."

"That I was. I wasn't gonna set there an' starve, not with Billy cookin' then."

"I remember that boy. He wasn't much good on the range, hadn't the sense to come in out of the rain, but he could throw food together."

Just then Cecelia came in and kissed my cheek. "I've horses saddled, if you'd like to spend a few minutes at a higher altitude."

I put my arm around her shoulders, rubbing my hand along her upper arm, feeling the solid muscle under the cloth of her shirt. "Well, Dave, that's my cue. I'll catch you later. Let's go, 'Lia."