Chapter 29

I'd said I'd give Straight his 24 hours, but it wasn't really 24 hours I'd given him. I'd told him I'd give him till the next sundown, which was sundown Monday. Cecelia and I went to bed that Monday morning, after we'd eaten our cheesecake, and woke up a few hours later knowing that if Straight was still in town, it was the last day of freedom he'd have in Albuquerque. Either he'd leave, or the cops would pick him up, or he'd have to go into hiding. It wasn't the way I wanted to end any friendship, not even if the friend in question was a crook and a murder, but there it was.

That afternoon, after Cecelia had skipped her weights but gone out for a couple of hours running, we drove down to the Singing Arrow neighborhood to where Letty Ramirez lives. Cecelia was driving her arrest-me-red Mazda sports car, and she pulled it into Letty's driveway. I habitually park at the curb even when the driveway's open, but Cecelia never does that unless she has to.

Darlia came screeching out the door as we were getting out of the car. Since I was closest she collided with me first. "Daddy, Daddy, I missed you!" One of these days maybe I'll figure out how someone with a voice like Melissa Ethridge can screech.

"I missed you too, Weightlifter," I told her. "And here's someone else who did."

"Mommy, I missed you too!"

"And your father is correct – I missed you."

"And I've been missing both of you," a voice called. I looked up and there was Letty, standing on her front stoop.

I took a few steps, and she took a few, and we hugged each other. "You're lookin' good, Letty," I said. It had been a while since I'd seen her last, and in the interim her exercise program – which Cecelia had helped her with – had toned her up. "You're probably about the same weight, I'd guess, but you're more solid."

She was wearing a sleeveless blouse, and she pumped her biceps up for me, "making a muscle" with both arms. "I've got real muscle here now, Darvin. I'll never look like Cecelia, but I'll never be a 'fat cow' again."

"Shoot, you never were. That was just Davey bein' an idiot."

She smiled at me – and at Cecelia and Darlia, who had come up beside me. "I know that, but it still hurt. And if I ever run into him again I can show him how I look now ... and maybe punch his lights out too."

I laughed. "Yeah, that too."

"Come on in," Letty said. "I'll break out the wine and tea, and we can talk about where the world has been since we saw each other last."

So we did – all of those things. After a while Darlia took us out to the back yard, where she showed us what she'd been doing, and how she stood on a stack of concrete blocks so she could see over the fence into Tijeras Arroyo. There were more houses on the other side of the arroyo than there had been when I'd been down this way working for Letty three years ago. The whole city's growing, and without a lot of room to expand into it's starting to trample on land inside the city that's long been free. I prefer progress to decay, but sometimes progress destroys things that I'd rather see remain intact.

It was nearing sundown when we left Letty's house. I turned in the passenger seat as Cecelia navigated us back to Central. "Darlia," I said, "it looks like we'll be able to make the desert after all. I'm gonna call Rudy this evening, and that'll be the end of the case."

"That's good."

"So do you want to go to the desert with us, or do you still want to go up to the rez?"

"Oh, Daddy, I wish I could do both!"

"Yeah, I know what you mean. But sometimes life means choices..." I thought for a minute, Darlia looking at me intently. "Do they ever want you to write about 'What I did this summer?'" I asked.

"Yeah, all the time. And I have to work hard to find different stuff because it's always the same."

"We haven't meant to make it monotonous," I said.

"No, Dad, it's not bad – I like what we do every year." Now she was shortening what she called me. The child would be in college next year at this rate. "But it does make it hard to do something different every year."

I glanced at Cecelia. "In college they want you to do original work for theses and dissertations and whatnot, right?"

"Yes," she said, a puzzled sound in her voice.

"And I've heard jazz snobs complain because a guy was saying the same thing in a new way, rather than saying something new. I guess it's a common problem." I looked back at Darlia. "Here's a proposition for you. I haven't asked your mom yet, so it might not work out after all, but here's the thought I had. How 'bout we go to the desert, and then after a couple of weeks we take you into Berdoo or LA or Vegas or wherever, and you can fly up to the rez?"

Darlia's eyes got huge. "Could I? Please, please, Mommy, could I?"

Cecelia laughed. "Darlia, it is an excellent idea, and your enthusiasm excludes refusal. You may indeed pursue that course – and, in fact, I perceive that it might be a wise one to follow in the future, since you love your Indian roots so much."

Now Darlia's face was serious. "You know, Mom, that's not a bad idea. I love the desert. I've been going there all my life and I don't ever want to stop. But I'm not a desert rat like Daddy. I love those mountains and trees, and the deer and birds and flowers. I love the meadows and the wild strawberries, and I love the snow falling through the pine trees. Did you know you can hear it snow on a quiet day in the woods?"

I looked at Cecelia, and she snuck a quick look at me. Maybe I was wrong, but I thought I knew, then, where my daughter would live when she was grown. Just as Cecelia and I had put our roots down whole states away from our original homes, it looked like Darlia might move to Washington when she was an adult.

I looked back at my daughter. "I didn't know you loved it so much."

"I didn't either, not till I started talking about it." She reached toward me, and I caught her hand in mine. "Daddy, I don't ever want to leave you, but I love the rez the way you love the desert, I think."

"Darlia, I don't want you to ever leave either, but you're going to grow up. It's a long time for you, but it's only going to be seven years till you graduate from high school, and go off to college, and start your own life, maybe your own family. And we'll miss you, Mommy and me."