“What do you have there?” Clayton asked.
“My teacher said it is well balanced,” Hannah said modestly.
Clayton raised an eyebrow. To the Mescalero, balance was essential to the circle of life, a key concept in the Apache world-view. His daughter’s work had been highly praised. “Did she?” he asked.
Hannah nodded solemnly and held the basket out to her father. “It’s for you.”
Clayton wiped his mouth, took the basket from his daughter’s outstretched hand, and carefully inspected it. Hannah had used split yucca leaves to weave her basket, and for a girl not yet six years old, the workmanship was darn good.
Hannah kicked her feet against the rung of her chair and kept her eyes glued to her father’s face as she waited for his reaction.
“It is well balanced,” Clayton finally said, speaking in the Apache language. “My daughter is too generous with her gift.”
Hannah beamed delightedly.
After dinner, Clayton summoned up enough energy to shoot some baskets with Wendell at the hoop he’d installed over the garage door. Under the glare of exterior lights, Wendell faked, dribbled, and ran circles around Clayton, firing layups, jumpers, and hook shots at the basket with reckless abandon.
Taller than the boys on the Rez his age, Wendell had sprouted at least another inch since summer recess and was showing signs of becoming quite a good athlete. He had quickness, speed, and excellent hand-eye coordination. Clayton, who had lettered in cross-country track and basketball in high school, looked forward to the time when he could watch his son compete and cheer him on.
When bedtime came, he tucked the children in and then joined Grace on the couch in the living room.
“Did Wendell question you about the manhunt for Riley Burke’s killer?” she asked.
“No. Why?”
“He’s been telling Hannah that you’re going to catch and scalp the man who murdered Grandfather Kerney’s friend and shot the sheriff.”
Clayton grinned. “Why, that little Apache savage. Where did he get that notion?”
“It’s not funny, Clayton. I don’t like him scaring his little sister. Hannah was very troubled by what he said.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Are you going back out tonight?”
“I should.”
“You’ve given every officer in the department a night off except yourself.”
Clayton sighed. “I keep seeing Paul Hewitt lying in his hospital bed staring up at me, unable to move. The look in his eyes haunts me. I just don’t want to stop until I catch the scumbag.”
“And scalp him,” Grace added.
“That too.”
“I hope you know that you’re not going to remain the chief deputy next January when the new sheriff takes office.”
Clayton nodded. Touting similar clean sweep positions, both candidates had long ago made known their selections for the chief deputy job. If elected, the Republican candidate, Sergeant Rudy Aldrich, planned to appoint a police officer crony from another department, and his Democratic opponent, the Capitan police chief, had tapped a retired state police captain for the job.
“It may happen sooner than that,” he said. “I’ve heard that the chairman of the county commission is going to call for a vote to have the state revoke Paul’s police officer certification based on his permanent incapacity to serve. If that happens, the sheriff’s position will be considered vacated, and since the majority of commissioners are Republicans, they’ll probably appoint Aldrich as interim sheriff to give him a leg up in the general election.”
“I can’t believe they’d do that.”
“Dirty politics in the sheriff’s office have been a part of Lincoln County since the days of Billy the Kid.”
“Would you be willing to stay with the department as a lieutenant under Aldrich?”
Clayton covered a long yawn with his hand. “I couldn’t work for him. He’s an autocratic backstabber and not very bright.”
Grace stood, reached down, and caressed Clayton’s cheek. “Why don’t you get some sleep?”
“The roadblocks come down tomorrow. I need to get back out there and make the rounds.”
“Rest first.”
Clayton stretched out on the couch. “Maybe a short nap. Wake me in an hour.”
Grace squeezed Clayton’s hand. “Okay.”
Ten minutes later she returned from the kitchen to find Clayton on his side sleeping soundly. She had no intention of waking him. Hopefully, he would sleep undisturbed throughout the night. She picked up the book she was reading from the coffee table, turned out the lights, and went quietly down the hall to check on the children before retiring to the bedroom.
Gregory Dennis Cuddy had attended the Twin Pines Bible Camp for the first time at the age of fourteen. Since then, he’d come back eight consecutive summers. In his third year, he’d joined the staff as a peer counselor. Having just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in religious education from Ross Wentworth Bible College, a private evangelical institution in Brownwood, Texas, Greg was now the youth minister assisting Reverend Wardle and teaching Bible study twice a day.
An East Texas boy who loved to fish and hunt and excelled at sports, Greg had been a high school football star. But when a knee injury ended his athletic career, he took it as a sign from God to enter the ministry. In the fall, he would begin his studies for a master’s in theology.
At six feet and two hundred and ten pounds, Greg Cuddy was every mother’s dream of how a grown son should look. He was the all-American boy with light brown hair, an athletic physique, strong masculine features, and a rich baritone voice that would serve him well from the pulpit.
As a teenager, Greg had seriously considered a career as a forest ranger or a game and fish officer, but the call to preach the word of Jesus had been too strong for him to resist. However, he knew that he wouldn’t be happy with the sedentary life of a church-bound minister. He had already decided that once he had his master’s degree in hand and was fully ordained, he would serve Jesus as a career navy chaplain in the Marine Corps.
In addition to his role as youth minister, Greg also supervised the Twin Pines adventure program and served as the camp’s riflery instructor and range master. When word came that the local sheriff had been shot, the woman who’d stopped to help had been murdered, and the killer was on the loose in the county, Reverend Wardle had naturally put Greg in charge of camp security.
Greg enthusiastically instituted a head-count policy, had campers team up in a buddy system so no one went anywhere alone, and assigned the staff to a rotating nighttime sentry duty schedule.
Tonight was his turn to pull a shift. After lights-out, he went to the armory and retrieved the lever-action .22 Marlin model 1897cb his parents had given him on his fourteenth birthday, loaded it, and made a walking tour of the campus before driving a staff pickup down to the gate to make sure it was locked.
After finding everything secure, he sat in the truck with the windows open, the motor and lights off, and let his mind wander. The last several days had been a rush for Greg. He liked the feeling of being in charge of camp security. It was kind of like being sheriff of Twin Pines. He liked the buzz that came from doing something that seemed a little dangerous. The idea of putting it on the line to protect others appealed to the image he had of himself as a natural born leader.
Now he was thinking that maybe he should delay graduate school in the fall, put off becoming a full-fledged minister for the time being, and enlist in the Marine Corps. With a tour of duty under his belt as a jarhead, surely he would be more accepted by other Marines once he became a navy chaplain.