The steam from the teakettle rose upward, accompanied by a sharp whistle that seemed like an alarm signal for my guilty conscience. But by the time I had the flap worked open, I had rationalized that I was doing it for the greater good: trying to shield the girl I loved from any needless pain.
The letter, with Dr. Hardy’s invoice inside, documented the results of some DNA tests that McKitrick had requested on himself and Carol. I remembered that she’d told me casually that Christene, her father, and she had blood drawn about a month ago after a trip to Mexico, but Mr. McKitrick had said that it was to check for hepatitis.
I read the letter over twice before I accepted what it said: The results of the tests on Paul and Carol McKitrick showed conclusively negative patterns. Carol was not his natural daughter.
After the funeral, the house was full of mourners and I finally told Carol that I had to get out for a while. I left her surrounded by relatives and drove back to the gun shop. The front door still had the Gone Fishin’ sign on it, so I let myself in the back. I wanted to ask Uncle Dede’s advice about what to do with the letter, but couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. Instead, I asked him what kind of a man Paul McKitrick had been. Even though Carol and I were engaged, Mr. McKitrick had always seemed distant to me. Maybe, I thought, if I knew more about the man I’d be able to figure out what to do.
“He was what you might call a collector,” Uncle Dede said, leaning back from the tabletop. “He always had to be in total control, or seem like he was if he wasn’t. And it really bothered him if he wasn’t. Not that he didn’t lose occasionally, but he hated to. And would always try to cover it, if he could.”
“Just like the treaty war with the Indians,” I said.
Uncle Dede nodded and smiled.
“Now, you want to tell me what’s bothering you, Rick?”
“You can see right through me, can’t you?” I told him about the letter, which I’d stowed in my lab locker for safekeeping. Uncle Dede bit his lip when I mentioned the contents.
“Only one thing you can do at this point,” he said. “Go get that letter and turn it over to McKitrick’s lawyer.
“Mason Gilbert? Do you think that’s wise? What’ll that do to Carol?”
“McKitrick might already have confided in him,” Uncle Dede said. “Whatever his reasons were, and I suspect, knowing him, they weren’t good, you can’t afford to put yourself in the middle of something like this.”
I sat silently pondering what he said.
“If you love Carol, Rick,” Uncle Dede said, “I think you’ll see it’s the right thing to do.”
Our conversation was interrupted by the phone. It was Sheriff Gunther. He told Uncle Dede that a group of Indians had driven through the north end of town and taken a couple of shots at one of the squad cars. The sheriff wanted Uncle Dede to get in uniform and ride shotgun patrolling the main highway between the town and the reservation. Uncle Dede told him he’d be right there. He hung up the phone and looked at me.
“So what you gonna do?” he asked.
“Drive up to Deming and talk to Mason Gilbert,” I said.
He smiled fractionally, then put both hands on my shoulders.
“I’m proud of you, Rick. But do me a favor. Let me call Sonny to ride up there with you. With all these Indian problems, the sight of a lone driver on the highway is asking for trouble.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll shoot over to the lab and pick up the letter and meet him back here.”
If Sonny was worried about the Indians, he didn’t show it as we drove north toward Deming, past the Reservation. He nonchalantly flicked a coarse thumbnail over the end of one of those wooden kitchen matches and lit his cigarette. The big twelve-gauge shotgun on his lap seemed reassuring.
A squad car passed us as we drove by the Reservation. In a few more minutes we’d be nearing the turnoff for Carol’s.
“Hold on a second,” Sonny said, his eyes narrowing on the roadway ahead. “Slow it down.”
I stared ahead, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
“Why?” I asked. “You see something?”
“You see this?” he retorted harshly as he slammed the slide of the shotgun back, then forward, chambering a round. The hollow tubelike end of the barrel rested on my shoulder, pointing at my head.
“Turn off the road here,” he said. “Do it now!”
I braked and eased the Jeep onto the hard ground. We headed west toward the canyon. The layered red shale loomed ominously before me.
“Sonny, what’s going on?”
“Shut up!” he said. “Just keep driving.”
The Jeep bounced and rocked slightly as it rolled over the desert floor. We neared the canyon rim. He looked at me.
“I’ll take the letter,” he said.
“The letter?”
He bumped the end of the shotgun barrel against my temple.
“Don’t get smart. Pull up over there and give it to me.”
I coasted to a stop near the edge of the canyon. He prodded me again with the barrel, and I took the letter out of my inside pocket and gave it to him.
“Get out,” he said, reaching over to shut off the ignition and pull out the key.
I slipped out the door, and he directed me backwards about ten feet, then told me to stop. He scrambled out himself and came around the Jeep, still pointing the shotgun at me. There was a hot wind blowing from the southwest. A devil’s wind.
“Who else knows about this?” he asked, indicating the letter.
“Uncle Dede,” I said. “Others, too. Now, what’s going on?”
“You can’t lie for crap,” he said, removing the contents of the envelope and glancing over them. He reinserted everything. The corner had Dr. Hardy’s return address printed on it, and Sonny tore it off.
“Have to pay him a little visit,” he grinned. Then he took out another kitchen match and squatted on his haunches, the shotgun tucked under his arm. With quick glances from me to the letter, he snapped the match with his thumbnail and lit the envelope. I watched as the yellow flame trailed the black semicircle of expanding ash over the white paper. He dropped it to the desert floor and the flame consumed the last part, leaving only a smoldering wisp of smoke and crumpled carbon.
Sonny stood up.
“What you got planned for me, Sonny?” I said. “An accident?”
I knew if I tried to run he’d get me in the back before I’d gone ten steps.
“I ain’t got no choice now, Rick,” he said, licking his lips. “Can’t afford to let that letter get out. Too bad I couldn’t have found it while you all were at the wake.”
“The burglary? It was you?”
He nodded.
“But why?” I said, desperately trying to keep him talking. Trying to prolong whatever time I had. “What does it all mean?”
He exhaled slowly and raised the shotgun to his shoulder. Then he hesitated.
“McKitrick was gonna disinherit Carol,” he said. “Told me so right out here that day we met. He knew all the time she wasn’t really his blood. Been buying my silence all these years. But now, with that young filly of his pregnant, he’d decided that it didn’t matter no more. He was gonna get rid of her. Cut her off without a cent, and I couldn’t let that happen.”
“You couldn’t?”
He scratched his cheek. “Move over toward the edge of the rim,” he said, gesturing with the barrel.
My feet felt leaden as they scuffed over the dusty surface.