“Love to see ’em charged with something,” No Voice said.
“I’m sure Jim’ll let you know what he decides, Andy. Thanks.”
Before No Voice headed to his Blazer, he said to Cork and Parmer, “You men, I catch you on the rez again, I’ll be happy to dispense a little of my own Arapaho justice. Understand?” He got into his vehicle and left.
Quinn said, “Mr. Parmer, you mind driving the Jeep? I’d like to have a word with Cork on the way back.”
“No problem.”
They headed out of Red Hawk along the potholed road toward Hot Springs. Behind them, the sun was just dropping into the grasp of the mountains. The late afternoon light turned the sage nearly gold and made the barren hills seem dipped in honey.
“Sheriff’s pretty hot under the collar,” Quinn said.
“I can imagine.”
“Said you screwed him on a promise you made.”
“I guess I did.”
Quinn glanced his way. “Look, he doesn’t let me in on things sometimes, so I feel like I’m trying to play in a ball game but I’ve got no bat to swing with. You mind telling me what’s going on?”
Cork didn’t see any reason not to. While the sun finished setting behind them and the desolate land the Arapaho called home turned blue-gray in the twilight, Cork filled Quinn in completely.
“Ah, Jesus.” The deputy slapped the steering wheel. “It all makes sense now.”
“What makes sense?”
“Little things. They don’t seem like much separately, but when you put them all together they make a clear picture.”
“What little things?”
Quinn shot out a hot breath and seemed angry with himself. “When I was helping coordinate the search for the plane last year, the sheriff insisted I keep all the aircraft involved out of airspace over the reservation. He told me he wanted to be certain the most probable routes were given the highest priority.”
“Nightwind flew us over the rez on the way to Baby’s Cradle.”
“Sure. He’d know exactly where not to fly. The sheriff was almost fanatical about no one else going there.”
“I was under the impression you and the Civil Air Patrol commander made the decisions about the search.”
“Kosmo sometimes gave me certain directives, and that was one. And here’s the kicker. A few days before the plane went missing, we received a report of unusual activity on the north part of the reservation. Somebody spotted heavy equipment moving along one of the back roads up there. Only you can’t really call them roads. Anybody who doesn’t know the area well would get lost trying to follow them.”
“I tried following a few of those today,” Cork said.
“The concern was that somebody was doing some unauthorized prospecting on the reservation, probably oil and gas exploration. Happens sometimes. Kosmo and No Voice said they’d handle it. Went out, came back, claimed it was a bullshit report. Nothing to it.”
“What’s this got to do with the missing plane?”
“I’m getting to that. We had us a pretty severe drug problem a few years back. Mostly the problems came from the reservation.”
“We know about that.”
“I worked with guys from DEA who said that drug dealers will sometimes take a vehicle or a plane that’s been used to transport the product and bury it. Makes all the evidence disappear easily. Now, think about Will Pope’s vision, Cork. What if the cradle was a hole in the ground? These people buried the plane, and the snow that was falling covered it completely. The white blanket Pope talked about.”
Cork sat back, letting it all play out in his mind. “And that heavy equipment was used to dig the hole.”
“And probably to scrape out a runway.”
“You have any idea where this was?”
“I can check the files for the report to be sure, but I have a pretty good idea. There’s a box canyon up that way with a nice flat run right up to it. If I were going to create a landing strip, that’s where I’d do it.”
“Can you show me on a map, Dewey?”
“I’ll go you one better. I’ll take you there myself. I’ve got lots of vacation saved. I’ll take a day tomorrow. Ten miles north of town on the highway to Cody, there’s a cutoff for a road called Horseshoe Creek Trail.”
“I know the road. That’s how we headed out this morning.”
“Okay. A couple of miles in you come to a place where the road crosses an old wood bridge over the creek. Meet me there at sunup and we’ll head out together. I’ll bring some shovels and some other digging tools. I also got me a pretty good metal detector from the days when I was doing a little prospecting myself.”
“Throwing in with us, you could be headed into a lot of trouble, Dewey,” Cork said.
“I don’t just work here, I live here. If there’s something dirty in this county, I have to know.” Quinn frowned and hesitated a moment. “I hate to say this about my own people, but I’ve got no idea who might be tainted. It’s best if we don’t say anything to anyone until after we’ve had a chance to check this out thoroughly. I’d say that includes Jon Rude. I know you trust him, but we have to be sure.”
“I agree.”
“And I wouldn’t risk any calls. God only knows who might be listening.”
“All right.”
“Look, I hope you understand what I’m about to say. Christ, I hope I’m all wrong about this. He’s a strange man sometimes and hard to figure, but I like Jim Kosmo. I’d hate to see him go down.”
Cork said, “If he had anything to do with Jo’s death, I’ll take him down with my own hands.”
THIRTY-FIVE
Nightwind.” Kosmo squinted as if he was trying to picture something in his mind’s eye. “And you figure he’s the Indian pilot who took Bodine’s place.”
Cork and Parmer sat in the sheriff’s office, in the same orange plastic chairs they’d occupied that morning. Kosmo seemed restrained. If he was angry, he was keeping it well in check.
“It fits,” Cork said.
Kosmo sat at his desk. The big man’s head was framed by a hint of blue lingering in the twilight sky visible through the window at his back. It struck Cork like a faded halo. The overhead light was off, and the room was lit by the lamp on his desk. It created a small, illuminated circle that enclosed the three men.
“What do you know about Nightwind?” Kosmo asked.
“He’s in love with Ellyn Grant. So maybe he’d do anything she asked, including murder.”
Kosmo sat back and studied the two men, companions in the light, then he said, “When I was a kid, there was a family lived down the street from us. The Halbersons. Had this German shepherd they called Pooch. Most days they kept him tied to a leash on the front porch. That dog was real unusual. I never once heard him bark. He’d just sit there all day long, watching everything and everybody. Mailman would slide mail into the box at the gate, dog just watched. Paperboy came by, tossed the evening paper in the yard, dog just watched. Us kids, we’d holler at him, make faces, sometimes throw things just to try to get a rise out of Pooch. No dice. Just looked at us like we were, I don’t know, bushes or something. One kid, Harvey Groat, he swore the dog was blind or deaf or retarded. We all dared him to go into the yard and see if he could get Pooch to bark. So Groat, never the swiftest boat in the fleet, opens the gate, creeps into the yard, gets one foot on the front steps, and Pooch is up. Lunges so hard and fast he snaps the leash and he’s all over Groat, chewing the hell out of him. Groat’s screaming and we’re screaming and finally the front door jerks open and Mr. Halberson comes flying out. Kicks the shit out of Pooch before the dog finally retreats and leaves Groat be. Groat, he ends up getting a few dozen stitches. Carries the scars to this day. Pooch, he got put down for the attack, which was a shame because he was only doing what he’d been trained to do, which was protect that family and its property. You know, during the whole incident with Groat, that dog never uttered a sound. I bet he went to his death without a whimper.”