Gowder smiled and raised his glass. “Exonerated.” He pulled back his suit jacket, revealing both the badge at his belt and the. 40 at his armpit.
“Congratulations. I would’ve hated for you to lose your job by saving my life”
Katz had a large map of Fairmount Park laid out on the table, and I had my book with the photograph. Gowder leaned in and looked at the red spot where Katz now pointed. “This is our boy, huh?”
“Just below Rex Avenue.”
I looked at the map. “The next road north?”
“Yes, but it’s not as easy as that. There are access points here at Valley Green, Rex, Thomas Mill Road, and Wises Mill Road on the other side.”
I studied the light green section of the map where Wissahickon Creek curled its way north and west. “What’s this dotted line along the creek?”
Katz adjusted his glasses and placed his chin on his fist. “That’s Forbidden Drive.”
I examined the relatively innocent-looking road. “Why Forbidden Drive?”
Gowder and he both looked at me like I was an idiot. Katz spoke slowly, just to make sure I got it. “Because you’re Forbidden to Drive on it.”
“Oh.”
Henry and I looked at each other; we were thinking the same thing.
16
The Indian chief Tedyuscung was neither a chief nor an Indian, but he sat as a memorial to the Lenape who first occupied the area anyway. This particular rendition of Chief Tedyuscung was actually the third to occupy the rock overlooking Wissahickon Creek. He was over fifteen feet tall, with a hand at his brow to shield the sun so that he could watch the departure of his people who had seen the white man’s writing on the wall and had moved to Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Valley, of all places. His nose was broken and his peace pipe was missing, but the nobility of royalty was still there. Lesser beings had made their pathetic bids for immortality by scratching their initials in his sides, but he forever looks west and does not move. I took a tip from his book, and neither did I.
I had picked a small outcropping of rocks to the west of the chief and was huddled at the base of a black oak with the rain dripping off my hat and into my lap. The showers had started around ten-thirty and continued to drench the place for the next hour and a half. I had confiscated a hunting poncho from Cady’s place, one that I had given her years ago, and it was doing a pretty good job of keeping me dry except for my boots, which were beginning to squeak whenever I moved my toes.
It was dark, but I could still make out the profile of the big chief, and it wasn’t hard to see Henry in him, just as I’d seen my friend in the Indian statue at Logan Circle. The giant Indian was looking toward me but beyond to a place where I hoped to return. I watched as the sheets of rain fell between us, and I allowed my eyes to adjust for the thousandth time to the momentary blindness caused by the brief flashes of lightning and my ears to recover yet again from the thunder.
The outcropping provided a clear view of the area, of the trail leading up from below, the cut-off to the statue, and Tedyuscung himself. Other than the leaves, which blustered with the periodic wind, the only movement had been when I had stretched my legs from underneath the poncho more than an hour earlier, an event I had now convinced myself had blown my concealed observation.
I had been here for four hours, but William White Eyes or, more importantly, Toy Diaz, may have been here for five.
I thought about the course of events that had led me to wait for an informant and a killer in this small, tree-shrouded ravine in Fairmount Park as it crept up on midnight. Other than the obvious obligations of the law and its enforcement, I was here because I was attempting to save William White Eyes’ life in repayment for his saving Cady. I was here because of Jo Fitzpatrick and Riley, and because of the two men sitting in a Fairmount Park Services truck parked at the barricade near Valley Green Avenue, one of whom had saved my life in a bus station only two nights before. And, I was here because of Toy Diaz and what he had done to Cady, Vic, Osgood, and Devon.
Somewhere in the distance, the synchronic circles of our pasts had tripped a domino, and the steady whirr had grown till it now drowned with the roar of contingency. I knew he would show as surely as the dark rain was falling around me, just as my aching legs knew they would receive no quick relief.
I listened as the unsteady clop of horse’s hooves made their way up the broken trail behind me. At first I thought it must be Henry, who had grown tired of waiting, but the Bear’s patience could rival that of the marble chief, so I assumed it was finally William White Eyes. The sound was faint at first but slowly grew with each step until the horse stopped on the trail to my left, only a dozen feet away.
I listened as his mount situated a hoof forward for an even plant and expulsed a deep exhale into the moist, cool air. The vapor from its breath clouded for a moment in my peripheral vision and then misted in long trails with the prevailing eastward wind.
I had shallowed my breathing so that it didn’t show in the cold of the spring storm and, with the appearance of the horseman, I was lucky I remembered to breathe at all. I listened as his weight shifted on the horse’s back and looked at him as he searched the surrounding area. After a moment, he nudged the bay forward, and they continued around the appropriately shaped horseshoe corner of the trail and approached the Indian statue. William White Eyes wasn’t wearing a poncho or a jacket; he was naked, except for a loincloth that appeared to be perilously attached around his hips, and his body, as well as that of his horse, was painted with the multicolored geometric patterns and red streaks of a Dog Soldier.
William glowed in the limited light of the hillside, and if Toy Diaz was out there, there was no way he could miss him. I watched as the pale young man, who was decorated for battle, stopped, pivoted, and looked around; he didn’t see me.
It was possible that Diaz was not there, that the evening would end with me convincing William White Eyes to fill in all the gaps in the story and with the police rounding up Toy Diaz in a nonviolent interaction, so that I could take my daughter, my friend, my deputy, and my dog and go home to Wyoming. It was possible, but not likely.
Diaz had displayed a knack for cleaning up the loose ends of his operations by the most expedient and merciless means. You didn’t get where he got by sending thank-you cards; you got there by being the biggest, meanest son-of-a-bitch in the Valley of the Shadow of Death or on Forbidden Drive, as the case may be.
William rose, threw a leg off, and started to slide to the ground on the opposite side of the horse. I scanned the hillside but nothing moved. I could continue waiting, but I needed to get him out of here.
I stood on stiff legs and teetered there for a moment; William had stopped his dismount and stayed on the horse; he was still looking at the statue. I couldn’t lose him this time. I stood there, sure that the crunching of my knees and the rustling of the stiff, plastic poncho would turn his attention toward me, but the constant washing sound of the rain against the trees must have drowned me out. The horse had heard me and was looking directly where I stood, his far eye circled with red paint. I waited, scanning the hill to see if there might be any other response from anywhere else.
Nothing.
I took half a step to the edge of the rock ledge and looked at him. I was now a good fifty feet distant, and I didn’t want to spook him; he was on horseback, and I’d never catch him. “William?” He turned in the saddle, and I could see the line of his profile in the flash of lightning to my right. “It’s Walt.”
This time he heard me. “Sheriff?”
“Yep.” I stood there waiting as he turned the gelding toward me.
“I guess you got my note?”
“I did.”
He looked around. “You’re alone?”