From this spot Chandler had located three places where anyone making their way down the trail would be visible through his binoculars. He saw no sign of movement at any of them, lowered the heavy binoculars, rubbed his eyes, and checked around him again. From what Tuve had told him, the diamond dispenser had walked downriver and returned in just a few minutes with the stone he gave to Tuve. Chandler picked up the glasses again and did some scanning downstream.
He saw miles of cliffs, towering clouds now alternating with the dark blue sky in several places. He noticed five or six horses grazing in a small field across the river, more ragged cliffs on his side, and then, abruptly, a flash of light just as his vision moved past it. Chandler swung the binoculars back, saw the flash again, focused in. It came from the top of a relatively low ridge rimmed with brushy dry-country vegetation, with a much higher cliff soaring behind and beyond it.
Amid that vegetation, someone was standing looking at him, or at least looking toward him, through their own set of binoculars. Sunlight reflecting from the lenses must have produced the flashes he’d seen. As much as he could tell at this range, this watcher was wearing a blue shirt and a gray hat. Then the watcher turned, stepped away, and down, and was abruptly out of sight. It was a woman, a small woman. Could it be the Bernie who had left the note?
He stared at the site on the ridge, and the area around it, until his eyes ached, and saw nothing more.
He spent a moment resting his eyes and considering what this must mean. Perhaps a tourist engaged in wandering around? That didn’t seem likely in such an unlovely and inhospitable-looking site as that ridge. Why would anyone without a specific interest be making that climb?
Could the woman be Joanna Craig? That ridge seemed to him to be just about where following Tuve’s description would take him. And she, too, would have heard the same Tuve story, and perhaps much more. He considered that a moment, then he shifted his gaze to the opposite direction and began another study of the segments of the Salt Trail visible to him above and upriver.
No movement on the highest segment. The second segment was also devoid of any sign of activity. At the lowest level he found what he had hoped to see. He focused on two figures—apparently male and female. An agile one, whom Chandler decided must be Billy Tuve, was leading the way for the fearful and very careful form whom Chandler presumed was none other than Joanna Craig, Plymale’s enemy. Ah!
But who, then, was the woman with the binoculars who had been watching him from the ridge down the river? And what was the connection between this Bernie and her friends and Tuve? Chandler considered that question, decided the only answer available to him was through guesswork, and decided it might have something to do with Park Service security. No way of knowing.
He would operate on his original surmise—that Joanna Craig had shot Sherman in his car on the canyon rim at the head of the trail. She had taken custody of Tuve and Tuve was now guiding her on the Salt Trail’s winding three thousand-foot plunge toward the Colorado River. Once there, Tuve would lead her to the lair of the diamond dispenser. Her goal was the same as his own. He would simply join the party, help her to use Tuve to lead them both to those diamonds.
Thinking about the possibilities this situation offered caused Chandler to smile—his first of the day.
Forget the diamonds for now. Maybe his first step should be the elimination of Craig from the problem. He would take her identification to prove to Plymale that his task had been accomplished and collect the payment for that. That would simplify things. Then if Tuve actually guided him to the diamonds, he would have them as a bonus.
Chandler sat on what he thought might be the same boulder that Tuve described sitting on when the diamond dispenser had appeared years ago. Better not shoot her, though. Why invite a murder investigation? Better a fatal blow to the head with a rock. Then stuff some rocks in her clothing to weigh her down? Or let her float away? Probably let her float. Make it seem she had fallen, banged her head, landed in the river. How about Tuve? He’d need him to find the diamonds. But why leave a witness? But Bernie and friends were also expecting Tuve. He’d have to wait and see what developed.
Whereupon Bradford Chandler slipped his binoculars back into their case and set about finding the best place to confront Ms. Craig (and Tuve) when she reached the bottom.
And decide exactly what to say to her.
19
Sergeant Jim Chee was standing on the rocky shelf overlooking the up-canyon trail, looking down upon Cowboy Dashee, trying to calculate what Dashee was doing. At first glance Cowboy seemed to be taking off his left boot. But at second glance, Cowboy seemed to have abandoned that project and was attempting to cut off the bottom of his left pant leg with his pocket knife. Chee gave up.
“Cowboy!” he shouted. “What are you doing?”
Dashee dropped the knife and looked up, scowling. “Where the hell have you been?” he said. “You gone deaf, or what? I was hollering until I just about lost my voice.”
“You’re hurt,” Chee said, and began scrambling down the slope. “I’ve been looking for you. What happened?”
Dashee leaned back, released a huge sigh of relief. “Glad you finally found me,” he said. He shook his head. “I slipped. Tried to stop the fall. Left foot caught. Did something to my ankle.”
Chee was squatting beside him now, inspecting the offending foot.
“Sprained it?”
“I hope that’s it,” Dashee said.
“Broke, you think?”
“I guess,” Dashee said. “It feels like it. Or maybe it pulled the tendon loose. I was trying to get the boot off before it got too swollen.”
Chee rescued Dashee’s pocket knife. Gently as possible he cut the remaining strings, eased the boot off, and inspected the ankle.
“Already swollen,” he said. “When did it happen?”
“About an hour ago, I guess,” he said through gritted teeth. “I was checking on a little side canyon up there.”
“How far?” Chee asked.
Dashee managed a strained-sounding laugh. “What difference does that make? But I’d say about an hour’s downhill crawl, with a few stops to feel sorry for myself and yell for help.”
“Tell you what,” Chee said. “I’ll carry you down to that deep little pool by the Salt Shrine. That water’s cold. You can soak it, and I’ll see what I can do about finding some help.”
They discussed that suggestion, with Dashee expressing his doubts that Chee could carry him down the narrow and obstacle-rich trail without dropping him (or more likely, both of them) on the ragged boulders. He pressed for an alternate solution in which Dashee’s already-slit pants leg would be converted into bandage material, the ankle would be securely bound, and the trip would be made with Dashee hopping along on his good leg and Chee supporting his damaged side.
While the proposed bandaging was being done, they delivered their reports. Dashee had checked out two promising-looking connecting gulches, finding tracks and some interesting petroglyphs from Anasazi days, and was giving up on the second of these when he took his fall. Chee reported that he had taken looks at some undercuts which might have been cave sites—one with some signs it had been lived in long ago. He had made an extensive exploration of a fairly major drainage canyon, finding old tracks, both horse and human, but nothing very promising to suggest it was the home of the diamond dispenser. Then he returned to the place they had left Bernie to await Billy Tuve.