"Excuse me, Sergeant," Karyn said.
"Senora Richter, good morning."
"I was wondering - you said last night that there was this friend of the girl, the one who was killed, who you thought might have done it - "
Vasquez raised his hands in a helpless gesture. "Unfortunately for us, the young man has the perfect alibi. For the past seven days, including last night, be has been locked in jail in Culiacan."
Karyn fought to suppress a smile of relief. "I see. Well, I was just wondering. Thank you."
She hurried back to rejoin Chris and Luis Zarate. They climbed into the taxi and rolled away from the hotel toward Mazatlan. Before they reached the city, Luis turned off the highway onto a narrow, unpaved road that led off into the foothills of the Occidental Mountains.
Once they were away from the cooling effect of the sea breeze, the air in the car became hot and steamy. Opening the windows did no good. However, it began to cool off again as the road started to climb.
The rutted road finally came to an end at a pile of boulders. Luis eased the car off into the gravel in front of a weathered shack built of lumber scraps and flattened tin cans. He honked the horn steadily until a swarthy man, with a limp and one clouded eye, came out of the shack. Luis got out of the car and spoke to him in Spanish while Karyn and Chris stood by waiting. Finally Luis rejoined them.
"My cousin Guillermo will let you have two burros for the day for ten dollars. It is too much, but he knows you are Americans, and to ignorant peons like Guillermo all Americans are very rich."
"Tell him it's a deal," Chris said.
Luis passed the word to his cousin, and the man limped back behind the shack and returned a minute later leading two sleepy burros that looked as if the moths had been at them.
"Are you sure they'll make it up the mountain?" Chris said.
"Estos es muy buenos burros," said Guillermo, catching the tone of Chris's voice, if not the meaning of his words. "Muy robustos."
"Yeah, I'll bet," Chris muttered.
"What about saddles?" Karyn asked.
Guillermo looked blank.
She patted the seat of her jeans, then the bony back of one of the burros. "Saddle," she repeated.
A light came into Guillermo's good eye. "Oh, si, las mantas!" He limped into the shack and returned with two thin, tattered blankets. He folded them carefully and lay them over the backs of the burros.
"Swell," Karyn said. She glanced over at Luis.
"Don't worry," he said. "These burros do not move fast enough to throw you off."
"That's not what I'm worried about," Karyn said dryly.
"We'd better get started," Chris said. "Which one do you want?"
Karyn looked the two animals over. They were about the same size, and their gentle, sleepy eyes told her nothing. She rubbed the ruff of hair between the ears of one of them. The burro did not move.
"I like this one," she said. "He's got spirit."
With help from Luis and his cousin they climbed aboard the animals. Guillermo showed them how to hold onto the rope that was attached to a simple bit in each burro's mouth.
"You're sure we'll be able to find the place all right?" Chris said.
"The burros will take you there," Luis assured him. "They will follow the trail, and the trail leads only to the gypsy."
"And you'll meet us here when we come down?" Karyn said.
"Si, Senora. I will be waiting a full two hours before sundown. Take care you are not caught in the darkness. Night comes quickly in these mountains."
"Don't worry," Karyn told him, "We won't take any chances."
They clucked to the burros, and with a little urging the animals started off at a slow, patient, pace up the rocky trail that led into the mountains.
Karyn soon found that riding burro-back was every bit as uncomfortable as she had imagined. In less than half an hour the insides of her thighs were chafed raw, and her buttocks ached from the steady jolting gait of the beasts.
Chris, riding ahead on the narrow trail, turned back. "How you doing?"
"Just great, but I may never sit down again."
After riding up the ever-steepening grade for more than another hour, they came to a clear water spring that bubbled out between two rocks. Karyn and Chris dismounted gratefully and drank deeply of the icy water while the burros dipped their muzzles in the pool downstream.
"How about a short rest?" Chris said.
"I'd appreciate it."
Chris sat down on a rock among the scrubby chaparral that grew along the trail. Karyn eased into a semi-reclining position beside him.
"I sure hope this trip is worth the aches and pains," she said.
Chris grinned at her. "I was willing to come up alone, remember?"
"Come on, cowboy, let's ride," she said, pushing painfully to her feet.
Chuckling, Chris remounted his burro and they set of again.
The sun had passed its zenith when they topped the first crest. On the other side, the trail dipped down sharply into a steep valley of tangled green rainforest.
"God, how much farther can it be?" Karyn said.
"I think this is it," Chris said. "Look over there."
Karyn followed his pointing finger and saw, just over the rise of ground, the top of a cabin. The walls were unfinished logs, the roof a heavy thatch of dry grass. From a hole in the roof a trail of gray smoke drifted into the air. The cabin had an unreal, fairytale look.
"The house of the wicked witch," Karyn said, and immediately wished she hadn't.
They got down off the burros and tied them loosely to a clump of chaparral, undoing the rope bits so they could eat. The docile animals lowered their heads and began to chew on the coarse grass.
Karyn and Chris approached the hut together. There was no door. Instead, the heavy tanned hide of some animal hung across the opening. From inside came the smell of something gamy cooking.
"Hello?" Chris called at the door. "Anybody here?"
No answer.
Chris looked at Karyn with a shrug, then drew aside the hide covering the doorway. The smell of cooking, new and old, hit them like a fist. In the center of the single room a low fire burned in a pit lined with rocks. Over the flame, a blackened five-gallon can was suspended on a pole. Something bubbled sluggishly in the can. The room was oppressively hot.
"Vayase. Go away."
For a moment Karyn could not locate the source of the voice. Then, as her eyes adjusted to the gloom inside the cabin, she saw a tall woman, thin as a stick, with straight white hair and a black dress that had been patched many times. The woman stood on the other side of the fire pit, looking at them.
"Luis Zarate told us to come to you," Chris said. He squinted into the shadows, trying to get a clear look at the woman.
The gypsy took a step toward them. The glow from the fire accentuated the highlights and shadows of her face. Her nose was thin and highly arched. The cheekbones stood out prominently over the deep hollows of her cheeks. Her skin was leathery and wrinkled, but in the dark fiery eyes was a hint of the wild beauty she once had been. She fixed them with a steady gaze, Chris first, then Karyn.
"You are the ones, then," she said. Her voice was steady and ageless.
"Luis spoke to you about us?" Karyn said.
"I have not seen him."
"You said... we are the ones."
"I knew you were coming."
"Can we speak to you?" Chris said, his tone automatically respectful.
"Ah, well, come inside if you must," the old woman said.
Karyn and Chris entered the dark interior of the cabin. There was no carpet on the hard dirt floor, and little furniture that was recognizable. When Chris let the hide fall back over the doorway, the only light came from the fire.