"And we're trying to find out who killed him," Aguirre said. "I know you all were close to Robert, and I'm sorry for what happened to him. You can be sure nobody's taking it sitting down." He then said something else that Brass couldn't understand. Brass assumed he was speaking in the Paiute tongue. The men acknowledged his words with glances and gestures, and a couple said something back, something that was equally unintelligible to Brass's ears.
"Look, just track down Ruben and Shep, and tell them to get in touch with me," Aguirre said. "I'm not trying to jam anybody up over this – just trying to keep a lid on things so they don't boil over. Okay?"
"We'll spread the word, Richie."
"That's exactly what I need, thanks."
Aguirre gave Brass a look and a nod, and they retreated from the smoke. On the way out the shop's front door, Brass asked him, "You think they'll really help us find Solis and Moran?"
"Not a chance," Aguirre said. "But I wish I had taps on all their phones, 'cause I bet you one of them is calling those guys right now."
"Warning them?"
Aguirre chuckled dryly. "Yeah. They'll already know we're looking for them, so that's not going to make any difference in the long run. We'll just keep going till we find them, or we don't. I'm hoping we do."
"That makes two of us," Brass said. "And maybe half a reservation who hope we don't. I'd hate to see the odds against us on the screen at a sports book."
"So what's the deal with you guys and tobacco?" Brass asked. "I mean, I know you can sell it at lower prices than off-reservation retailers because of the tax thing. But it seems like there's more to it than that."
"Indians never used tobacco casually," Aguirre told him. "And we were using it long before you Europeans showed up here and started throwing up strip malls everywhere. We used it in ceremonies, for spiritual purposes or political ones, even medicinal. Shamans used to smoke larger amounts of it to get high. One cigarette won't do much, but try a pack or two at a time, and see what happens to you. Of course, it wasn't just about getting wasted; there was a ritual element to it. Tobacco was a part of Indian life. When the Europeans came and created a big new market for it, it became important to us commercially."
"And it looks like it's stayed that way."
"Yeah. There's a downside, though. Some researchers think that early prevalence in Indian society set us up for greater susceptibility than the white population. Lots of Indians smoke, and lots of them are addicted to tobacco. That and alcohol are both big problems in our communities. At least some of it comes from the way we used it in pre-contact days."
Brass was about to say something else when his phone rang. He flipped it open. "I gotta take this," he said.
"Go ahead." Aguirre said. "That's one thing I'm not addicted to. When I'm not on the job, I like to be miles from the nearest telephone."
'What's up, Nicky?" said Brass.
Nick was driving fast, on unfamiliar roads, not the best conditions for making a phone call. At least he wasn't texting, but that didn't mean some other driver wasn't. "I just got off the phone with Ray."
"And?" Brass asked.
"He's heading out here. But on the way, he stopped to talk to his friend who's married to a Grey Rock woman."
"What did his friend say?"
Nick twisted the wheel right for a sharp turn, then cranked it left as he headed into an S-curve.
"It's not good. He said the tribal police might take sides. I guess Domingo treated them pretty well, made sure they were taken care of. In turn, they watched out for his interests. Now, if the powder keg blows, he thinks most of them will back whoever Domingo's likely successor is, trying to maintain the status quo."
Brass hesitated before answering. Nick could tell from the background noises that he was in a vehicle and probably had Rico Aguirre right beside him. "Okay, thanks. That's something to keep in mind."
"That's what I thought."
"And Nick?"
"Yeah?"
"The fuse has already been lit. And it's burning fast."
20
The body was desiccated, shrunken, its skin dark, wrinkled, and leathery. Greg's first thought was of beef jerky. Wisps of hair still clung to the head, but the clothing had deteriorated, with only a few scraps of fabric strewn around the makeshift cavern giving testimony to the idea that the mummy had once been clothed at all. Whoever it was must have been there for years.
Greg's trek through the desert had taken a couple of hours, following landmark after landmark. As opposed to the city streets, out here not much had changed – or, to be more precise, the author of the directions, who was presumably Troy Cameron, had noted landscape features that wouldn't change instead of plants that might have grown taller or withered and died in the intervening years.
For the last twenty minutes or so. he had seen a pair of turkey vultures wheeling overhead, then a trio, like ragged black shadows against the bright blue sky. He had been starting to wonder how much longer this would take, worrying that he hadn't brought enough water after all. The number of landmarks listed didn't help him gauge his progress, because some were close together while there were great distances between others, even though each was within line of sight of the one before. He was out in the desert with no company but a line of footprints, the carrion birds, din, rocks, and the long-enduring desert plants, the creosote bushes and yuccas and mesquites.
The earth appeared too hard, dry, and unforgiving to be susceptible to the fragile charms of wild-flowers. But there they were, broad yellow blooms and brushlike red ones and lavender blossoms growing close to the ground like a lace handkerchief someone had dropped. And this was late in the season; early in March, the desert would have been carpeted in places by flowers coaxed from the rocky soil by winter rains.
Flowers were only one aspect of desert life that seemed to defy scientific reason. Mesquite could push a taproot down a hundred and fifty feet, through hardpan and caliche and maybe even limestone, looking for water, but most of its root structure was within three feet of the surface. They were hardy trees, almost unkillable, and chances were good that some of the ones Greg passed had been there, albeit smaller, in Troy's day. He thought there was a lesson to be learned from them, something about survival and resilience and the willingness to do whatever it took to make it until the next rain, but he was too distracted by his list of landmarks and growing uneasiness about his task to dwell on it.
He had pressed on, heartened by the fact that three of the landmarks near the end of his list were almost right on top of one another. Finally, he spent some time wandering around a broad cliff face, the rocky patina smoothed by wind and weather. Dark, uneven vertical streaks were probably rust stains from the iron in the rock leaching out to the surface. He was certain he was in the right general vicinity but didn't know exactly what he was looking for. He guessed that Troy Cameron had known his own starting point, so he didn't bother writing it down with the precision he had used on the other notations. All he had written was "Bleeding rock," and the cliff face certainly gave that impression.
The other person who had come this way had encountered the same problem, so following those prints (her prints, Greg was largely convinced, although it could have been a man with very small feet) was little help. That person had wandered this way and that, looking, no doubt, for the same thing Greg was. Troy hadn't meant the entire cliff, had he? Could Greg have spent hours following a trail that led nowhere at all?