With that lead behind her, Sandy would have to find Terrell, if he was among the 7,500 people of Seminole, through good old-fashioned legwork.
The heat had evaporated as she drew farther into Oklahoma, and Seminole was comfortably cool. The radio predicted a chance of showers. Sandy stopped first at a bar and grill and started asking questions. The people inside seemed suspicious of her, their answers abrupt and terse. None of them had ever heard of Simon Terrell.
“You that woman on TV, ain’t ya?” one of them asked her.
“Yes,” Sandy replied, glad for once at the recognition.
“Oh,” was all the man said before he went back to his beer.
Sandy went through three cups of coffee trying to figure out her next step. If Simon Terrell had come to Seminole, he would have used a different name. She moved from her booth and settled down at the bar next to the man who had recognized her. His hair was graying, his eyes tired, and he wore a patched-up down vest.
“Has any man moved into town in the last few months, say a man about forty?”
“Lots of people pass through,” the man told her, looking up from his beer.
“I mean somebody who settled down.”
The man churned his mug until suds formed on the top. “You lookin’ for a husband?”
“Just a story.”
The man raised his bushy eyebrows. “This guy you’re after, he do somethin’ wrong?”
“No, he’s connected to someone else I’m doing a story on. I need his help.”
“Any chance of me gettin’ on your show if I help ya too?”
“Nope,” Sandy said frankly, and they both smiled.
The man downed his beer and signaled for another. “Only one man I seen ’round here fits your boy, but his name ain’t Terrell. I deliver stuff to all the Indian reservations in these parts and he showed up at one a few months back. A teacher or somethin’.”
“Around forty?”
“I ain’t too good judgin’ ages, but I’d say yeah, give or take a few years. Got long hair, though.”
“You remember the man’s name?” Sandy asked, flipping the bartender a bill for the beer before the man could get his hand into his worn-out pants.
“Trask, I think,” he told her. “Steve Trask.”
The man’s directions to the Indian reservation were easy to follow, the roads straight, and the turns well marked. Sandy knew she had finally found Terrell. Men on the run often changed their names but kept the same initials to avoid questions about labels on luggage, books, towels, and other possessions. Simon Terrell was running, all right. Denton hadn’t been right for him, nor had Greenville, so he was trying Seminole with the same initials but a different name.
The reservation was located out on the plains, free of power lines, cables, even telephone poles. If Terrell had wanted to hide, he had certainly come to the right place. But why in Seminole? Why among Indians?
Sandy’s certainty that Trask was Terrell dwindled as she drew closer to the reservation. There were no identifying signs on the fence enclosing rows of small, well-constructed homes. There were larger buildings as well, none of which were identified in any way. She pulled her compact between a pair of pickups and climbed out.
There were few people around, and no one paid much attention to her. In all probability few of the reservation’s inhabitants would recognize her. She moved through the dusty grounds, longing for a pair of boots, and outside the parking lot she approached a plump, middle-aged Indian man.
“Can I help you?” he asked politely.
“I’m looking for Steven Trask.”
“You’ll find him somewhere around the school.” The Indian aimed a callused finger to the left. “About fifty yards that way. He’ll probably be with the kids behind the building.”
Sandy followed the Indian’s directions and found herself walking through a different age. Beneath the clearing sky women sewed and stirred the contents of tall pots over open flames. She didn’t see many men and guessed they were at work in the surrounding fields.
The schoolhouse was not hard to find, and as she drew closer to it, Sandy could hear the giggling of children not far away. She followed a path around to the rear of the building. A group of twenty or so kids was engaged in various games, and another ten sat in a circle around an elaborate arrangement of small stones. The head of a single adult dominated the scene, his back to Sandy. She moved closer and took a deep breath.
“Mr. Trask?”
The man turned around slowly and stood up.
“Hello, Miss Lister, I’ve been expecting you,” said Simon Terrell.
Chapter 15
“How did you know—”
“That you were coming?” Terrell asked, his arms on the shoulders of a young boy and a young girl who flanked him. “I have a friend at your network who told me you were on my trail. I knew you’d track me down sooner or later, though I expected you’d have a camera crew along for the ride.”
“Would you have talked before a camera?”
“I’m not sure I have anything to say to you even without one. And you can forget all about that off-the-record crap because with the people you’re looking into, there’s no such thing.”
The wind whipped up and ruffled Terrell’s overlong hair. He looked pretty much like the picture Sandy had of him, except a bit more ragged and less polished. His curly hair fell naturally around his face, styled by the wind. He had a two- or three-day growth of beard and sunburned skin that made his light blue eyes look even icier. His boots clip-clopped on the pebble ground as he moved toward Sandy, the two children still clinging tight to his forearms.
“Go play with the others,” he told them softly. They resisted for a second, then took off with jealous eyes on Sandy.
“This is quite a departure from Krayman Industries, Mr. Terrell,” she said, taking his extended hand.
Terrell glanced around him. “I should have done it years ago. Call me Simon, by the way.”
“How did your contact at my network know how to reach you?”
“I’m not a total recluse, Miss Lister.”
“Sandy.”
“Sandy. There are a few people who know how to reach me in an emergency.”
They walked toward the schoolhouse, until they reached the shade of a big tree.
“This is as good a place as any,” Terrell told her. “As long as you don’t mind getting your pants dirty. I should keep my eye on the kids.”
“This is fine,” Sandy said, and they both sat down on the ground. Her eyes swept over the young children playing. “Are you their teacher?”
“Weekdays, yes. On weekends I become a baby-sitter. The older kids are working with their parents, mostly in the fields. Some are out hunting. I volunteered for this duty.”
“Doing penance for past sins?”
Terrell smiled briefly at that. “No, just trying to forget about them. My whole life had been based on technology for so long that I almost forgot what people were all about. Finally it got to be too much. I felt more like one of the machines I was tending than a man. I had to get out, so I ran away.”
“But you’re still running, aren’t you?” Sandy prodded. “Is someone after you?”
Sandy expected Terrell to hesitate, but his response came immediately. “No one’s after me and I think the running has stopped. For a dozen years I worked for the most powerful man in the world. I saw things I’d rather forget and did things I’d love to blame on somebody else. You could say I’ve been running from myself more than anything. Withdrawing, I guess.”
Sandy thought of Spud Hollins living at his ranch in the hills of Montana. “Randall Krayman seems to have that effect on people. You left Krayman Industries a few years before he dropped out of sight, correct?”