Dance of the Bones

“I don’t know. Not a big one. A .22 maybe? A pistol, not a revolver.”


Brandon made an effort to contain his reaction. He had made no mention that Amos Warren had been shot, much less shot by someone wielding a small--caliber weapon. John Lassiter, Amos Warren’s disgruntled former partner, had always been Brandon’s best possible suspect. Now Brandon knew, via a third party, that Lassiter had been in possession of a handgun at the time of the crime. This had to be a key bit of information. Brandon felt it was also important that when Ava had volunteered the information, it had been in regard to something else entirely, at a time when she’d had no hint from Brandon that Amos Warren had been shot to death.

“You’re saying you know the difference between a pistol and a revolver?” Brandon asked.

Ava shot him a withering look. “Of course I know the difference. Just because I’m a blonde doesn’t make me stupid.”

Touché, Brandon thought. Well played.

Ava glanced at her watch. “Look,” she said impatiently. “I have a luncheon engagement, and I’m about to be late. If you have more questions, could we please finish this some other time?”

Brandon took the hint. “Of course,” he said, rising to his feet. “You’ve been a big help. If I could just have a phone number . . .”

She gave him the number and showed him to the door. Brandon walked away feeling downright jubilant. He was getting somewhere. Sheriff Jack DuShane be damned, he was going to solve this case. Not then, Brandon told himself, but maybe now.

With that last thought about the years--ago investigation and hours after Brandon Walker landed in his bed, he finally fell asleep.





CHAPTER 12




THE NEXT MORNING COYOTE TOOK the beads and went again to the house of Beautiful Girl and her brother. This time Coyote found the girl with her giwho—-her burden basket—-ready to go out into the desert and gather plants. She would not even listen to him. She took her basket and left Ban standing there alone.

When Big Man heard this he was very angry. He went to Wind Man—-Hewel O’odham—-and asked for his help. And so, while Beautiful Girl was alone in the desert, gathering plants, Wind Man came and found her. With a loud whoop, Wind Man gathered the girl up and took her to the top of a very steep mountain that stands all alone in that part of the country—-a mountain the Milgahn call Picacho Peak but the Tohono O’odham call Chewagig Mu’uk, Cloud Peak.

Everyone knows, nawoj, my friend, that Picacho Peak is very small, but it is also very steep, so steep that no one has ever climbed it.

In the evening, Beautiful Girl’s brother returned to the house and found it empty. He waited and worried. Finally he went out into the village and told the -people that his sister was gone, and the -people agreed to help him find her.

The next day the -people followed Beautiful Girl’s tracks out into the desert. They found the place where she had stopped to gather plants, and they found her empty burden basket, but that is where her tracks stopped. The -people held a council to decide what to do. Coyote came to the council and said that he’d been passing close to Cloud Peak that day and heard the noise of a woman crying. Ban knew that this was very bad trouble because the woman could not climb down.