Dance of the Bones

One of the White--Winged Doves said to the others, “Why, I believe that is one of my feathers calling to us.”


You must understand, nawoj, my friend, that it is the law of the desert that you must always answer a call for help, so the White--Winged Doves circled in the air to try to learn what the trouble was.

BRANDON WAS SPEEDING SOUTH ON Highway 77 when his phone rang. He answered it through the Escalade’s sound system, and Diana’s voice came out through the speakers.

“Have you talked to Lani today?” she asked with no preamble—-without asking where Brandon was or what he was doing. That was unusual in and of itself.

“No, why?”

“Gabe’s gone missing,” she said.

“From Kitt Peak?” Brandon asked. That was the last thing he had known about the weekend’s plans—-that Gabe and Lani were going to camp out on the mountain on Friday night and that the whole family planned to make a daylong expedition to the book festival in Tucson on Sunday.

“Not exactly,” Diana said. “Gabe and Lani evidently got into some kind of hassle, and he walked off the mountain. He made it home, but now no one can find him. Later, after Gabe left, Lani witnessed a shooting—-heard it rather than saw it—-in which two boys from Sells were killed. It’s a mess, and Lani’s really upset about it, but I have another panel to go to . . .”

“Not to worry,” Brandon said. “I’ll call her right now.”

He did so. “What’s going on?” he asked when Lani answered.

“You’re not going to believe it.”

“Try me.”

Brandon listened patiently to the whole story, but he noticed there were undertones of things not said. “I know Gabe,” Brandon said when Lani finally came to a stop. “He’s a good kid. And I’ve met Tim, too. I can’t imagine either of them getting mixed up in any kind of smuggling enterprise.”

“I believe it all started with one of Tim’s older brothers. Max was caught up in it to begin with. Then, after he got sent up for something or other, he must have passed his part of the business on to his younger brothers.”

Brandon and Lani had always been close, and he could tell from her voice that she was holding back.

“Okay,” he said, after a moment. “You’ve told me Dan and Leo are out looking for the boys, but I get the feeling that you left out a few pertinent details. How about telling me the rest of it?”

His question seemed to catch her off guard. “How did you know?” she asked.

“You’ve never been that good of a liar. Now spit it out.”

“I don’t think Gabe and Tim are just missing, Dad,” she said at last. “I think it’s worse than that. I’m afraid they’re both dead—-Tim for sure and maybe Gabe, too.”

“Why?”

“Because there was another shot, one I haven’t mentioned to anyone but you,” she said. “A while after the first two volleys of automatic gunfire, I heard another shot, a single one that time. I couldn’t tell exactly where it came from, but it sounded like it was close enough to Rattlesnake Skull charco that it could be related.”

“You’re saying you think whoever killed Carlos and Paul José may have killed Tim, too?”

“Yes,” Lani answered, her voice trembling with emotion. “The poor kid is probably lying out there in the desert in a place where we’ll never find the body. I know the FBI agents are aware Tim has a phone, but I’m not sure they’ll be in any hurry to put a tracer on it. Finding the phone might not show us where he is now, but it would be a starting point.”

“Surely the FBI will get right on that.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Why?”

“Remember how you always used to complain about having to work with the FBI?”