Desert Places (Andrew Z. Thomas/Luther Kite Series 1)

Dreamed about Shirley again last night. Carried her through the desert, through the night, and delivered her into the arms of her family. Left her smiling with her husband and three children, in her red-and-gray bowling shirt.

I’ve seen a significant change in Orson’s mood over the last day. He’s no longer morose. Like he said, this is his normal time. But the burning will return, and that’s what I fear more than anything.

I’m considering just killing him. He’s beginning to trust me now. What I’d do is take one of those heavy bookends and brain him like he did that poor homeless man. But where would that leave me? I have complete faith that Orson has enough incriminating evidence to send me straight to death row, even if I killed him. Besides, something occurred to me last night that horrifies me: In one of his letters, Orson threatened that someone would deliver a package of evidence to the Charlotte Police Department, unless he stopped them in person—who’s helping Orson?

I tossed the clipboard onto the ground, hopped off the rock, and looked intently down the slope. At the foot of the bluff, on the hillside hidden from the cabin, a man on horseback stared up at me. Though nothing more than a brown speck on the desert floor, I could see him waving to me. Afraid he would shout, I waved back, put the clipboard into a small backpack, and scrambled down the bluff as quickly as I could.

It took me several minutes to negotiate the declivitous hillside, avoiding places where the slope descended too steeply. My ears popped on the way down, and I arrived spent at the foot of the bluff, out of breath, my legs burning. I leaned against a dusty boulder, panting heavily.

The horse stood ten feet away. It looked at me, whinnied, then dropped an enormous pile of shit. Dust stung my eyes, and I rubbed them until tears rinsed away the particles of windblown dirt. I looked up at the man on the horse.

He wore a cowboy hat the color of dark chocolate, an earth-tone plaid button-up jacket, and tan riding pants. His face, worn and wrinkled, held a vital quality, which suggested he wasn’t as old as he seemed, that years of hard labor and riding in the wind and sun had aged him prematurely.

I thought he was going to speak, but instead, he took a long drag from a joint. Holding the smoke in his lungs, he offered the marijuana cigarette to me, but I shook my head. A moment passed, and he expelled a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke, which the wind ripped away and diffused into the sweltering air. His brown eyes disappeared when he squinted at me.

“I thought you was Dave Parker,” he said, his accent thick and remote. “I’ll be damned if you don’t look kinda like him.”

“You mean the man who owns the cabin on the other side of that hill?”

“That’s him.” He took another draw.

“I’m his brother,” I said. “How do you know him?”

“How do I know him?” he asked in disbelief, still holding the smoke in his lungs and speaking directly from his raspy throat. “That used to be my cabin.” He let the smoke out with his words. “You didn’t know that?”

“Dave didn’t tell me who he bought it from, and I’ve only been out here a few days. We haven’t seen each other in awhile.”

“Well hell, all this, far as you can see, is mine. I own a ranch ten miles that a way.” He pointed north toward the mountains. “Got four hundred head of cattle that graze this land.”

“This desert?”

“It’s been dry lately, but it greens up with Indian rice grass after a good rain. Besides, we run ’em up into the Winds, too. Yeah, I’d never have sold that cabin, except your brother offered me a small fortune for it. Sits dead in the middle of my land. So I sold him the cabin and ten acres. Hell, I don’t know why anybody’d wanna own a cabin out here. Ain’t much to look at, and there’s no use coming here in the winter. But hell, his money.”

“When did he buy it from you?”

“Oh shit. The years all run together now. I guess Dr. Parker bought it back in ’91.”

“Dr. Parker?”

“He is a doctor of something, ain’t he? Oh hell, history maybe? Ain’t he a doctor of history? I haven’t spoken to the man in two years, so I may be wrong about—”

“He made you call him Dr.?” I interrupted, forcing myself to laugh and diverting the man’s attention from my barrage of questions. “That bastard thinks he’s something else.”

“Don’t he though,” the cowboy said, laughing, too. I smiled, relieved I’d put him at ease, though I’m sure it wasn’t all my doing.

“He still teaching at that college up north?” the man asked. “My memory ain’t worth two shits anymore. Vermont maybe. Said he taught fall and spring and liked to spend summers out here. Least he did two years ago.”

“Oh. Yeah, he is. Sure is.” I tried to temper the shock in my voice. Not in a thousand years had I expected to come into contact with another person in this desert. It was exhilarating, and I prayed Orson wouldn’t see this cowboy riding so close to his cabin.

“Well, I best be heading on,” he said. “Got a lot more ground to cover before this day’s through. You tell Dr. Parker I said hello. And what was your name?”

“Mike. Mike Parker.”

“Percy Madding.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Percy,” I said, stepping forward and shaking his gloved hand.

“Good to know you, Mike. And maybe I’ll drop in on you boys sometime with a bottle of tequila and a few of these.” He wiggled the joint in his hand; it had burned out for the moment.

“Actually, we’re leaving in several days. Heading back east.”

“Oh. That’s a shame. Well, you boys have a safe trip.”

“Thank you,” I said, “and oh, one more thing. What’s that mountain range in the north and east?”

“The Wind Rivers,” he said. “Loveliest mountains in the state. They don’t get all the goddamned tourists like the Tetons and Yellowstone.”

Percy pulled a silver lighter from his pocket, relit the joint, and spurred his horse softly in the side. “Hit the road, Zachary,” he said, then clicked his tongue, and trotted away.

11

MID-AFTERNOON, I walked in the front door of the cabin, dripping with sweat. Orson lay on the living room floor, his bare back against the cold stone, a book in his hands. I stepped carefully over him and collapsed onto the sofa.

“What are you reading?” I asked, staring at the perfect definition of his abdominal and pectoral muscles. They shuddered when he breathed.