William Krueger - Heaven's keep

“A place you’ll never find without my help.”

“Tell me.”

Nightwind struggled for breath, then said, “Give me your promise you’ll go after these men. Even if the law can’t get to them, you will.”

“You have it.”

“Something to write with? I don’t want you to forget.”

Parmer pulled out his wallet and plucked a piece of paper from among the folded currency. He dug inside his coat and drew out the pencil stub.

As Nightwind spoke, Parmer wrote down the information he provided, which was the name of the place Cork would find Jo, the names of the three men responsible, the name of a bank in Denver, and the number of a safe-deposit box there.

“In the box,” Nightwind said. “All the evidence you need to get these guys. Been gathering it for years. Insurance policy, you know? Photos, tape recordings, records. Your wife. Others before her. It’s all there. In the hands of a good prosecutor, it’ll put these assholes in the gas chamber, I swear it.” He grabbed hold of Cork’s coat sleeve. “Get them, O’Connor. Promise me you’ll get them.”

“I promise.”

Nightwind let go.

Parmer handed the paper over, and Cork read the name of the place where Nightwind had said he would find his wife. He was baffled.

“Bonita, Mexico?” he asked.

“In Sonora,” Nightwind said, nearly breathless.

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.”

Parmer said, “Maybe we can bind your wound, Lame.”

Nightwind shook his head. “It’s over. Just let me go.”

Cork told Parmer to round up the horses. Parmer looked down at Nightwind. Then he looked at the rifle he’d used to fire the fatal bullet. Finally he turned and walked away into the snow to find the horses.

It wasn’t exactly over. Nightwind lingered for another hour. He spoke no more and struggled simply to breathe. Cradled in Cork’s arms, he stared up at the falling snow, and when the snow stopped and the wind blew the clouds away he stared up at an evening sky filling with stars. The canyon ran near the foot of Heaven’s Keep, and the great formation stood white and imperious in the last light of day. At the very end, just before Nightwind took his final ragged breath, his eyes drifted to the cold face of rock, and it seemed to Cork that a sense of satisfaction settled over Lame Deer Nightwind, as if he’d just been given the answer to a great question. Afterward Cork followed the dead man’s gaze to the top of Heaven’s Keep, which appeared to be among the stars themselves, and he thought that maybe if he climbed there he could look into the face of God and understand all the tragedy that had brought him to that place.

But in his head he knew that he would never climb. And in his heart he doubted that he would ever understand.

It was an old Spanish mission, whitewashed stucco, set amid saguaro cacti and creosote bushes, with the Sierra Madres in the distance under a cloudless blue sky. Blooming bougainvillea climbed the courtyard walls, and the flowers of a large garden grew in the shade of desert willows. At the center was a fountain bubbling softly.

In the office where they sat waiting, Cork, Stephen, and Parmer could hear the fountain through the open window.

There was a knock at the door. A man and a woman entered. The man was dressed in an expensive gray suit and wore a blue silk tie. The woman wore tan slacks, a white blouse, and an embroidered blue vest. She was older than the man. Her hair was gray and her eyes were calm brown.

Cork and his son and Parmer stood, and they all shook hands and sat down together around the table.

The man in the suit had a small mustache, thin and black against his olive skin. He spoke with a Hispanic accent. Cork had met him earlier, briefly. His name was Ramirez. “I have brought Sister Amelia. She was responsible for your wife while she was with us.”

Sister Amelia smiled graciously. “I’m sure there’s much you want to know.”

“She couldn’t be saved?” Cork’s most burning question.

The man in the suit answered. “When Mr. Nightwind delivered her to us, our doctors examined her thoroughly. By the time she arrived, there was no hope. The MRI showed the bullet lodged against her spine and surrounded by infection. There was also evidence of significant brain damage due, our doctors suspected, to oxygen deprivation.”

“She was trapped in a buried airplane,” Stephen said.

Ramirez lifted his hand gently to stop Stephen. “We’re a hospice center, son. We’re concerned primarily with helping those who come to us make a peaceful passage to the next life. Because many of our clients have backgrounds they would prefer remain a secret, we ask no questions and seek no explanations. Our location, far from prying eyes and prying officials, ensures that in their final days the privacy of our clients is respected. You understand.”

“Was she in any pain?” Cork asked.

“Our doctors made sure that she was not,” Ramirez said.

“Was she conscious at all?” Stephen asked. “Did she say anything?”

“No.” Ramirez looked toward Parmer. “We have details to discuss of her transport back to the States-on your aircraft, yes?”

“That’s right,” Parmer said.

“Perhaps you and I could handle this for the moment. Sister Amelia, I believe, has something she would like to show Mr. O’Connor. Sister?”

She looked kindly at Cork and at Stephen. “Would you follow me?”

“Sure.” Cork glanced at Parmer. “Thanks, Hugh.”

“No trouble, partner.”

They left the office and strolled through the courtyard, which was filled with the fragrance of the flowers and the gentle murmur of the fountain.

In the days behind, the groundwork for justice had been laid. The men Lame Deer Nightwind was after were Donald and Victor Arbuela, who were brothers, and a brother-in-law, Thomas Quintanna. Cork was sure they didn’t know Jo and had nothing against her personally. To them her death was simply business. They all lived in Miami and claimed to be in real estate. In the photographs, they were balding men with skin tanned the color of a grocery store paper bag and faces as mundane as lettuce. Cork wasn’t surprised that they didn’t look particularly evil. He’d seen the face of evil enough to know that more often than not it was dreadfully ordinary. The safe-deposit box in the Denver bank had yielded damning evidence against the three, evidence of years of corruption, fraud, theft, and murder by men who thought they were untouchable. The U.S. attorney in Denver, a woman named Sheila Cannon, who carefully evaluated the evidence, assured Cork they were not. He told her of Nightwind’s belief that justice moved with the speed of a turtle. Cannon said maybe so, but in the end the turtle always won the race. Cork understood Lame Nightwind’s doubt about the ultimate ability of the law to prevail, and he chose not to share with Cannon his intention, if the law failed, to keep his promise to Nightwind.

He had retrieved his son, who’d returned from his solitary time in the woods having received the vision he sought. Stephen hadn’t told Cork what that vision was; perhaps he never would. But the change in him was obvious, and the quiet strength in his young, dark Anishinaabe eyes was compelling. Cork believed that Stephen was fully prepared for the final responsibility that lay before them.

Halfway across the courtyard, Cork paused and turned to Sister Amelia. “How did Lame Nightwind know about this place?”

“Several years ago he was hired to deliver a dying man to us. This man’s name, if I divulged it, would be well known to you. His deeds were dark and infamous. Here, he was a different man. I have often seen this. Confronted with the prospect of soon standing before God, unable to hide behind lies and artifice and pretense, people see their lives differently. I’m thankful I don’t have to be responsible for judging their time on earth. My duty, my calling, is simply to help prepare them for their audience with the Lord.”