The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid (Pot Thief Mysteries) Page 8

  Okay, I know it’s not that simple. They’d have to have conductors and ticket takers and other things associated with passengers. But how expensive can it be? The Crown Vic was going to guzzle sixteen dollars worth of gasoline to get us from Belen to Willard. Sixteen dollars versus thirteen cents.

  As we neared Willard my thoughts moved from transportation to the matter at hand. “What are we going to say if your family asks why we’re borrowing a truck?”

  “Tell them we need a winch.”

  “What if they ask why?”

  “Just tell them your Bronco was stolen.”

  I shook my head. “What I’m trying to find out is how we avoid telling them what we’re going to do.”

  “Why would we avoid telling them?”

  “You don’t think they might find it just a tad unusual that you’re going to lower me into a cliff dwelling so I can partially unearth a corpse and examine its hand?”

  “Not really. They know you’re a pot hunter.”

  We rode along in silence while I thought about how I felt about the entire Inchaustigui clan knowing about my unearthing a corpse.

  I reached no conclusion on that topic, but something else occurred to me.

  “There’s also the fact that telling them will make them accessories to a crime.”

  “All they’re doing is lending us a truck.”

  “And if they know we’re going to use it to commit a crime, then they’re accessories. And remember that ARPA allows any vehicle used in illegal digging to be confiscated.”

  “But you won’t be digging for pots. You’ll be digging to see if there’s something to report to the police. You’re being a good citizen.”

  “Actually…”

  “You are going to dig for pots?”

  “Well, I figured as long as I was going down there anyway…”

  “What about your rule of never digging in a grave?”

  “We already had this discussion. You said it wouldn’t be grave robbing to dig close to a grave. I know where the body is because I put that stone on it. And like you said, there surely aren’t any other bodies there. So I figured I’d check the hand then dig around elsewhere to see what I find.”

  “Maybe you should dig for the pots first, Hubie. Knowing how squeamish you are, you probably wouldn’t be able to search for pots after examining the hand.”

  She was right.

  I watched the trains.

  We didn’t go all the way to Willard. We turned off the highway six miles short of the village onto a dirt road to Broncho. I don’t know if the place was named after a type of horse by someone who couldn’t spell or by someone who thought the dry air was good for the lungs. I didn’t see any signs of human habitation, so I’m not even sure there is a place, but it is on the topo maps.

  After five miles, we arrived at the Inchaustigui home, a two story house of local fieldstone surrounded by western catalpas. A big reddish dog with a pointed snout and floppy ears rocketed off the front porch and ran circles around Susannah as we approached the house.

  Susannah’s mom greeted us at the door. I had met Susannah’s family briefly a few times when they visited her in Albuquerque, but I got a big hug like a member of the family.

  “It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Inchaustigui.”

  “Mrs. Inchaustigui is my mother-in-law. Call me Hilary, Hubie.”

  She led us to the kitchen and gave us a choice of water or coffee. I chose a cooling glass of water.

  Susannah’s father, Gus, was at a ranchers meeting in Las Cruces. The two sons were out somewhere mending fences or fending off coyotes. Hilary called them on a cell phone.

  “You can use Matt’s truck or Mark’s truck. We also have a ranch truck with a winch. What are you planning to do with it?”

  Susannah said, “I’m going to lower Hubie into a cliff dwelling so he can dig up a dead guy he found there.”

  So much for not telling them what we planned to do.

  Hilary seemed unfazed by our plan. “Is it a mummy?” she asked me.

  “That’s what I want to find out.”

  “He was digging for pots,” Susannah chimed in, “and found a body. Actually, all he found was a hand.” She looked at me. “It must have been attached to a body, right?”

  “I assume so,” I said. Susannah and her mom were talking as if this were a normal conversation, so I just went along for the ride.

  She turned back to her mom. “So Hubie and I have been debating whether the body is a mummy or some modern person who might have been killed.”

  Hilary looked at me with a smile exactly like her daughter’s. “I’m sure Susannah is the one who thinks it’s a murder victim.”

  “Moms know everything,” I said.

  “Do you have a wager riding on it?”

  I started to answer, but Susannah jumped in. “No, but I think that’s a great idea. What should we wager, Hubie?”

  “Er…”

  “Don’t say anything that will embarrass your old-fashioned mom,” said Hillary.

  I had no idea what she meant by that, but I didn’t like the sound of it.

  “We can talk about it on the way back?” I said.

  Matt and Mark arrived, and I braced for two crushing handshakes. The two brothers are in their early twenties and look like the football players they were.

  The four of them spent the next hour in a family chat I enjoyed listening to. It was good to see Susannah with her brothers and her mom who called her Sorne.

  Before we left, the boys insisted I take a tour of the place with them. I know they’re proud of the place and probably like showing it off, but I assumed the real motive was to give Susannah and her Mom some time alone with each other.

  As we rode along, they pointed out a peak off to the east. They were impressed I identified it as Jumanes Knob. They didn’t know I’ve been studying New Mexico topological maps for over twenty years.

  And that I have a pot in my shop that came from just below Jumanes Knob. The pot is from the Tompiro people who died out in the 1600s and is decorated with their distinctive asymmetrical cross-hatched shapes. I have it priced at thirty thousand because few complete Tompiro pots have ever been found. Frankly, they are unattractive compared to pueblo pottery from the same period, which is why it hasn’t sold. I’m waiting for a customer who appreciates the rarity of the pot.

  It was a desolate place back when I found that pot, so searching there was safe. Now there’s a wind farm on the mesa with a dozen employees who might spot me if I were digging at the base of the slope.

  Looking at those giant turbines made me think about the strange collection of assets that have attracted humans to this area over the last thousand years or so. The Tompiro came here because of the dry lake beds. They harvested the salt and traded it with both the plains Indians to their east and the pueblo peoples to their west. After the arrival of the Spanish, families settled here to farm the rich soil. Torrance County eventually became the ‘Pinto Bean Capital of the World’ with almost 800 carloads shipped out from the railhead at Mountainair during peak production. A decade-long drought ended farming and led to ranching. Salt, soil, and grass are now giving way to a new asset – wind.

  We stopped at a stock tank fed by an old-fashioned windmill. Looking past that venerable Aeromotor up to the giant turbines on the mesa filled me with a sense of passage. I wondered if a generation from now, city kids passing through on vacation would see those turbines as quaint indicators of rural life just as we now regard the old windmills.

  It was then I discovered I was wrong about the ulterior motive of the tour. It was not to get Susannah and her mother alone together.

  It was to get me and the brothers alone together.

  We were standing by the windmill when Matt said to me, “You seem like a nice guy, Hubie.”

  There was no edge to his voice and no scowl on his face, but somehow I felt uncomfortable.

  “Thanks,” I said, “You two also seem like good guys. Of cou
rse that’s what I would expect based on knowing Susannah.”

  “She’s very special to us,” said Mark.

  “I’m sure she is.”

  They looked at each other. Some silent brother communication passed between them by means of which it was decided that Matt would speak.

  He looked me in the eyes. “What are your intentions regarding Susannah?”

  “Completely honorable,” I said reflexively.

  They both patted me on the back, and we got back in the truck.

  I realized immediately I had misled them. Friendship is an honorable thing, but they probably didn’t take my answer to mean that. I couldn’t think of any way to explain things that didn’t seem terribly awkward, so I just let it pass. If they didn’t know their sister and I are just friends, they would figure it out soon enough or she would tell them.

  It would all work out with a minimum of embarrassment.

  18

  We got closer to Willard on the way back than we did coming in, but still missed it, turning north on State Highway 41 less than a mile from town.

  If we hadn’t already eaten in Belen, I would have argued for going the extra mile into Willard for a stop at the Willard Cantina & Café, a mom and pop place run by Alex and Lisa Garcia. They serve hamburgers with green chile that a sign on the place describes as ‘chile with attitude’. Delicious. You can smell it from the parking lot.

  Highway 41 reaches Interstate 40 with geometric simplicity – a straight line thirty miles long. It seems boring, but once you enter I 40 and start line-dancing with the eighteen wheelers, you long for that empty two-lane road.

  Susannah said, “So what should we wager on whether the dead guy is ancient or modern?”

  “Before we decide that, maybe you can tell me what your mom meant when she said we shouldn’t say anything that will embarrass your old-fashioned mom.”

  “Well, she is old-fashioned, and people make crazy wagers these days. I guess she didn’t want to know about it if one of us had to sky dive or run naked across the Old Town Plaza.”

  I wasn’t sure that was what her mother had meant, but she’s Susannah’s mom, so I didn’t argue the point.

  “I hope you have a saner wager in mind, because I’m not doing either of those things.”

  She thought about it for a minute. “I’ve got a great one. We’ll wager my car. If I lose, I have to keep it. If you lose, you have to take it.”

  “You’re going to lose, so what are you going to do about transportation? I can tell you the buses are a challenge.”

  ”I’m not going to lose. But if I do, it will be the perfect excuse to buy another car.”

  “You already have a perfect excuse. It’s back at the ranch waiting for you to reclaim it when you return this truck.”

  “I can’t buy another car while my current one is still working. That would be wasteful. But if I lose it to you in a bet, then I’d be forced to buy another car and wouldn’t feel guilty about it.”

  Instead of commenting on her logic, I said, “In this case you’re not going to lose it to me. You’re going to win it to me.”

  After we laughed at that and agreed to the wager, I asked her if ‘Sorne’ was a nickname.

  “Nope. That’s my real name, given to me by my Grandfather.”

  “Gutxiarkaitz.”

  “Wow. You remember my grandfather’s name.”

  “It’s hard to forget. And even harder to pronounce.”

  “You were close.”

  “Thanks. So where did ‘Susannah’ come in?”

  “My parents didn’t want to disappoint my grandfather by not accepting the Basque name he gave me, but they also wanted me to have what they called ‘an American name’. Susannah starts with the same letter and they think it has a western ring to it.”

  “Your grandfather named your father Gus. That’s not a Basque name, is it?”

  “No, and it’s not his real name either. His name is Eguzki. ‘Gus’ is his American name, chosen because it sounds like his real name.”

  “Let me guess – your mom is not really named Hilary.”

  “Good guess. Her name is Hilargi.”

  “Is that the Basque equivalent of Hilary?”

  “There is no Basque equivalent of Hilary. There is no Basque equivalent of anything. It’s not an Indo-European language, remember? There are no cognates.”

  “Does Hilargi have a meaning?”

  “It means ‘moon’.”

  “And ‘Eguski’?”

  She smiled. “It means ‘sun’. My mom always says she knew they were meant for each other when she found out what his name means.”

  “What are Matt’s and Mark’s real names?”

  “Matt and Mark.”

  “They don’t have Basque names?”

  “Nope. My grandfather passed away before they were born. My parents didn’t bother with a Basque name. My mom can’t even speak it.”

  “And ‘Sorne’?”

  “It means ‘conception’.”

  “So if you were Hispanic, your name would be ‘Concepcion’.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. ‘Concepcion’ refers to the Immaculate Conception. ‘Sorne’ means conception in the everyday sense. My parents were married seven years before I was born. My grandfather was so happy when he learned his daughter-in-law was pregnant that he named me for the event that caused it.”

  As we cruised down I 40, I debated whether to mention my conversation with her brothers.

  The nays won the debate.

  19

  Susannah dropped me off around six.

  We didn’t have time for Dos Hermanas because the fall semester had started, and she had the first meeting of her Baroque Art class at 6:30.

  As she hates to hear me say about her rule never to miss class, if it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it.

  I called Tristan and asked him to drop by in the morning with the topo maps I needed.

  I hobbled over to the fridge. The only things in there were the Gruet rosé, some limp cilantro, a white onion and what might have once been a fruit of some type.

  “Another dieting opportunity at hand,” I said out loud.

  My stomach rumbled in reply.

  I decided to read. The only book I had was Ben-Hur, so I gave it another try. The portion I read described a meal of “wine in small gurglets of skin” and dried mutton. This was prefaced by an explanation of how the character cleaned his camel’s nose.

  I don’t like wine unless it has bubbles. I suspect I would like it even less in a gurglet of skin, whatever that is.

  I closed Ben-Hur and opened the phone book to the restaurant section to see what I could have delivered. Surely I could do better than dried mutton.

  I rarely phone out for meals because I don’t eat pizza or Chinese food. I was hoping there might be another choice. I saw a listing for a place called Lettuce Cater and was just starting to dial when Miss Gladys appeared at my door with one of her canvas bags trimmed in checked gingham, a sight for sore eyes and an empty stomach.

  In keeping with her new international theme, it was an Irish casserole, although I suspect no one in Dublin has ever tasted anything like it.

  “This one came from Marsha Garcia.”

  “Marsha Garcia was Irish?”

  “Heavens no. She was a deep-roots Texan. Her great, great, great grandfather was Gregorio Esparza, one of the six Tejanos who died alongside Crockett and Bowie in the Alamo. She got the inspiration from a corned beef sandwich she ate on St. Patrick’s Day at a restaurant in San Antonio. They served it with green beer, but I don’t have any of that.”

  “Thanks.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “For the casserole or for not having any green beer.”

  “Both.”

  “This one practically put itself together. You don’t even have to measure. You start by tearing pumpernickel bread into pieces and putting them into a buttered casserole dish. You can get rid of old bread this way because dried bread abs
orbs the flavors better. You cover the bread with diced corned beef then a jar of sauerkraut then a bag of shredded Swiss cheese. Next you mix a carton of eggs, a jar of ranch dressing and a can of Campbell’s Cream of Celery Soup and pour the mixture over everything. You can bake it right then if you want to, but it’s even better if you let it sit in the refrigerator overnight. That way the eggs, dressing and soup really work their way into the bread.”

  After being around Miss Gladys all these years, I have gotten used to having terms like ‘can’, ‘bag’, ‘jar’ and ‘carton’ used as recipe amounts.

  She was ladling the stuff onto a plate as she spoke. It looked like a corned beef sandwich run through a blender.

  “Where do you get the corned beef?”

  “I buy it from the deli section of Smith’s.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t from a can, took a bite and wished she had brought the dolmades casserole instead.

  The word ‘pumpernickel’ sounds like a character from a Wagnerian opera, and the taste lasts almost as long.

  “What do you think of it?” she asked.

  “Miss Gladys, in all the years you’ve been letting me sample your casseroles, I’ve never tasted one like this.”

  “I just knew you would like it.”

  I took another very small bite.

  She canted her head and said, “Did you have a dinner guest Saturday night?”

  “I did.”

  “I thought so. I saw an African-American girl go into your shop Saturday night with a stem of yucca blossoms. Our society has changed, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes it has. When I was growing up, girls never brought flowers to boys.”

  She colored slightly. “I was referring to your date being African-American.“

  “She’s not African-American.”