Wyatt must have done the same thing a century before. Her fingers hovering over the wooden heart, light and ready. At the same time, she stared at the iron picture frame on her desk and found and held Wyatt Earp’s sepia gaze.
“Does Baddalach know anything?” she asked.
The cedar heart hesitated. Wyetta’s heart skipped a beat.
Three cedar legs scraped across the board as the planchette darted to the corner marked YES.
“Is he going to give me any trouble?”
Wyetta held her breath. The heart drifted to the center of the board. She exhaled in relief. . until it pulled back.
To the same spot, the spot marked YES.
Her anger rose. Words spilled out of her mouth in a rush, and when she bit them off the taste of lipstick was bitter on her tongue.
“What kind of man is he?” was the question she asked.
The heart moved surely, quickly, picking out one letter after another.
B. . A. . D. .
. . A. .
. . S
. . S
The muscles in Wyetta’s shoulders knotted. Her arms tensed, and the cedar heart bolted forward and escaped her fingers, clattering against the photo of Wyatt Earp, knocking it to the floor.
Glass shattered. Wyetta stared at the Ouija board, shaking as if she’d taken a mean left hook to the temple.
A knock on the office door brought her around.
The words came automatically. “It’s open.”
Deputy Holloway entered the office. “Vegas PD just returned my call.”
“And?”
“Baddalach’s telling the truth-the promoter dropped the charges last night.”
Wyetta nodded.
Deputy Holloway watched her, pretending that she didn’t see the Ouija board on the sheriff’s desk or the tintype in the iron frame with glass busted out of it that lay on the floor next to a faded cedar heart. It was better not to speak of these things. This the deputy had learned through long, hard experience.
Instead, the deputy asked the obvious question. “What do you want me to do with him?”
Wyetta swiveled her chair, turning away from the door, away from the deputy. She stared at her trophy case, at the framed certificates papering the wall. Wyatt was wrong about this one. He had to be. Because Wyetta was a badass herself, a
“Sheriff?”
“Let the pug go. Deputy,” Wyetta said.
She smiled when she said it.
FIVE
In a way, Jack hated to leave the jailhouse so soon. There was a real interesting water stain on the ceiling of his cell and he hadn’t had enough time to decide if it looked more like a thundercloud hijacked from Heaven by disgruntled angels or the Monster from the Id from
He worked up a good sweat walking back to the five-and-dime. Thankfully, the Range Rover was still sitting in the parking lot. At least Jerry Caldwell hadn’t had his car towed.
Jack notched the air-conditioner to MAX and headed for the highway. He’d put a mile between himself and Pipeline Beach when he spotted the billboard:
THE SAGUARO RIPTIDE MOTEL
THIRD LEFT OR YOU’VE MISSED IT, AMIGOS AND AMIGETTES
Someone had made an attempt to paint over the second-to-last line, but it was still visible. Jack didn’t care about that, though. He only cared about the name of the joint.
The same name on the pencil he’d seen in Wyetta Earp’s pocket.
It could be nothing more than a coincidence. Pipeline Beach was a small town. Or it could be that Wyetta Earp had been sniffing around the motel, looking for Komoko.
And maybe, just maybe, there was something more to it than that.
Jack knew he was getting ahead of himself. He passed a dirt road that lead to a cemetery, an old-time boot hill with leaning tombstones and strangely stationary tumbleweeds.
Jack found himself wondering how many pistoleros Wyetta had put there with her blazing six-gun. He smirked at the notion. Not that he was sexist or anything. But, Jesus, if ever a woman thought that the sun rose and set out of the crack of her ass, it was Wyetta Earp.
The cemetery blurred past on the left, only to be replaced by more desert, more saguaros, more tumbleweeds. Jack notched another mile on the odometer before he came to the second left, which lead to a junkyard. He slowed down a bit, because the next turn would be for the Saguaro Riptide.
The third left was almost on top of the second. A narrow road lined with tall neon tombstones cut a jagged trail to the east.
Jack made the turn, peering at the bizarre roadside display from behind his sunglasses as he slowed his speed. Instantly, he realized that he’d been wrong. The objects he’d mistaken for tombstones were actually surfboards. A couple dozen of the things had been planted along the road, one every ten feet.
Still, Jack couldn’t quite discard his first impression. The notion of neon tombstones sent a chill up his spine. And that was funny, because the real graveyard hadn’t bothered him at all.
He didn’t figure that Vince Komoko was hanging out on that dusty boot hill, though. And he was certain that Vince had been known to hang out at the Riptide.
The road wasn’t dirt, but it was pretty beat up nonetheless. Jack dodged potholes, taking it slow. Then the surfboards were behind him. The motel lay up ahead. Not a bad-looking joint, but definitely a creation of the cinder-block sixties.
There were plenty of parking spaces. Jack pulled to a stop in front of the office.
He got out of the car, stretched, and walked inside.
The woman behind the counter was older than Jack, but that didn’t matter because she was a dusky brunette of the barefoot variety. That was a definite point in her favor, as was the fact that she wore jeans and a T-shirt, the added bonus being that the outfit looked good and simple and right on her. Her skin was the color of polished mahogany and her eyes were blue. Her nose was twisted just a little bit. Jack wondered what she’d done to get it broken, and why she’d never bothered to get it fixed.
He couldn’t ask her that, though. Not right off. But the tombstone surfboards were still on his mind, so he asked, “What’s with the surfboards, anyway? Are you expecting California and Nevada to sink into the Pacific?”
“I wish, ’cause that’s the only way I’ll see a wave again, brudda.” She smiled. “Those boards are mine, but planting them. . that was my husband’s idea. His name was Dale Dayton. Maybe you’ve heard of him?”
Jack shrugged. “Sorry. Can’t say as I have.”
