'From the sound of things, you could well be right.'
'What else do I need to know, Keith? What's going to happen next?'
'Money and power have flowed through Domingo's hands for a long time. He really cemented his hold on that office through the judicious application of those two forces. Now that he's gone, there's going to be a power struggle. I don't mean armed combat, although I certainly wouldn't rule that out. There's a lot at stake. It will be heated, if mostly political. Nobody will completely trust anyone. But for the most part, the sides will still be about where they are now. The power players are the ones who were close to Domingo, and they'll remain, by and large, in those same roles. The activists, the people pushing for social change, the ones you would equate to labor leaders, perhaps, will still be on Torres's side.'
'Okay, that's pretty much what I suspected, but I needed to have it confirmed. Thanks, Keith.'
'One more thing?'
'Yes?'
'Since Domingo died, he won't be around to represent himself anymore. That means a lot of people will be saying they know what he would have wanted, whether they really do or not. And if Meoqui dies, he'll be a martyr to the opposition. Martyrs and dead men talking through the living are dangerous to be around.'
'Point taken,' Ray said.
'Since you're here, can you come in and say hello to Ysabel? If that's all you needed? She knows you're here, and she'd be crushed if you didn't drop in.'
'I'd be glad to. I really need to get up to the reservation, but I wouldn't think of not looking in on her.'
'Great.' Keith pushed out of his chair, straining with the effort, and Ray followed him across the house to Ysabel's room. His wife's illness was weighing heavily on the man, Ray observed. Since his visit to the house earlier that morning, Keith looked as if he had aged five years.
'Twice in one day?' Ysabel said when he walked through the door. 'I thought I heard your voice. Is everything okay?'
'I had a few questions for Keith.' Ray leaned over and kissed her cheek.
'About that awful business with Robert?'
'Yes, I'm afraid so.'
'Are you going to catch whoever did it?'
'We'll catch him, Ysabel. I promise you that.'
'Well… I'm glad you came back, whatever the excuse. I have something for you.'
'For me?'
'Yes!' She reached for something on the bedside table. Ray couldn't see what it was until she brought it around to hand him.
'That's the basket you were working on earlier.'
'It is. I was almost finished, but it hadn't told me yet who it was for. Then it spoke up and said it wanted to go home with you.'
'I'm honored.'
'I'm making them for some of my most special friends to… to remember me by. When I'm gone.'
'Ysabel,' Ray said firmly. 'You're not going anywhere.'
'Oh, I am, too. Look at me. Don't worry. I'm a little sad about it, because I'll miss all of you. But I'm not scared.'
'And anyway,' Ray went on, 'do you really think anyone who has ever known you could possibly forget you?'
Ysabel laughed and squeezed his hand. Her hand felt as light as a bird's wing. 'You're a charmer, aren't you? If I didn't have Keith…' She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. 'You could be my boyfriend.'
'I'd like that,' Ray said. He held up the basket she had given him, admiring the workmanship. It was naturally colored, the tan of the main material, which Ray knew was some kind of desert plant, with darker browns and blacks from other local plants, all in a precise pattern of jagged lines and occasional swooping arcs. 'It's beautiful. Like its maker. '
'Speaking of beauty. Ray…'
'Yes?'
'Tonight Keith and I are going on one of those dinner cruises, out on Lake Mead. That's one of my favorite places, and I want to feel all that water under me one more time, and look out at the dry desert hills in the setting sun. Will you come with us, Ray?'
'I would be delighted to.'
She clapped her hands together, almost childlike in her glee. 'Oh, goody!'
'If I can,' Ray added. 'I'm working today, and it has already been a very long day. But if I can get there in time, I'll meet you at the dock.'
'You'll try?'
'I'll try. I promise.'
'That's the best you can do. Thank you, Ray. And thank you for accepting the basket. I hope you like it.'
'Better than that,' he said. 'I absolutely love it.'
Aguirre drove Brass to Grey Rock Tobacco, the reservation's original smoke shop. It was off Interstate 15, visible from the freeway, and Brass knew from experience that there had been billboards along the side of the road for ages promoting it. He had never bothered to stop, but he knew the appeal was that, as a sovereign nation, the reservation didn't have to charge the same state excise taxes that off-reservation stores did. As a result, they could undercut the prices people paid in Las Vegas, and they had always done a brisk business.
On the way, Aguirre's police radio crackled with new information, none of it good. Shots had been fired at a recreation center. Someone at a public swimming pool had been stabbed three times. Two store windows had been shattered by flung bricks. Fights were breaking out across the reservation, it seemed, neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother in some cases. Police and emergency services were being stretched thin.
'Can you afford the time to keep looking with me?' Brass asked.
'I can't afford not to. We need to find a way to bring a peaceful end to all this.'
'It's not always this way, is it?'
'What, you think we're living in the Wild West?' Aguirre said with a not-so-nice laugh. ''Course not. It's all about Domingo. Like him or not, he was a stabilizing influence, because he held the power, and everybody knew it. With him out of the way, people are drawing up new sides or cementing their old ones. Add to that the shooting of Meoqui and his friends, and… well, there's a lot of tension around here today. What was it that guy in L.A. said? 'Can't we all just get along?' Something like that.'
'Rodney King,' Brass said, remembering the African-American motorist pulled over and beaten by white highway patrol officers in Los Angeles. The acquittal of the officers in that case had touched off citywide riots in which fifty-one people died. Brass hoped the current situation didn't get anywhere near that bad. 'Guy might have had a point.'
'Ruben Solis and Shep Moran hang out here a lot of the time,' Aguirre said as they approached the smoke shop. 'Domingo always had a soft spot for this place, even after the bigger, more profitable businesses got up and running. He had kind of a clubhouse in back, lots of his guys would come around, smoking and telling lies, you know.'
'You think Solis is there now?'
'I don't know,' Aguirre replied. 'He doesn't have Domingo to follow around anymore, but my guess is that the people who were close to him are going to want to be together today. This is one of the places they might be.'
The smoke shop had been built in the early 1960s but remodeled in the late 1970s. It was an adobe structure, a single story on the wings but a big A-shaped peak in the middle that must have soared two stories higher. The A was all windows, offering clear views of the sales area inside, its shelves stacked high with cigarette cartons. The adobe section to the left of the A had four vertical window slits, while the walls of the section to the right were smooth and solid.
