'Do me a favor,' Howell said. 'Talk to him here in my office. I'll have him brought in, and the two of you can discuss the situation. After that, you decide. Wait right here.'
Moments later, a guard led Andrew Carlisle into the room. Johnson had never met him before, but as soon as he saw the blind man with his one bad arm in a permanent sling, he knew who it was. Andrew Carlisle was legendary in Florence for being the best jailhouse lawyer in the joint. Other people had to look up the points of law and read them to him aloud, but when it came to writing up paperwork, no one could top him.
'Hello, Mr. Johnson,' Carlisle said, as the door closed behind the departing guard.
'I won't do it,' Mitch said. 'Go fuck yourself.'
'We're not here to discuss sexual gratification, Mr. Johnson. I asked for you specifically because I have a business proposition which I believe will be of some interest to you. I believe I can offer you something that you want.'
'What's that?' Mitch Johnson asked.
'An education, for one thing,' Andrew Carlisle answered calmly. 'And revenge, for another.'
'Revenge?'
'Against Sheriff Brandon Walker and his wife, Diana.'
A brief silence followed that statement. Mitch was taken aback. He hadn't made a secret of his long- simmering hatred of Brandon Walker. The case against Mitch Johnson had been built by Walker while he was still an ambitious homicide detective in the Pima County Sheriff's Department. Sending Mitch Johnson to prison had made Walker's reputation in the local Hispanic community.
For twenty-some years Sheriff Jack DuShane's political machine had called the shots. Anglos killed Mexicans and Indians with relative impunity. The way cases were investigated dictated how they were prosecuted as well. More often than not, Anglos-especially ones who could afford to pay the freight-got off or were charged with reduced offenses. Non-Anglos usually couldn't afford the bribes.
The tide had started to turn with Andrew Carlisle's second trial. Everybody knew by then that the former professor had gotten away with murdering the drunk Indian girl, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. Except maybe use him as an example. A year later, when DuShane tried to intervene on Mitch Johnson's behalf, Walker had blown the whistle on all of it. In the process of shipping Mitch Johnson off to prison for fifteen years to life, Walker had won himself a reputation as a crusading and even-handed lawman. When the next election came around, he won office in a landslide, collecting an astonishing eighty percent of the county's non-Anglo vote in the process.
'Who told you about that?' Mitch asked finally.
Carlisle smiled. 'I make it my business to know what goes on in this place. I've been keeping track of you for years, for as long as you've been here. From everything I've been able to learn about you, I'd say you're a very smart man-smart enough to know a good deal when you see one.'
'What kind of a deal?'
'I may be a prisoner here,' Carlisle said, 'but I'm also relatively well off. I inherited my father's entire estate, you see. And since I'm not using any of the money-interest or principal-it's accruing at an amazing rate. I can show you the figures if you want. When I die, I can either leave the whole thing to charity or I can leave it to you.'
'Why would you give any of it to me?'
'Because I think you'll agree to my terms.'
'Which are?'
'Number one, that you agree to be my cellmate for the remainder of whatever time we both have here together.'
'And number two?'
'You become my star pupil. I'm a teacher, you see, not only by training, but also by virtue of personal preference. I have a good deal of knowledge that I would like to impart to someone before I die, a philosophical legacy in addition to the monetary one. Then, once I've taught you what I know, you go out into the world and use that knowledge on the two people who are responsible for sending us both here.'
'What exactly do you mean?'
Carlisle sighed. 'Don't be obtuse, Mr. Johnson. Brandon Walker and his wife, Diana. Walker cost you your wife, your son, and your standing in the community. The woman who is now Walker's wife, Diana Ladd Walker, is responsible for the loss of both my sight and the use of one of my arms. Once I was locked up in here, I eventually contracted AIDS, so before long, she'll be costing me my life as well. I don't see how it could be any clearer than that. I want them to suffer, in the same way you and I are suffering.'
'You want me to kill them?'
'Oh, no, Mr. Johnson. Not at all. I firmly believe that between the two of us, we'll be able to devise something much better than that, something far more imaginative.'
'What's number three?'
'There is no number three, Mr. Johnson. Only numbers one and two. What do you think, or would you like to see some of the accounting figures before you make your decision? I can show you what's involved right now, although there's no way to tell how much money there will be in the long run. Obviously we have no idea how long this will take, do we?'
Again there was a long silence. 'This is on the level?' Mitch asked finally.
'Absolutely,' Carlisle answered. 'I could hardly be more serious.'
'That's all?'
'Yes.'
'Then, Mr. Carlisle,' Mitch Johnson said, 'you've got yourself a deal.'
What had started out way back then as a straight business deal had become for Mitch both a point of honor and pride. By the time he completed the project it would seem to all the world that Andrew Carlisle had somehow returned from the grave to wreak his revenge on the people who had destroyed him. It would give Andy the kind of immortality he had always craved in life.
In the meantime, Mitch Johnson would be left alone, free to walk off into the sunset and disappear. That kind of heroic image appealed to Mitch. It was one of the time-honored icons of the Old West.
He had no difficulty casting himself in the mold of one of those old-fashioned hired guns. None of them would ever have turned their backs on a friend in need, regardless of whether that needy friend happened to be dead or alive.
Neither would Mitch Johnson. After all, a promise is a promise unless, as in this case, it turned into a mission.
Gabe Ortiz, tribal chairman of the Tohono O'othham Nation, left Sells early in the morning for an all-day meeting with the Pima County Board of Supervisors. At issue was the county's most recent set of requirements designed to delay the next scheduled expansion of the tribe's booming casino. Gabe's appearance would be more ceremonial than anything, since most of the actual arguing would be handled by Delia Chavez Cachora, the recently appointed tribal attorney.
Gabe's main responsibility would be to sit there looking attentive and interested, which might prove difficult in view of the fact that he'd had so little sleep the night before. It was times like this when the countervailing pressures of being both tribal chairman and medicine man proved to be almost more than he could handle.
Before the blind medicine man, S-ab Neid Pi Has — Looks At Nothing-had died, years earlier, the canny old shaman had taught Gabe 'Fat Crack' Ortiz a number of important things, including the meaning of those particular words, medicine man- mahkai. Looks At Nothing had explained the obligations involved as well.
As a confirmed Christian Scientist, Gabe initially had been prepared to pass off most of what the old man said as superstitious nonsense. As the months went by, however, Looks At Nothing had taught Fat Crack to listen to the voice inside himself, to pay attention, and then to act on the resulting knowledge.
It was through using what Looks At Nothing taught him that Gabe's business and political ambitions had prospered. Most of the time the guidance that came to him was in the form of a gentle nudge, but in the case of Diana Ladd's book, it had been more like the blow of a hammer.
Wanda had bought him a copy of Shadow of Death at a book-signing in town. Diana had autographed it, wishing Gabe a happy birthday in her personalized inscription. And then Wanda had taken the gift-wrapped book home and kept it put away until Gabe's sixty-fifth birthday.
She had given it to him at a small family birthday party at their daughter's home in Tucson. As soon as Gabe
