The Darkness Rolling Read online

  All eyes focused east, and Linda took the director’s hand as if he was her boyfriend. Jack looked a little uncomfortable, gave her hand a squeeze, and let it go. “I told him that this strip was long enough,” he said, appraising the road.

  The airplane was coming in for a landing, and damn if it wasn’t going to use Oljato Road for a runway. I studied it out. “Well,” I said, “if he goes off track, he won’t do anything but give the greasewood a wing-shave.”

  “He never goes off track,” Linda said.

  Sure enough, whoever was piloting didn’t. He set down on the main road within ten feet of the greasewood on the far side of the Flagstaff Road, bumped her steady along Oljato Road, reversed his engines to slow down, used his brakes, and came to a stop well before his runway curved.

  The pilot’s door opened and down climbed God.

  Linda ran to him, jumped into his arms, and he swung her like a child.

  I followed close, my stomach aching.

  Dapper mustache, neatly trimmed hair, wiry figure. A handsome man—the world knew his face. This was Mr. H., Howard Hughes, holder of a dozen world airspeed records, including several circumnavigations of the earth, designer of airplanes, a man of fabulous daring and fabulous wealth. And the owner of her next studio, RKO.

  He was also one of the most eligible bachelors in America. He liked to date movie stars, starting with Katharine Hepburn and on to Bette Davis, Ava Gardner, and now, apparently, Linda Darnell.

  A hulking young man climbed down from the passenger side and took a position a couple of steps behind Hughes. His suit hung open to make his sidearm visible. The rich man liked security. Needed security.

  Linda turned to Jack and his cronies. “Howard, this is John Ford, our director. John, Howard Hughes.” They shook hands.

  “Six Oscars,” said Hughes. “Very impressive.”

  Jack was trying to look nonchalant, but he couldn’t quite pull it off.

  “America’s best director,” Hughes went on, “in my opinion. Even more impressive.”

  Linda introduced Hughes to Fonda, Mature, and the others, getting to me last. “This is Seaman Yazzie Goldman, the man you’ve been paying to take care of me. He’s become a good friend.”

  “Very glad to meet you,” he said.

  The lunch crowd was gathering. Linda paused, stepped away, lifted a hand high, like a circus barker, and announced, “Hello, friends. Howard Hughes!”

  Everyone already knew who he was and why he was there. Probably only one of them was boiling like hot oil ready to cook fry bread. Me.

  We went in to lunch, Hughes on one side of Linda and me on the other. He didn’t introduce his security guy, but he addressed him as Rulon.

  “Howard,” said Linda, “before you start in—I know you, please don’t interrupt—what happened to me was not Seaman Goldman’s fault. His performance has been impeccable. He’ll show you how it was done. Very clever, very dastardly. I owe him everything.”

  Hughes eyed me. I suspected he didn’t tolerate mistakes and did not accept explanations.

  I wasn’t going to give him a damn thing.

  Then I remembered that he already had everything, including Linda.

  I wobbled behind them toward Jack’s table. I felt like I’d been head-conked with my own baton.

  * * *

  It was satisfying that Hughes acted like a smart, well-mannered, considerate, steel-rod-up-the-spine, first-class ass.

  Jack had another table pushed up to his usual one so that Hughes, Rulon, and others could join his crowd. As we ate, it got even easier to dislike Hughes. He poked at his food daintily, said very little, listened well, and was impeccably polite. Every one of the movie folk around him was a little different than normal, putting on a show in some way. There was not one of them who might not want to work for him sooner or later, and actors were always afraid they’d never get another job. Even Jack had recently formed his own production company. He intended My Darling Clementine to be his last picture for the intrusive Darryl Zanuck at Fox. RKO could be among his future employers.

  The only thing I liked about Hughes was that he kept his hands off Linda. She couldn’t keep hers off him.

  As Jack led us out of the food tent, Hughes asked me to show him what I’d discovered at the cabin.

  I nodded.

  Linda said, “Yazzie” in a low tone that I understood. I was to give no hints about our relationship. No problem.

  The three of us walked up the hill, my mind popping with pictures of the two of them romping around the bed I knew so well, Hughes enjoying the body I knew so well. But he spoke to me courteously, followed me up the access hole without hesitation, and wasn’t afraid to get his pants dusty as I showed him what had happened. He caught on quickly.

  I took a last look down past the light to the bed. First my head had played and replayed pictures of a brutal rapist having his way with her. Soon it would be pictures of the fabulous Howard Hughes topping her. Living large wasn’t always what it was cracked up to be.

  When we got back down through the water closet, he said, “Good work, Seaman Goldman.” Linda gave me a big smile and a nod. I embarrassed myself by feeling flattered.

  “May I speak with you outside?” Hughes said to me.

  Linda looked startled.

  “You won’t be alone, Linda. I want to clear up a few things with Goldman.”

  I didn’t think she was worried about being alone. She was worried about Mr. H. and me being out of her earshot. Too far away for her to divert our conversation.

  “First, let me give you your last week’s wages.” So this was my sign-off on Linda. He handed me an envelope full of bills, and said, “Hold on a minute.” He counted off five crisp hundred-dollar bills on top of that. “A bonus,” he said. “You earned it.

  “I made a few calls on Linda’s behalf. It turns out that Frank Cantonucci was the fellow who sent her the letter she received at La Posada.”

  “Is he…?” Burning in my belly. “What can I do?”

  “Frank sent a man up here, one of his employees, and his assignment was to follow Linda around. Scare her a little. No rough stuff. Your standard intimidation mode.”

  “A no-broad-treats me-like-that mode?”

  “Exactly so.”

  “Mr. Hughes, what happened to Miss Darnell was a lot more than intimidation.”

  “Yes,” Hughes said. “Cantonucci’s goon obviously got out of hand. He even set his rifle sight on Linda twice, no bullets, pretended to fire. As it turned out, the person he ended up intimidating was an old Indian, probably someone simply curious or looking for work, who took off running when he heard the snick of the hammer.”

  “But the assault on Linda—”

  “Frank’s man went too far.”

  We both waited. The other shoe had to drop.

  “The fact is, he went berserk. I don’t know if it was the glamor, or her beauty, or jealousy, or what.”

  So Hughes probably did know about me and Linda.

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s been taken care of. To my complete satisfaction. No more problems for Linda.”

  “Mr. Hughes—”

  “Frank’s man was paid to be a menace, and the menace is out of our lives.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Simple as that.”

  My stomach didn’t like it. Only because I wasn’t the one who took care of it, I said to myself.

  I walked with Hughes to the cabin door, and he opened it wide. She waved a girlish little wave. Very pert, very friendly.

  Then she suddenly said, “Don’t forget me, Yazzie Goldman.” I felt like she’d also said I won’t forget you.

  I wouldn’t forget—how could I? And I knew that she wouldn’t, either. But we wouldn’t see each other alone again.

  I walked down the hill and left Linda Darnell with the man she liked better than me. God is a hard act to follow.

  Seventeen

  I spiffed up in my dress whites and walked into our living room
. Mom was decked out to beat the band in a traditional Navajo velveteen dress and showy turquoise jewelry. Looking at herself in the mirror beside the front door, she said with a tune in her voice, “I never get to go anywhere. This is quite a treat!”

  “You’re just giddy to meet Howard Hughes,” I said.

  “Maybe a little,” Mom allowed. “So is Iris, but…”

  Iris was wrapped in a blanket and stretched out on the sofa, looking at a magazine. Grandpa had parked his wheelchair next to the couch and was fiddling with something in his good left hand. I saw that his other hand was helping a bit. Both hands working? I was witnessing a small miracle.

  “Grandpa?”

  He held it up proudly. His old, two-barreled derringer.

  “What are you doing with that?”

  “Oh,” Mom said, “pay no attention. He carries it all the time, always has. You know he likes guns.” She said that just like things were all back to normal. She really was in a good mood.

  I remembered now, and saw that he was oiling it—clumsily, but getting the job done.

  I looked over Iris’s shoulder. She was flipping through photos of Howard Hughes wearing an airman’s helmet standing in front of some monster aircraft. Half the women in America were infatuated with the guy, and 100 percent of the women in my own home were.

  “Why aren’t you dressed?” I said.

  “I’m sick—not going farther than the outhouse.”

  It was the first time I’d heard her dejected, and one of the few times I’d seen her without Cockeyed.

  “You’ll get cheated out of dancing with Hughes,” I said. “And Henry Fonda. And Colin.”

  “Actually, I wanted to dance with you.”

  I heard wheels on gravel, peeked out the window, and saw the town car.

  “Come here,” said Iris.

  She pulled me to her by the hand, I held back, and then she pulled my head down to her face. “I promise not to throw up on you,” she said.

  She kissed me. Though it was light, it wasn’t sisterly.

  “Rise and shine,” said Mom, and tugged at my elbow. She was primed and ready for the road.

  I said, “I’m sorry you won’t be there, Iris. You’ll be okay while we’re gone?”

  “Yes. Go have a ball for both of us.”

  I bent down, hugged Grandpa, and turned his derringer over in my hand. “Take care of Iris,” I told him, “and don’t get too carried away with your old friend there.”

  “Bye!” Mom fluttered her fingers at both of them.

  We strolled out the front door of the trading post and toward Julius. “We sure have a fancy chariot,” I said.

  “And a night on the town!” Mom exclaimed.

  I chuckled and asked myself, What town? But I wasn’t about to dampen her spirits.

  The Gouldings were giving a dinner party, which they did every time Monument Valley hosted a movie shoot. And this time the guests of honor were even more special than usual.

  Hughes was definitely the Gouldings’ focus. He owned a movie studio, and if he felt like it, he could send half a dozen crews a year to the valley.

  Julius put the car in gear. I looked back, saw Grandpa at the front door, rolled down the window, and waved to him.

  “Time!” he called, probably expecting us to understand he meant Have a good time. His speech was getting better. Arm and leg better, too. With us getting him back, bit by bit, my world had started feeling firmer on its axis.

  Julius rolled down the road.

  “I hear Mike Goulding has champagne shipped in for every wrap party,” said Mom.

  “It’s true,” I said.

  “If they play some good music, I’m going to dance with Mr. Hughes,” she went on, “if I have to ask him myself. Time to let it all out!”

  “Poor Henry Fonda, playing second fiddle.”

  Mom said, “Then you dance with him.”

  Julius pressed the accelerator harder, and we both laughed. Our laughter circled into the night, a sky full of stars, and started to heal something large. Something like time itself.

  * * *

  From the rocks behind the well, Zopilote watched the trading post, almost in shadow now. His wait was nearing an end. Only enemies were in the house—a weak woman and a crippled old man. Tonight Zopilote would let it roll, that darkness within. He was ready.

  He turned over and raised his stolen binoculars to the front porch. He was proud of them. Buzzard’s eyesight, super-powered. It was easy to steal from the movie people.

  He saw the old Jew in his fool wheelchair. What was he doing?

  Oh! Zopilote chuckled. Mose Goldman was thumbing a cartridge into a derringer. Good to know.

  He watched the old man slip the gun into a pouch that hung from the arm of his wheelchair. Also good to know.

  Shadows from the west lengthened and blanketed the barn. After a while they swallowed the trading post whole. Buzzard waited.

  The young woman, the one they called Iris, went to the outhouse, which she’d done three or four times already. The runs—the fresh smell was rank. Maybe in there for a while, like before. Not that it mattered.

  Zopilote picked up his little surprise and slipped down the hill.

  It was time for Buzzard to sail earthward and attack.

  * * *

  Iris came out of the outhouse feeling wan. She wobbled on the walk back. The living room was dark. Uncle Mose must have gone to bed. That was where she was going. Worn out, all the way.

  She felt her way to her bedroom and opened the door with only a slight squeak. She put a knee on the mattress, reached high for the string that hung from the light, and put her hand on something … furry.

  She made a suck-in whine and wondered where the noise came from. She reached higher, got hold of the string itself, and pulled the light cord.

  Hanging on the end of the string was the corpse of Cockeyed.

  Iris screamed.

  * * *

  Zopilote thrilled to that sound.

  He waited, standing in the closet by the front door of the living room. In one hand was the double-barrel, which had stood there for a quarter century. Zopilote made sure, several days ago, that the old Jew was still a person who held on to his habits, and that he still kept the shotgun loaded.

  Iris came bawling out of her bedroom, down the hall, and right behind her came Goldman in his iron chariot. He yelled something at her, but no human being could have understood it. He turned on the living room light. At the door to the bullpen, the woman turned around, held up the body of her pervert cat, and boohooed louder.

  The old man left-handed his rolling chair to her and drew her onto his lap. She sobbed on his shoulder. Zopilote would have bet she was more scared than aggrieved.

  Time for more fear. Plenty of it.

  He stepped quietly out of the closet and leveled the shotgun at the two of them.

  The old man tried to rise and croaked out a throttled sound, like “odd.” Zopilote smiled. He understood that utterance, what it meant. The old man understood it. Iris didn’t, but she would find out.

  Zopilote raised the two barrels high and swung them downward at the old man’s skull. A hard hit, but it glanced off.

  Iris shrieked.

  Sweet music to his ears.

  Zopilote knelt in front of the old man, looked into his eyes, and saw that he was stunned but more or less conscious. Fine.

  Zopilote reached into the wheelchair pouch, got the derringer, and slid it into his pocket. Two weapons now.

  “Who the hell are you?” said Iris.

  He pointed the barrels straight at the woman’s head. He snapped in English, “Shut up. Facedown on the floor.”

  She gave him a sharp look but did as ordered, no fighting, no bargaining. He would have hated that.

  Zopilote walked casually into the bullpen, went behind the main counter, pointed the shotgun at the radio from six inches away, and blew it to smithereens.

  Then he walked back and tore down a curta
in. He gagged and bound Iris, ignoring the hatred in her eyes. He set the shotgun on the floor and bound the Jew to his rigid chair.

  “Let’s go, old man. Time to chase your pot of gold.”

  He rolled the old son of a bitch into the night and to the family pickup, opened the hood, ripped off the distributor cap, and stomped it into pieces.

  Then he wheeled his half-conscious enemy down the road and into the sandy crossing of the wash. Thirty feet around a slight curve, he saw the pickup he’d stolen from a neighbor. He drove the truck back to the old man, untied him, lifted him out the chair, and with a huge effort heaved the big bastard onto the tailgate. Then he slid the chair next to the old rummy, its wheels facing up, and drove into the wilderness to the west, buzzard-wing black.

  Now dark energies rule the world.

  True to his spirit, his smile was yellow teeth and a black, gaping maw.

  Eighteen

  The dirt road to the west was an old packhorse track called the Rainbow Bridge Trail. At a place chosen with care, Buzzard made a right turn onto slickrock. He wove between boulders, some the size of chairs, others as big as cars, over a crest and down a long slope. At the bottom was a huge rock shaped like a loaf of bread, with a cleft in the middle, as if the bread was sliced.

  Zopilote steered the pickup into the cleft. He was safe here. No tracks on rock. A rise blocked the view from the road, so hidden from anyone who might come hunting. But the only hunter within miles was Zopilote.

  His old enemy was fully conscious now. He slid the cripple chair to the tailgate and off. He dragged the man’s useless body to the tailgate and rolled it off.

  Wait! What if the old man hit his skull and died? The delights of torture, ruined.

  Zopilote switched on a flashlight, jumped down, and shined his light into the old man’s one visible eye.

  The eye was electric with malice. The Jew’s face was badly scraped, perhaps something broken, but he was very much alive.

  Zopilote laughed. The geezer’s expression said he could also hear.