“It is not possible. They are here.”
A shadow flickered by the window. I went to the cash register. A stout, baldheaded man in an apron came to take my money. I paid him. “Friend, I am Erik Hokart. I am building southwest of here and I need a gun. Have you got one?”
He just looked at me. “Mister, I got a gun. Ever’body hereabouts has one, but I wouldn’t lend my gun to anybody.”
Turning, I looked outside. My Jeep stood waiting. Nobody was near. If we…
Kawasi was gone!
VII
For a moment I stood perfectly still, my hands flat upon the counter, my back to the window. Had Kawasi escaped somehow without being seen? Or had they taken her through a back door?
“Sir,” I said quietly, “keep your gun but let me warn you that if they come in, you had better use it. They may decide they want no witnesses.
“My name is Erik Hokart, as I have told you. Please remember it when inquiries are made. If the law does not investigate, I have a friend who will. His name is Mike Raglan.”
“Look here, Mister, I don’t know what kind of trouble you’re in but I’ll call the police, and–”
“From the kitchen, then. If you pick up that telephone they will kill you.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” He peered past me. “I don’t even see nobody.”
“I’ll run for my Jeep. You’d better get out of here, too.”
Mike Raglan put down the daybook and swore, softly and bitterly. He glanced again at the book, frowning.
The daybook had been written for Erik himself, until he evidently got the idea it would be the easiest way to communicate to Mike what had taken place.
Quickly, Mike checked his haversack and his gun, and slipped his boot-knife into place. As he stopped in the doorway, he took care to check the position of his car. Several other vehicles were parked nearby but all seemed empty, and there were no cars he did not recognize. He went to his car, got in, and promptly locked the doors after checking behind the seat. Then he backed out and headed for the highway.
He paused at the security gate. “If anybody asks for me, you don’t know whether I am in or not,” he told the guard.
Several times he checked his rearview mirror but saw no evidence he was followed. Hours later he pulled into the small Utah town, looking for the cafe he remembered from previous visits.
It was gone! On the site were a few blackened timbers and still-rising wisps of smoke. Up the street was another cafe that had been closed on his last trip due to a slackening of business during the off-season. It was open now. With another careful look around he parked the car where he could watch it and went inside.
Three Navajos sat at the counter drinking coffee, and a truck driver was finishing a meal. His rig stood outside, close to the pickups belonging to the Navajos. There was a girl sitting alone in a back booth.
He dropped into a seat not far from her. When the waitress came for his order, he commented, “Looks like you had a fire up the street.”
“I’ll say! It put my girlfriend out of her job! She was waiting tables on the morning shift—then the fire and she’s out of work.”
He ordered ham and eggs. “Anybody hurt?”
“Jerry. He owned the place. He’s in the hospital now, if you can call it that. The cook managed to get him out with their clothes afire. The cook was burned a little, but Jerry … he’s in a bad way.
“They say he was hurt somehow other than the burns, but nobody knows much about it.”
“How’d it start?”
“Who knows? The cook swears it started up front.”
She went to turn in his order and he glanced at the girl in the booth. She was just sitting there with a cup of coffee in front of her. He looked again. She was very attractive, but subdued somehow.
The waitress returned with his coffee. “You should have seen that fire! Like an explosion, almost, only there wasn’t any explosion, just a sort of poof. The whole building was gone in less time than it takes to tell it.”
“What’s Jerry say about it?”
“Him? He can’t talk. The cook says there were at least two customers the last time he looked up front, and he looked because he was getting ready to close up. There was a girl, and this man who asked Jerry for a gun—”
“A gun?”
“The cook heard him, and stopped what he was doing to listen. Fine-looking man, he said, looked like a businessman, but a mighty scared one. Jerry turned him down, of course. Nobody but a damned fool loans a gun to a stranger—or, for that matter, to a friend.”
“What then?”
“All of a sudden this girl is in the kitchen. The cook started to ask her what she thought she was doing, but she ran out the back door.
“The cook heard the front door close and headed up front, and that was when it happened. There was that sudden poof and Jerry was knocked right into his arms and then the whole place was in flames. He dragged Jerry outside.”
“What happened to the man who wanted the gun?”
The waitress shrugged. “Ran off, I guess. His car is still here, keys in the ignition. The chief of police impounded it. He’s got it over at the station.”
“And the girl?”
The waitress’s voice lowered, but she cast a meaningful glance at the girl in the back booth. “Nobody knows, but she’s been around all morning. Looks like she’s watching for somebody.”
Mike glanced at the girl and their eyes met. He looked away. “That man who asked for the gun? Did he say anything else?”
“Just something about him building down in the desert, but we all knew that.” She went for his breakfast and returned. “This is a big country, Mister, but there aren’t that many people, and everybody usually knows what’s going on and where.
“He’s bought gas here in town, groceries, and sometimes he eats here. I’ve seen him around, and he’s good-looking. Started all the girls wondering if he’s single. But he minds his own affairs and bothers nobody. His name is Hokart.”
“Where can I find the chief?”
“He’s down to Mexican Hat on business but should be in later today.”
“Any strangers in town?”
“No, except for her. There’s not a lot of traffic through here in the winter. In the summer we get tourists, but not like over in Durango. We don’t have the narrow-gauge train and we’re off the main route, but we do get tourists.” She looked at him. “Did you know Erik Hokart?”
He hesitated a moment. “He’s a friend of mine. That’s why I’m here.”
She brought the coffeepot and refilled his cup. The Navajos had gone; so had the truck driver. She looked at Mike. “You aren’t from around here?”
“I spent some time in this country, years back. In fact, I told Hokart a good deal about it before he decided to come out. He was from back east, but he had fallen in love with this country. He planned to make his home here.”
She left to get on with her work. Mike glanced over at the girl, then took his plate and his coffee and crossed to her booth. “Kawasi?” he asked.
The momentary fear left her eyes. “You are Mike Raglan?” She spoke the name in two distinct syllables.
He sat down. “Do you speak English?”
“Small. Old man tell me.”
“What happened to Erik?”
“They have him. They take him.”
“Did they burn the restaurant? How?”
“I do not know. It is … a thing … like …” She touched the edge of the saucer. Lifting his cup, she took the saucer by the edge and made a backhand move as if to throw it. “They …” She gestured again. “It is fire then, big fire, very quick.”
“These things they throw? They are big?”
“Small. Smaller as”—she indicated the top of the cup—”so.”
“They burn?”
“They break, then burn.”
“Have the police talked to you yet?”
“No.”
“Kawasi, I know nothing of your land, wherever it is. I know nothing of your people. I have read what Erik wrote, but I must know who your enemies are, where they have taken Erik, and what they will do to him. I must also know how to get where Erik is.”
Suddenly, Mike thought of her. “Have you eaten? Do you have any money?”
“I eat nothing. To sleep I give money.”
He motioned to the waitress and ordered for her. When the woman was gone, Kawasi said, “How to get back I do not know. I am far from place I hear of.”