Apache Country by Frederick H. Christian Page A

said he could use my phone, but he—”
    “You’re sure he just said ‘some calls’? He
didn’t use the word ‘important’ or ‘urgent’ or anything like
that?”
    “Well, hell, I can’t swear he didn’t, Joe.
But—”
    “All right, all right,” Joe said impatiently.
“So tell me this. If he was in such a goddamned hurry to make his
calls, why did he wait till he got all the way over to the Frontier
Motel to make them?”
    Sweeney stared at him open mouthed. “Jesus
Criminy, Joe, how would I know?” he said.
    Joe Apodaca shook his head impatiently and
turned to face Easton, as if Sweeney was no longer there. Then all
at once the tension went out of the sheriff’s body and his
shoulders drooped.
    “Oh, shit,” he said, wearily. “Shit, shit,
shit.”
    Easton said nothing, just waited.
    “It’s all right,” the sheriff said after a
while. “Hal, I’m sorry. I blew that big-time.”
    “Sure, Joe,” Sweeney said. His face wore the
sulky expression of a child who has been unfairly punished. Apodaca
shook his head again, more slowly this time.
    “Shouldn’t have let that damn In’din get to
me like that,” he said.
    “If it’s any consolation, Tom Cochrane felt
the same way,” Easton said. “He said trying to get information out
of that guy was like shoveling wind.”
    “Goddamn it, he has to have told Weddle
something,” Joe said, taking off his hat and running a hand through
his cropped hair. “It’s the only thing makes any sense.”
    “You want to go back and talk to him some
more?” Easton said.
    “Don’t schmooze me, Dave,” Joe said flatly.
“I clammed him up real good.”
    He was right about that, Easton thought. They
left Sweeney to lock up and walked out into the cool night air.
Across Virginia, SO was a brightly lit island in the surrounding
darkness. Joe Apodaca stretched, and rubbed the back of his neck.
All at once he looked tired and very old.
    “Dave,” he said. “I feel lower than what the
dog did on the kitchen floor.”
    “Know what you mean,” Easton put on a smile
he didn’t feel.
    “Go home, get some sleep,” the sheriff said
gruffly. “That’s an order. Give my love to Jessye.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Easton stood and watched as Apodaca walked
across to where his car was parked in its numbered slot, and waited
till he saw him pull out and head for home. He wondered if things
there were any better there these days. It was an open secret that
Alice Apodaca had a drinking problem. A picture of her popped up in
his mind, peering from behind the curtains of the house on North
Lea when he picked Joe up to go to the Casey crime scene, her eyes
bleary and unfocussed, as if the world outside was an alien
landscape she had no interest in exploring. Maybe that had
something to do with Joe’s anger, like referred pain.
    Easton thought about Ironheel in his cell and
remembered Grita telling him how Apache hated confinement. Then he
went back to his office and sat down, staring without enthusiasm at
the jumble of paperwork on the desk.
    Was it too late to call Joanna Ironheel? He
decided to take a chance on it. To his surprise she answered after
two rings. He told her who he was and apologized for calling so
late.
    “Is this about my brother?” she said,
brusquely ignoring both Easton’s identity and apology.
    “We have him in jail here in Riverside,
ma’am,” Easton said. “He—”
    “Someone from the Police Department already
called me,” she said. Although her voice was soft and
well-modulated, he detected impatience, as if even discussing the
matter was an annoyance.
    “Will you be coming down here?” he asked.
    “I don’t think so.”
    “He’s in a lot of trouble, ma’am.”
    “He got there by himself. He can get out of
it the same way.”
    Easton frowned. Family ties were usually a
very important part of Apache life. Hostility, not.
    “I take it you know your brother is being
held for murder.”
    She was silent for a moment. “They told