High Country Nocturne - [7]

I walked back to the car, opened the driver’s door, and leaned in.

“He’s not there, Sharon. But there’s no sign of foul play.”

Her shoulders drooped. “Thank goodness for that, at least.”

Then her eyes widened.

I turned and a shape emerged from the darkness.

I gave a visible start. That’s me, the cool PI.

“Didn’t mean to scare you.”

He stood about six feet tall and wore a frayed Stetson, sheepskin coat, and blue jeans. His face was not lean or rawboned from sun and wind. This was not the Marlboro Man. Instead, he had fat merry cheeks, a rosy complexion, fleshy broad nose, and a white beard that had never encountered clippers. Santa Claus. He might have been anywhere from sixty to ninety years old.

“Are you a cop?”

I said, “Not anymore.”

“You drive up from Phoenix?”

I said that I had.

His fulsome cheeks worked silently before he spoke. “Lot of action for my little town, huh?”

I nodded, wishing for the second time that night that I had my revolver at the ready.

“I was watching from down the street. This used to be a hell of a town, ya know. We had a movie house, a good whorehouse.” He spat a long stream of chewing tobacco. “Right on Route 66.”

He aimed a thumb over his shoulder at a black-and-white sign that read, “Historic Route 66.”

Get your kicks.

It had been many years since I had been to Ash Fork. My grandmother and I came through on the train, when Phoenix still had passenger trains, on the way to the Grand Canyon. The canyon was about sixty miles north of here. Otherwise, I had driven through Ash Fork a couple of times since.

My memory was that the town sat in a gentle bowl of grassland high on the Coconino Plateau between Flagstaff and Kingman, with piñon pines on the ridges and mountains in the distance. Millions of years before, it had been part of the volcanic eruptions and lava flows that created northern Arizona. It lacked the spectacular San Francisco Peaks and ponderosa pine forest of Flagstaff. Somebody had capitalized on Ash Fork’s Route 66 past by putting a vintage car on the roof of a hair salon. I wondered if it was still here.

“The Interstate killed it?” I made conversation, wanting to get back in the car.

“Didn’t help.”

When that was all he said, I turned to leave but his voice stopped me.

“The world was different when we drove on two lanes, when people actually had to come down the main street of every town. When we traveled by train. Y’see, the Santa Fe Railway built this town and then murdered it. Ash Fork used to be on the main line. We got all the streamliners come through.”

I named the major passenger trains: the Super Chief, Chief, San Francisco Chief, El Capitan, and the Grand Canyon. This seemed to please him.

Santa Claus smiled. “You know your railroad history. My God, they were something to behold. We had a beautiful depot and Harvey House. The Escalante. Then the railroad relocated the main line north in 1960 and we were only a spot in the Peavine.”

“The branch down to Phoenix.”

“That’s right,” he said. “It killed the town. We lost all the railroad jobs. They tore down the depot in the seventies.”

He swept his arm.

“Now look at it. Nothing. This used to be Highway 66. Used to come right down Lewis Avenue and Park, each was a one-way. In seventy-seven, had the big fire in town. Another one happened ten years later. Now this is all that’s left.”

He stepped out into the middle of the road.

“C’mon, son. This is the safest place to be. If a car came by in the next three hours, I’d eat this Stetson.”

I followed him onto the painted line and we stood there like two gunfighters in an old Western, waiting for the outlaws to come riding down the street. A tumbleweed obligingly rolled across, half a block ahead.

He shrugged in resignation. “Four hundred people now, give or take. Doesn’t stop the break-ins. We got three registered sex offenders, too. Hell, I went to high school with two of ’em.”

He walked west toward the little collection of one-story buildings. It was hard to imagine this had once been a thriving town center. I had to quickstep to match his long stride.

“Used to snow up here more often, too.” He looked around, shook his head.

“It’s a shame,” I said. “Do you work on a ranch?”

He let loose another shot of brown liquid. “Hell, there ain’t any ranching any more. None to speak of up here. I cowboyed most of my life.”

“What happened?”

“All the ranches have been bought up as tax deductions or for subdivisions. You wouldn’t understand. You’re from Phoenix.”

“I’m a fourth-generation Arizonan.” I felt the need to establish my bona fides in a state where almost everyone was from somewhere else, and most either came to die or came and went.

He appraised me more closely now. He held out a rough-skinned hand and we shook.

“Orville Grainer.”

“David Mapstone.”

“You related to Philip Mapstone, the dentist?”

“He was my grandfather.”

“I went to him a couple of times. Nice man, Doc Mapstone. He didn’t hurt me. Made me hate dentists a little less.”

This was once a very small state.

We walked a few more steps. His stride turned into a slight limp.