Mining Sacred Ground

By David E. Knop

Ancestral spirits demand that Marine veteran Peter Romero protect the secrecy of a sacred burial ground, and the world becomes a stranger place than he'd ever understood. He is pitted against a psychotic anthropology professor in a life-and-death struggle through the hills, arroyos, and caves of central Arizona, and into another world.

When Romero's cousin is murdered, the former military policeman is astonished that the local sheriff shows no enthusiasm for solving the crime. He is forced to recognize that, after a military career, greater danger lies ahead in his civilian life.

Romero takes up arms to mete out his own justice, but he must decide if he belongs to the world he sees, or to a spirit world in which he discovers the strength of his ancestors. He makes their power a part of his being. As a spirit warrior, Romero battles self-doubt, his wife's threats of divorce, and local law enforcement who plan his murder. He confronts an armed gang bent on revenge, skirts federal agents intent on stopping him, and evades the deadly fire of a deranged sniper.

Aided by a wise tribal elder, Romero uncovers a tangle of clues that link his cousin's death to trafficking in ancient treasures and a deadly conspiracy that centers him in their crosshairs. Romero combines his combat experience and the fighting skills of his ancestors to dispatch his enemies and protect an ancient secret.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781617924644

Book preview

9781617924644

CHAPTER 1

You ain’t the only policeman ever killed a cop, Sal Montoya said from the bedroom at the back of the singlewide.

The remains of the night blew down from the Mogollon Rim, crossed the Verde River Valley, scraped dust from the White Hills, and banked skyward off the Black Hills. New Mexico-born Cochiti tribe policeman Peter Romero slouched in his cousin Sal’s kitchenette and stared south at the Bradshaw Mountains shadowed by the low sun. The wind buffeted the trailer, reminding him he’d slept all night in Sal’s driveway in the bed of a pickup. He welcomed the morning heat through the window, and cursed the painful bump on his chin, his life, and everything about Camp Verde, Arizona. Sal’s coffee tasted like plastic, but it warmed him after a shivering night.

You know another one? Romero asked, pressing his temples to ease the pounding. When Sal walked into the kitchen, he looked up and asked, Why’d you punch me?

I didn’t. You knocked yourself out when you fell on your drunk ass, Sal said, opening, then banging a cabinet door shut. He poured coffee, dragged a chair to the table. Never seen you that drunk, man. What’s gotten into you?

Nothin’.

Bullshit, you been moping around here feeling sorry for yourself for two weeks, and now you drink yourself to the point I had to go and drag your ass home.

It can happen to anybody. Get over it.

Not my problem. I want your ass outta here, but first, I got work for you.

You got a funny way of askin’.

I need help. Sal sucked coffee. Do this one thing for me before you go.

Go where? I can’t go home. I’m banished and Costancia is really pissed. No, I need to stay away from there. Too many bad memories.

Your banishment is crap. You did the right thing and the elders are wrong. You need to be with your wife, not here.

Romero shrugged, stared at the table. What do you need?

I been workin’ two shootings. So far, I been striking out, but I got some ideas and need to know more about the bikers that’ve been hanging around. They don’t know you, so you can get close. Here, I made a list. He removed a notebook from his pocket, tore out a page, and dropped it on the table. These are my prime suspects. Look at those names.

Why don’t you just bring ‘em in?

I have. They lawyer up.

Romero scanned the list. I came here to look for stolen pots.

Forget that, I got something big here, and with all your military police training, this is right up your alley, Jarhead. He gripped Romero’s shoulder. Those bikers are involved in both shootings and I need you to make the connection.

Romero inspected the tabletop and didn’t answer.

Montoya shook his head, buttoned the notebook in his breast pocket, grabbed his Stetson, and banged through the screen. Get some leads or get out.

The diesel started with a click and a rattle.

Crack! A shot rang out.

Romero sprinted to the door. Instinct stopped him at the screen. Sal?

Crack! A round splintered the doorframe inches above his shoulder. He scrambled back. Peering out the kitchen window, he scanned a ridge that ran off to the northeast on the other side of Sal’s truck. The shot had come from there.

Crack! Another round shattered the window. Glass peppered Romero’s hair. He ducked, raced down the hall to the closet where Sal kept his deer rifle, tore through clothing, and pulled out the Winchester. He cycled the lever. Empty. He ransacked Sal’s dresser, found a box with five rounds, thumbed them into the magazine, and levered one into the chamber. He crawled through the kitchen, sighted on the ridge through the door, and cranked off a shot. The Model 94 couldn’t match the sniper’s range, but it might keep the shooter from getting closer until help arrived.

Blam! Romero fired at the sniper, yelled at the Ford. Sal!

He levered another round. Blam! He reached up and pulled the handset down from the wall phone.

Crack! The sniper put one through the window and smashed the wall phone. Exploding plastic sliced his left thumb. With a heave, he rose and burst out the door and rolled.

Blam! Romero fired over the fender at the hill, then sprinted thirty feet to the truck. A loud snap meant the sniper had put one into the engine block. As he ducked, he glimpsed Sal’s face oozing blood.

Sal? he shouted as the F-150’s engine bucked and died.

From behind the truck, he scanned the ridge and tried to control his spinning head. He knew he would die outside the trailer if he did not go after the sniper. With two rounds.

The ridge offered unlimited opportunities for a rifleman with a scope and steady eye, but on the hill’s west flank, an arroyo angled up the side and offered concealment to the top. Sucking air, he bolted from the truck, dashed into the trailer and out the back door, praying the gunman couldn’t get a bead. About forty feet from the house trailer, he found cover among boulders and scrub.

On shaking legs, he edged up the gulch, fearing each step would be his last. The climb was steeper than it looked and he puffed like an old man. He wiped the sweat-sting from his eyes with a shirtsleeve. A bourbon belch forced its way up his throat. Montoya’s yard stretched out below and offered a view of Sal’s bloodstained khaki leg protruding from the F-150’s open door.

A cactus wren broke the silence with a warble. Romero watched, waited for a target, but it was clear that the sniper had left.

Romero slid-ran down the hill to Montoya’s Ford. His cousin’s blood splattered the dash and pooled on the truck’s floor mats. Pink and gray brain matter splashed the windshield. The sight of his best friend’s body slumped toward the passenger door demanded a primal scream. He laid back his head and howled.

Reaching through the doorframe, he pulled Montoya’s cellular phone from hias pocket. He scanned the contact list, found an entry for OPS and pressed send.

Officer down, he said to the operator. He gave as many details as his cracking voice would allow.

In the kitchen, he fumbled with a twist-off cap. He needed a whisky, Sal kept only beer. He drank one, then another. And another.

CHAPTER 2

As a cop, Romero could do nothing to help Sal. This was not his jurisdiction and he knew better than disrupt the crime scene. The sight of his dead cousin was unbearable, so he studied the ridge from the shot-out window of the trailer until he heard the sirens approaching. He stuffed Sal’s list of suspects into his breast pocket.

An ambulance and a panel truck crunched up the gravel and skidded into the yard. A Chevy Tahoe followed. Three men in white jumped from the ambulance and ran to the pickup. The first man to examine the body sent the other two back. They returned with a stretcher.

Two Yavapai County Sheriff deputies emerged from the Tahoe. One had the chest and arms of a body builder and looked to be in his late twenties. He introduced himself to Romero.

Deputy Zinzer, he said. Wait here.

Romero stood to the side as the deputy went about crime scene business. Zinzer shouted commands at the other deputy, a thin man with quick eyes, and conferred with the lead EMT.

He turned his attention to Romero, Where were you standing when shots were fired? he asked.

Out of the corner of his eye, Romero spotted the EMTs pulling the body from the truck. Sal was a big man and the medics struggled to get the corpse onto the stretcher. Romero looked away, pretended his braid needed fixing.

I said, where were you when the shots were fired? Deputy Zinzer sounded annoyed to have to ask twice.

Oh. Sorry. Romero forced all his attention toward the deputy and away from the scene at the truck. In the kitchen.

Where did the shots come from?

Pointing to the ridge, he said, Up there.

Zinzer waved his deputy to the hill. The man started up the slope. You Indians must have good ears, he said, watching his partner climb. He glanced sideways at Romero. I mean, you were inside and you’re sure where the shots came from.

Right.

Know why someone would want Montoya dead?

No, Romero said.

How about Indians? Seems like Indians enjoy shooting each other, around here. Zinzer laced his smile with venom.

Romero thought of the note in his pocket, Sal’s list of suspects. The sheriff needed to see it, and at some point he’d have to give it up, but something about Zinzer’s line of questioning was not right. I wouldn’t know.

Montoya told me you were a cop. What, no work on your own rez? What are you doing around here, Romero? Exactly.

What are you driving at? Romero clenched his fists. "Exactly."

Zinzer put up both hands in surrender. Just want to know how you and Montoya been getting along. The deputy eyed Romero’s bruised chin and blood-encrusted hand. Any arguments? A scuffle, maybe?

About what?

Oh, drinking for instance. How many you had today?

We never had arguments. Not about drinking. Not about anything.

I hear some Indians got a real drinking problem.

Moving from witness to suspect. That right?

Way I look at it, it’s real easy to go from drinkin’ to shootin’. What do you think, chief?

I think I’m through talkin’.

The thin deputy, his nametag said Reichert, returned from the hill and shook his head. Nothing up there, he said, puffing.

You telling me this guy fired four rounds and left no evidence? Romero asked.

How we conduct the investigation is none of your fucking business, Zinzer said, looking him up and down. Don’t leave town.

# # #

The deputies had wrapped up the crime scene, packed evidence bags, including Romero’s Winchester,  into the Tahoe, and had Sal’s pickup towed by late afternoon. Romero stood in the front yard looking at what remained: tire marks, shoe prints, oil and blood stains in the dust.

Zinzer’s conduct pissed him off. The death of a fellow officer should energize an investigator out of brotherhood and self-interest. Police blood runs blue, and the letting of it begs revenge, but Zinzer showed an appalling lack of interest. And dislike of Indians. Maybe it said Zinzer and his partner wanted to clear the case fast by finding a guilty Indian. Or maybe it said they had stakes in the outcome of the investigation.

He kicked at gravel until it covered the dark spots, then humped up the ridge. The shooter had to leave evidence.

At the top of the ridge, Romero gridded the area that offered the best shooting angles. He found hints of brush-broomed footprints in several places. The rifleman knew how to cover his tracks in the dirt, but on a flat rock with a view of the trailer, he spotted scuffmarks, brown boots, maybe. He lay on the rock, positioned himself as a sniper would, and peered down an imaginary rifle at Montoya’s mobile home, about nine hundred meters. He wanted to climb into the killer’s head, see what the sniper saw, smell what the son-of-a-bitch smelled.

Grunt work was the only real way to collect evidence. He got up and dug around the bushes for an hour, combed grass and cactus, cursed each thorn and spike. This kind of police work felt good: dirt-under-the-fingernails work with potential needle-in-the-haystack payoffs. It helped keep his mind off Sal.

The effort paid off when the disappearing sun flashed on brass. He spread dead grass, inserted a twig, and lifted the shell. It looked like a .338 magnum. Once, in a Corps bullshit session, an arrogant Lance Corporal bragged he could make a kill through body armor at eleven hundred meters with a sniper rifle using .338 Lapua Magnum armor-piercing rounds. The guy was right on.

The killer’s movements were hard to figure. Although he possessed the presence of mind to brush his tracks, he’d blundered big time by leaving a casing behind. Romero thought his own hump up the arroyo may have pressured the shooter to run off before locating the ejected shell. He twisted the brass on the twig. It was too dark now to see fingerprints. He would carry it down the hill and bag it.

Brush rustled. He crouched, looked toward the noise, cursed his carelessness. Lost in examining the evidence, he’d allowed someone to approach undetected. A coyote sat a few yards away as aware of Romero’s presence as he had been ignorant of the animal’s existence. Romero let out air. The animal focused on him, the sunset reflecting in yellow eyes. Romero tried to look away, but could not. He blinked.

The coyote disappeared. Romero wondered if he’d seen anything at all.

As he walked down the hill, the sun dropped behind the Bradshaws and painted reds and golds across horsetail clouds floating on a cobalt sky. The risen Venus, in her cycle of birth, contrasted with the death of Montoya. A chill ran up his back. The world was a cold place.

# # #

In a kitchen drawer, he rummaged for a paper bag, but found plastic zips in a drawer. He slipped the shell off the stick and left the bag unsealed to prevent condensation from ruining any latents. He placed the bagged brass in the drawer and plugged Sal’s cell phone into its charger.

He pulled Sal’s note from his breast pocket and rotated it in his hands. The big-lettered scrawl brought back memories. One time, Sal had stepped between him and, who was it, Santiago Ybarra, at a high school dance when Ybarra wanted to test Romero’s reputation as a scrapper. Sal lost a tooth that time. How many years ago was that? In time they’d become, this was nothing to be proud of, loud marauders of local bars until Sal had gotten serious about becoming a cop. And, he could still picture the day when Sal had driven him to the Marine recruiter in Albuquerque. It was twenty-three years ago when Sal coaxed, more like shoved, him toward Costancia Cordero when the sight of her behind the counter of the Circle K rendered him immobile. The notes blurred, but the armor of manhood prevented him from wailing. He jammed the paper back into his shirt pocket.

When he composed himself, he switched on the kitchen lights, washed his face, and nuked a cup of instant. He slid onto the kitchenette’s vinyl bench and brushed the glass shards from the tabletop. Ignoring the cold air that flowed through the shot-out pane, he sipped the bitter java, and studied Sal’s list. Five suspects were penciled under the title Skull Cave, an outlaw motorcycle club from the Los Angeles area. An asterisk marked one of them, Nantan Mimiaga, as the club’s leader.

Sal suspected the gang members of killing two men, a mining agent and an anthropologist. Romero disliked drawing conclusions without supporting evidence, a connection between the bikers and victims didn’t ring, but he would start with that assumption because Sal did. He’d seen the bikers around. They hung out at a dive outside of town at night. And that’s where he would go tonight. If they caught wind of his suspicions toward them, no doubt, he could be their next victim. No matter. Whatever it took, he’d find the sniper. He owed Sal that much.

He placed Sal’s list in the kitchen drawer with the sniper’s shell. In the bathroom, he washed his face, untied, finger-combed his hair, and retied his braid. In the guest bedroom, he pulled out a clean shirt from the dresser and changed. He grabbed his jacket out of the closet and stepped outside. The ridge that had hosted the sniper loomed overhead, its gloomy mass a reminder of Sal’s lifeless body.

He paused. What if he uncovered more evidence tonight that pointed to the killer? He’d have to report it to the sheriff, of course. But, Deputy Zinzer gave off warning vibes like a nest of rattlers. Was he incompetent? He’d rushed the crime scene big time. Or was he party to wrongdoing? Sal implied as much when he’d asked Romero for help. No. To ensure the integrity of new evidence he’d surrender it, and the list, to another lawman, the state police, maybe even someone he knew in the FBI from the old Quantico days. Zinzer would receive more scrutiny, and be less able to mishandle the case, if evidence came from another law enforcement agency.

Then he’d go home. He owed Costancia that much.

He tried to lock the door, but the bullet had bent the frame. He walked to the Verde – Payson Highway, where he thumbed until a rust-coated Dodge Power Wagon with one working headlight rumbled by and brake-squealed to a stop thirty yards down road. He trotted to the truck, a dented crew cab - ’53 maybe, and pulled himself in.

Where ya’ headed? the driver asked, as he geared the truck into motion. In the dark, the man’s head bobbed with each bump of the road. In the glare of passing headlights, he caught a glimpse of the driver, an Indian in his late-seventies probably, who wore his white hair shoulder-length, and kept it in place with a sweatband over a dark face wrinkled deep. Romero made him for Apache, but there was something else, too. He had a feel to him, something you couldn’t put a finger on that set him apart. His voice? His eyes? Even in the dark they seemed to size you up. The guy had to be a tribal leader of some importance.

 Roadrunner. Need a drink, Romero said, regretting the truth of the statement.

The Apache stared at him until he swerved off the pavement. He corrected, and then drove in silence until he pulled up to the gravel parking lot of an unpainted cement block building under a sign that blinked Road in red. A squad of Harleys, all handlebars and exhaust pipes, dominated the entrance.

Tough place, the driver said. Watch yer ass.

Thanks for the ride, Romero said and stepped out. The Power Wagon misfired back onto the road and wheezed into the dark, leaving in its wake a muffled, throbbing pulse from the bar that had managed to force its way through the sides of the building.

As he walked to the front door, Romero’s love of machinery compelled him to examine the hogs. The bikes were works of art exuding power with powder-coat custom frames and chrome rims. Regardless of what Sal Montoya suspected of these men, Romero had to admire the riders’ choice of iron. He missed his own Jeep back home in New Mexico, but Costancia needed it.

A blasting juke shattered the desert night when he pushed through the door. An eight-stool counter crowded the room at the far side. Two pool tables dominated the other. Posters featuring bikini babes and Harleys hung on the walls. The room smelled of beer, tobacco, and armpits oozing of testosterone. Through the smoke, he counted a dozen men of Apache blood, some with braids, some with shaved heads. He slipped past leathers with Skull Cave embroidered on the back in three-inch letters curving over a skull with crossed pistons and words like Outlaw or Fuck You.

At the bar, he waved down the barkeep, a tired-looking, bald man. Bud, he yelled above Brooks and Dunn harmonizing on the juke. The last thing he needed was a drink, but it was much more important to blend.

The cold beer tasted good. In less than a minute, an alcohol rush hit hard, a reminder he’d not eaten all day. Got any food?

The bartender slid a gallon jar of pickled eggs to him. Romero dug out two yellow-brown eggs, thought better about asking for a napkin, and wiped his hand on his jeans. He wolfed both, they tasted awful, then backed against the bar to watch the pool players.

The bikers, Sal’s suspects, circled a man, handsome, six feet plus with broad shoulders and long braids tied off with leather bootlaces. Apache or Navajo, maybe both. Had to be Mimiaga because when he spoke everyone laughed. Two Anglo, hard-edged lookers with big tits, hung on every word. Their thin figures and non-stop chatter suggested a chemical diet. The outlaw sunk seven stripes while the gang watched and raised glasses to drink. One biker held a wad of hundreds an inch thick. Mimiaga sighted on the eight ball for an easy pocket.

A sneeze.

Mimiaga missed. All eyes snapped to the guilty, a man wearing leathers without patches.

Mimiaga handed his cue to one of the blonds. Romero winced as the big Indian slammed the man against the wall, forearmed his throat, and delivered a gut jab. The man clutched his stomach. Mimiaga pressed the man’s neck until he went limp. The biker let go and the man dropped. Two bikers threw him out the door while others laughed.

The juke boomed I Love This Bar, while the crowd sang