Desert Wind Read Online Free PDF Page A

Route 9. Still in Utah, I hooked over to I-15, which hustled me south through the mountains that lined the massive Virgin River Gorge, and ultimately, back into Arizona. Having made a massive half-loop around the Grand Canyon, I exited the freeway at the picturesque old mining town of Silver Ridge and drove a few more miles east to Walapai Flats.
    More than six hours to travel a lousy two hundred as-the-crow-flies miles.
    But as I had discovered earlier that morning, the once-a-day commuter hop from Phoenix Sky Harbor into the Walapai County Airport was booked for the next three days. God only knows what would happened to Jimmy by then.
    I finally rolled into Walapai Flats as the sun was setting. Situated along a long narrow plain but surrounded by high red-and-orange mesas, the area was spectacular. Because of the town’s geographic isolation, it had remained populated only by Paiute Indians and miners until Hollywood discovered it in the Fifties. A couple of decades later, the land developers began cashing in. Now retirement communities and lavish resorts were sprinkled across the high desert.
    When I turned onto John Wayne Boulevard, I was met by two billboards. One proclaimed, WELCOME TO WALAPAI FLATS—JOHN WAYNE LOVED IT AND YOU WILL TOO! The other announced, JOIN GOVERNOR EVELYN HASKER AND LOCAL DIGNITARIES TO CELEBRATE THE OPENING OF THE BLACK BASIN URANIUM MINE. 8 A.M. SUNDAY. FREE HOT DOGS & POPCORN! From atop the billboard, red, white and blue balloons waved in the breeze.
    As I drove along, streetlights shaped like nineteenth-century gas lamps began to flicker on, casting a seductive golden glow over what at first looked like a town untouched by time. From the information I’d pulled down from the Internet before leaving Scottsdale, I’d learned that the town was originally little more than a general store and a gas station. Thanks to the real estate boom and the new airport, its amenities now included an RV park, two motels, a supermarket, several restaurants, an espresso café, a bookstore, and a sprinkling of gift shops and the usual small businesses. Everything, even the entrance to the RV park, mimicked the Old West architecture made famous by oater films and television shows. Raised wooden sidewalks covered by deep overhangs. False storefronts with the proprietors’ names emblazoned in gilt lettering. Watering troughs for horses. The town’s 1880’s disguise worked so well that the herd of Escalades and Hummers parked in front of the Walapai Flats Saloon came as a shock.
    Since I wasn’t here to sightsee, I ignored the town’s picturesque charms and headed straight for the county government offices across the street from the city park.
    To the average person, the modern concrete-and-steel construction of the Walapai County government complex might contrast oddly with its ersatz Old West neighbors, but for an ex-Scottsdale cop like myself, it was the same old, same old. Facilities like this were meant to be secure, not cute. Pushing open the heavy exterior door, I found myself in a large lobby lined with metal benches. Straight ahead stood a set of double doors labeled COURTROOMS; to my left the sign above a long hallways said SHERIFF’S OFFICES; to my right was a narrower door, flanked on one side by a metal detector and on the other side, a bulked-up detention officer. The sign above that door said COUNTY JAIL ANNEX.
    Talk about one-stop shopping.
    A bored-looking deputy just south of retirement age manned the desk at the far end of the lobby.
    “I’d like to see James Sisiwan,” I told him, eyeing the metal detector, thankful I’d locked my snub-nose .38 up in the Trailblazer’s glove compartment.
    “You can’t see him because his father bonded him out this morning.” The deputy didn’t bother looking up from the magazine he was reading.
    Jimmy and his adoptive father had been estranged for years, partially because Jimmy had taken back his tribal name, but while a family crisis doesn’t