Chapter 3: Durango
After ferrying Addison's equipment from her dorm to the airport, we departed once more into the overcast sky towards Durango La-Plata County Airport. The Mooney climbed its way out of the low lying clouds, reaching level cruise as the morning sun rose halfway up the horizon. Upon breaking through the overcast sky, Addison starred out towards the wondrous landscape below. She dug around for the handheld camera the bag behind us, and started recording. Two hours into the flight, while over the heart of the Rocky Mountains, she had fallen asleep with it still blinking red in her lap. I attempted to shut the camera off, but she shook in her sleep as my wrist glanced her side. I recoiled, just then noticing how pained she appeared in her deep slumber. I frowned at the sight of her pressed up against the windscreen as my mind drifted back to the thought of the old man. I made a fruitless attempt at rationalizing my encounter with him. I never told Addison that he had just fizzled out of existence in front of me. It didn't seem that she had ever thought to question me more about him either. I slouched back in my seat and focused deeply on the instruments in front of me.
At four and a half hours into the flight, I eased the Mooney into a gentle descent towards the mountainous landscape below. I touched the wheels down softly upon the Durango runway surface, and opened my side window to take in the fresh midday mountain air. As I sat idle just off the runway, consulting a map of the surrounding taxiways, the gentle buzz of the engine was overpowered by the roar of a small jet liner landing behind me. Addison woke to the sound with a jolt. She looked around nervously at her new surroundings, and clutched her camera in a tight grip, unwittingly turning the camera off. "Bad dream?" I inquired. She slowly took notice of me in the seat left of her. An unexpected silence followed. "We made it to Durango by the way, I'll park us and we can find a place to eat."
"How far away are we from town?" she was prompt in her question. The look of bewilderment on her face was fading away slowly.
"Ten or fifteen minutes, you can pick a place while I get the plane to a parking spot." I announced my intentions to park on over the plane's radio, and got the aircraft underway to the south end of the runway while Addison turned on her phone. As I slowed the old Mooney over a tie down spot, Addison looked up from her screen,
"Hey, remember when I mentioned to you I was talking to a guy from the Ute tribe?" My mind flashed to the old man from Ellensburg as the words rolled out of her mouth.
"Yeah, you said he was a bit of pain to deal with last I-"
"He emailed me an hour ago, he wants to meet at some bar and grill in town." I raised an eyebrow at her interruption. Numerous questions arose in my head about the message she had just received. I held them back as she began to type her response: *We'll be there in 25.*
After helping me tie down the aircraft Addison went to the luggage compartment to retrieve some camera equipment. From the multitude of choices she had brought, she chose a larger camera with a carry-handle and an external microphone coupled to a tripod. I aided her with her equipment as we traveled to the general aviation terminal to pick up a car. After securing another ex-police vehicle, we drove into town following the directions provided to us by Addison's phone.
We arrived at a rustic bar and grill in the center of downtown Durango and promptly entered through two small swinging doors. As my eyes adjusted from the midday sun to the dim indoor lighting, I found myself gazing toward two men towards the back right corner of the restaurant, opposite the bar. Both of the men seemed to be around thirty, one of whom was of Native American descent wearing short sleeved red flannel and an old western hat. The other man wore a white button up shirt and short black hair with no other defining features apart from a light streak leading down the left side of his face from his eye to his neck. The native man waved to Addison, who promptly trotted towards the man tripod and microphone in hand. I rested the heavy camera on my should as I walked to join her with the two men. Addison approached the native man with her hand outstretched.
"Nice to finally meet your Mr. Cortes, my name is Addison Fagan, but you already knew that, may I introduce you to my friend Sean Carmile." The native man was quick and blunt in his response.
"Ah yes, Mr. Top gun himself, my informant told me all about your little stunt up in Ellensburg, and I don't know what you plan to do with all that equipment. I don't intend on allowing any of what I'm about to divulge to you to make it to the outside world, not with my face attached to it." The man took a break in his words, and I swore under my breath as I let the heavy camera swing off my shoulder to my side. I glanced over at Addison in disapproval, frustrated that I had lugged her camera around for no reason. I was met with a twisted face, she certainly did not get the polite welcome she wanted. The other man postured himself, the streak caught the lighting in the room. It became clear that he wore a hideous scar, as if something a long time ago had tried to rip half of his face off. The native man continued to speak directly to Addison, "Yes, my name is Alejandro Cortes, and yes, we spoke briefly online. But it is my friend here who's interested in seeing you meddlers." The man with the maimed face stood up as he spoke.
"Forgive my friend's poor manners, he's just upset that I got my way with you two showing up. My name is Xavier Quiroga, a private detective based out of the Navajo Nation. I understand that you, Ms. Fagan, are interested in doing a little documentary about our people's folklore. It's an interesting idea, and you'll certainly get your end of the bargain, as long as you fulfill mine," Xavier ended his sentence with his hands on the table in front of him, and a quick glance towards Alejandro, who frowned right back at him. "You see, Mr. Cotes here didn't really want to get you two involved with this at all, but I insisted. Sean, I understand you had a run in with a friend of Alejandro's at the airport up in Ellensburg. He meant to dissuade you from coming here, yet you stubbornly resisted his attempts. I have my reservations about that, but I did wager as such, so I can't complain. Furthermore, the two of you possess a skill set that I value greatly, and I'll need all the help I can get." Alejandro took the break in Xavier's words to speak,
"Right now, certain elements in our respective tribes are at odds with each other. Some of them wish to return to the days when their tribes were feared, and wish to keep practices that would be considered... unlawful today, and wish to... expand their territory. Xavier and I may be on opposite sides of the border, but we want this awaking age old conflict to sleep again."
Xavier continued, "Alejandro has already sent a group of men he trusts in the Navajo Police Department to investigate disturbances we believe to be related to this cloak and dagger operation. Hence why he believes y'all's involvement is pointless. I, on the other hand, have chosen to follow the actions of my fellow tribesmen closely, and have found a number of individuals who appear to wish harm upon the men and women of the Southern Ute Nation. They have done everything from blackmailing, to blatant acts of violence, to calling upon ancient evil witchcraft to satisfy their ends. While the outside world, you two included, may view provocation by black magic as ridiculous, it's something we take very seriously," his gaze went narrowed to Addison, "This is your door to everything you could ever want to know about our folklore. I sanction you to record my interactions with my fellow tribesmen, in fact I may ask you to record them on my behalf for latter examination." He turned his gaze to me, "and I'll compensate your pilot for his time and effort." I exchanged a look with Addison, who suddenly seemed optimistic about the situation.
As much as I didn't want to go around chasing fairy tales with a private detective, I found the prospect of turning back home and continuing a boring summer break after coming all this way considerably more dull. Besides, the man had just offered me compensation for my services. I didn't bother thinking about the legality of it, I figured I should get something out of this wild goose chase. I then thought of the old man at the airport again, the informant who had attempted to keep me out of the men's business, "Hey wait, Mr. Cortes, you mentioned that man at the airport, who was he?" Alejandro looked at me with a face that only emoted slight annoyance. Xavier spoke before Alejandro could answer,
"Let's just say for now that he was the product of some intercessory work. Right now, I'm only concerned about whether you're in or out." I considered his curt answer for what it was worth. I glanced over at Addison, who looked back at me with excitement in her eyes. I turned back to Xavier.
"Fine, when are we leaving, and where are we going?"I was almost dismissive in my tone. Xavier relaxed his posture,
"I just need to grab a few things from a place of mine just outside of town, I would be much obliged if you were to help me with them, did y'all take a car?" I nodded, "Alright, just follow my truck then, if it works for you I'd like to be off to Navajo Lake Airport by five this afternoon."
Addison and I trailed behind Xavier's truck to the southwest of Durango on the border of the Southern Ute Reservation. Upon arriving at a small, white, bungalow style house, we were beckoned through a garage door on the right side of the house. I walked behind Addison through the interior garage door into a small kitchen area. Opposite of the garage door on the other side of the kitchen, the house widened into a large central room with a lounge area and a desk surrounded by many bookshelves. Xavier emerged from a hallway situated at the left side of the room with two large bags. "You work out of your house?" I inquired. He set his belongings down before responding,
"Nah, this is just a little outpost of mine where I do my work," Xavier responded. Addison took her chance to question him,
"How long have you been doing this detective work?"
"Five years, ever since I got out of the military," Xavier dug around one of the bookshelves next to his desk as he spoke, taking several books and a small cardboard package and throwing them in his luggage, "I mainly work out of the Navajo Nation, mostly on missing person's cases. They have special need for people like me down there, the Navajo like to keep things to themselves, and their police department is usually stretched thin. Whenever the work dries up down south, I come up here and work civil disputes. I was welcome at one point, but ever since tensions started rising, I've been finding it harder and harder to work with the locals. Slowly but surely I've been packing things up from here, hopefully this big case puts things to rest and I can live with some normalcy." Xavier picked up his bags and walked outside the garage towards our Crown Victoria. Addison and I followed him, with me trailing close behind while I inquired further about our investigation,
"You mentioned tensions between the two tribes, how bad are they?" Xavier popped the car's trunk open and paused to speak to me,
"Very bad, it's all a political nightmare. Some folks want to rule their corner of the US in earnest again. They're not content in picking up the pieces and moving forward with the rest of their people. They think of their ancestors as cowards for never facing the US Army head on back in the early 1800's. Now they want their northern tribal neighbors to help them in taking back what they see as theirs. I've worked along side men and women who think radically like this for years and I've never been able to figure out what they mean when when saying 'what's theirs.' I don't think y'all nor I want to sit down on our hands and figure it out the hard way.
I do know that a contingent of these individuals hope to employ... less conventional means of waging conflict. I suppose you've heard of skin walkers before. Meanwhile the grand majority of people up here want to be left alone. I understand that we'll being going through Ute country to get to the airport, I know I'm going to brush by people who will recognize me and my Navajo heritage. I know that at the very least I'm going to get some nasty looks." Xavier shifted his gaze down to the trunk. I figured he was looking at the studio camera I had thrown in there. He looked towards Addison and tried to change the subject, "Now how did a young girl like you get a big expensive camera like this?" Addison smiled proudly as she answered,
"It's not mine, but the sports media department at my school let me borrow it for a while to do this documentary." I gave a quick disgruntled glance between the two for interrupting what was going to be a long string a questions from me. I continued,
"Excuse me Mr. Quiroga, but are we to believe that these 'skin walkers' are real?" Xavier cracked a small smile as he adjusted the studio camera around in the trunk,
"For years history has generally overlooked the mysterious lore of our Southwestern Peoples. I think it's for the better. Many ask why there is no irrefutable proof of the *yee naaldlooshii*, the skin walker. You may also ask why there are no stories about Navajo witches willing skin walkers on American soldiers way in the past. Truth be told, the Navajo never wanted outright conflict with the United States. Sure there were a few instances where the Navajo fought back against the U.S, but it was always against small bands of reckless militias and military detachments. How hard do you think it would be for history to forget a small band of frontiersmen who went missing out in the vast plains of the southwest? How easy it would be for some militia man's journal detailing his encounter with a strange animal to be forgotten alongside the memorabilia of his many fallen comrades? Couple that with the Navajo peoples' tendency to keep secrets, and you have a little tribal myth that stays a myth." I glanced between him and Addison, both of whom were looking right back at me. I looked down into nowhere as I spoke,
"I don't suppose it would be hard at all." I spoke no further as Xavier arranged his baggage in the trunk of our car.
Thirty five minutes passed on the drive back to Durango La-Plata. Addison starred out of the passenger side window towards the prevailing wilderness while making idle conversation with Xavier for the duration of the car ride. Upon arriving back at the general aviation office we unloaded the car and walked through the automatic doors into the small pilot lounge where the airport manager was sitting. The man was a short, stocky native man, who accepted the keys to the Crown Victoria without any change in his bland expression. As I passed him to the airplane ramp, I glanced back to see if he would take notice of Xavier. Sure enough, the manager gave Xavier a cold stare as we strolled by. Upon reaching the door to the airport ramp, Xavier rushed up and tapped me on my shoulder, "Things are about to get stupid, where's your plane?" I was shocked at his sudden change in demeanor. Xavier had gone from a relatively laid back, normal man to a wired, serious combatant.
"It's parked four planes down, but we just landed it from a five hour flight, we need to refuel it." At the end of my sentence, I pointed towards a self serve fuel pump a half a mile down the ramp to the right side of the field. Xavier cursed under his breath, and took a 360 degree view of his surroundings. I looked around with him, glancing back at the airport manager as I walked though the doorway. The stocky man gave me a sideways glare as he retreated towards a room in the back of the building, bringing a flip phone up to his right ear. Xavier hastened his voice,
"Alright, let's get this shit in the plane, get fuel, and let's get wheels up, I don't want to get into a mix up here." The three of us hurried to the M20K and I wasted no time in opening the right side door and luggage compartment. I shoved Addison's camera into the back of the compartment, undid the rear and left tie downs, and hurried around to the right side of the airplane to get ready to roll over to the fuel pump. Addison threw herself into the back seat of the plane after undoing the right tie down. I turned back to her and spoke briefly while Xavier walked around the tail of the airplane to the passenger door,
"Can you believe this guy? Addison, I'm not sure about what we're getting ourselves into here anymore." Addison's blank expression turned confused, she responded in a surprisingly excited fashion,
"I don't know either, but it's honestly kind of exciting." As soon as she was done speaking, the right side door flung open and Xavier put half his body into the right seat. I started the engine, thinking to myself about how surreal everything was starting to feel. Neither Addison nor I had known this guy for more than a half a day and we were already getting tangled up in his problems. I was starting to regret being so laid back about Addison's spontaneousness. The Mooney's tires squealed as they came to a sudden stop next to the fuel pump. I pulled the mixture throttle all the way back to shut down the engine, climbed past Xavier, and jogged out wallet in had to the fuel station. I had just gotten the fuel nozzle to the right wing fuel tank when I noticed a white 1985 Ford F150 pull out onto the airport ramp from a service gate a quarter mile behind the plane. It slowed onto the middle of the taxiway we had used to get from the parking spot to the fuel pump, and soon after turned toward us and accelerated. Xavier flung the right side door open and strolled towards the tail of the plane to confront the truck, stopping only to tell Addison to have a camera rolling. The truck was almost upon Xavier when it counter steered left and then swung right, putting me in line with its front bumper. The truck's maneuver revealed two men riding in the bed, their arms rested on the left bed wall. The two men emerged from their sitting position armed with baseball bats while a third man emerged from the driver's side door, donning a pair of knuckle dusters. All three appeared to be of mixed Native American descent. The man standing in the middle wore ragged clothes and bore a heavily tattooed face. He bounced the baseball bat his left palm as he closed in on Xavier. Xavier spoke first,
"What the hell Guero? What's with the going away party? I help put you away for twelve months and you're out early causing trouble again." The man in the middle of the pack glanced down at his bat as he spoke,
"Judge went easy on me. She's getting pissed that you keep locking me up on bullshit."
"I wouldn't call dealing heroin to high school students a bullshit charge. What's it been, six months?"
"Yeah, she's comin' to the realization that yo' nothin' but a nuisance. If I remember right, she was tellin' you not to poke your nose in our shit no more, and here you are."
"I'm not up in your shit, I'm just passing though. Now get your skinny ass back in your cholo truck and get the hell outta here before I call The Honorable Lopez and tell her you're already terrorizing people with this shitty little clique you call a street gang." Xavier tuned on his heel back towards Addison and I, and was immediately pursued by Guero. he pivoted back towards the man as Guero spoke up,
"You Navajo have been nothin' but trouble, and I think Mrs. Lopez would agree. We can't let you go Quiroga, we gotta send yo' people a message." I turned my attention towards Addison, who was fumbling around the handheld camera she had left running on the flight from Ellensburg.
"Who the hell are those guys?" my voice was hushed, Addison took my lead and answered quietly,
"I have no clue, he told me to video them, but stupid thing is out of space."
"Yeah, you left it on the whole flight here."
"Well why the hell did you not tell me?" She shot the words at me angrily and loudly. I opened my mouth to hush her, and to tell her about her troubled sleep, but I was cut off by a sudden outburst between Guero and Xavier. Guero took a sudden swing at Xavier's head with his bat, which Xavier dodged and responded to with a right jab to the man's abdomen. While Guero reeled back, Xavier pressed on with a right elbow to the right side of his head, sending him to the concrete with a loud smack. Xavier made a smooth transition between the elbow to the right side of his belt, and drew a yellow gun-shaped object from under his un-tucked button up shirt. I could tell from the split second that I saw it that he held a large, multi-cartridge taser. The two other men were in mid charge when he fired his first shot, aiming at the man on his right. He patiently waiting for the leads to find their mark. Once they did, he transitioned to the man on his left, and fired one more. The moment both men were stuck with a set of leads, the taser discharged, sending the two to the ground with their friend. Xavier quickly looked back towards me and gestured, as if beckoning me to start taxing to the runway. I took his lead once the right tank was filled with fuel. I threw the fuel nozzle aside, ran over to shut the fuel pump off, and ran back through the right side door, vaulting to the left seat. I gave the ignition key a strong twist and waited for an exasperated click from the engine to advance the fuel throttle to full open. The engine roared to life, and I immediately began rolling the plane towards the single runway. I looked out of my left window as Xavier giving the men on the ground one last jolt before discarding his taser and running after the plane. I commanded Addison to keep the door ajar as we rolled off of the airport ramp, which she obliged to promptly. Right as the plane's nose wheel crossed the first taxiway intersection, Xavier jumped onto the right wing's walkway to the door. He swung himself in while commanding me,
"Whatever you need to do to get this plane off the ground right now, do it." I peered around momentarily. Guero had already found his feet, and was aiding his compatriots towards the truck. To my left, towards the active end of the runway, a regional jet was passing over the runway threshold line, intending to takeoff, while another jet lined up behind it. To my right, there was just under seven hundred feet of runway, not enough to get the Mooney off the ground in the thin mountain air. I halted at the intersection between the taxiway I was on and the runway. The jet to my left put his engines to full power accelerated. As the aircraft screamed my direction, I turned to see the three men clambering back into the truck. I leaned back into my seat and took a deep breath and extended the Mooney's flaps to takeoff position. I moved calmly, taxing the plane onto the runway as Xavier and Addison's stammered words faded to my ears. The regional jet lifted off just before my intersection and passed overhead just before my aircraft entered the runway. I turned my aircraft left, facing my nose straight towards the second jet preparing to take off. I knew that even if my plane could make it off the runway by seven hundred feet, the air disturbance caused by the first jet would likely flip us over and kill us. This meant taking off facing opposing traffic and taking off with a tailwind, but it was what I had to do to get off the ground before the truck had a chance to get anywhere near us.
Towards the fuel pump the pickup truck preformed a sloppy J-turn and steamed towards the taxiway I had just exited. I advanced the airplane's throttle all the way forward. I ignored the frightened objections of my passengers, as well as the the crew of the regional jet flashing their lights at me. The very moment my nose wheel lifted off the tarmac, I pulled the gear handle into the "up" position. The plane hardly changed altitude as the gear rocked smoothly into their cradles. As soon as the airspeed indicator crested 75 knots, I yanked the plane into a steep 15 degree upward attitude. The stall horn chirped continuously until the plane made it 150 feet above the ground, at which point the regional jet, still resting on the runway numbers, passed underneath us. I took a deep breath, lowered the nose, accelerated the plane, retracted the flaps, and pitched up once again all the while gently banking towards Navajo Lake.
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