THE LAST SONG DOGS

1

I skimmed the article with something less than enthusiasm. I knew better. Every time I pick up the papers I always want them to be filled with happy stories. They never are. But, instead of skipping all the gory stuff, I always find my eyes drifting back to the stories I promised myself I wouldn't read. They suck me in, and then I spend a few minutes off and on throughout the day grieving for the family killed in the fire, the child lost in the mountains, the raped coed - the list is endless, and always haunting.

So, last week it was the arms story. A street person hunting aluminum cans had found them. They were women's arms, too, which made the whole thing even more disgusting. No rings or fancy manicure, though. Just plain women's arms.

I had coffee with my cousin Beatrice the morning the story first ran. The police were searching for a body and I remember Bea, a television anchorperson with a morbid curiosity, wondering why they automatically assumed the woman was dead just because her arms had been cut off at the shoulder. At the time I'd thought her optimism misplaced until I remembered another horrible news story in which a California teenager’s arms had been chopped off, and she had lived. But now a week had gone by and no body had been found, so maybe Bea was right.

It was hard to get the arms out of my mind, though. Just about every day a new story ran about them, adding to the information my saturated brain had already stored and didn't want.

My name is Trade Ellis. Weird name. My life is odd, too. I’m a rancher and a private investigator. I always describe my investigative work the way the old-time cavalry troopers described theirs: weeks of sheer boredom punctuated by moments of total terror. If the PI work were anything at all like those television programs, I would have given it up long ago. My heart couldn't take it.

All in all though, it's not a bad way to make a living. I set my own hours, write my own paycheck, and, thanks to the income from my ranch, can be fairly selective about my clients. It's also a great conversation grabber when people ask, "And what do you do?" That is on the days I don't lie.

Today they found the owner of the arms. No body, just the identification. I got a funny pasty lump in my stomach when I read the name, Valerie Higgins. I knew her. She was a Song Dog.

She and I had gone to high school together, a long time ago in Tucson. Javelina High. The j was pronounced like h and we had all scribbled Javelina Jigh on our notebooks, thinking we were pretty cool.

Our mascot back then had been the javelina, or peccary. A funny- looking little wild pig-type animal with lousy eyesight. Indigenous to our state, Arizona. Terrific mascot. A blind piggy.

Anyway, Valerie had been one of the blind piggies and so had I. Of course, we traveled in different circles. She'd been one of the popular ones: blond, with straight hair I always envied. Not only envied, but tried to emulate as I laid my own curly black mane out on the ironing board and tried to straighten it with a hot iron. Why I still have any hair at all is a mystery to me. Must have something to do with my Apache ancestry, which had nothing to do with my curls.

It wasn't that I was wildly unpopular. I had plenty of friends. But I was never a cheerleader, a pom-pom girl or Queen of Anything. Then, as now, I was pretty wrapped up in my horses and cattle, which set me apart from most of the student body.

Valerie Higgins was one of those girls who had Capezio shoes in every color and boys only in white. She'd been a cheerleader. One of the Javelina High Song Dogs, a cutesy name coined for the pep squad. Song Dogs was a slang term for coyotes and the student body pinned it on the cheerleaders, since they also howled. Some school.

Valerie and I had gone to Mrs. Wright's together too. A waste of Saturday mornings, where we learned about important things like receiving lines, proper introductions, ballroom dancing, and that if you sweat enough, it will seep through thin white cotton gloves and the boy you're dancing with will feel the sticky mess and pretend not to notice, and you'll both be relieved when Mrs. Wright's little palm clicker finally announces the end of the dance.

I chuckled, remembering how I'd looked back then. Tall, like a long-legged colt, all gangly limbs, knobby knees and over-sized hands. I had a wild look about me, with my black hair hanging down below my waist. As my father had said I would, I had eventually grown into my coltish body. Thankfully, I’m still thin and blessed with a heavy head of hair. Now it tickled the middle of my back, though, not my belt. I'm also probably shrinking for I'm not much over five-seven.

The other thing I'd hated about Mrs. Wright's was the lines of boys and girls staring at each other from opposite sides of the room. The boys were supposed to ask the girls to dance, and we lingered, like vultures waiting on a cold morning for our wings to warm so we could fly. Valerie was always one of the first to go, I was always one of the last. And they say there isn't a caste system in America.

My attendance at Mrs. Wright's was a concession to my mother. I saw it as penance for the hours I spent on horseback helping my father with the ranch. I also blamed Manda Ortiz for my matriculation. The prod came when Grandma Rose came visiting in fifth grade.

Grandma was both hard of hearing and poor of sight, and we were driving her through the desert showing her the wildflowers when we came across two burros going at it.

Grandma Rose squinted and craned her neck out the open car window.

"George," she addressed her firstborn, my father, "what are those creatures doing?"

"Fucking, Grandma," I replied.

I never thought of my mother as a particularly fast mover, but she surprised me that day as she spun her body around to the back seat.

"Where did you hear that word?" Her face, normally the color of a long summer's tan, paled several shades. My mother, who was half Apache, had been raised in a culture whose language did not include swear words.

"Well, that's what Manda Ortiz calls it," I sniffed, without a clue as to my transgression.

Manda's father, Juan, worked for us on the ranch. Dad thought it was wonderful when Juan's daughter and I became fast friends. Mother, who considered Manda a bit wild, was not so sure. In spite of her doubts, she promised to make a valiant effort to overcome the historical enmity harbored by the Apaches against the Mexicans.

"She'll teach Trade Spanish," my father had assured her.

My mother was now seriously questioning the wisdom of the cultural exchange, and thanks to Manda's tutoring, the foundation had been set for my years in hell. Two years later, the fall I hit seventh grade, I'd found myself enrolled at Mrs. Wright's. Along with the now dead Valerie Higgins.

Her photograph haunted me from the front page. I wasn't surprised to see an older Valerie. After I turned forty, I played a game with myself. As I saw or read about my old classmates, or anyone within a five-year range of my own age, the measurement now was always, "Does she look older than I?" I attributed this preoccupation to curiosity, of course, not vanity.

Valerie passed the test. Most of the blond ones did. Must be something in the genes, because they all seemed to get wrinkled quicker than the rest of us. Maybe it was all that Noxzema they smeared on their faces in high school.

God knows I have had enough opportunity to spawn wrinkles. After spending my entire life outdoors, it's not that I don't have any lines, just not as many as a lot of my comadres.

I carefully read the article. So far the police didn't have any leads. Valerie had been at a happy hour with friends and had left early. Her locked car was found in the parking lot, but no one had seen her leave.

She had been a popular middle school teacher. No enemies. Happy home life. She'd been a real estate agent at one time and therefore fingerprinted by the state. The prints had been matched to the lost arms.

Valerie taught school on the far east side of Tucson. Her arms had been found down near the University district, in a trash bin on the trendy Fourth Avenue.

As the story jumped to page two, I saw a photograph. Apparently the brutality of the deed had captured the imagination of the University students, who had set up a makeshift shrine at the crime scene. Written on the ugly container, alongside gang graffiti and sexual suggestions, were odes to the late victim.

Someone, perhaps in deference to the English classes Valerie had taught, penned, "Death cancels everything but the truth." No attribution was given. Pots of artificial geraniums and small votive candles, coupled with discarded McDonald's containers, gave the trash bin the appearance of a bizarre pagan altar.

The news story included quotes from her principal and one of her friends. It was the usual: She was well liked and devoted to her family. She was survived by her husband, Jerry, whom I couldn’t place, and two kids in college.

Questioned about her jewelry, since none was found on the arms, the friend replied that Valerie always wore her wedding band and a watch.