Richards brought the station wagon to a halt at the top of the rise. From this vantage point you couldn’t miss it. Sun was high in the sky and glaring off the vast amount of tinted glass and polished steel between and around the dark wood frame of your typical southwestern ranch house.
Typical, if the owners were named Rockefeller or Getty.
Place seemed like it was nestled right up to the foot of the mountains, in a sheltered little valley. There was a gate mounted on stone pillars, with an arch above it. An adobe wall extended from the gate on both sides, wrapping around the perimeter of the property. Seemed to go all the way back to the mountains. The area in front of the house was paved with red bricks in a pattern of expanding circles. Near the left wall, about a hundred yards or so down from the gate, Frank saw three small, red, domed structures. Another fifty yards farther along sat two buildings fashioned out of the same dark wood as the main house. One looked like a stable or a barn and the other seemed to be a miniature version of the big house. But plenty big enough for people to live in.
Frank said, “So who’s the guy who built this place?”
“An old-time Denver tycoon by the name of Howard Parker. Made most of his money in railroads and mining. Some say he would invest in anything that came along if it looked profitable, ethical concerns be damned. The way his son Bryce tells it, this trait led to some of the old boy’s peers calling him Colonel Parker, after Elvis Presley’s sleazy manager. This was in his later years and I guess old Howie didn’t appreciate the humor very much. He drifted away from the old-school guys, which effectively curtailed the gatherings of the mucky-mucks out here. Bryce owns the estate now. He’ll be coming in tomorrow, I think. Sonofabitch is a real party animal, who also shares his father’s disdain for laws and regulations.”
The fifty yards or so leading to the front gate looked to be paved with bricks the color of sand.
The goddamn yellow brick road, Frank thought to himself as Richards put the Ford in gear and proceeded down the hill.
The arch above the gate consisted of two curved metal bars with wrought-iron letters in between. Sonora North.
“Sonora North?” Frank said as Richards stopped the wagon in front of the gate.
“The old man loved Sonora, Mexico. Back in the forties he owned a hunting camp down there somewhere. Bryce said the family also owned a hotel in Hermosilla. As the story goes, old Howie brought a crew of Mexicans up here from Sonora to build this place. There are old photos of the crew and the early stages of the house inside. Our location here is on the northern edge of the Sonoran Desert, so there you go.”
Richards got out of the wagon and went to the gate, where he pushed some buttons on a control panel mounted on the right hand pillar. Frank looked out at the mammoth, sprawling, two-story structure of gray-tinted glass and thick wooden beams as the gate swung slowly inward.
Richards drove up to the front door of the house, parked, and started fetching his bags from the back of the wagon.
Going in the front door, first thing Frank noticed was the crisp, clean, cool air and the hum of air conditioning. Refrigeration. Dried the sweat on his chest and gave him goose bumps.
To his right was the living room. Or great room. And this one was really great. In the middle of the high vaulted ceiling was a chandelier fashioned from the wheel of an old Conestoga wagon. Resembled those Frank had seen in a few Minnesota cabins, except this one seemed to be rimmed with sterling silver instead of the usual steel.
The rest of the room was all dark wood and leather furniture, and a massive stone fireplace made of what Frank thought to be stones gathered from the area, same material as the gate pillars.
The Sonora factor was evident in the Mexican rugs on the hardwood floor, and also the wall hangings. Frank stared at a tapestry on the wall with a multi-colored pinwheel. Reminded him of something he’d seen on a mescaline trip in the late sixties.
The Parker factor was likely represented by the large number of mounts on the walls, running the gamut from African beasts—a lion, a water buffalo and a rhinoceros—to local creatures like the mule deer, coyote and mountain lion. A huge grizzly on its hind legs in the far corner of the room, toothy maw locked in a roar, seemed to be a nod to Teddy Roosevelt’s famous stuffed bear Frank had seen in history books.
(To be continued)
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