Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries (19 page)

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Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear,W. Michael Gear

BOOK: Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries
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“Me? Why me?” Her eyes were like dark, shining pools.
Browser walked to a high point, a rounded knob of sandstone, and got down on his belly. Obsidian stretched out beside him, and her black hair spilled around her body like a silken cloak of darkness. Her spicy scent filled the air.
She whispered, “Why do you think we’re being followed?”
“Because that is what I would do?”
“What you would do?”
“Yes, if I were Blue Corn, or Two Hearts, or anyone curious as to why our party left in the middle of the night.”
As she turned to look at the road, the morning wind blew her hair around her beautiful face. “Why would Blue Corn follow us? We did nothing to her.”
“We left at the same time as the Mogollon. She must be wondering if we left together, and if so, what we are up to.”
They lay silently side by side, listening to the cold winter darkness, seeing the horizon brighten. Then Browser felt her move, and a warm hand brushed his. He shuddered and turned to her.
“Browser,” she said, “I have only realized recently how Shadow has affected you. You hate her, and you should. But I am not her.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’ve been lonely,” she told him. “It comes from guarding secrets, from knowing who I am, and not being able to just be a woman.”
“You could change.”
Her eyes were wide and dark, and she was very beautiful. “Could I, Browser? Could you?”
“Could I change how?”
“Could you find a new life? Step into the role the gods have prepared you for?”
“And what role is that?”
“The leader of a people.”
“What are you talking about?”
She slid closer to him and smoothed her hand over the muscles in his arm. “I would help you, Browser. You’re stronger than you know. More important than you know. I am offering my help, willing to work with you to rebuild our world.”
The scent of her, the warmth of her body …
“We are both First People, you and I,” she whispered. “Both alone … and, gods, it’s cold out here.”
Every time his heart beat, a fiery sting of longing surged in his veins. He hadn’t been with a woman in almost a sun cycle and suddenly felt like a man dying of thirst who had just been offered water.
Obsidian smiled and lifted her face. Her full lips were moist and shining. “Do I not attract you at all?” she asked.
He swallowed hard, knowing full well that all he had to do was reach over and touch her, and she would fold him into her arms. After that her soft flesh would open to him and nothing would ever be the same again.
“You do, but I …” He pushed up on his elbows, prepared to rise, and froze.
Yes, there. Movement. Gray figures ghosted out of the predawn twilight. They looked like ants as they scurried purposely for the crumbling walls of Twin Heroes
village. Browser knew those capes: White Moccasins.
“There.” He pointed.
Obsidian shook her head, as though she didn’t see them; then her eyes widened. “Are those white capes?”
“I think so.”
She let out a small wretched cry and scrambled backward, trying to get away.
Browser grabbed hand, and she struggled against him.
“Let go!” she hissed. “We have to run! Hurry! Let me go!” Utter terror twisted her face as she clawed at his hand.
Browser jerked her closer, his grip hard, and whispered, “Quiet. We’re well away from their trap. Now, follow me, on your belly.”
 
 
MAUREEN SNUGGED HER coat around her, bracing against a cold gust of wind that blasted the mountaintop. Dusty had insisted that Dale’s memorial be held high on Sandia Crest. Three thousand feet below lay Albuquerque and the undeveloped Sandia Indian Reservation. The Rio Grande cut a gray-brown line across the valley and, to the west, the knobby heights of the San Mateo Mountains rose eleven thousand feet to Mount Taylor’s summit. What a vista. But for the biting wind, it would have been magnificent. Just what Dale would have wanted.
Fifty-eight people had come. Maureen knew Sylvia Rhone, Steve Sanders, Michall Jefferson, and Maggie Walking Hawk Taylor; she had worked with them in the past. Agent Nichols stood in the rear, wearing a puffy goose-down parka. He held a video camera to his eye, panning the crowd, but not to record the proceedings—though
the guests would not know that. One by one, she studied the faces. Most of the attendees were archaeologists and faculty from the University of New Mexico. They had been introduced in such a rush, the names had slipped away with the wind. The others were strangers, people who’d come in response to the obituary in the newspaper. Not even Dusty knew them. Only Dale’s sister, a frail gray-haired woman in her eighties, represented his family. She huddled in a wheelchair, covered by blankets and looking miserable.
Maureen’s eyes kept drifting to a tall elderly man who stood slightly to the rear, as if to separate himself from the assembly. He watched with his eyes narrowed against the wind, a frightened look on his reddened face. When his gaze met hers, she saw how hard he’d clenched his jaw.
Maureen leaned sideways to whisper to Dusty, “Who’s that man in the rear?”
“What man?” Dusty turned, and his freshly washed blond hair tousled beneath the brim of his battered cowboy hat. He wore a heavy denim coat with the fleece collar pulled up. In his hands, he clutched the ancient Anasazi pot that held Dale’s ashes.
“That man …” Her voice faded.
He was gone. She searched the crowd and caught sight of him heading for the parking lot. “That man. Over there.”
Dusty looked, then shook his head. “I can’t tell, probably an old friend from before my time.”
He turned back to the crowd and clutched the black-on-white pot to his chest like a precious child. It had rested on Dale’s
trastero.
Dusty said it had been Dale’s favorite.
Addressing the crowd, Dusty shouted, “Dale would be so pleased to see you here. He’d also be amazed that you’d come out in such cold circumstances. In fact, he’d probably think we were out of our minds to be
up here when we could be in a nice warm tavern somewhere toasting him.”
Scattered laughter broke out among the archaeological contingent. Someone called, “Here’s to Dale!”
Dusty smiled, but the gesture was forced, and everyone knew it. The crowd moved in closer, huddling together to listen.
Sylvia and Maggie had their arms around each other. Steve Sanders, the tall black man to Maureen’s left, just closed his eyes.
“As most of you know, Dale raised me.” Dusty held the pot out in his hands. “So, I’m not just saying good-bye to a friend and colleague, but to a father. After my father’s death, Dale took me into his heart and his home and never looked back. I’ve spent most of my life thanking the Great Spirit that he did.”
Dusty looked around, searching the faces. “He was a man who touched other people’s lives. When you were down, Dale was always there to pick you up, dust you off, and shove you forward again. He insisted that people exceed his expectations. Somehow, he always knew we could do better than we thought we could. He demanded that of his peers … of himself, and most of all of me. I could not have asked for a better father.”
Dusty smiled, and Maureen couldn’t be sure if it was the bitter wind or the moment that brought a tear out of the corner of his eye.
He looked down at the pot. “Dale was taken from us. Someone lured him out to Chaco Canyon and murdered him. I swear, no matter how long it takes, I will find out who killed him and why, but …” His voice broke. He took a few moments to collect himself, then inhaled a deep breath. “But I have to let you go now, Dale. Thank you for all the years you stood by me. For all the lessons you taught. I’m going to miss you.” He paused. “As I was taught in my kiva initiation,
Yupa. Angwu!
‘Be on your way.’” He reached into the pot, took out a handful of the gray ash, and let the wind
blow it away. “If you will all repeat after me,
Yupa. Angwu!”
“Yupa! Angwu!”
Maureen repeated as Dusty turned the pot and let the fierce west wind carry the physical remains of Dale Emerson Robertson across the barren rock and scrub of Sandia Crest.
Be on your way, Dale.
Another loved one had vanished from her life, and she felt the stitch of loss in her heart.
“Thank you for coming,” Dusty called. “We’re having a reception at the office in town. Most of you know the way. If you don’t, see me, Sylvia, Steve, or Michall for directions.”
People began to trickle away, taking the trail back to the parking lot. Others came to cluster around Dusty. This was the part Maureen hated: the platitudes and offering of condolences. God, how she’d suffered through that after John’s death. People just had to say something and no matter how sincere they were, it always reopened the wound.
Maureen walked to the lip of the mountain, faced into the wind, and let it chill the ache in her soul. The mountain dropped away at her feet, falling in jagged outcrops of gray. Brush and scattered pines filled the drainages. To her left she could see the aerial tram line that descended to northeastern Albuquerque. In the deepening glow of evening, lights flickered on in Albuquerque, as though marking the city’s arteries and skeleton.
What am I doing here?
The question caught her off guard. Dale was dead. She had come to the Southwest because of him. Now, here she was, standing on the edge of the precipice. She could turn around, walk back to the Bronco, and have Dusty drop her off at the Albuquerque airport. United would take her back to Denver, and from there she could book a flight to Toronto. By this time tomorrow, she could be sitting in her overstuffed easy chair at home, a cup of tea at
hand, as she looked out the French windows at Lake Ontario. They’d had snow in Niagara-on-the-Lake, assuming, of course, that she could trust CNN. Her yard would be white, an unmarred blanket trimmed by the silvering waves that washed the shoreline fifty steps from her back door.
“Dale would have appreciated this,” a voice said behind her.
She turned, finding a tall, hawk-faced man in a thick gray Filson coat, jeans, and wearing polished western boots. His black felt cowboy hat was pulled low over his eyes. He had a brown face and steely gray hair. Maureen’s practiced eye noted the lines around his mouth and eyes, and the leathery skin on his neck. He had to be around sixty.
“Yes, he would have,” Maureen answered. “He wasn’t the type for a service in a building.”
“Unless it was a half-excavated pueblo,” the man added, smiling wistfully. He offered his hand. “I haven’t met you. I’m Rupert Brown. An old friend of Dale’s.”
“The park superintendent? Dusty mentioned you. I’m glad to meet you, I’m Maureen Cole.” She took his hand and shook. His fingers were oddly warm.
“Ah.” He smiled. “Dr. Cole. Yes. Magpie calls you Washais. I assume that’s your tribal name?” She nodded and he continued, “I read your report on 10K3. That was a brilliant piece of work. I’m not used to that kind of thorough skeletal analysis from contract archaeology.”
“Well, Dale had a hunch about that site. I’m glad he called me in. It was a unique opportunity.”
Their conversation waned, and Maureen turned and started back across the rocky ground toward Dusty. A knot of people had surrounded him, and he looked a little overwhelmed. Rupert Brown walked at her side.
“Dale and his hunches,” Brown said. “God, I’ll miss
him. Did Dusty tell you that I took that first job with Dale to learn how to rob sites?”
“No.” She stumbled on a loose stone and had to spread her arms to keep her balance. Brown caught her hand, steadying her. “Sorry. You were saying?”
Brown laughed. “Hey, I was a screwed-up young man. It was the start of the southwestern Indian craze. I thought I could make enough digging up pots and selling them to keep myself in booze and dope. What better way to learn how than to get paid by an archaeologist at the same time?”
Maureen gave him a sidelong glance. “What did you do with the artifacts you took?”
“Most of them I sold. A few I kept. Later, when I realized what an ass I’d been, I curated the rest at the University of New Mexico.” He paused, and a strange look entered his dark eyes. “Except for a couple of things I threw away.”
“Threw away?” Maureen sounded appalled because she was. “You threw away prehistoric artifacts?”
Rupert nodded. “I did. And I don’t regret it. Those things scared the daylights out of me.”
Dark clouds swelled on the southern horizon. Maureen studied them for a time before she said, “Well, I guess not all career opportunities work out.”
“No.” He smiled, seeing into the past. “I was looking for a way to gain power, wealth, and prestige. More than anything, I wanted people to look up to me, to respect me. I would have given anything for that. What did I know about archaeology? And then, working with Dale, I touched the past.” He looked down at the ground and his smile faded. “I heard the ancestors, Dr. Cole. They showed me a better way.”

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