Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries (37 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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Bone Walker sobbed.
Stone Ghost clamped his jaw. He knew he should stop this, but he needed to hear her answers to Straighthorn’s questions.
“What about Shadow Woman?” Straighthorn pressed. “Is she your mother? I’m going to kill her,
too. She’s a monster. A hideous animal disguised as a human.”
The little girl stuttered, “S-sometimes she has b-bead days!”
“Bead days? What’s that?”
Bone Walker said, “B-bad days.”
Straighthorn’s cape rustled, as though he’d stood up. “Do you know Shadow Woman? If she’s your mother, why hasn’t she come to look for you? Maybe she doesn’t care about you.”
Stone Ghost peered around the door into the room. Bone Walker stood with her head tipped far back, staring up at Straighthorn. She had her tiny fists clenched at her sides.
Straighthorn glared down at her. He’d cut his hair in mourning for Redcrop and the irregular black locks framed his thin face and hooked nose. “Just remember. If you know anything, you’d better come and tell me.”
He turned to leave, and his threadbare red cape swung around him.
Stone Ghost backed out of the room.
As Straighthorn passed him, Stone Ghost gripped his arm and motioned for Straighthorn to follow him. Straighthorn’s fiery brown eyes tightened, but he nodded and followed Stone Ghost down the hall to a nearby chamber.
When they stood alone in the musty darkness, Stone Ghost said, “Who told you the child might know Two Hearts and Shadow Woman?”
Straighthorn gave Stone Ghost a disgruntled look. “Obsidian. She said that you questioned her about it. That you thought the child might be related to them.”
“Did Obsidian say the child was related to them?”
Straighthorn frowned. “No. She just mentioned the possibility.”
Stone Ghost smiled in a grandfatherly way and put a hand on Straighthorn’s shoulder. “Thank you, Straighthorn.
If she tells you anything else, I would appreciate it if you would let me know.”
“Of course, Elder.”
Straighthorn bowed respectfully and left.
Stone Ghost braced his aching knees and listened to the youth’s steps echo down the long hallway.
So, Obsidian wishes the child dead. Why
?
Obsidian knew how much Straighthorn had loved Redcrop. Just planting the thought that Bone Walker might be related to Redcrop’s murderers could have been enough. Fortunately, today, it wasn’t. But who knew about tomorrow? Who else had Obsidian told?
Stone Ghost hobbled back down the hall and reentered the room where Bone Walker had been standing. It took him several moments to find her. She lay in the darkest corner, covered with fallen stones she must have collected from the floor. She had her back turned to Stone Ghost.
“Bone Walker?” he called softly. “Are you all right?”
The stones rattled, then one hit the wall, hard.
He walked over and sat down next to her. All he could see beneath the stones was a sliver of her blue dress and a lock of her long black hair.
“Rocks have souls, you know,” he repeated her words. “Be careful who you hurt.”
The stones rattled again.
Then her dirty hand snaked from beneath the stones and reached for the rock she’d thrown.
She dragged it back and petted it gently.
Stone Ghost smiled.
 
 
DUSTY WATCHED MAUREEN thoughtfully poke at her lamb-stuffed poblano pepper, shoving the last bits around her plate with her fork.
The Coyote Café brimmed with patrons. The clatter of silverware and dishes melded with the background murmur of animated conversations. He had led her up the green cement stairs from Water Street and into the tan interior with its rounded fireplace, north-facing windows, and ornate wooden reception desk.
Her eyes fixed on the wooden animals who lived on the hood over the open kitchen. The howling coyotes with their kitsch neckerchiefs seemed to hold her attention.
“Something you’d like to tell me?”
She looked at him. “Actually I was just thinking that you’re the luckiest man alive.”
He speared his last cube of tenderloin and ate it. “I’d be curious to know how you figure that.”
“The greatest stroke of luck in your life occurred when your mother abandoned you.”
Dusty leaned back in his chair and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “It didn’t feel that way at the time.”
“No, I’m sure it didn’t. Nonetheless.”
Dusty wiped his hands and refolded the napkin. She had a strange, almost angry look in her eyes. “I imagine that Agent Nichols is about finished wringing him out by now. I want my chance next.”
“You think Hawsworth did it?”
He placed the folded napkin on the table. “We’ll know if Nichols arrests him.”
Maureen rested her fork on her plate, as though her hunger had vanished. She wore a pale blue sweater, and her long braid seemed to pick up the hues, glinting azure in the dim café light. She leaned forward to brace her elbows on the table. “Ruth Ann could have done it, too, Dusty. Something about her just isn’t right, and she’s certainly not telling us everything. Something happened back in the past. Something between her, Dale, and Carter.”
“You mean besides a little fornication and frolic?”
Maureen ignored his attempt at humor. “Your
mother said something that’s been bothering me. She said that Carter had his own witch.”
“You don’t
have
a witch, Maureen. They have you.”
Maureen picked up her honey-coated blue corn bread, and aimed it at him. “She made it sound like the witch was Carter’s private teacher.”
Dusty pushed his plate across the marble tabletop. “Well, it’s possible. Hawsworth is an expert on the subject. Somebody had to show him the ropes.”
“Yes, but let’s not forget that Ruth Ann’s first article was on witchcraft in the Southwest. Did Carter’s witch show her the ropes, as well?”
He thought she was beautiful when her black eyes turned cool and accusing.
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” he said, wanting to discuss anything but this, and added, “let’s order dessert.”
All through his cactus mousse custard he pondered what a man would have to do to have his own “private” witch?
He was still thinking of that as he drove out to the trailer.
Maureen silently watched the galleries pass, then as they neared his trailer, said, “You’re better than all of them, Dusty. I don’t know how, but you came out a better human being.”
“I came out fine because of Dale.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “But Ruth Ann made a good point. She said that Dale could never deal with a woman on an equal basis.”
“That’s nonsense. Dale dealt with females just fine. He thought you were the finest physical anthropologist in the world.”
“But I was part of his team, Dusty. Don’t you see? Did you ever know him to work for anyone else? Dale was always the boss. Ruth Ann says that’s why he never married. He couldn’t maintain a relationship, no matter how much he was attracted to a woman.”
“Yeah, well,” he said. “I’ve been called the ‘Two-month
Wonder’ by a number of women—because that’s how long they could stand me.”
“I’ve stood you for three months,” she noted.
“Yes, but have you enjoyed it?”
She gave him an amused look. “Yes. Very much.”
He smiled and pulled into the drive that led to his trailer. Stopping beside Dale’s truck, he shut off the engine and looked at her. “That’s because we’re friends, Maureen. Not lovers. Something changes when you go to bed with a woman.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never gone to bed with a woman.”
“Well I have, and believe me, something changes. They get crazy.”
“You mean you get crazy.”
Dusty opened his door. “Yeah, well, maybe.”
She got out of the Bronco and closed the door. “The point I was trying to make is that unlike Dale you can work with women as equals.”
Dusty watched her march toward the trailer door. “You think I treat women as equals?” He walked up behind her, searching for the key. “You’re the first female to say so.”
He stood behind her, close enough that he could smell her delicate scent on the evening breeze. Finally, he found the shiny new key, unlocked the door, and flicked on the lights. As he headed for the kitchen, he asked, “Coffee?”
She set her purse by the door. The way she was looking at him made his nerves begin to vibrate. The chilly air had brought color to her cheeks and her black eyes seemed to be stirring with some emotion he couldn’t understand. Dear God, she was beautiful.
“Can I ask a question?” her voice had lowered, softening.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Did you ever hear about your father being impotent?”
That caught him flat-footed, one hand on the refrigerator handle. “What?”
“Did you ever hear that?”
He turned and braced a hand on the kitchen counter. “No, but who would tell me?”
“Ruth Ann claimed Samuel was impotent.”
Dusty hesitated, thinking about that, then turned back to the refrigerator. “She hated him, Maureen.”
Maureen shrugged out of her coat and went to stand before the picture of Samuel Stewart. “Not at first. From what I can gather, your father was a kind and sensitive idealist. He probably fell head-over-heels for Ruth Ann. She was beautiful, sexy, and available. She must have seemed like a dream come true until she grew tired of him and the Southwest.”
“And me,” Dusty added pointedly.
Maureen seemed to be lost in the photograph of Sam beside the pickup. “She must have made his life a living hell.”
“And everyone else’s life who ever knew her.”
Maureen walked to the table and slid onto a chair. “When she talked about his impotence this morning, Dusty, she meant it. It wasn’t just spite.”
Dusty pulled a beer from the refrigerator and pried
off the cap. The rich scent of Guinness made him feel better. He took a long drink, then said, “I can understand how a woman like her would make a man impotent.”
The lines around Maureen’s mouth deepened. “Poor Sam. She broke him, and then she left him in the dust.”
Dusty set his Guinness down and reached for the coffee. As he spooned grounds into the basket, he said, “It’s more than that—she killed him. Maybe she wasn’t in the room when Dad stuffed his finger into the light socket, but she might as well have been.”
Maureen turned her level eyes on him. “Maybe she regretted that—and wanted to be there when she killed Dale.”
 
 
THE FIRE POPPED and tentative flames licked around the curved bottom of the corrugated cooking pot. Flickering light illuminated the faces of the people crouched anxiously around the walls, their eyes on the pot. The delightful smell of boiling blue corn mixed tauntingly with the antelope bone butter. Catkin’s stomach twisted in anticipation.
Stone Ghost sat in the rear of the chamber with the little girl’s head in his lap. Half asleep, she had her cornhusk doll clutched in her hands. Stone Ghost had spread his feather cape over the girl. He must have been cold, but he seemed content.
Browser settled himself between Catkin and Old Pigeontail. She was intimately aware of his thigh pressed against hers. She had to fight the urge to reach down and touch him.
“It’s an interesting problem, War Chief,” Pigeontail said. “You are boxed by two larger parties.” He cast his appraising glance across the room to where Obsidian hunched with her back to the wall, speaking with Stone Ghost. She had washed her hair to its usual gloss.
“Are you trying to give me advice, Elder?” Browser asked.
“If it were me, I would wait until nightfall, drop into the drainage, and follow it away. By morning I would be long gone.”
Catkin asked suddenly, “Elder, why are you here? You always seem to show up at the most inappropriate times.”
Pigeontail smiled. “I’m curious, that’s all. I would see the people brave enough to corner Two Hearts in his own lair.”
Conversation stopped as all eyes turned to Pigeontail.
Catkin said, “How do you know this is his lair?”
Pigeontail refilled his teacup from the pot at the edge of the coals and swirled the liquid, as though examining it. “The man you knew as Elder Springbank committed terrible crimes at Longtail village. You unmasked him there, but he lived here for many sun cycles before that. Isn’t it an odd coincidence that you have come here, to this place, just after Gray Thunder’s murder, and just after word has gone out that Two Hearts seeks the heart of the beautiful Obsidian?” He glanced meaningfully across the room.
Obsidian’s dark eyes widened.
“How do you know that?” Browser asked.
Pigeontail opened his hands. “I am a Trader, War Chief. I go a great many places and hear a great many things. I have been doing this for more seasons than anyone alive. Oh, I have traded with the White Moccasins for sun cycles, just as I have traded with the Mogollon and the Hohokam. I go everywhere and speak to everyone. I am alive today because I keep people’s secrets.”
“But not the secret that Elder Springbank wishes Obsidian’s heart,” Catkin said.
Pigeontail gave her an amused look. “It is not a secret, Deputy Catkin. Besides, the White Moccasins trust me.”
“And you were just there,” Stone Ghost said from the rear.
Pigeontail turned to smile at him. “Yes. I was.” He glanced at Obsidian again. “You will be glad to know, incidentally, that Two Hearts says if he can’t get your heart he will have to find another relative to provide the heart.”
Obsidian lifted her chin haughtily. “Then he should take Shadow’s worm-ridden heart. It would fit him well.”
The little girl jerked upright in Stone Ghost’s lap. Utter terror twisted her young face. Stone Ghost said something soft to her and stroked her hair.
Catkin glared at Pigeontail. “You just visited the White Moccasins? What’s the matter with you? Don’t you care that they killed, beheaded, and stripped the meat from the people at Aspen village? Or that Springbank burned half our children to death in Longtail village?”
Catkin started to rise, but Browser’s hand stopped her. “Wait,” he whispered.
Pigeontail just sipped his tea, apparently unflustered. After a moment of silence he said, “Catkin, I have lived over seventy summers. In that time I have seen atrocity after atrocity.” He cocked his head, his eyes, like ambered pine, on hers. “What one people might consider a vicious and evil massacre is considered by the perpetrators as a just and morally correct response to aggression. Look around you. Your people have always considered the Fire Dogs to be cowardly fiends. Yet, here you are, sharing their companionship, fighting side by side, the slights and insults of the past forgotten for the needs of the present. One person’s fiend is another’s hero.”
“Yes, but Two Hearts is a witch, Pigeontail,” Browser said. “We’ve always hunted down witches.”
Pigeontail raised his hands. “Yes, you have. You’ve hunted them because you’re not witches yourselves. Listen to me, I can only tell you the rules under which I must live as a Trader. I take no one’s side. I tell only what people want told. By following those rules I have stayed alive all these sun cycles. It is not pleasant to deal with friends who murder other friends, but it is how I must live.” He paused, holding Catkin’s gaze. “Would you have me leave here knowing I could go
to Center Place and tell Blue Corn that you are in Kettle Town? Or would you have me go to High Sun, my head full of things to tell the White Moccasins?”
“I would smack your brains out,” Catkin said, “before I let you take one step from here.”
“Then you understand, Deputy Catkin.” Pigeontail smiled disarmingly.
Stone Ghost rose and hobbled forward unsteadily. When he lowered himself to the floor beside Pigeontail, the old Trader winced.
Stone Ghost’s thin white hair blazed in the firelight. “But it brings up a good question,” Stone Ghost said.
“I have known you since you were a boy and have never seen you act brashly.”
“Me? Brash?” Pigeontail asked.
Stone Ghost smiled, but it only reached his lips. His eyes remained keen and unamused. “Surely you know that we are in great danger and that by coming here, you are in great danger. Why take the chance?”
Pigeontail’s brows arched. “Momentous things are happening, old friend. You are in the middle of them. I would see what happens.” He chuckled. “Look at me! Have you ever heard of a Trader who lived as long as I have? On rare occasions, yes, but look at me. I can still run the roads. My old bones and joints continue to carry me on my journeys. Perhaps it is the will of the gods that I have been to so many places and talked to so many people. But I can’t go on forever. I feel the stiffness and my back hurts every time I shoulder a pack. I have seen so much in my time, have watched our peoples through the coming of the coughing sickness, and watched them waste into death. I have seen the increasing warfare, the growth of the Katsinas’ People, and the rise of the Flute Player warriors. I have walked through the ruins of once thriving towns, kicked the unburied bones of friends to clear my path. I have seen the rebirth of the White Moccasins, and now word that the First People still live is spreading
across the land. Gray Thunder, a prophet from the Fire Dogs, has been murdered in Blue Corn’s Sunrise House, and Mogollon and Straight Path warriors hunt the old witch Two Hearts in retaliation.” His smile was crafty. “I may not live much longer, but what a story I will tell on my deathbed.”
Stone Ghost rubbed his hands together. “Then, I take it you have forgiven me for the murder of your brother?”
Catkin started, watching Stone Ghost and Pigeontail with renewed interest.
“My brother did what he thought he had to. As did you, Stone Ghost.” Pigeontail seemed to be staring into the past. “I told you, I, too, have to live by the rules. Tell me this: In the same situation, would you do it again?”
Stone Ghost stared down at his hands and nodded his head. “I, too, have had a long life, Trader. His death taught me a great many lessons.” Stone Ghost filled his lungs. “You should know, if anything happens to me, that he hangs in the bag—the one made of Hohokam cotton with red stitching—from my roof pole at Smoking Mirror Butte. If I don’t get back, find him. Take him home. And tell him I will see him in the afterlife.”
Pigeontail’s eyes had narrowed and the sudden tension could be felt, straining the air.
The skull in the bag? Catkin remembered with a flash of inspiration. Crooked Nose! She could see Stone Ghost as he had been that night, snow drifting in through the holes in his roof while he cradled a polished skull in his lap.
“Crooked Nose says you saw the Blue God
.” The old man’s words rolled around her head.
“He knew!” Catkin looked up, aware that all eyes were on her. Had she spoken aloud?
“Knew what?” Browser asked.
“Crooked Nose,” she said, and turned her attention to Stone Ghost. “How did he know?”
Pigeontail had shifted, fire in his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“He told you, Elder. Remember? That night in your house under Smoking Mirror Butte. He told you I had seen the Blue God.”
Obsidian couldn’t help hissing as she drew in her breath.
“Yes, I remember. You said you didn’t believe in her,” Stone Ghost reminded gently.
Catkin tightened her fist. “That was a long time ago, Elder. Back when the world was much simpler.”
“You only thought so, Catkin.” Stone Ghost smiled. “Now it flies around you like a whirlwind.”
“Why did you come here now?” Browser asked suddenly. “You could have gone any direction after you left Flowing Waters Town. You carry some of the First People’s wealth that you traded for in Flowing Waters Town. Why bring it south? To trade it back to the White Moccasins?”
“That is another reason, yes, but mostly I was curious about Gray Thunder’s murder.” Pigeontail looked at White Cone, asking in fluent Mogollon, “Bow Elder? Did you do that to stop him from spreading heresy?”
“We had no hand in Gray Thunder’s death.” White Cone lifted his right hand. “After he prophesied his death, I would have cut off this arm to have taken him alive back to my kiva. His death came from outside.”
Stone Ghost said, “Given the manner of it, he was killed by Two Hearts, and most likely Shadow. Two Hearts and Ash Girl killed the warrior Whiproot in the same manner in Talon Town.”
“Yes, I remember.” Pigeontail nodded.
“Shadow had an ally in Flowing Waters Town,” Stone Ghost said. “Someone had to pass her through the sentries.”
“We were very closely watched,” White Cone said. “A woman approaching Gray Thunder’s room would have been seen. When this is finished here, we must
go back and question the guard who watched Gray Thunder’s room that night.”
Pigeontail said, “Whatever he knew, he has taken down to the Land of the Dead. That is why Blue Corn pursues you. Her guard was killed the night you left. She is rabid to find you. To avenge his death.”
Stone Ghost bowed his head and stared into the fire. “Then perhaps it was not Shadow Woman who killed the prophet, but someone else.”
“But she was there. Elder,” Catkin said. “I saw her.”
“Yes,” he murmured. “Fortuitous, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t understand, Uncle.” Browser looked perplexed. “Gray Thunder’s body was treated exactly the way my warrior’s was at Talon Town. The details were the same right down to the tracks in the blood.”
“That only means that the real murderer was cunning.”
“Why?” Catkin asked in frustration.
Stone Ghost looked at Pigeontail. “Tell me, when Whiproot was murdered in Talon Town, was it talked about? You were there soon afterward, did you bear the tale?”
“Every Trader in the region did. I, myself, was taken into the room later by Peavine. She showed me how he was found, how his arms and legs were. The bloodstains were all over the walls. I told as many people as I could.”
The orphan girl sat up, and Stone Ghost turned to look at her. Her freshly washed face made her huge dark eyes seem even larger, like black bottomless pits.
Stone Ghost didn’t take his eyes from her when he said, “I think you had best prepare, Nephew. Given the fact that Pigeontail walked in here in bright daylight, Blue Corn’s scouts must know we are here.”
“The White Moccasins, too,” Catkin reminded and gave Pigeontail a look of sheer loathing.
“I shall say nothing,” Pigeontail replied. “You have my word on that.”
Catkin said, “It’s already too late.”
“Yes. It is.” Browser nodded wearily. “Which means our quest to corner Two Hearts in his own lair will have to wait.”
“Why is that?” Pigeontail asked.
Browser bent his head. “Because very soon we are going to be attacked. You like to carry stories, Trader. Well, tonight, you will either see me defeat two large parties of warriors with my handful of Fire Dogs, or you shall leave here with the story of our deaths.”
Pigeontail grinned in a way that turned Catkin’s stomach. He said, “Either way, I assure you, it will be heroic.”
 
 
CONCENTRATION HAD NEVER been a big problem for Dusty. But this morning it was. He’d already overcooked the eggs. He stood over the stove, head wreathed in the aroma of eggs, green chilis, and his homemade Anasazi and black bean refritos. But his mind drifted. He used a spoon to taste, making sure that the right mixture of fresh cilantro, cumin, and chopped white onion had been achieved. With the spatula he eased the eggs onto the corn tortillas, and spooned hot salsa over them. He crumbled cheddar onto the whole and dished refritos onto the side of the plate. There. Done. Even if the eggs were hard as rocks. The coffee had just begun to perk.

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