Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries (4 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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Stone Ghost frowned as though weighing his words carefully. “We are like a people bitten by a poisonous serpent. Unless the poison is driven out, we will continue to destroy ourselves until no one is left. Our villages will end up as vacant ruins, crumbling and forgotten. Someday another people will fill this land, and look at the weed-filled rubble and wonder who we were and why we vanished from the face of the earth.”
“Do you think it will come to that?” Cloudblower asked in a pained voice.
“Think back, Matron,” Stone Ghost told her. “When the Made People hunted down and killed the First People, it was to make the world better. Over one hundred sun cycles have passed since then. Are things better? Are the fields full of corn? Do our children grow up fat and happy? Are our towns flourishing?”
“What’s the matter with you?” Crossbill snapped. “Do you want the First People back?”
Stone Ghost smiled. “What I meant is that we are destroying ourselves, Matron. Killing ourselves off faster than we can starve or die of the coughing disease. Our trade routes are cut and our clans—those that haven’t fled—are dying. Who among you can name more among the living than the dead? At this rate, in another one hundred sun cycles, what will be left for our descendants? Will we
have
any descendants? It leaves me to wonder: When the last village is abandoned, will our hatred still linger there, tracing patterns in the dust?”
Browser felt a shiver run up his spine. Catkin swallowed hard and closed her eyes.
“What do you propose?” Cloudblower asked.
“As you continue your search for the First People’s kiva, I will take my nephew and a small party and search out Two Hearts. We will destroy the poison that infects our world.”
“Why you?” Wading Bird demanded suspiciously.
“It must be me,” Stone Ghost insisted. “I have my reasons.”
“But I need my War Chief,” Cloudblower said, and gave Browser a worried look. “Browser—”
“I must go with my uncle,” Browser replied evenly. It all began to make sense. Yes, it had to be him and Stone Ghost. No others would do. Dread gripped his heart with a stony fist.
 
 
THE ELEVEN TROTTED along the Great North Road, winding down its rain-rutted path to the river. Splashing through, they climbed up the gray, cobble-strewn bank. Their feet rustled through the weeds as they jogged across dry ditches and winter-fallow cornfields. Dust spiraled in their footsteps. Ahead of them, on the higher terrace, stood the cluster of massive buildings, one to either side of the road with the “Kiva of the Worlds” squatting between them like a fat drum. The Great North Road led to its low doorway.
The huge structure to the west, Dusk House, was reputed to have been built by the First People when they abandoned Straight Path Canyon over one hundred
sun cycles ago. It was said that they had come here, to the Spirit River, where a constant supply of water was available to irrigate their cornfields. They had hoped to reestablish their control over the world in the aftermath of Night Sun’s abdication of power. They had built Dusk House square, perfectly symmetrical; though somewhat dilapidated it stood as a stolid reminder of the First People’s skills.
The eastern building, Sunrise House, had a more irregular appearance, the construction haphazard and unbalanced. The plaster had mottled where repair patches had been slapped onto the walls. Here and there, the underlying masonry could be seen. In comparison with its western counterpart, this town—a composite of three large and one small room blocks—was crudely built out of irregular and unfinished ashlars. Beyond this cluster, higher on the ridge and facing due south, stood North House, the gateway to the northern clans and the fabled Green Mesa villages.
As the eleven approached, a warning drum thumped and warriors gathered on the roofs, bows in their hands with arrows nocked. Other individuals converged from each side and called out to each other. Through the sporadic shouts, dogs could be heard barking.
The leader of the eleven, a tall young man with broad shoulders, veered from the road and drew up just beyond bow shot at Sunrise House. He shifted his pack on his back and squared his shoulders. A member of the Rattlesnake Clan of the Willow Stave Moiety, people called him Gray Thunder. After twenty-two summers, he was handsome, with wide cheekbones, a firm but mobile mouth, and straight nose. It was said that he had a special gift of the tongue, that he could talk birds down from the sky. His clan had chosen their best and bravest for this dangerous task. He took note of the head that peeked around the side of the town wall and realized that a flanking party waited just out of sight, hidden by the building’s bulk. No fools, these.
He placed hands to the sides of his mouth and took a breath, calling in an accented voice: “I am Gray Thunder. I come from the south. I am here in peace. I and my party come in search of Matron Flame Carrier and the Katsinas’ People. We have heard that they are here at Flowing Waters Town.”
In the rear of the party, the old man propped his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. His straggling white hair flicked back and forth with the breeze.
On the wall before them, people bent their heads together, and finally a woman dressed in a red, white, and black dress stepped up to the edge of the roof. She wore her hair piled high and pinned. To Gray Thunder’s eye, she had that look of command. Her voice confirmed it when she called: “You are not of the People. Not with that accent, Fire Dog. So, I am left to wonder, what business would a party of Fire Dogs have with Matron Flame Carrier?”
“To whom am I speaking? Are you Flame Carrier?”
Chuckles could be heard on the rooftops, as if this were high humor.
The woman called back, “No, warrior of the enemy, I am Blue Corn, of the Coyote Clan, Matron of Sunrise House and its territory. You still haven’t answered my question about Flame Carrier. Why do you seek her? What do you and your warriors do in my country?”
Blue Corn? That was bad. He had been told that Flame Carrier could be found here. Blue Corn was noted for her allegiance to the old gods, the Flute Player and the Blue God.
“I am sent to speak with Matron Flame Carrier.” Gray Thunder shifted, pointing to the corner of the wall. “Tell your warriors to stand down. I come in peace. We wish the Matron no harm.” He smiled. “On the contrary, we would offer an alliance.”
“What good has an alliance ever been with the Fire Dogs?”
Gray Thunder bit off a sharp retort and spread his
arms wide. “Look about you, Matron. I see the shabby legacy of the Straight Path Nation. I have just passed through the ruins of Straight Path Canyon. The great white palaces are empty, the doorways gaping and black. Ghosts walk among the flaking plaster walls. I have seen the charred wreckage of Northern Town, its ceilings fallen in ruin. Corn does not grow in the weed-filled fields we have crossed coming here.” He kicked at the dry gray silt. “You have ditches here, Matron, but in other parts of the country corn needs rain. Since the fall of the First People, it has gone away. My clan, my people, we believe that it is because we have failed in Poor Singer’s prophecy.”
“A Fire Dog who cares about Poor Singer’s prophecy?” Blue Corn said incredulously. “How can this be?”
Gray Thunder cocked his head. “Have you lost so much? Don’t you know that Poor Singer was captured—”
Blue Corn replied, “We haven’t lost our sense when it comes to dealing with Fire Dogs! Do not tempt me to kill you!”
Gray Thunder smiled. “Matron, I am already dead. I have even seen the manner of it in a Dream. You cannot frighten me by—”
“Then be good enough to tell us why you are here?”
“I
am
trying, Matron,” Gray Thunder pleaded. “You see, your people have apparently forgotten that Poor Singer was taken captive by the Great War Chief, Jay Bird. Many among my people heard and believed the words of Poor Singer and Cornsilk.”
“Why would a Fire Dog listen to anyone from the Straight Path Nation?” The old woman sounded slightly less certain of herself.
“May we talk to Matron Flame Carrier?” Gray Thunder asked plaintively. “We have come a long way at great risk to ourselves. If, after we have talked to Flame
Carrier, you are dissatisfied, you may do with us as you will.”
The warriors beside Gray Thunder shot him uneasy glances. He made a calming motion with his hand.
The old woman on the wall sighed. “Gray Thunder, that’s what you are called?”
“I am.”
“No matter what your motives, or how badly you would like to talk to Matron Flame Carrier, she will not hear you, and given your accent, that might be just as well.”
“I do not understand, will you not even—”
The old woman raised an arm to cut him off. “You have come too late, Gray Thunder. Matron Flame Carrier is dead. She was murdered earlier this moon.”
He cast a dispirited glance at the old man, who had finally caught his breath and straightened. A subtle communication passed between them, and Gray Thunder hesitated. “Matron, you claim that Flame Carrier is dead, yet you use her name. Does that not frighten you? Don’t you fear that you will call her back from her journey to the Land of the Dead?”
Had he caught her in a lie? Was Flame Carrier really dead? The Straight Path People never spoke the names of their freshly dead for fear of drawing the ghosts back to this world.
“We only refrain from speaking the person’s name for four days, Fire Dog, while the soul is on its journey to the Land of the Dead. Besides, there are those who say Flame Carrier did not die.” Disbelieving humor laced Blue Corn’s voice. “The story has come down from the north that, upon her death, she became a katsina and flew up to join the Cloud People.”
Gray Thunder and the old man exchanged glances again. “Who told you this?”
“A Trader, a man who was there and saw it. His name is Old Pigeontail.”
“Then …” Gray Thunder frowned. “What of the Katsinas’ People? Do they still exist?”
“Until the Flute Player warriors manage to kill them off. And, from the looks of things, that might not be so long in coming.”
Gray Thunder nodded, and said, “We would ask for your hospitality, Matron. In the name of the … of the katsinas. We would speak to the leader of the Katsinas’ People, whoever she is.”
“Why should I trust you?”
Frustrated, Gray Thunder said, “Matron, think! The First People are gone. War is everywhere. We have passed party after party of refugees. Drought lies upon the land like a curse and Wind Baby whines through desolate cornfields, whipping the dust into spirals. The wasting disease stalks your villages and ours, claiming us one by one. Where once children laughed, and young women smiled at youthful men, only silence and ruin remain. The bones of corpses litter empty kivas, their sightless skulls grinning in the darkness.
“I and my party believe in Poor Singer’s prophecy. Because his promise is the only way to save our world, Matron. This war between the Flute Player’s warriors and the Katsinas’ People must be stopped or we will all be destroyed.”
Blue Corn cocked her head. As the long moments passed, only the distant cry of the crows could be heard as they scavenged the refuse dumps behind the villages. Finally, she asked, “You know I do not approve of the katsinas. Why would you ask this of me?”
Gray Thunder lifted his chin. “You let the Katsinas’ People come here, allowed them to rebuild the great kiva at Dusk House. Why would you do that if you were not at least tolerant of their beliefs?”
“To see if it worked, young Gray Thunder. It didn’t. No opening to the underworlds appeared.” She chuckled. “You know that we’ve been killing each other. Warriors loyal to the Blessed Flute Player have destroyed whole
towns of Katsinas’ People. If the Katsinas’ People are defeated, dead, and but a memory, perhaps we can have peace again.”
“Can you? With clans turning upon themselves and killing their own? Cousin against cousin? Brother against brother? How do you heal that kind of hatred?”
“How would you, Fire Dog?”
“By relating Poor Singer’s vision as it truly was, Matron!” Gray Thunder tapped his muscular chest. “The truth must be spoken. I am here to speak it. In Poor Singer’s words lie all of our salvations!”
“It is an age of madness.” Blue Corn spread her arms. “And, that being the case, I am mad enough myself to see what would come of your silly mission. I will give you and your party shelter, Gray Thunder, and send a runner to find the new Matron of the Katsinas’ People. If she will see you, I will grant safe passage. If not, you may go in peace. But a party of my warriors will follow you to make
sure
you leave our territory.”
“So, what do you think?” Dusty Stewart asked as they walked out into the frosty Santa Fe evening. He buttoned his coat and exhaled to watch his breath.
“I think those are the best enchiladas I’ve ever eaten.” Maureen tucked her coat tightly about her middle and watched a big Ford Expedition roll down the narrow street. Santa Fe, it seemed, favored either opulent and shiny SUVs or battered pickups. She tucked her bison-hide purse to her side with an elbow and sighed, breath frosting in the air. Across the street, two Halloween party-goers—dressed in costume as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush—staggered down the sidewalk, arm in arm.
She glanced back at the Pink Adobe restaurant. “All through supper I was thinking that this building was
constructed at a time when my ancestors were still living in longhouses and had just met Europeans. Of all the North American cities I’ve ever been in, Santa Fe is the most remarkable.”
“It is that,” Stewart agreed as he led her to the Bronco. His blond hair and beard shone in the streetlights.
She opened the sprung passenger door, climbed in, and looked around at the packed truck, the back filled to the roof with screens, coolers, and carefully labeled boxes full of artifacts from their recently completed dig at Pueblo Animas. A smart person ignored the floor, covered as it was in empty beer bottles, fast-food wrappers, and the detritus of a field archaeologist’s existence.
She had been called down from her physical anthropology lab at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, by Dale Emerson Robertson. Dale needed her help to excavate a burned kiva filled with the charred skeletons of children and two butchered adults. Pueblo Animas would haunt her dreams, her mind’s eye replaying what those last horrible moments must have been like for the victims when the place burned in A.D. 1263.
Dusty slid into the driver’s seat and propped his arms on the steering wheel, only to stare out at the darkness in silence. She studied his hunched figure: a muscular cowboy-hatted shadow.
Hesitantly, he said, “It’s Halloween. Trick or treat. I could set you up for the night. Save you the cost of a motel. My couch makes into a bed.”
She watched him for a moment, the silence stretching. What was it about him that she had come to like? They were oil and water. She, the calculating Canadian scientist with impeccable credentials, he a footloose American dirt archaeologist with a clouded reputation. Yet they shared a love of antiquity—of people who
had lived long ago. In the beginning, when they’d first met on a dig in upstate New York, they had hated each other on sight.
“You sure you want to do that?” The words formed easily, as if of their own volition.
“What’s life for if you can’t live dangerously?” He reached for the ignition. Pulling away from the curb, he drove toward the looming bulk of the Hotel Loretto, its pueblo architecture outlined with glowing luminarias: plastic lights made to look like candles glowing in paper bags. How Southwestern, totally in fitting with Santa Fe’s special charm. They crossed the river and he took a right onto Alameda, turned again at Paseo de Peralta, then took a left onto Canyon Road. A strip of mellow adobe-walled galleries lined the way. She peered at each, wondering at the interiors.
“You live close to here?”
“End of the road,” he told her, and gestured at the galleries. “None of this was here when Dad bought the property in the fifties.”
He said no more as they drove up the winding road past painters’, sculptors’, and metalworkers’ studios, each illuminated by bright lights. Occasional pedestrians strode along the tree-lined sidewalks, their bodies muffled in coats. Some walked dogs. They all looked like the leisurely rich. At least, all but the children in their costumes. They looked like kids anywhere, albeit, when she looked more closely, they were really decked out. No old sheets with holes cut in them, but slickly tailored costumes that made them look like the real thing. To her amusement, costumes of the American president were vogue. It struck her that in the modern world, politicians gave people more nightmares than ghosts or goblins did.
“Your father must have been doing well. I heard that he came from a rich family back East.”
“Dad had a falling out with his family. They disinherited him when he ran off from the university to become
an archaeologist.” He pointed to one of the huge Spanish-style houses. “Like I said, this wasn’t here back in the fifties when Dad bought the place. I live in, well, more humble settings.”
They took the jog in the road to Upper Canyon; she watched the million-dollar houses with glowing jack-o’ -lanterns atop adobe walls pass by her window, and waited, unwilling to press him about the darkness in his voice. Anytime his father, Samuel Stewart, cropped into the conversation, Dusty grew morose.
At the end of the road, just before the curve that would take them back across the Santa Fe River, he pulled into a narrow dirt track that led down into the trees. The Bronco’s lights illuminated a ratty-looking 1950s vintage trailer. Aluminum-sided, painted with what looked like flaking turquoise paint, it seemed to hunch in the night, a forlorn orphan dwarfed by high-dollar splendor.
Dusty stopped them before a plywood porch. A rusty metal barbecue stood to one side. After he shut off the truck, he sat for a moment in silence, then said, “Wait a minute. I’m out of my mind. You’d be a lot more comfortable in a—”
“I’ll be fine, Dusty. Thank you.”
She took matters into her own hands and stepped out into the late October night. She could smell damp soil and wood smoke in the air. Overhead, through the winter-bare branches of cottonwoods, she could see stars sparkling. A faint sighing came from the breeze through the piñons and juniper.
“If you’re sure.” Dusty sounded ominous as he led the way onto the porch, jingling his keys. She considered the warning note in his voice, remembering the various adventures she’d had with his vehicle: broken levers, mouse nests in the vent, nonfunctional air-conditioning, the missing seat belt he’d used for a tow strap. What on earth would his old battered trailer be like?
The porch sagged under her weight, reminding her of the “you might be a redneck” jokes told by that American comedian. Dusty had bent over a hasp and fiddled with a key in a padlock. The chrome door handle appeared more than a little bent, as if someone had used a pry bar on it.
When he stepped in and turned on the lights she followed him into a cramped living room. The front, under a louvered window, was dominated by a worn couch that supported two big pillows, several copies of
American Antiquity
, bound field reports, and a well-fingered copy of Steve LeBlanc’s
Prehistoric Warfare in the American Southwest
. Age had given the lacquered-wood walls a honeyed glow. It didn’t surprise her that a threadbare carpet covered the floor, cluttered here and there with books and a pile of clothing. A small black-and-white TV—a relic of the sixties—stood on a metal stand. Generous souls would call the kitchen “compact,” with an ancient gas stove, a small refrigerator, and a chipped yellow porcelain sink. The linoleum-topped counter supported a dish drainer, several empty Guinness bottles, and a battered blender. Knowing Stewart, its sole use was probably for margaritas. Bound field reports were piled atop the two kitchen chairs. A broken screen—the wooden kind used by archaeologists to sift dirt—was propped next to the door. Stewart’s idea of interior decorating, perhaps?
The photographs pinned to the wall showed archaeologists smiling at the camera while they perched on back-dirt piles and crumbling Anasazi walls. A framed picture, one cut from a
National Geographic
magazine, showed Dale Emerson Robertson, his battered fedora tipped back on his head to expose his wiry gray hair. His gentle brown eyes looked wistful, as if focused on a great distance.
Dale had left Pueblo Animas three days before, accompanying the site’s owner, Moshe Alevy, to the airport
at Farmington. From there, he should have driven back to his little house in the Albuquerque suburbs. He had probably had a delightful night dropping candy into bags.
“I’m sorry about the mess,” Dusty said, hurrying to swipe a pile of papers from a plastic-upholstered chair. With the load cradled in his arms, he retreated down the narrow hallway behind the kitchen and ducked into a back room.
She smiled as she finished her inspection. The place looked just like Dusty’s house ought to. Completely in fitting with his off-center personality.
“I turned the heat on.” He emerged from the back, his blue eyes looking sheepish. “Want some coffee?”
“Sure.” As he opened a wooden cabinet beside the sink and pulled a can of coffee from the shelf, she added, “It’s homey.”
He laughed at the humor in her voice. “Yeah, well, the neighbors really hate it. Especially the guy next door. He’s got a one-point-four-million-dollar house perched to overlook my trailer. He’s offered me an incredible amount of cash for the property.”
She propped herself on a filing cabinet that snuggled between the TV and the kitchen counter. “Waiting for a recovery in the real estate market before you sell, Stewart?”
He measured coffee into an old blue enamel coffeepot. “It’s just that, well, it’s home, you know?” He gestured around with the red plastic measuring cup. “I mean, I like it here.” A grin crossed his lips. “And I get the biggest kick out of driving the guy next door crazy. He’s a lawyer, mind you, but he can’t do a damned thing about me because this place was grandfathered long before covenants and zoning. Besides, what would I do with the money? I’d have to go find another place. Move all this stuff.”
She arched her brow as she eyed the worn furniture. “You’d want to keep that old sofa?” Stuffing extruded
from a hole in the arm. A pile of apparently dirty shirts made a mound beside it.
He shrugged. “Sure. No one else wants it. I’m gone a lot. This place has been broken into three times. The last time, they didn’t take anything but the beer in the fridge and a bottle of tequila. I mean, what’s to take?”
She noticed that the old black-and-white TV had a bent coat hanger for an antenna. “You’ve got a point there.”
She turned to another of the pictures, this one a black-and-white of a tall young man in baggy trousers, a hat cocked on his head as he stood by a 1950s pickup. He had a handsome but vulnerable face. Hesitant eyes looked out over a straight nose and strong jaw. A shovel was propped insolently over his shoulder.
“That’s my father,” Dusty said as he walked up to stand behind her.
“Handsome man.” Though she didn’t think Dusty looked much like him.
“It runs in the family.” He scooped another pile of books to clear a second kitchen chair. The table remained cluttered with stacks of index cards, Ziploc bags, and a crow quill pen that lay next to a bottle of ink, Liquid Paper, and clear fingernail polish.
“I was cataloging artifacts just before I left for Pueblo Animas,” he told her on his return, and quickly piled the items into an old shoe box, looked around, and bent to shove it under the table. “Sorry. I’m a bit short on room here.”
“Relax, Dusty.” She slipped into a chair and sighed. “Save it for when
Good Housekeeping
comes to do a photo shoot.”
Pulling a bottle of Guinness from the fridge, he uncapped it and seated himself next to her. “I’d offer you one, but I know better.”
“Smart man.” Maureen didn’t drink. Ever.
A phone rang, the sound anachronistic, made with a real bell. Stewart muttered and stepped over to flip
dirty shirts like a man turning compost. From the depths, he pulled out an old black dial telephone and removed the handset from the cradle. “It’s your nickel,” he said, then listened. “Hi, Sylvia. We just got in.” He frowned. “Maureen and me.” The frown deepened. “Not a chance. We’re going to hang around for a couple of days and I’m going to play tourist guide. You know, do the restaurants and galleries. Walk around the Plaza. Eat on the balcony at the Ore House, and get the kind of culture we don’t have to dig out of the ground.” He listened for several seconds, then said, “No way.” Another pause. “Well, if it takes two people, take Steve.” Dusty’s frown faded. “All right. Yeah, I’ll tell Dale when I see him in Albuquerque tomorrow.”
Stewart hung up and lowered the phone to the floor. “That was Sylvia. She checked the machine in the office. Dale left a message. One of our clients needs an archaeologist to boogie up to Colorado for a pipeline survey south of Mesa Verde tomorrow. Dale wanted you and me to go do the job.”
“Just like that?”
“That’s how contract archaeology works.” He returned to the chair. “When you wake up in the morning, you never know where you’re going to be sleeping that night, or in what state.”
“Dale wanted me to go, too? That’s strange.”
Dusty gave her a deadpan look. “Doctor, you’ve been working with us for almost a month now. He thinks you’re an employee just like the rest of us.”
She wondered how she felt about that. It had been a long time since anyone had treated her like an employee. She gave the phone a hostile glance where it lay canted on the rumpled shirts and considered calling Dale back.
“Forget it,” Dusty said. “Sylvia said he’s not home. You can ream him out later.”
Maureen gave it up with an ironic smile. Dale didn’t
think of the world the way ordinary people did. “So, Sylvia’s going?”

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