Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries (44 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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“Yes, a good club,” she answered, deadening her heart. Was this the Black Stalk she remembered as a little boy? The one she had watched grow tall and strong? She had seen him on the day he had walked across the plaza, no more than thirteen summers in age. It had been spring, and despite being frightened half out of his wits, as all little boys were, he carried his head high as he went for his first kiva initiation.

Now I must kill him.
She shifted, rising onto her knees. The shaft of the war club was cool and thick in her hands. The smell of Black Stalk’s blood and guts hung like a miasma in the air.
What brought me here, to this place, to do this to such a nice young man?

She lifted the club, her muscles suddenly rubbery and weak. A constriction, like a tightening band of rawhide pinched her chest. She couldn’t find her breath.

“Please, Matron?” Black Stalk whimpered. “You have no idea how this hurts.”

Her heart might have been a stone as she raised the war club high and with all of her might brought it down on his head. The impact carried up the wood, into her hands, arms, and shoulders. She heard as well as felt the sickening snap of the bones in his skull. His body spasmed, then went still.

She flung the club away, and couldn’t stop the sudden rush of tears. For long moments, she sat there, in the middle of the abandoned road, and sobbed as she hadn’t since she was girl.

“Matron?” Rain Crow’s gentle voice broke through her misery.

“Yes, War Chief.” She ran a sleeve over her hot, wet face and straightened.

“There are four of them. They’re headed south, past Kettle Town. I’d say they were heading straight across the canyon.”

Blue Corn looked at Black Stalk’s crushed skull, and her souls seemed to wither.

“Find them,” she ordered. “Kill them. Kill them all, and bring me their heads, War Chief.”

“I’ll leave a few warriors to keep you—”

“No! Take everyone. No prisoners, War Chief. You have your orders. Go! Just get away!
Leave me alone!
”

She heard the eerie shriek in her voice. Soul sick, she bent double, holding her stomach, hearing Rain Crow barking orders as he and his men clambered down the staircase after the white-caped assailants.

THE ONLY SOUND was the hissing of the Coleman lantern and the flipping of pages as Sylvia read Dale’s journal.

“Get a load of this,” Sylvia said. Her green eyes widened. “Who was Melissa? A graduate student?”

“That’s enough, Sylvia,” Dusty said, and held out a hand.

“Why? Don’t you want to read it?” Sylvia asked as she handed him the photocopied journal, open to the page.

Dusty shook his head. “No.” But his eyes were inevitably drawn to the name:

“Melissa has been sleeping in my tent for a week. The crew’s starting to talk. I have to end this. I should
have never started it to begin with. She’s so young and beautiful. And brilliant. She’s asked me to oversee her dissertation research. Do I dare put myself in the position of being close to her for another two years?”

Sylvia’s hand hovered in midair. “Yeah. I thought you’d want to read it, and you didn’t even have time to get to the juicy stuff?”

Dusty closed the booklet and set it on the kitchen counter. He couldn’t look at Sylvia, couldn’t meet her eyes. So what if Dale had had an affair with one graduate student? That didn’t mean he’d made a habit of it. Field affairs happened. Generally, they didn’t mean a thing.

Dusty said, “Nobody touches this from here on out. It’s evidence.”

Maggie and Maureen sat at the rear of the table with their eyes on Dusty, while Michall craned her neck to peer out the windows into the darkness.

“Uh, Dusty,” Michall said. “You know, right, that the person who left that is probably the person who murdered Dale?”

Dusty contemplatively walked into the kitchen and placed the pages on the counter. “That’s the point, Michall. We’re supposed to play along, pick out the clues.”

“Well, if that’s so,” Michall said as she jerked the curtains closed, “he’s one sick son of a bitch.”

“If it’s a he.” Dusty smoothed his hand over his beard while he studied the ominous papers. He had the overwhelming desire to sit down with them right now and read every word—but, damn it, he hated being led around by the nose. The diary had been left because something in it incriminated a specific person, which meant … what? That the incriminated person was not the murderer?

He glanced over at Maureen. She sat with her elbows braced on the table, staring at him. Dusty said, “What do you think we should do?”

“Despite all the manhandling you, Maggie, and Sylvia have given it, Nichols might be able to pull fingerprints, fibers, or other incriminating evidence from it.” Maureen pulled her cell phone from her shirt pocket. “Nichols might also want to set up roadblocks, have his people scout around the trailer for tracks.”

Dusty nodded. “Call him.”

The sight of Dale’s handwriting brought an ache to his heart.

“Agent Nichols?” Maureen said. “It’s Dr. Cole. Someone just dropped a copy of one of Dale’s stolen journals at our trailer.” A pause. “Yes.” Another pause. “We won’t move until Rick and Bill are here.” Silence. “Maggie Walking Hawk Taylor found it on the step when she arrived for dinner.” Maureen frowned. “Yes, somebody did open it. Sylvia.” Another pause. Maureen nodded. “Yes, I think you’ll find her fingerprints on a number of the pages.” And then, “We won’t step out until they arrive.” Maureen punched the END button on the phone.

Sylvia said, “Oops.”

Dusty’s stomach twisted. What was Nichols thinking? That Sylvia had just covered her tracks?

Maggie said, “You think the murderer is a woman?”

Dusty slid into the booth, forcing Sylvia to scoot over next to Maureen, and said, “There was a woman at Dale’s funeral. Do you remember, Maureen? I didn’t see her, but you said—”

“The one who touched Dale’s ashes and hurried away? Yes. I remember.” Maureen searched Dusty’s face. “In her thirties, wearing a black fur hat and dark glasses.”

“Maybe just a colleague.” Dusty shrugged. “I didn’t see her.”

Sylvia stared wide-eyed at the windows. “Damn! She’s here. Or he’s here? In the park. Just watching us?”

“Playing with us, you mean,” Dusty said. “How long till the FBI’s here?”

“Five minutes,” Maureen replied, a distance in her gaze.

“Aunt Sage says that the witch is like Coyote and he’s teasing us like he would a family of rabbits trapped under a rock,” Maggie said soberly. She poked at her macaroni and potatoes with her fork.

Dusty immediately gave her his full attention. “What else did your aunt tell you?”

Maggie took a bite of macaroni, chewed, and swallowed. “She said that he’s powerful. Maybe the most powerful witch in a hundred years.”

“Him? As in a man?”

“She didn’t say. But it could surely be a woman.” Maggie was frowning, hiding something. A terrible confusion lay behind her strained expression.

“Could she find him? Figure out who he is?”

Maggie’s voice broke as she said, “Dusty, she’s dying.”

He took a deep breath and nodded. “I—I’m sorry, Maggie. It seems like the whole world is dying around us. Everyone we love.”

“Aunt Sage said that he has to be stopped.” Maggie jabbed her fork at her food. “That something is happening, changing in the witch’s life. If he isn’t caught he’s going to keep hunting.”

“Not Coyote,” Dusty corrected. “Wolf. He’s Kwewur, the Wolf Katchina.”

“No, Dusty.” Maggie gave him a warning look. “He’s not the Wolf Katchina. He’s the Wolf Witch, who has taken the katchina’s name and fouled it, the way witches do. Aunt Sage is worried. She says that Grandma Slumber and Aunt Hail have been talking to her.”

Sylvia had turned so pale her freckles stood out like brown dots. “From the Land of the Dead?”

Maureen had narrowed her eyes, but said nothing. For that, Dusty really appreciated her.

“What did they say?” Dusty asked without missing a beat. “Did the elder tell you?”

Maggie nodded. “Aunt Sage told me they were worried, that an old evil had escaped from the past, and was released into this world. That we touched it at 10K3, and at Pueblo Animas, but it is centered here, just like it was in the old days, when the white palaces fell.”

“Okay, right,” Michall said as she finished off her dinner and laid the fork down. “Ancient witchcraft loose in the modern world, guys?”

Maureen raised a hand. “Michall, before all else, I’m a scientist. You were there for the beginning of the work on 10K3. Whether you believe in the spiritual aspects or not, there is a link between that site and the things that are going on now.”

Dusty and Maggie stared at each other. “Did Hail tell you anything at all about 10K3?”

“She told me that the evil was too strong there. She said, ‘He’s won again.’ That’s all she’d tell me. That’s one of the reasons I made Aunt Sage go to the healing up at Aztec when Washais called.”

“Who?” Michall asked.

“Washais is my Seneca name,” Maureen told her. “Hail Walking Hawk preferred to think of me that way.”

“It means bloody scalping knife,” Sylvia said with aplomb.

Maureen’s brows lowered. “You Whites are so inventive.”

Sylvia grinned.

“Getting back to the witch?” Dusty said, his attention on Maggie.

“He’s old,” Maggie said. “Aunt Sage said she couldn’t really hear what Slumber and Hail were trying
to tell her from the other side. Just that the witch had found something here, in the canyon, and it has been growing inside him.”

“Or her,” Maureen interjected.

“Did Aunt Sage say if it was a woman?” Dusty asked.

“No.”

Sylvia whispered. “Did you see
The Blair Witch Project?
If I hear something like popcorn popping outside of the dormitory tonight, I’m going to come looking for you two.” She pointed at Dusty and Maggie.

Maureen said, “I don’t know much about witches, or witchcraft. I’ve only just begun studying it. But I do know something about death rituals. For example, my people, the Iroquois, keep our dead close until the Feast of the Dead when we send them to the Village of Souls. The southeastern tribes, the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creek, build shrines and keep the corpses of their ancestors literally next door. The Apache and Navajo are dreadfully frightened of the dead. Among the Navajo, you can tell a witch because they dig up corpses and loot graves.” She turned her gaze on Maggie. “Among the Pueblo people, witches are known for eating the flesh of the dead, aren’t they?”

Maggie nodded. “That’s right.”

Dusty asked, “Where are you going with this, Maureen?”

Maureen made a face. “I’m not sure, yet. But it has to do with motivation. Like that photocopied journal in front of you. It doesn’t make sense. Why is this happening the way that it is?”

“I’ll bite,” Sylvia said. “Why?”

“That’s what we have to figure out.” Maureen steepled her fingers, mind knotting around the problem. Dusty thought she looked stunning, her eyes animated in the lantern light.

“So you don’t think it’s an ancient evil that got let loose?” Maggie asked.

Maureen shrugged. “Maybe that’s part of it, but what does a witch want? What are the things that motivate them to do what they do?”

“Power,” Maggie answered. “A witch wants to amass wealth and gain status. He wants to be looked up to, to be noticed and feared. He wants to be important.”

“So, what’s the worst thing you can do to a witch?” Maureen pursued.

“Stone him to death and bury him under a rock,” Sylvia supplied.

“I don’t mean how do you punish him, I mean how do you really piss off a witch?”

Dusty smoothed his hands over Dale’s journal. “Humiliation is the worst thing you can do to a witch.”

“Think back to that note that they found in Casa Rinconada today,” Maureen reminded. “Something happened in the past that can’t be forgiven. Something worth waiting more than thirty-seven years to avenge. Humiliation?”

Dusty’s eyes went to the photocopied diary. He exhaled hard. “No matter what, we’re supposed to read it. Kwewur wants us to read it.”

Lights shone outside.

“We will,” Maureen promised. “Just as soon as Bill and Rick dust it for prints and check for fibers.” She narrowed her eyes in thought.

“What?”

“Something Rupert said … about witches and how they are into misdirection. If I could only …” But she shook her head, dashing his hopes.

CHAPTER 34

BEAR LANCE CHARGED northward along the dark, starlit road. He could see the runner when he crested the high points. The man’s white cape flashed. It had to be Polished Bone or Puma Silk, one of the two sentries left to watch over Elder Two Hearts and the canyon.

“But what if it isn’t?”

Could this be a ruse? Were they being led into a trap?

“What was that?” Stone Lizard asked between panting breaths.

Bear Lance cast a glance over his shoulder. Eighteen men lined out behind him, running in their distance-eating stride with their white capes flapping like wings.

“I don’t like this. I’m worried about being ambushed.”

Stone Lizard replied, “Then let us be careful.”

Bear Lance had succeeded the great Ten Hawks after his death and become War Chief for the Red Lacewing Clan in Straight Path Canyon. The awesome responsibility had fallen onto his shoulders at the most difficult of times. The existence of the White Moccasins was now openly spoken of among the Made People. Elder Two Hearts, descendant of the Red Lacewing Matrons, lay wounded, slowly dying, and now, if his scout ahead could be believed, was being hunted by War Chief Browser. Not just an enemy, but also one of the First People.

As he ran, Bear Lance couldn’t help but feel the
wrongness of this. Why hadn’t Polished Bone, if that’s who that was, run inside to deliver his message?

Maybe because the situation in the canyon is too critical? He knows he has to get back quickly.

Bear Lance thought of Two Hearts lying in the lone small house, guarded only by a warrior and Shadow Woman. He hadn’t liked the idea. No, he hadn’t liked any of it, but the elder had ordered, and as War Chief to the man he considered the Blessed Sun, that was enough. But Shadow, even after all these sun cycles, frightened him.

She had been his lover, his enemy, his greatest desire, and his utter despair. On rare occasions she still crawled into his blankets and stroked his body into a throbbing fountain of ecstasy. Then, one hand of time later, she would shrivel his souls by eating raw flesh stripped from one of her Made People victims.

“A light.” Stone Lizard pointed at the heights in the north. The tiny flicker came from Center Place.

“A signal fire?”

Stone Lizard said, “Perhaps. But signaling what?”

Bear Lance gripped his war club. “You are sure that was Polished Bone up there?”

“Blood Ax thought so, but he wasn’t absolutely positive.”

Bear Lance wet his lips and sucked in a deep breath, forcing his legs to move faster. “If that is not one of our warriors, and he gets to the Blessed Elder with so much as his bare hands, he can end all our dreams.”

Night deepened around them as they ran. Bear Lance passed the familiar shrines and felt the road begin to slope down to the canyon and the stairway.

“Careful,” he called, raising one hand. “I want arrows nocked. I don’t want us to be taken in ambush here. Spread out and keep—”

“About time!” a familiar female voice hissed.

Bear Lance shied away from the shrine at the side
of the road where a dark figure arose, ghostlike in the darkness. Her long black hair shimmered with a silver fire in the starlight.

“I didn’t—”

“Fool!
What took you so long?” Shadow demanded. “A war party is coming! You must hold them, or destroy them.”

“The Blessed Sun, is he—?”

“Being moved to a new location. The Blue God curse you for standing here talking while our elder is at risk!” She flung an arm toward the trail.
“Go. Now!”

AS THE LAST of the White Moccasins charged down the stairway, she slumped to the ground. Her bones shook like sticks. But she had done it. At the last moment, as the warriors slowed, something had risen from deep within her and she had found a part of herself she never knew existed.

Gulping deep breaths to cool her fevered body, Obsidian forced herself to her feet and started down the stairway in the wake of the departed warriors.

Gods, why did it have to be so dark?

Placing her feet, she lowered herself step by step, desperate at the feeling of unseen eyes in the darkness. When she reached the road, she slipped off to the side, making her way through the tumbled boulders below the cliff.

She heard the sudden cry, and then shouts and howls accompanied by the sound of battle.

If she could only make it back to the safety of Kettle Town, she’d never …

Silky laughter seemed to seep from the rocks. “Why,
Sister
, what did you just do?”

DUSTY CROUCHED NEXT to Maggie at the edge of the tape, watching Michall carefully screen the last of the disturbed fill that had surrounded Dale’s body. Nothing had been recovered from the dirt except several potsherds. “Nothing” was the key word. Just like nothing had been recovered from the FBI search around the trailer the night before. Not that that surprised him. Were he Kwewur, he’d have sneaked up on the pavement, left the diary, and slipped away. Asphalt left no tracks.

The gray November day was cold. Rupert had thoughtfully provided tarps and straw bales to keep the excavation from freezing at night.

“Let’s go deeper,” Michall called as she finished the last of her notes. “It’s kiva fill so I say we take twenty-centimeter levels until we come down on the roof.” She shot a glance at Dusty, as if seeking his approval. He nodded, aware that in another time, he’d have instinctively looked to Dale for similar concurrence.

He missed Maureen. She’d been gone for only an hour, taking the propane bottles to Cuba to get them refilled, but it seemed like an eternity. He was genuinely worried about her.

Gravel crunched when Maggie shifted to sit down cross-legged on the frozen soil. “It’s odd, isn’t it? Being on the outside of the excavation?”

“It’s driving me crazy.”

In a low voice, Maggie said, “Dusty? I’ve got to talk to someone. If I tell you …”

“Sure, Maggie. You don’t even have to ask.”

“Remember that night? Back at 10K3? The night when you first called me out to the site to tell me you thought you had uncovered a witch?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You trusted me.”

“Yep. I still do.”

She stared thoughtfully at the excavation where Michall’s crew was working. Finally she said, “About last night … at the trailer. I said that Aunt Sage was telling me those things.”

“She’s not?”

“Some. The rest of it has been coming to me.” She gave him a sidelong glance, as if to measure his response. “Sometimes I catch an image, like a phantom in the half-light. I know it’s Grandma Slumber and Aunt Hail. And they’re gone, just like that.”

“What does your aunt Sage say?”

“That I need to let myself go, allow myself to see.”

He considered that. “So do it.”

She shivered despite her coat. “I’m afraid I’m going nuts. What if it’s schizophrenia?”

“Being nuts isn’t so bad. People have called me crazy for years.”

“Don’t joke.”

“Okay. Maggie, I think you need to talk to your aunt. That’s what elders do, they help people find their gifts. They guide them down the road to Power.”

“Thanks, Dusty.” She made a face. “I started talking to Reggie about it, and, God, maybe it was the wind, but I’d have sworn I heard Dale’s voice telling me not to.”

Dusty studied her, his heart skipping. “You think?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it was my subconscious. I got to thinking about it later, and, well, there was something about the way that Reggie was looking at me, almost like he wanted to devour me on the spot. You know what I mean?”

“No. Look, the only advice I can give is that you trust yourself, okay? That, and go talk to Aunt Sage about it.”

“As soon as I can. I’m worried sick about her. And
things are so tense here these days, I can’t get away.”

Dusty picked up a handful of soil and poured it from hand to hand as he watched the white Ford Explorer pull into the parking lot beside the crew vehicles. A tourist? At this time of year? A brave one.

Dusty said, “I thought Nichols had closed the road.”

“He did; then he reopened it.” She lifted her eyes heavenward in a gesture of exasperation, and added, “You think I’m going crazy. You should have to work with Rupert these days.”

Dusty smiled, but wondered about that. Had Nichols reopened the road to allow the murderer to return to the scene of the crime? Were the openings and closings some sort of clever FBI trap?

Maggie scrutinized the woman who got out of the car wearing a thick down coat with the tan hood pulled up and said, “I’ll take care of it if she gets too close.”

He nodded.

Maggie’s brow furrowed as wind tugged at her shoulder-length black hair. “Dusty, the morning I found Dale’s truck, I saw an owl. He was sitting in the road. I stopped, and he just vanished.” She paused, letting that sink in. “Then, over by Casa Rinconada, I would have sworn that I saw Dale walking up the trail.”

Dusty tried to keep his heart from leaping. The wound in his soul opened. “God, I hope you did. Did he look all right? I mean, you know, happy?”

She shivered inside her brown Park Service coat. “He did. He looked just like the old Dale. I think he was telling me he was all right. That he was still with us.”

“That makes me feel better.”

“I wish I felt so good about it. I’m worried what people will say if this gets out.”

Dusty brushed his hands off on his pants. “You just need more time, Maggie. I think your people will accept it. You have to open yourself up, give them a chance.”

“Easy for you to say. You don’t know the things that are being whispered about Aunt Sage.”

“What things?”

The worry in her face couldn’t be hidden. “All of my aunts had Power, Dusty. They could see the dead. Sometimes just having the ability scares people, if you know what I mean. They don’t understand.”

“You mean there’s talk that she might be a witch?”

“Shh!” Maggie said, and looked around to make sure no one could overhear them. She murmured, “Yes, now let’s talk about something else.”

“Okay,” he said, but the news stunned him. Maggie’s aunts were the only truly holy people he’d ever known. He brushed at the dirt on his pants and looked toward Casa Rinconada. The woman had her back to them, looking down into the kiva. “Where did you see Dale?”

Maggie turned and pointed. “There. He was walking out of the morning, looking just fine, Dusty.”

Dusty smiled.

Maggie’s gaze rested on the tourist, probably seeing that the woman didn’t step onto the ancient walls, or throw trash into the kiva—which tourists were prone to do; it was just a big hole to them. After a long silence, Maggie said, “What do you know of Reggie Brown Horse?”

“Rupert’s grandson?”

She nodded. “He seems nice. He’s been coming by my place a lot, bringing me things. You know, gifts he’s found, pretty stones. Last night, he brought me a single rose.”

Dusty shrugged. “He’s on probation. Breaking and entering, burglary, fencing stolen goods, I don’t know all of it. Maybe he’s changed. I’m sure being up here with Rupert has helped.”

“He isn’t the first kid coming out of that background to get a little off track. Especially since he and his mother don’t get along. You know Reggie’s father, right?”

“Lupe. Yes. I hear he’s making flutes and selling them. I always liked Lupe.” Dusty smiled at the memories. “We had a couple of wild times when we were both kids.” He hoped she wouldn’t ask him to explain that. If she thought the stories about him dancing with strippers and freezing his nether portions to Wyoming trucks were bad …

“We’re all so fragile,” Maggie said. “Reggie most of all.”

Thankfully, she turned her attention to the FBI team. They pitched rocks out of the kiva, while Michall and Sylvia shoveled dirt into screens. “What is it about men and women that makes us so dangerous for each other?”

“Bad genes,” Dusty said. “It’s that X and Y chromosome crap.”

Maggie laughed, then carefully asked, “What’s happening between you and Maureen?”

“What do you mean? Nothing.”

“Why not?”

“God,” Dusty said, annoyed, “give us some time.”

“The way the two of you look at each other, I’d think your souls were getting sticky.”

He laughed softly. “Not yet. Well … maybe a little. We’ll see what happens after all this is over.”

Maggie smiled and tucked her hands into her pockets. “Good.”