Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries (57 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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Maureen walked around to stand beside Dusty. Her gray coat and black hair blended so well with the darkness she was almost invisible.
Yvette stared at the trailer as though in disbelief. Weak yellow light gleamed in the living-room window. The rickety front porch leaned precariously to the right, and rusty tin cans and windblown plastic bottles lay beneath it. “This place is a bloody junkyard,” Yvette said.
Dusty shoved his fists in his pockets and replied, “I doubt that Sage Walking Hawk shares your value system, Sister. Her wealth is not in things, but in family and clan, the animal world, and the Spirits.”
“Spirits?” Yvette said the word as though she’d never heard it before. “She believes in Spirits? Like ghosts that roam the world haunting people?”
“Like Spirits that live in the stars and trees, and beneath the water. It’s a beautiful belief—one I share. I also believe in witches and Buffalo Above.” That completely silenced Yvette. Dusty added, “Remember, Sister, Sage Walking Hawk has spent her entire life enriching her soul.” He gave her a hard look. “Can you say the same thing?”
“Are you implying, dear brother, that I’ve spent my life enriching my bank accounts?”
Dusty walked toward the trailer and, from inside, a wavering voice called, “Door’s open.”
Dusty climbed up the creaking steps and pushed the door ajar. “Elder Walking Hawk? It’s Dusty Stewart.
I’m here with Washais, and my sister, Yvette. Magpie wanted me to check on you.”
“Come on in, Dusty.” Sage coughed and wheezed as though she couldn’t get enough air.
Dusty walked in. The trailer smelled of stale urine and old grease. The knickknacks, the trophies of a lifetime, that sat everywhere cast shadows on the shelves. A giant loom covered the wall to his right, the masterpiece rug unfinished.
Sage turned on a lamp. She sat in a worn recliner, her body emaciated; her pain-bright eyes sank deeply in her wrinkled face. Flakes of dandruff dotted her sparse white hair. The faded picture of a uniformed World War II airman lay crooked in her lap, the young white man smiling out from the past. A cane lay out of her reach on the floor next to a fallen plastic drinking glass.
“Elder?” Dusty asked, walking over and kneeling in front of her. “Are you all right?”
Sage’s mouth opened in a toothless smile. “The ghosts haven’t got you yet?”
“Not yet, but I’m still worried.”
Sage chuckled and it sounded like brittle autumn leaves blowing in the wind.
“Have you eaten, Elder?” Dusty took her hand, and it felt cold. The musky smell of urine clung to her. “I packed a pan of leftover enchiladas in the ice chest in my truck. Can I bring them in and warm them in your stove?”
Her faded old eyes slipped off to the side and she gasped. Dusty felt her hand tense, then relax as she smacked dry lips. “Never felt pain like this. It clouds the mind.”
Dusty turned to Maureen. “Maureen? Could you bring in the cooler?”
Maureen turned and her quick steps sounded as she trotted down the steps and out to the Bronco.
“I’d drink,” Sage whispered. “Could I have water?”
Dusty went into the kitchen, pulled a glass from the cupboard, and filled it. He knelt in front of Sage and held it to the elder’s lips. Yvette was standing to the rear, watching with wide brown eyes.
“Thank you,” Sage said after sipping half the glass. “I haven’t been able to get up. Legs won’t work.”
Maureen returned with the ice chest and headed directly for the kitchen. Dusty heard her pull the enchilada pan from the chest, then open and close the squeaky oven door. She came back into the living room and pulled a chair up beside Sage’s recliner.
Dusty put a hand to the old woman’s forehead. “Elder, please let us take you to the hospital. You’re dehydrated, and they can give you something for the pain.”
“I’m not going nowhere,” Sage insisted. “He’s close.”
“Who is?”
Sage smiled. “That Flute Player in the black shirt with white spirals. He’s been calling to me for days. He comes and goes.” Her frail hand trembled as she lifted it to her throat. “He’s got a pretty necklace, shaped like a turquoise wolf.” Sage’s hand dropped to rest on Maureen’s shoulder. “What do your people call him?”
Maureen seemed to hesitate, as though not certain what Sage meant. Then she said, “Do you mean Shondowekowur? The faceless one?”
Sage chuckled, her mouth falling open to expose a pink tongue. “He’s laughing at you, Washais.” Her expression tightened as she listened to a voice none of them could hear. “I’ll tell them.”
“Tell us what?” Dusty asked.
Her crooked fingers waved in the air, pointing. “I see … shadows on the kiva wall, running together and pulling apart. His heart is black … filled with anger. But he’s … he’s powerful. Close to death, they dance …”
“She’s delirious,” Yvette said. “Wouldn’t it be best to call for medical assistance?”
“Shhh.” Dusty held up a hand in irritation. “Elder, who is he?”
Sage’s eyes began to close. “Yes, yes. I hear you, Slumber.”
Dusty’s stomach muscles clenched tight.
Her dead sister.
Sage’s neck weakened and her head rolled to the side. “Kwewur’s ears are laid back. His sandals crackle in the dry grass.”
Dusty asked, “Who is he after?”
Sage’s chest barely rose with her breath. “My bones are breaking apart … hurts.”
“Elder,” Dusty said as he brushed white hair from her hot forehead. “Please let us take you to town. If you don’t want to go to the hospital, we’ll take you to Magpie’s house in Chaco Canyon.”
She blinked, her eyes glassy, and her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. “All I have to do is step through … but Kwewur is waiting. He’s waiting right there. For Magpie. Can’t … can’t warn her. Sick … too sick.”
“I’ll warn her for you,” Dusty said softly.
He released her hand and walked over to the cell phone—probably a gift from Maggie—and ran his finger down the phone list taped to the wall. He saw Maggie’s number first, but a nurse’s number was listed right below it. Nurse Redhawk. Her number was underlined.
Dusty picked up the phone and dialed.
Sage’s old hand trembled in Yvette’s direction and she smiled again. “The Shiwana were there,” she whispered. “When you were conceived … in the kiva … in the moonlight.” Sage swallowed hard.
Yvette looked shocked, her eyes wide, like a deer in the headlights. “What are Shiwana? Ghosts?”
“No,” Maureen whispered. “Spirits.”
Yvette backed up, then turned and walked out the door.
Dusty was about to go after her when a voice said,
“Hello?”
“Hello, this is Dusty Stewart. I’m out at Elder Sage Walking Hawk’s house. She’s very ill. I’m afraid—”
“I’m on my way! But it will take me an hour to get there. Keep her warm and give her fluids.”
“We will. Please hurry.” He hung up the phone and turned back to Sage. Maureen had a damp cloth and was washing the elder’s face. “Someone’s coming, Elder.”
“Got to … go …” Sage whispered.
Dusty’s heart ached at her pained expression. Sage was looking into the distance, seeing something outside of this world. He could barely hear her when she said, “Shadow’s … with him …
el basilisco
… on her breast.”
Sage faded again, gasping from the pain.
To Maureen, Dusty murmured, “Can’t we do anything for her?”
“Not without drugs.” Maureen shook her head.
“Flying,” Sage whispered and sounded suddenly happy. She chuckled again. “Flying … in a big bomber …”
 
 
SAGE WALKING HAWK died forty-five long minutes before the nurse from the Indian Health Services arrived.
Dusty carried her to her bed, gently covered her with blankets, and sank onto the foot of the bed.
He stared blindly out the little window to the starlit desert beyond.
Kwewur was hunting again and Maggie was in danger.
 
 
CATKIN’S MIND RACED as she looked back across Straight Path Wash. What was Browser thinking? What curious errand had he sent Straighthorn and Jackrabbit off on, and how had he allowed himself to walk into a trap?
Blessed Katsinas, Browser, did you outsmart yourself this time?
True to Shadow’s word, only one lone scout followed. The White Moccasin’s cloak caught the midday sun as he trotted behind them. Surely Shadow would not let them off that easily? But no pursuit was in evidence, rather it seemed that Shadow wanted Browser surrounded by a ring of warriors. Why? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just kill him, take his heart, and send the rest of the White Moccasins to destroy Catkin’s party?
What did Browser know that she didn’t?
She led the way past the sprawled corpses of the battle. It struck her suddenly that all the arrows were missing, the quivers of the dead completely empty. When had that happened? Who had taken them?
White Cone began wheezing. They had come such a short way and already the elder was falling behind. Sweat trickled down his wrinkled face. Was that what Shadow was banking on? That they couldn’t travel rapidly with an exhausted elder? In that case it would be easy to run them down long before they could make the safety of Flowing Waters Town. Shadow was craftier than Catkin had given her credit for.
And following along, just out of bow shot, came the one lone White Moccasin scout, to mark the trail and make sure that her party could be found when the time came.
“I don’t like this,” Clay Frog growled. “What was the War Chief thinking?”
“About Gray Thunder’s prophecy,” Catkin said. Memories stirred of the time he’d rescued her from the Fire Dogs. “The prophet was right. This insanity must end somewhere.”
“But how will this end it? We should have fought!” Clay Frog’s young face betrayed frustration. “He offered his life for ours!”
“Yes,” Catkin agreed. “He did.”
A chorus of assent rose from behind Catkin. They would all die for Browser now. Not because of the Bow Society’s honor, but because Browser had won their hearts and souls by his willingness to sacrifice his life for theirs.
Browser’s words echoed in her head:
“By doing this, I have given you extra time, and I expect you to be a better War Chief than I have been. Remember, the roundabout way is often better than a direct assault against superior numbers. Victory goes to those who are swiftest, and allies can appear from the most unexpected places.”
As they neared the hulking mass of Kettle Town, Catkin turned, looking back at the party following her. White Cone’s old face twisted in agony. He’d started to stumble and weave on his feet. Three bow shots to the rear, the White Moccasin scout followed in his shuffling trot.
Catkin slowed to match her pace with Fire Lark’s. The young warrior looked at Catkin curiously as she remarked, “It is said, Fire Lark, that you are the best bow shot among your party.”
“I am, Deputy.”
“I want you to do something for me.”
“Yes, Deputy?”
“The timing must be just right, do you understand? And then you are going to have to run very hard to catch us. Can you do that?”
“Yes, Deputy.”
“Good, because all of our lives are going to be in your hands.”
“Then,” Fire Lark asked hopefully, “we’re not going straight back to Flowing Waters Town?”
“No, warrior, we’re not. We’re going to see what it’s like to have the heart of a cloud. Today, warrior, we are going to make legends.”
 
 
THE FRINGED END of Nichols’s black muffler whipped around his neck as he walked. He had his shoulders hunched against the wind and his hands deep in the pockets of his brown canvas coat. He turned to Dusty as he led him up the trail toward where Maureen stood, overlooking the excavation. “Steve Sanders says two of the burials are still articulated, but that’s not the really curious thing.”
Dusty thought about that. What Steve had meant was that the bones were still in the exact positions they’d been in at death. Nothing had disturbed the burials. Then what about the scattered bones Sylvia had seen when she’d first fallen into the kiva?
“What is the really curious thing?” Dusty asked. Clouds filled the sky and it felt like snow, but he’d seen no flakes yet.
“There was a beer can and a pack of cigarettes in the northern wall crypt. That pot hunter’s hole led right to it.”
“Hmm.”
Wall crypts traditionally held sacred artifacts, items
left for the gods. Pot hunters, like all vandals, often desecrated such things. “Is that why you brought me out here? To tell me that?”
“No,” Nichols said, and wind flipped his thick black hair around his ears. “I’m taking a calculated risk. I brought you out here hoping you might see something that we haven’t.”
“Okay.”
Dusty felt empty. Sage Walking Hawk’s funeral had been a wrenching experience. Maggie had stood through the whole thing, smiling and comforting others, but Dusty had known her heart was breaking. To make matters worse, when it was all over, he’d felt obligated to tell Maggie that her aunt had said Kwewur was waiting for her.
Since her return to the canyon, Maggie hadn’t stepped out of her office, and Rupert was acting like a protective bear, refusing to allow anyone to disturb her.
Rupert, himself, seemed distracted after his return from Washington. Something was eating at him, something that had turned his brown eyes somber. When Dusty asked him how he was doing, Rupert told a joke in answer. Was it Dusty’s imagination, or did Rupert look thinner, as though he’d lost weight over the last couple of days?
Evil was loose on the wind and Dusty could sense the final pieces about to fall into place.
Nichols ducked under the yellow tape and walked toward Maureen and the kiva rim. Dusty followed him. In seven days, Steve’s five-person crew had excavated to the floor of the kiva, even the south half that Michall had decided against touching. An aluminum ladder led down to an earthen pedestal. Fragments of human bone scattered the kiva floor and the ground near the fire pit, but Dusty’s gaze fixed on the two skeletons. They lay on their backs with their arms and legs spread. Sandstone slabs the size of manhole covers rested beside the skulls. Big stones. Heavy.
Someone took extra care to make sure those souls stayed locked in the earth.
Maureen turned when they approached and said, “The body to the left is male; the female is on the right.”
Steve, bundled like an Eskimo in a gray knit cap and red down coat, was working with a brush to clean and record bone fragments before removing them for stabilization and collection. Concentration marred his handsome black face.
Dusty thoughtfully examined the bodies, then shifted his gaze to the square hole in the north kiva wall. “That’s the crypt where you found the beer can and cigarettes?”
“Yes.” Nichols jammed his hands into his pockets.
“Let me guess,” Dusty said. “A steel Coors can, the old kind that had to be opened with a can opener?”
“Right, and the cigarettes, Stewart?”
“Now there, you’ve got me.”
“Parliament.” Nichols looked annoyed. “My people tell me that that particular package design was manufactured in the mid-sixties.”
Dusty nodded.
About the time my mother was taking her lovers to the Casa Rinconada kiva five minutes’ walk away.
“Dr. Sanders,” Dusty called. “Who flipped the rocks off the heads of those two skeletons?”
Steve looked up and smiled. He looked like a young Denzel Washington. Handsome and self-confident. “What makes you think I moved the slabs?”
“I can see the indentations and soil discolorations where they originally rested.”
“Right.” Steve wiped his face with his coat sleeve. “My guess is that the pot hunters moved the slabs. When they potted the site, we figure the roof was another twenty centimeters higher on the north side. So long as they stayed bent over, they could have duck-walked to the bodies. We also recovered several mid-thirteenth-century
black-on-white McElmo potsherds, and a stone ax head, maybe for a war club. Last but not least, we found a beautiful ceramic spindle whorl, with a bit of the wooden spindle preserved. Cool, huh?”
“What about the pieces of bone, Sanders?” Nichols asked, kneeling to scrutinize the fragments he could see.
“Lots of partially calcined, cracked, and perimortally disarticulated bone, Agent Nichols. Preliminary analysis, as suggested by Dr. Malroun, indicates ‘Turner events’—that the bodies had been ‘processed as if for consumption.’”
Nichols squinted. “What the hell does that mean?”
Dusty answered, “That’s the politically correct way to say it looks like cannibalism.”
“What about the two skeletons?” Maureen asked. “Any evidence they were ‘processed’?”
“Not yet, but the man would have been as tough as an old bull. He was ancient. I mean
really
old, by Anasazi standards. Well past sixty. He’s got some curious problems with his bones. Sid says he thinks he suffered from treponema.”
“Really?” Maureen nodded thoughtfully.
“What’s that?” Dusty asked.
“Syphilis,” Maureen replied without looking at him. She was staring at the bones as if she might be able to tell that from up here. “Are there any lesions?”
For an answer, Steve carefully tiptoed across the bone bed and picked up the skull. “See what you think, Maureen.” He climbed the ladder and presented the skull to her.
She took it and gently turned it over in her hands while she inspected the outer table of the frontal bone, the forehead.
Dusty knelt beside her. Her braid smelled flowery from the shampoo she’d used that morning. “What do you see?”
Nichols stepped forward to listen. The tail of his
black muffler fluttered over Maureen’s shoulder.
She ran a finger over the pitted surface of the frontal bone. “I agree with Sid. Classic syphilitic lesions. Given the advanced stage of the disease, he was probably insane.” She lifted the delicate skull to the sky. “And see the porosity?”
“Cribra cranii?”
Dusty guessed.
“My God, Stewart,” she said in mock surprise. “You’ve actually learned something scientific.”
“Despite myself, Doctor.”
“What’s that mean?” Nichols asked.
“Poor diet,” Maureen told him. “Generally we associate these kind of holes, this porous look, with iron deficiency.”
“But no cut marks?” Dusty asked, studying every line on the skull.
“No,” Maureen answered.
“There’s more,” Steve called up from the bottom of the kiva. “Somebody caved in the old boy’s ribs. Sid says they had started to callus, to heal, so the guy took the hit premortally, before he died. But the broken bones probably punctured his lungs.”
“He must have been tough,” Dusty granted. “He bled to death inside—but not for a while.” He looked around. “So, you’re in NAGPRA land, where’s your Indian monitor?”
Steve grinned. “That’s only for archaeology, Boss Man. This is a federal crime scene. Murder overrides the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.”
Under his breath, Dusty sighed, “Thank God.”
“What about the woman?” Maureen asked.
Steve shrugged. “Sid does facial reconstructions. He said she would have been a real beauty. We even found a few of her hairs preserved. Sid’s going to run some comparisons at the OMI lab. The thing is, her hyoid bone is broken. Sid says someone strangled her.”
Dusty pointed to the area above the woman’s shoulders,
where a forest of pin flags clustered. “What do all the pins mark?”
“Beads,” Steve said. “Dozens of them. Turquoise, coral, jet, you name it. The lady was fixed for a night on the town. All she needed was a tuxedoed gent, a limo, and an American Express Platinum Card.”
Maureen studied the woman’s splayed pelvis. “Steve? Inside the innominates, is that what I think it is?”
“Yes, fetal bone,” he said. “Sid figures she was just finishing the first trimester.”
“Mom and dad?” Dusty asked.
“Maybe. I doubt we’ll ever know,” Steve said.
Maureen looked at Nichols. “If Agent Nichols authorizes it, Sid could run some DNA tests on the bones. We might be able to answer that question.”
Nichols tilted his head as though considering the idea.
“One last thing,” Dusty said, remembering Sage Walking Hawk’s last hours. He took a breath to gird himself. “Was the woman wearing a basilisk?”
Steve straightened and his dark eyes glinted. “No. At least not that we’ve found so far, but the man had one.” Steve pointed to the skull in Maureen’s hand. “It was underneath him. He may have been wearing it as a pendant, but it wasn’t finished yet. He’d carved the snake inside the broken eggshell, but was still working on the inset for the eye. Other than that”—Steve propped his hands on his hips—“it was just like the one you curated from the 10K3 site.” As though someone had asked, Steve added, “And yeah, it’s still there in the University of New Mexico collections. I called to make sure.”

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