Dead Soul (27 page)

Chapter Thirty-One

THE GATHERING

TO THE EXTENT THAT IT WAS HUMANLY POSSIBLE FOR A BUSY PARISH
priest, Father Raes Delfino’s life was well organized. And according to his schedule, it was time to visit Daisy Perika. The pastor of St. Ignatius Catholic Church approached this particular duty with an unsettling mixture of apprehension and anticipation. This was partially because the man, who should have been impartial, had a terrible secret hidden in his heart. Among the whole tribe of Utes, Daisy Perika was his favorite. This despite the fact that the elder was often a sharp thorn in his side. The old woman was mischievously irreverent and wholly unpredictable, but this volatile combination provided a welcome seasoning to the cleric’s bland diet.

Upon arriving at Daisy’s remote trailer home, Father Raes had been gratified to see Charlie Moon’s pickup parked under the shade of a juniper. He received a hearty handshake from the amiable Ute, a derisive snort from the tribal elder, who suggested that the priest must have taken a wrong turn off Route 151. There was no bingo game in these parts, nor was there any cash for his long-handled offering plate. In return for these poisonous barbs, Daisy received the gentle man’s blessing—which galled her—and a look of stern disapproval from her nephew—which had no effect whatever. These obligatory preliminaries completed, the trio of quite remarkable human beings enjoyed a tasty breakfast of bacon and eggs, which was salted by talk of reservation politics, upcoming events at St. Ignatius, the desperate need for rain.

When Daisy got up to brew fresh coffee, the tribal investigator removed a photograph from his shirt pocket. Knowing that consulting the priest first would arouse his aunt’s ire and pique her curiosity, he pushed the likeness across the table to Father Raes. “She look familiar?”

He studied the image. The pale, redheaded woman stared back at him, as if pleading for recognition. He furrowed his brow at the photo, then at Moon. “She does look vaguely familiar, but beyond that I really can’t say.”

Moon waited for his aunt’s reaction.

Having restarted the coffeepot, Daisy untied her apron. Pretending to have taken no notice of the conversation between her nephew and the priest, she made it her business to pass behind Father Raes. And look over his shoulder at the photograph.

Charlie Moon watched the old woman’s wooden expression for the least hint of recognition. Hoped there would be none.

Daisy had only intended to make a quick glance. But she could not pull her gaze from the image of the young woman she had seen first at the Wal-Mart, then across the street from Angel’s Café. This was the very same person that Louise Marie LaForte
could not see in broad daylight.
Unaware that she had been holding her breath, the tribal elder felt her vision blur. She exhaled carbon dioxide, drew in a fresh supply of oxygen.

Moon had seen the truth glinting in the old woman’s eyes, but felt compelled to ask. “Somebody you know?”

Hesitant to lie in the priest’s presence, Daisy substituted a shrug and an evasion. “Hard to say—these
matukach
all look pretty much alike.”

The
matukach
priest smiled.

Moon pressed. “Then you’ve never seen this woman?”

“Who knows,” the elder said. “It’s a fuzzy picture.”

“Take a closer look.” The tribal investigator offered his aunt the photograph.

Daisy backed away, made an urgent dismissive gesture.

Moon withdrew the picture. And his question. The Ute elder would not touch the likeness of a person recently dead. Especially if the death had been violent.
But how does she know?

Daisy closed her eyes.
God protect us from ghosts and witches and all kinds of evil.

Immediately, the priest heard a light tapping. He waited for Daisy to open the trailer door, then realized that neither the old woman or her nephew had shown any sign of hearing the sound.
Maybe I imagined it
. But there it was again—a louder knocking. He looked again to the Utes; surely they had heard it this time. Charlie Moon was putting the photograph of the dead woman into his pocket; the old woman had her eyes closed.

A third time: Bang—bang—bang!

Father Raes could see the flimsy door vibrate under the urgent blows.

Though she did not hear the knocking, the shaman sensed the
presence
—and felt a chill.
It must be the pitukupf.
Of course, the dwarf knew the priest was in her home—and had come to embarrass her! The little man, once such a shy recluse in his badger hole, had become more bold with the passing years. Not so very long ago, he had shown up in church during Sunday morning Mass, sitting right there in the pew beside her! The old woman fixed her gaze on the trailer door, muttered in the Ute dialect:
“Pága-kwáy!”

Charlie Moon frowned at his aunt.
Who is she telling to go away?

Daisy Perika eyeballed her nephew a stern warning.
Don’t ask—you don’t want to know
.

The knocking ceased. Father Raes felt a rush of relief, but this was mixed with an inexplicable sense of loss. And loneliness.
I should have opened the door myself.

Moon dismissed the incident from his mind. Aunt Daisy had always been a bit peculiar, and age had only sharpened her eccentricities. The tall man got up from the kitchen table, leaned to peer through the small window. Three Sisters Mesa loomed massively over the mouth of
Cañon del Espiritu
. A cloud-bonnet had lodged itself on the head of the tallest of the legendary Pueblo sisters who, ages ago, had ascended to the heights to escape an Apache raiding party. In response to an urgent prayer for deliverance, the frightened women had been turned to stone by a stroke of lightning. Or so it was said.

Daisy felt the need to say something. “You men want some more coffee?”

Father Raes declined with his usual grace. The old woman’s brew was strong enough to etch the enamel off a camel’s teeth.

Moon also refused a second cup. “I’d best be heading home.” The Columbine was a long, lonesome way north. And driving alone gave a man time to do plenty of thinking. Which was not always a good thing.

She turned off the blue propane flame under the coffeepot, and assumed a casual tone. “That young woman in the picture—she have a name?”

“Wilma Brewster,” her nephew said. “She was a student.”

Daisy pretended to be surprised. “Was?”

Charlie Moon pretended to be taken in by his aunt’s amateur performance. “Miss Brewster is no longer with us.”
Not in this world.

After a brief prayer for God’s protection of Daisy Perika, Charlie Moon, Wilma Brewster—and himself—the Jesuit shepherd took his leave.

Charlie Moon departed in the priest’s wake.

Deprived so suddenly of her company, Daisy Perika felt a pang of melancholy.

Chapter Thirty-Two

NESTED VISIONS

THE AGED WOMAN WAS FEELING EVERY ONE OF HER MANY BIRTHDAYS
.
Except for my toenails, everything in my body aches.
But there was work to be done, and no one else to do it. This being so, she leaned on the stout oak staff with one arm, carried a bucket of well water with the other. Very deliberately—stalk by stalk—she slaked the thirst of three rows of stunted blue corn. When this task was completed, the weary woman paused to straighten her stiff back.
Oh, God…I am getting too old to live.

Shielding her eyes from a bright patch of sky, Daisy squinted to the northwest. A long, leaf-shaped sliver of cloud drifted out from the San Juans to shade Three Sisters Mesa. As she watched, the cloud’s shadow slipped over the earth like a wizard’s cloak. A sage-tinted breeze was exhaled from the mouth of
Cañon del Espiritu,
whipping the old woman’s woolen skirt around skinny legs. The shaman shuddered, pulled her third husband’s overcoat tightly around her waist.
Soon it comes—the Moon of Dead Leaves Falling.
But for a while yet, only the highest peaks would be blanketed with white. The threat of a hard frost was of more immediate concern to the gardener than the uncountable mass of six-sided crystals brewing northward over the Never Summer range. The malicious freeze that would murder her vegetables might be lurking just past tomorrow, planning an icy assault on the tiny garden. Daisy picked the few ripe tomatoes, which would be ruined instantly by a sudden drop in temperature. The green ones—so delicious when sliced, sprinkled with flour and salt, fried in an uncovered iron skillet—would not last into the depths of winter if plucked from the vine. The gardener did not hesitate; she pulled all of the tomato plants up by the roots. These would be stored in a dark space under the trailer.

Another breeze came to ruffle her skirt. This one also carried the spirit of winter—and something else. The shaman raised her nose, sniffed.
It’s smoke.
And within the tiny particulates, there was an additional message for her nostrils. The distinct odor of roasting animal flesh. Rabbit, she thought. The Ute elder knew in an instant who would be roasting cottontail up in the Canyon of the Spirits.
The little man. And he might know something about the redheaded woman. Maybe that’s why he came knocking on my door.

Daisy Perika hurriedly stored the modest produce from her arid vegetable garden, stuffed a few selected items into a tattered pillowcase. She had someplace important to go. Something important to do.

The tribal elder started her stiff-legged journey toward the yawning mouth of the canyon. Once between the towering walls of
Cañon del Espiritu,
the grade was slight. A young person would hardly have noticed the climb. But the aged must walk slowly, pause frequently to take deep breaths. This allows time for their weary spirit-shadows to catch up and reattach to their mortal bodies.

Each time Daisy made the trek, it seemed as if her destination had moved farther up the canyon. The sun—which had been low in the east when she departed on her walk—was near its zenith as she approached the badger hole, long since abandoned by the original tenant. She sat down on a small shelf of variegated sandstone. The tribal elder leaned her tired back against the rough bark of a piñon that was even older than herself. Laying the oak staff across her thighs, she closed her eyes. Saw darkness. Then ripples of dim light. Something very much like sleep overcame the bone-tired woman.

The shaman would dream her way into the
pitukupf’s
subterranean home.

The bottom of the badger hole had been hollowed out into an oval chamber. A thick cobweb of fine, hairlike roots hung from the ceiling. Sticking on some of these fibers were small, pearled beads of water. Embedded in an arched wall was a long taproot, descending from a middle-aged ponderosa. The flat, earthen floor was randomly cobbled with smooth stones that, eons ago, had tumbled along in an icy glacial stream. On the north wall of the snug chamber, the current occupant had fashioned a small fireplace, where a heap of dry willow twigs crackled with flame. Across the hearth, supported by notched blocks of sandstone, was a blackened oak branch. Mounted on this spit was the headless carcass of an unfortunate rodent. Grease dripped into the fire, popped in the willow embers. Aromatic smoke wafted upward through the thick whiskers of ceiling roots, found its way up through the twisting tunnel, drifted slowly down
Cañon del Espiritu
toward Daisy Perika’s home.

Expert in the protocol of such meetings, Daisy held her tongue. The shaman stared at the
pitukupf.
Waited.

The age-old creature was seated on a three-legged stool near the small fire where his meal roasted slowly. He busied himself with some obscure task. For an undetermined time (in this place, ticks and tocks from little clocks cannot measure the mysterious distance between
then
and
now
) Daisy watched the dwarf carve on a hard pine knot with a knife the diminutive craftsman had surely fashioned himself. The instrument’s handle was a crescent of knobby elk horn; the blade, resembling a glistening black elm leaf, was cunningly chipped obsidian. The smoky volcanic glass was streaked with ripples of crimson, as if some ancient reptile had been caught in the molten flow and left a bright trail of fossilized blood.

Her patience grew taut and thin.
I can’t sit here all day waiting for this little rascal to say something.

The small craftsman blew fine shavings off the pine knot, into the fire. He held his work up for a critical inspection, then began to whittle again.

She grunted.

The
pitukupf
did not acknowledge the shaman’s presence.

Daisy cleared her throat. “You’re looking well.”
For a sawed-off little runt who must be at least a thousand years old.

No response.

She tried again, assuming the solicitous tone of a long-lost friend. “Haven’t seen you in a long time.” After a polite pause, she added, “Somebody knocked on my door yesterday—I thought it might’ve been you. Thought maybe you wanted to stop by and talk.”

The little man seemed determined to prove that his reputation for rudeness was well deserved. Hunched before the small fire on the three-legged stool, he pointedly continued with the work that fully occupied his attention.

The
pitukupf
had his own way of doing things. And his own notion of time.
Well, I’ll give him a little longer.
Sitting on the floor of his underground den, she hugged her knees and watched.

Her inconsiderate host continued his concentrated effort to shape the woody object into something that did not look like a pine knot. Occasionally, he would pause to spit into the fire.

Father Raes has warned me a hundred times to stay away from the
pitukupf.
Maybe I should have listened to the priest.
The shaman was suddenly struck with the absurd nature of her relationship with this eccentric creature. Like so many times before, here they were again in the abandoned badger hole the little squatter had selected for his home. And as always, they played their assigned roles. She, bringing small gifts to exchange for supposedly priceless information. The
pitukupf
—arrogant to the point of outright nastiness—spurning not only her offerings, but apparently objecting to the shaman’s very presence in his domain. But in the end, he always accepted the bits of this and that she brought to loosen his lips. In return, he would break the silence to offer some fragment of information that was so shrouded in dark symbolism as to be practically useless.

Many winters ago, when Daisy had been a young woman, these clandestine meetings had filled her with awe, as if she were touching the edge of the Infinite. Now, with the fullness of age and experience, it was becoming apparent that the little man was little more than a man. A cranky, ugly, old man—the worst sort of that gender.
But nobody drug me here kicking and screaming. I came because I wanted to.
As this understanding grew in her breast, the shaman was beginning to feel a bit of a fool. Daisy Perika was not given to introspection, and this unexpected intrusion of self-knowledge was discomforting.
Well, let’s get this over with.
The shaman removed the old pillowcase from her coat pocket, placed it on the earthen floor.

The small creature continued to whittle on the chunk of pine, seemingly uninterested in what the tribal elder had brought to his den.

But as Daisy removed a small sack of tobacco and a half pound of coffee, she was pleased to notice a quick glance from the
pitukupf
—an appreciative flare of hairy nostrils.

Even so, he continued to shape the wood with the stone blade.

Enough is enough.
She set her jaw and glared at the side of his craggy little face. “I’m going to tell you something. And you better listen with both of your ugly ears, because I won’t say this but once.” She waited for a sign that he had taken notice of her. It did seem that the rhythm of his whittling had slowed. “Two times, I’ve had a talk with a skinny, redheaded
matukach
woman. She told me some strange things, so I wanted to ask you about her. But you probably don’t know nothing about the whites and their strange doings.”

There was a sudden darkness in his expression. But the elfin craftsman continued with his work.

“And even if you do know something about this woman, it don’t matter that much to me. I am tired of your bad manners. Just the same, I’ll leave what I brought you.” The old woman turned the pillowcase upside down, dumping out a pile of oatmeal cookies.

The
pitukupf
stuck the obsidian blade under his buckskin belt, snatched two cookies, wolfed one down in three frantic bites, got to serious work on the other.

Miserable little glutton. Go ahead—eat yourself sick.
“I’m going home now.” The Ute elder pushed herself erect. “I don’t know if I’ll ever come back.” She shook a finger at her host. “A mean little fellow like you don’t deserve human company.”

He stuffed the sack of tobacco under his shirt, looked up at the shaman. An utterly astounding thing happened.

She watched as a single tear formed at the corner of a yellowed eye, made a serpentine course down a leathery cheek. The shaman was slack-jawed with astonishment. It seemed impossible, but…
I’ve hurt his feelings.

The
pitukupf
had yet another surprise up his sleeve.

He showed his guest a soiled palm. Upon it was what had been a pine knot. Now, the product of his skilled craftsmanship had taken on the shape of a delicate piñon cone. It was a thing of wonder.

The old woman’s throat constricted, causing her to croak. “Is this for me?”

He nodded.

Daisy felt a pang of regret for scolding the little man, whose narrow face had taken on the wounded aspect of the martyred saint in the stained glass at St. Ignatius Church. “Well…that’s very nice of you.” She started to drop the carving into her pocket.

The squint-eyed frown on the dwarf’s face made it clear that he opposed this action.

The shaman took another look at the gift. It was no longer a mere carving. This was an actual cone. Equally real were the nuts nestled between the segments.

It startled her when the
pitukupf
spoke. As in all previous encounters, he uttered his words in a choppy version of the Ute tongue so ancient that the tribal elder strained to understand.

She stared at the pinecone, then at her frustrated host. “What did you say?”

The dwarf scowled, made an impatient hand-to-mouth gesture.

“You want me to eat them?”

It was quite evident that he did.

Daisy removed several nuts, pried open the split brown hulls with her thumbnail. She placed a tiny kernel into her mouth. Chewed. Delicious. She popped a second tiny delicacy onto her tongue, nodded to communicate her approval.

The dwarf seemed to be quite gratified at this response.

Encouraged, Daisy put a third kernel in her mouth.
Oh my.
This one must be rotten; it was extremely bitter. And getting worse. She made a terrible face.

The
pitukupf
, who appreciated low comedy, slapped his skinny thigh, cackled a horrid laugh.

The shaman tried to spit the stuff out, right in his face. But like a wasp’s nest under the eaves, it clung stubbornly to the roof of her mouth.

The dwarf laughed even harder, almost falling off the three-legged stool. Real tears began to drip off his cheeks.

It was clear that she had been the butt of one of the
pitukupf’s
crude pranks.

Nasty little imp—I’ll get you for this if it takes me the rest of my life!

She swallowed some of the bitter spittle. Coughed. Choked.

And then came the vision.

THE SHAMAN
saw amazing things—things that made her tremble.