Three Sisters (13 page)

Daisy informed him that she possessed neither out-buildings nor livestock.

This statement seemed to confuse the little man, who was hundreds of years old and could not be expected to remember every detail about his neighbor’s holdings. But no matter. One way or another, he would get even for any act of inhospitality on her part.

Knowing that this was no idle threat, Daisy told him where she kept a brand-new box of Fire Chief “Strike Anywhere” kitchen matches. He could take no more than a dozen, and she would know if he did. But sleep in her bed? That was unthinkable. No way. She would not even consider such a brazen proposal. Unless her diminutive guest would provide her with something of comparable value in return.

He suggested a turquoise pendant (shaped like a raven’s gizzard) that would cure nosebleed, diarrhea, and excessive verbosity.

No, thanks. The shaman already had a half-dozen such charms. What she needed at the moment was a mere trifle—a minor piece of historical information. Before he could object, she got right to the point: Did the dwarf happen to know who Old Joe Spencer was?

Well of course he did. Knowing such stuff was his business.

Good. She proceeded: When the three Spencer sisters were little girls, one day at a big to-do where hundreds of people were present, one of them had gotten sick. What had been the occasion? And what was it that had made the little girl sick?

The first question was evidently not a challenge to the little know-it-all’s powers. The dwarf immediately mumbled his response. But as far as what had caused the little girl to become ill, the sly fellow either did not know or would not say. He yawned, began to shiver again, complained that the moonlight was making his eyes ache, and pulled the covers over his head. He advised Daisy to be quiet. And, as she slept, not to roll over onto him.

The rightful owner of the bed settled down onto her pillow, began to recall that singular day, decades ago at the Durango Arts and Crafts Fair. As usual, the
pitukupf
had hit the nail square on the head—that was definitely where it had happened. But she still did not know
what
had made little Astrid sick. Her eyes closed, one at a time.
Sooner or later it’ll come to me.

As she yawned, it occurred to Daisy that she was now quite at ease with the strange little creature sleeping by her side. And that wasn’t all. For the first time since her third husband had died, she had a man in her bed. Well, a
sort
of man. An ugly, odorous, mean-spirited little snip of a man. Even so, it was a comfort.
Which, if you think about it, is pathetic.
This realization, which might have been deeply depressing to a more sensitive soul, struck the Ute woman as hilarious. Not wanting to awaken her grumpy bedmate, Daisy Perika managed to keep from laughing out loud. But she snickered.

It might have been last night’s greasy cheeseburger, the murder of one too many spiders, or the startling appearance of the dwarf in her bed. Or some combination of the three. Whatever the reason, Daisy Perika did not sleep soundly. On the contrary, the shaman shuffled along through dismal dreams where she waded through icy streams, was plagued by the
pitukupf
’s malicious schemes—was terrified by Astrid Spencer’s dying screams! On those occasions when she floated up to semiconsciousness, only to feel the chill presence of the dwarf’s knobby little body pressed against her—Daisy wondered what he might do to get revenge if she happened to roll over and smother him. And what would happen if the elfin creature failed to depart before first light, and Sarah Frank came into the bedroom to say “good morning,” noticed the suspicious lump under the covers, and (with eyebrow arched in prim disapproval) asked, “What is
that,
Aunt Daisy—an ugly little man in bed with you?”

Well, the strain of it all was almost too much. But, as is so often the case, her worries turned out to be wasted. She did not roll over in her sleep and crush the dwarf. And well before the first hint of dawn, the little man had vanished from her bed. Indeed, she could almost have been convinced that
he
was one of her bad dreams. Daisy got herself out of bed with the usual grunts and groans, toddled off to the kitchen to check the fire sticks. She was pleased to find the box of 250 Fire Chief matches almost full.
At least that little thief didn’t take ’em all.

The rosy glow of sunrise found Daisy seated at her kitchen table, about to enjoy the day’s first taste of bubbling-hot, black-as-soot coffee. It was a pleasant experience, with the warm mug clasped in her hands, a vaporous mist of steam rising off the perfectly smooth surface, the delicious scent of…

Hold on. Rewind to “perfectly smooth surface.”

Look at that. The surface was not. (Not smooth.) What should have been a flat, mirrored pool was blemished by an unsavory something. But what was this splotchy little blot? To better focus upon the minuscule object, which was
wriggling
in her beverage, Daisy held the cup close to her left eye, squinted. Aha!

This was truly disgusting—a creature even uglier than the
pitukupf.

The upside-down beastie doing a panicky backstroke in her coffee was a fuzzy spider. Precisely like the one she had stepped on last night. Not a word-class swimmer, this one appeared to be drowning.
Well it serves you right for
—But her righteous rebuke was interrupted by a sudden chill of realization: The shaman could not see them, but she
knew
—

The Spider People were gathered close at hand!

The evil clan had come to carry out their vengeful plan.

When I’m not paying attention, they’ll swarm across the floor, crawl up my legs, and bite me all over and I’d swell up like a prize pumpkin and die in terrible pain!

The situation was serious. Vigilance was called for. Also strategy and tactics.

Pretending to be causally examining the furniture and appliances, Daisy cast her gaze about the kitchen, searching for some sign of the hidden battalions: a stray scrap of web; a tattering of teensy spider tracks; a scout, peeking from behind a broom. There was nothing sinister to be seen—which only proved how clever the little fiends had planned their invasion and assault. But wait. Daisy had spotted something. Over there, sitting on the countertop, between the red Folgers coffee can and the Quaker Oats box, brazen as a brass monkey and glaring at the rightful occupant as if
she
had no right to be there—the creature she most despised. A plump, round, deadly black widow—the biggest one she had ever seen.
That’ll be their war chief.

After her heart had skipped a few beats, Daisy managed to get hold of herself. The Ute elder put on her stern warrior-woman expression, addressed her adversary thusly: “I ain’t afraid of you.” Making fists of her trembling hands, she drew in a deep breath. “Or your whole Spider People tribe.”

Apparently unmoved by this bold assertion, Ms. Chief Black Widow stared back. Presumably, with all six eyes.

Never mind. Daisy Perika’s mouth twisted into a wicked little grin. “Matter of fact, I
like
spiders.”

No, this was not a ploy to curry favor with the enemy.

To demonstrate her point, Daisy raised her cup. Drank deeply thereof. This was a
very
foolish thing to do. But she was fortunate; and correct in her belief that the spider in her coffee was of the nonpoisonous variety. Even so, the experience was unpleasant—the bothersome creature got caught between her teeth. And though she had an overwhelming urge to spit the horrid thing out, there could be no backing down—not under the hard gaze of the enemy. Steeling herself, the Ute elder ground the corpse between ancient molars, swallowed against a latent gag, licked her lips. “Mmmm—that was tasty.” She raised her chin, addressed the leader of the Spider Clan. “Would you like to come swim in my cup?”

As was her taciturn way, Black Widow said neither yea nor nay.

Tickety-tock
clicked the kitchen clock.

For the longest, time, the plump intruder did not blink.

Tickety-tock.

For an equally lengthy interval, Daisy stared back.

Tickety-tock.

She recalled the tale about how Chief Washakie had dispatched the Crow war party.
If I was to kill the chief, maybe the rest of ’em would go away.

Tickety-tock.

Or maybe that’d just make the Spider People mad.

Tickety-tock.

Who knows how long this standoff might have continued, had not Sarah Frank appeared on the scene. Rubbing her eyes, the pajama-clad girl said, “Good morning, Aunt Daisy.”
What’s she staring at?

Daisy was feeling feisty. And boastful.
Wait’ll I tell her what I swallowed on purpose.
But before the old woman could make her brag, some serious business must be taken care of. She whispered, “Kill it.”

“What?”

Ah, how errors do muddle up our day.

The intent of Sarah’s abbreviated question was: “What did you say?”

Daisy’s interpretation was: “Kill what?” She pointed at the awful thing.

The girl saw it. Without hesitation, she walked over to the counter, picked up the stray grape, popped it into her mouth, chewed. Sarah turned to smile at the tribal elder, swallowed.

The aged shaman was stunned. Stupefied. Horrified.
Silly girl—she’ll fall down dead!

But of course our youthful heroine would suffer no ill effect. Indeed, the nutritious snack seemed to perk her up. Impressing Daisy right down to the marrow, the girl smacked her lips, said “Are there any more?”

Unable to utter a word, the tribal elder shook her head.
The whole bunch of ’em are probably in the next county by now.

From Sarah’s expression, it was apparent that she was mildly disappointed. And on top of that, the heroine did not boast of her accomplishment. The very soul of modesty, she changed the subject. “It won’t be long before Mr. Sweetwater shows up. You want me to make you some oatmeal?”

This was like meeting a U.S. Marine who didn’t remember where he’d put his Congressional Medal of Honor. Maybe in the drawer with his socks? Still incapable of speech, Daisy shrugged off the offer of food. The eccentric gourmet, who had a
spider insider,
was feeling a mite nauseous. But the arachnid-eater did accept a second cup of coffee. As Daisy observed the spunky youth, she realized that there was much more to this orphan girl than met the eye.
All this time, I’ve been trying to teach her stuff, like how to cure warts and bring the rain—but she could teach me a thing or two.
After Daisy had taken a sip or two of brackish brew, in that peculiar way that jarring experiences often do, the staggering sight of Sarah popping a hideous black widow into her mouth shook something loose from the residue of the old woman’s murky memory, which promptly bubbled up to the top.
Now I remember what made that little Spencer girl sick at the arts-and-crafts fair—it was something she swallowed.
Daisy screwed her face into an intense grimace. Was it food or drink? Or something else entirely.
A bug?

Isn’t that always the way—as soon as one vexing lodger is evicted from the premises, another just-as-annoying tenant slips in to occupy the vacancy.

Having been warned by Daisy Perika that she did not operate on “Indian time,” Gorman Sweetwater made sure that he showed up in his snazzy pickup promptly at 9:00
A.M.
Right on the dot. Which was 9:24.

During the drive from Daisy’s secluded home at the mouth of
Cañón del Espíritu
to her nephew’s equally remote ranch in the high valley between the snowcapped Misery and Buckhorn Ranges, Sarah Frank—with Mr. Zig-Zag napping in her lap—was seated between Daisy and the tribal elder’s cousin. The happy girl chattered incessantly about subjects of cosmic importance: Would Charlie Moon remember his solemn promise to provide her with a horse to ride? Was Aunt Daisy sure that Charlie liked rhubarb pie? Maybe she should have baked apple pies instead. Or one peach and one apple. She hoped he wouldn’t be working
all
the time, so maybe they could go horseback riding together. Was Charlie’s big lake really full of pretty-colored fish? (Here, Gorman—who had caught several fine trout in said body of water—assured her that a man could walk across Lake Jesse on the back of five-pound rainbows and cutthroats. Without getting his feet wet.) Sarah giggled, which—to Daisy’s disgust—encouraged her lying cousin to tell more tales about his astonishing experiences as an angler, such as when he caught a nine-foot Nile crocodile in Navajo Lake. Using an eight-pound ham as bait. And a barbed hook that a one-eyed Mormon blacksmith had fashioned from a length of three-quarter-inch-diameter rebar. On and on it went, until Gorman bumpity-bumped his pickup over the Too Late Creek bridge, braked it to a halt under one of the gigantic cottonwoods that shaded the two-story log headquarters—where the full-time rancher, part-time tribal investigator, hung his black Stetson. The teenager was fairly quivering with excitement. To no one in particular, she whispered, “Oh—oh—I hope Charlie’s here to meet us.”

The man had said he would be, so of course he was.

As Charlie was helping his aunt out of the pickup—Daisy’s dismount was painfully slow—Sarah tumbled out on the driver’s side behind Gorman Sweetwater and ran around the front of the truck, wanting with all her heart to enfold the tall Ute in a rapturous embrace. But as she encountered the flesh-and-blood version of her girlish dreams, Sarah slowed—succumbed to a numbing shyness.

As soon as his aged aunt was properly stabilized on Columbine soil, Moon greeted Gorman, then turned to the Ute-Papago girl, flashed a smile that almost stopped her heart. “So how’re you doing, kid?”

Kid?
She dropped her gaze to his boots, shrugged. “Okay.”

“Well, ‘okay’ ain’t nearly good enough.” He assumed a stern, fatherly look. “Young lady, now that you’re on Columbine territory, we’ll see to it that you work your way all the way up to ‘fine and dandy.’”

Young lady?
This was the way grown-ups spoke to children.
He just doesn’t understand
. Sarah Frank clenched her teeth, kicked at a pebble.

The rancher eyed the girl with the uncanny insight of a cowboy who could spot a sick heifer at fifty yards and make an instant verdict on the malady.
The kid looks like she’s kinda off her feed. Probably something she ate for breakfast
. But, noting the pouty expression, he considered another possibility:
Could be she’s ticked off about something or other. Probably going through one of those teenage phases you hear so much about
. But Moon knew his limitations. Compared to cud-chewing bovine creatures and spirited quarter horses, human beings—especially the females of the species—were an unfathomable mystery.

But his diagnosis had been close enough. Sarah was ticked off.
Maybe Aunt Daisy’s right. Maybe Charlie Moon is a big gourd head!

A half hour later, when Mr. Moon introduced Miss Frank to a bright-eyed pinto pony outfitted with a Mexican leather saddle studded with coin-silver conchos, all was forgiven.

That evening, Scott Parris showed up in response to an invitation to supper. The broad-shouldered, sandy-haired chief of Granite Creek PD was determined to make a hit with the Ute-Papago girl, whom he had not seen since her parents had died a decade earlier. Upon his arrival, Parris presented Sarah with an expensive gift he’d had shipped in from a specialty shop in Denver. Expressing his surprise at “how you’ve grown up,” the clueless fellow watched with happy expectation as the big-eyed teenager opened the rib-boned package, was puzzled when the look of eager anticipation was replaced by a glazed expression of humiliation.

To Sarah’s credit, she recovered quickly, managed a sweet little smile, said, “Thank you, Mr. Parris. It’s very pretty.”

The bemused white man shrugged it off.
I guess some girls don’t like dolls all that much
.

During the evening meal, both Sarah and Daisy were silent, the girl picking at her food, the tribal elder exhibiting a similar lack of appetite. Sarah had almost forgotten her contribution to the feast, but as the men cleaned the last morsels from their plates, she was reminded by a look and a nod from the old woman. Excusing herself, Sarah hurried away to her downstairs bedroom, opened a cardboard box, and returned with a quite attractive pie.

Moon and Parris greeted the homemade dessert with whoops of delight. Gorman Sweetwater’s mouth watered in sweet anticipation. “What kind is it?” Daisy’s cousin inquired. “Apple?”

Sarah shook her head. “No, it’s—”

“Blueberry,” Gorman guessed. He turned to Daisy, who was seated beside him. “They say blueberries is good for you. They’re loaded with vitums and annyoxants and whatnot.”

Daisy corrected him: “Vitamins and antioxidants.”

“That’s what I said.”
That knot-headed old woman is losing her hearing
. He repeated himself, louder this time: “Vitums!”

Daisy glared at her relative. “Don’t yell in my ear!”

“It’s rhubarb,” Sarah mumbled. She was close to tears.

“Great,” Moon said. “Rhubarb’s my favorite kind of pie.”

“Mine too,” Parris rubbed his hands together. “And from what I read last month in
Reader’s Digest,
rhubarb has ten times more vitums—uh—vitamins than the best blueberry you ever come across.”

The girl offered the gift of food to her favorite man in the whole world. “I made it myself.”
For you, and nobody else
.

Charlie Moon accepted the gift, patted his admirer on the shoulder. “Thank you, Sarah.”

She was thrilled from head to toe.
Charlie called me by my name!
Add that courtesy to the ride on the pretty pinto pony and you get—heavenly bliss.

Moon turned to Granite Creek’s top cop. “Seeing as how you and me are best buddies, and Daisy and Gorman are my favorite relatives, I guess you can all have a piece.”

Parris affected a look of deep disappointment. “Only one?”

Though suspect of the
matukach
lawman’s praise of rhubarb and its abundant content of vitums, Gorman allowed as how he could do with a taste of pie.

On the girl’s account, Daisy said she would have a piece.

Sarah, too nervous to eat a bite, demurred.

The head of the household used a bone-handled Arkansas Toothpick to quarter the pie, plopped a slab on Daisy’s plate, Gorman’s, Parris’s, reserved the last section for himself.

In almost ceremonial fashion, the three men and the elderly lady each tasted the rhubarb concoction at the same moment. The silent judgment was unanimous. Horrible.

Daisy pursed her lips.
Sarah didn’t put in two cups of sugar like I told her—she must’ve got hold of the canister with the big “S” on it and poured in salt instead!
The old woman knew she could count on her nephew and the white man. But—
If Gorman says something to hurt that girl’s feelings, I’ll ball up a fist and knock him right off his chair
. She meant this quite literally. The prone-to-physical-violence woman gave her cousin a warning look, to which he was oblivious.

In his entire life, Gorman Sweetwater had never tasted rhubarb pie, homemade or otherwise, so, having no preconceived expectations, he was not bitterly disappointed.
Them rhubarbs sure is salty
. But there was no getting around the truth:
This tastes worse than a warm cow pie. Not that I ever actually tasted fresh manure. Or partic’ly want to
.

Moon’s satisfied smile was a class act. “That is the best rhubarb pie I ever got past my lips.” He immediately regretted the choice of words, and added, “First rate!”

Parris chimed in, “It’s fantastic!”
God, please don’t let me puke right here at the table
.

Cousin Gorman, who blamed the rhubarb, and had far more wisdom than Daisy gave him credit for, added this high praise: “That little girl is some fine cook!” He beamed at Sarah. “It’ll be a lucky man that gets
you
for a wife.”

Being of the opinion that a grueling task should be completed speedily, Moon took another big bite, winked at the delighted girl. “Now that’s a fact.”

Parris, who fancied himself a gourmet of sorts, managed a satisfied burp. “You bet.” He grinned at the teenager. “If I was about thirty-five years younger, why, I’d be camping on your doorstep.”

Sarah was so caught up in rapture that she could not speak.

Daisy, who had not gotten past the first bite, reached over to pat the girl’s thin little arm. “This pie is really something special.” The old woman was enormously proud of the men in her presence. Even Cousin Gorman was a hero in her eyes.

The valiant fellows finished their dessert at about the same moment.

Sarah’s face glowed with pride. “You really liked it?”

Nods all around.

A thumbs-up from Moon: “Absolutely top-notch.”

Gorman: “Best rhubarb pie I’ve ever had.”

Parris put on a hangdog look. “Too bad it’s all gone.”

Sarah got up, ran from the dining room.

Moon frowned. “Where’s she off to?”

Daisy sighed. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

And they did.

Sarah Frank appeared, big smile splitting her face, carrying the second rhubarb pie.

As his Ute friend would put it later, Parris’s chin dropped into his collar.

Mr. Sweetwater got distinctly green about the gills.

Something had to be done.

Grabbing the pie, Charlie Moon scowled at his guests. “Don’t be begging for seconds—you’ve all had your fill. I’m saving this one all for myself.”

Tears misted Sarah’s eyes.

The others present were similarly grateful. Scott Parris, Gorman Sweetwater, Daisy Perika—they God-blessed him, every one. And his crotchety aunt decided that maybe she’d been a little too hard on him all these years. Maybe Charlie Moon was not such a big gourd head after all.

Eager to build upon her stunning culinary success, Sarah was already planning a future surprise.
Cherry
pies.