Rupert stepped out of the green Park Service truck. On the other side, Maggie Walking Hawk Taylor, also in a pale green park uniform, opened the passenger-side door. She clutched a brown paper bag in her right hand.
“Hey, Dusty,” Rupert greeted and extended a hand. “Hoped I’d catch you here.”
“Hi, Rupert. Welcome to the big city.”
“Hello, Dusty.” Maggie walked up and hugged Dusty fiercely. Then she stepped back and handed him the bag. “Aunt Sage sent you this.”
Dusty opened it and looked in to find fry bread.
“It’s her traditional gift to a grieving family. She makes it a little different,” Maggie told him. “She uses cinnamon and sugar.”
“Tell her how much I appreciate it.” He smiled his thanks. “I’ll see if I can’t get out to see her sometime soon to thank her personally.”
“She’s not … well, she’s not receiving visitors these days, Dusty. So don’t worry about it. I’ll tell her you said thanks.”
“The cancer?” Dusty asked, another wound lancing his heart.
Maggie nodded. “She won’t go to hospice or even take anything for the pain.” Maggie avoided his eyes. “I’ve been staying out there. We’ve been discussing things. Things she said I was going to have to know.”
Dusty looked down at the sack of fry bread, wondering how long it would be before he would have to reciprocate, sending a gift of food to Maggie. He’d forgotten that Pueblo tradition after Aunt Hail had died. With the tenderness of Dale’s death eating into his soul, he promised he’d do better next time.
“You about ready?” Rupert propped his hands on his hips, looking over the trailer.
“I’m pretty well packed.” He indicated the stack of
screens in the pickup bed. Shovels and pickaxes were laid out on the bed along with two big army-green footlockers that contained the dig kits: level forms, Ziploc bags, artifact bags, soil sample containers, a camera in an ammo box, a chalkboard for photo notes, north arrows and metric scales, line levels, a collection of pointing and square trowels, string, and the other minutiae of good excavation.
Rupert arched an eyebrow. “Didn’t you hear agent whatshisname? You’re not digging.”
“I know, but Nichols told me I could watch from the sidelines.” Dusty opened the passenger door and set the fry bread inside. “Michall talked to me this morning. We’re renting her the equipment for her crew. It’s a business deal. All aboveboard. She’s paying for it with real coin of the realm. Good old U.S. cash, legal tender for all debts public and private. We’ve even got a contract, signed and sealed.”
“Uh-huh.” Rupert pulled sunglasses from his pocket, slipped them onto his thin face, and studied Dusty. “How much is she paying?”
“A dollar.”
Rupert chuckled. “You don’t mention that around the FBI, all right?”
“Right.” Dusty nodded.
Rupert’s smile faded. “We just came from a meeting with the feds. We’re working with them hand in glove. Their ERT team has some pretty strict rules for handling evidence if we find anything. At a moment’s notice the archaeologists may have to bail out while the scene is sealed.”
Dusty glanced up at the bright midday sun. “What do they think we’re going to find down there? A drug lab? It’s going to be subtle, Rupert. Something your standard run-of-the-mill FBI white guy would walk right past.”
Rupert sighed. “You and I think a lot alike. That’s why I insisted that Maggie handle this.”
Magpie looked away. “I didn’t want to. I mean, God, Dusty, it’s Dale. The place they left him.” Her expression pinched. “You didn’t see him. Not when they brought him out of the ground.”
Dusty’s hands clenched of their own will. “Did you?”
She hesitated. “Yes, and I swear the very air smelled of evil.” She let out a breath. “But I’ve been talking to Aunt Sage. I’m prepared. I can do this.” Her determined eyes met his. “Aunt Sage says I can, and I must.”
“You’re sure?”
Maggie nodded. “If Michall cuts anything, I’ll recognize it. Not only that, if it’s as bad as we all think, I’ll find someone to handle it.”
Dusty said, “I’ll help you,” but wondered how the FBI ERT guys were going to take having a couple of Keres tribal elders showing up on-site to conduct the kind of rituals necessary to capture and destroy ancient witchery.
“You want to follow us up?” Rupert asked, jerking a thumb at the truck.
“No, I have to get back to Santa Fe. Maureen took the Bronco to my place. We have to buy groceries, lantern fuel, get propane, all that.”
“You and Maureen?” Maggie lifted an eyebrow suggestively. “You know, Dale always had hopes for the two of you.”
Dusty smiled sadly. “It’s not like that. We’re friends. That’s all. It’s just that we were together, you know, when it happened. It’s as hard on her as it is on me.”
“I doubt that,” Maggie said. “But I’m glad she’s here, so you don’t have to do this alone.”
Dusty jammed his hands farther into his pockets. “Yeah, well, I haven’t had much of a chance to be alone. It seems I’m very popular these days. I even had a visit from my mother last night.”
Rupert straightened, a keenness in his expression.
Dusty wished like hell he could have seen the man’s eyes, hidden now by the sunglasses. “Ruth’s here? Here? In Albuquerque?”
“No. Santa Fe. She was staying at La Fonda. That is, unless Agent Nichols snapped her up as a witness. We called him immediately. Figured it would do her good to sit in for an FBI grilling.”
“You think she had something to do with this?” Maggie asked, incredulous.
“Yeah, something,” Dusty admitted. “But not directly. This whole thing goes into the past, something between her, Dale, my dad, and Hawsworth.”
Rupert tilted his head and examined Dusty. “I’m surprised. After what she did to you, I never thought she’d have the guts to come back and face you.”
Dusty shrugged. “I think she’s terrified, Rupert. She had to face me to find out what I knew about Dale’s death.”
Rupert straightened to his full six feet six inches, and softly asked, “Are you okay?”
Dusty nodded. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
They stood in companionable silence for a few seconds; then Rupert looked at his watch.
“Maggie, we’ve got a hard three hours back to the barn. That, or we’ll have to file the paperwork for overtime.”
“That’s the life of a federal drudge, sir.”
Rupert made a face. “I get no respect.” He started toward the truck, but stopped and turned back. He had a strange look on his face. “When you get to the canyon, find me. Dale always told me to keep my mouth shut about the past. Especially with you, Dusty. He didn’t want me stirring the ashes in fires long dead. I don’t know everything, but I know some things.”
“
What
things?” Dusty asked.
“When you get to the canyon, we’ll talk,” Rupert called over his shoulder as he opened the pickup door and slid into the driver’s seat. “And if you see your
mother, tell her I’ve got beer on ice. See what kind of reaction that gets out of her.”
“Beer on ice?”
“Yeah.” Rupert backed out of the parking lot. Just before putting the truck into forward, he called, “I didn’t think much of her back then, Dusty. Maybe she’s changed, huh?”
Dusty watched him drive away, remembering her from last night. “Then again, maybe she hasn’t.”
STONE GHOST PULLED a brown fabric bag from his pack, tugged the laces open, and poured the dried onions into the boiling pot that hung on the tripod over his warming bowl. The old pot bore a thick coating of soot, which almost obscured the gray clay beneath.
Bone Walker crouched across the fire with her arms folded atop her knees, and her doll in her right hand. The heavy turquoise necklace he’d given her still draped her neck.
That morning he’d heard her running through the hallways, running like a scared rabbit, making soft pained sounds. He’d called her name, and she’d climbed the ladder to get to his chamber, then run into his arms—the first time she’d let him touch her. Stone Ghost had held her in silence until she’d fallen asleep. Often throughout the afternoon, she’d awakened from nightmares, shaking.
“This is not much of a supper,” he said. “Onion soup thickened with a little blue cornmeal. Are you hungry?”
Bone Walker stared at the far wall through wide empty eyes. The eyes of the old Bone Walker, days ago, before they’d started talking. Dirt streaked her pretty face and faded blue dress. She must have slid
her hand through the grime on the floor while she slept, then rubbed her nose.
Stone Ghost wondered what had happened to her.
He added three more twigs to the low fire in the warming bowl and watched the flames lick up around the base of his soup pot. The spicy scent of onions mixed with the sweetness of the blue corn to create a mouth-watering aroma.
Yesterday, he’d thought he might be making headway with Bone Walker, getting her to trust him a little, but for most of today she’d been quiet, hiding in corners, sleeping with her blanket pulled over her head.
“I have some juniper berry tea made. Would you like some, Bone Walker?”
She didn’t seem to hear him, but the cornhusk doll was turned as if to peer at the teapot resting beside the warming bowl.
Stone Ghost dipped a cupful from the pot and handed it to her. When she didn’t take it, he set the cup on the floor beneath the doll.
Stone Ghost picked up his own teacup. Juniper berry tea had a tangy pungent flavor. He took a long drink before lowering his cup to his lap.
In a tender voice, Stone Ghost asked, “Where do you go, Bone Walker, when you aren’t speaking? Do you go to a place inside you or a place outside?”
Bone Walker’s head tilted toward him, but she didn’t look at him. She looked past him.
“I’m curious because once, when I was a boy, the village bully struck me in the head with a big rock.” Stone Ghost used his fingers to part the white hair on the right side of his head so that she could see the scar. “I fell flat on my face and I think my breath-heart soul slipped from my body. I found myself looking down at this bloody-headed boy, but I was floating like a milkweed seed, going higher and higher. My mother told me that she had tried to wake me for two days,
but I just lay on my hides staring at nothing. So, I went somewhere outside my body. I …”
Bone Walker shuddered and clutched her doll more tightly.
“Bone Walker?”
“Are you going to m-make me go away?”
Stone Ghost’s bushy white brows lowered. “Why would I do that? You’ve been a good girl.”
The soup pot bubbled and spat.
“But if my parents were bad, would you make me go away?”
Stone Ghost smoothed his fingers down the warm side of his cup. “No, child. I wouldn’t blame you for things your parents did.”
Bone Walker blinked and her eyes had a human inside them again. A small shaky breath escaped her mouth. She rose, trotted around the fire, and crawled into his lap. With her free hand, she reached up and grabbed hold of the leather ties of his cape knotted beneath his chin. As though this would keep them together, no matter what.
Stone Ghost patted her back gently.
After a short interval, he asked, “Are your parents bad people, Bone Walker?”
She tucked her head inside his cape, hiding her face, but he heard her whisper, “
I hate them.
”
Stone Ghost looked down. The desperate love in those words lanced his heart. Tan dust and old juniper needles filled her tangled hair. He patted her again. “Who are they? What are their names?”
Bone Walker leaned against his chest. It took some time before she said, “
Daybreak beasts.
”
Stone Ghost’s hand hovered over her back. Where had she heard that? Almost no one these days knew about the daybreak beast. It was very, very old.
“Yes,” he said and stroked her tangled hair. “I understand.”
Grandfather Snowbird told Stone Ghost the story
when he’d seen five or six summers. When Wolf finally led the First People up through the last underworld into the light, he told them: “
For you it will always be daybreak on the second day of the world, my children
.
You will forever live suspended between Father Sun’s first and second coming. Remember the daybreak beast. You cannot kill him, but you can tame him and use his Power.
”
It was on the second day of the world that Father Sun decided the First People needed company, and he’d turned buffaloes, ants, coyotes, and other animals into humans: Made People.
Stone Ghost had always wondered about the final moments of glory when there were just First People walking a shining new world like gods.
Before there was an “us” and a “them.”
Before they realized paradise was gone forever, and the daybreak beast was born in their hearts.