“They needed the input of a professional archaeologist as well as a board certified forensic anthropologist, Nichols. That’s all it was. Unofficial Q and A.”
Nichols shoved his glasses up on his nose. “Not when those specialists are potential suspects in a federal homicide, Dr. Cole!”
“Oh, come on, Nichols,” Maureen said. “We have a dinner receipt from the Pink Adobe the night Dale was killed. I think our server was Maria. We sat in a corner table. She can place us there. You have a telephone log for Dusty’s trailer. Or you should have. If you don’t, you can subpoena it. You know that we answered Sylvia’s call from Albuquerque. Not only that, neither of us would have wanted Dale dead.”
Nichols shoved his notebook around the table. “That’s the problem. No one does. I have no
real
suspects, folks. Every lead has petered out to nothing, which means
you
are still suspects.”
“What about Carter Hawsworth?” she asked.
“I don’t have anything I can take to an attorney. The same with Dr. Sullivan. No one in Dr. Robertson’s department sticks out. Stewart looks to inherit, but it’s not a huge chunk of change, just enough to pay the estate taxes and leave him something comfortable for the future.”
Maureen braced her elbows on the table, and her black eyes gleamed. “What about the lab work? The notes? The blood tests? The fax they found in Casa Rinconada?”
He said nothing, frowning. Finally he grudgingly offered, “The fax was printed on Dr. Robertson’s machine. The phone company records sent us to the Marriott. The same one we stayed at. At five thirty-seven on Halloween night, someone used the business center to send it. They paid cash for the service. No one remembers what the sender looked like.”
“Just like Carter Hawsworth claims happened to him.” Maureen frowned.
“Could he have sent them to himself?” Dusty asked. “You know, as a cover?”
Nichols swiveled his chair back around to face them. “The basilisk on the business card from Stewart’s office? Same thing. No prints but yours and Stewart’s. It was Bic ink.” He sipped his coffee. “The diary that was left outside of your camp trailer? Professionally done at a print shop in Albuquerque. We’re still following up on that one. Maybe we’ll get lucky. But, again, no prints outside of yours, Maggie’s, and Sylvia’s.”
She considered him for a moment. “That in itself says something.”
“Enlighten me, Dr. Cole.”
“In my part of the world, we call him a ‘player,’ someone who knows the rules of the game. He’s done this before, Nichols. He knows how to hide evidence, and he likes doing it. He’s baiting us. He knows what he can get away with. You just have to hope he’ll get bored with the easy stuff and take a chance, give you a dare.”
Nichols glared at her with his squinted eye. “I thought of that, but you’re the only person out here who ‘knows the rules.’”
Maureen shook her head. “What’s my motive? Why do I want to murder one of my best friends?”
He sat back, dull eyes on his coffee cup.
“No idea, eh?” she asked.
“No, and it pisses me off.” A slight tic jerked in his cheek. “I feel like I’m chasing my tail.”
Dusty said, “Remember when Rupert said this wasn’t a White crime?”
Nichols nodded. “I do.”
“You’re looking for White motives. That’s why you’re getting nowhere.”
Nichols leaned across the table and almost shouted, “That’s anthropological bullshit, Stewart!”
“Then how did you miss
toloache
?”
“What?”
Dusty went on to explain that Hawsworth had used a witch’s term. “It went right past you. Just like Hawsworth wanted it to.”
“Look, we’ve put the guy under the microscope. So, he used a term from the Native language. Dr. Cole has flipped out more bone terms in the last couple of hours than I’ve ever heard. You guys talk that way.”
“It’s not a White crime,” Dusty insisted doggedly.
“Motives are motives. I don’t care whether you’re Navajo or Hindu. Besides, none of my sources in the traditional community picked up a single red flag. The only Indian suspect I have”—he held out a hand to Maureen—“is sitting here in this room.”
Maureen laced her fingers on the tabletop. “Then why haven’t you arrested me?”
Nichols felt like throwing his notebook at her. “All of my evidence is circumstantial. I’ve decided I’m not even going to charge you with interfering with an investigation. Bill and Rick spoke up in your behalf, and Rick said he’d do it in a court of law. Which also pissed me off!”
A knock came at the door, and Rupert Brown leaned in. His gray temples accented his brown hawklike face. “Sorry to interrupt. I thought I’d check to see if you needed anything.”
“No, Dr. Brown, we’re fine, thanks,” Nichols said.
“Okay. Then I’m off for D.C.” He lifted a hand to Dusty and Maureen. “See you when I get back.”
“D.C.?” Nichols said. “Whoa! As in Washington?”
“Yeah. Big high mucky-muck meetings.” Rupert smiled. “It’s the annual policy implementation and general bullshit session that the Department of the Interior makes us endure each fiscal year.”
“Have a nice trip,” Maureen called as Rupert started to shut the door.
“Hold on!” Nichols shouted. “Who said you could leave town?”
Rupert opened the door and leaned against the frame. “I didn’t realize I needed your permission, Agent Nichols. But if I do,
please
make me stay here. I beg you. No, I beseech you. I might even forgive you for screwing up my park.”
Irritated, Nichols flicked his pen open and closed several times, then said, “No. Go. I’m sure I can find you if I need you.”
Rupert smothered a smile, saluted, and shut the door.
“So, getting back to this dig,” Nichols said.
“Look, Nichols”—Maureen leaned forward—“you have a kiva littered with human bones. No one out there—not Michall or Sylvia, and certainly not your agents—is prepared for the kind of analysis that will be required over the next few days.”
Nichols jotted down a note about her manner:
Dr. Cole is insistent, authoritative, abrasive. Thinks we’re incompetent
. He said, “You want to do it, huh?”
“I’d love to. But I think it would be better if you conscripted Sid Malroun from OMI. He’s used to bodies in the flesh, but if he needs me, I can crawl over the tape and give him a hand with the cannibalized bone.”
In the middle of jotting another note, Nichols’s pen stopped. “The what?”
Dusty smoothed his hand over his blond beard and said, “We found a cannibalized leg today. Someone had carved the flesh off the bone. We saw the same treatment of bodies at the 10K3 site and at Pueblo Animas. Believe me, Nichols, there’s a relationship between Dale’s burial site, the basilisk, and those two sites. Each is rife with witchcraft and cannibalism.”
Nichols studied their expressions. Both appeared excited
but rational. “Didn’t Rhone work on those sites, too?”
Stewart straightened slightly. “Yes. What of it?”
Nichols shook his head and finished his note. “Nothing … just correlating.”
THE LINE OF people stretched behind Browser like a slithering snake. As each person exited Kettle Town and came to meet them, Catkin’s eyes narrowed more and more. She thought he was mad. And he wasn’t so sure she was wrong. He was gambling on legends. A thing no one sane would attempt.
“Clay Frog, please help Rain Crow.”
“Yes, War Chief.”
She trotted back. Rain Crow limped along behind them, his lopsided face looking worse for the contorted expression he had adopted to grit back the pain.
Clay Frog offered an arm to the burly War Chief from Flowing Waters Town. He took it gladly.
Rain Crow had to be in excruciating agony. Having suffered a similar, if less threatening wound recently, Browser had to admire the man’s courage and endurance. Not only did he have a skull-cracking headache, but his balance and coordination were slightly off, as well. Worse, after a blow to the head like that, a man’s souls could slip away before he realized it. Nevertheless, Rain Crow doggedly walked forward.
“Why am I still a prisoner?” Old Pigeontail asked from where he stood a half pace ahead of Catkin. “I’ve
told you enough to get myself killed should Shadow or her allies ever find out.”
“Then we are your best hope for a long and happy life,” Stone Ghost told him. He plodded along on stumpy thin legs, his wrinkled old face set with determination. White Cone walked at his side. “Be content, and keep your mouth closed.”
“Where are the two young warriors?” Old Pigeontail asked.
“I sent them back with a message for Matron Cloudblower.” Browser pointed his war club at the withered Trader. “And my uncle told you to be quiet.”
Catkin looked at the elders, and her jaw clenched.
Browser could read the tracks of her souls in her eyes. She could not believe he was actually doing this.
Yes, the elders ought to be up on the mesa top with Blue Corn, headed for safety, but it had been impossible to convince either of them. For Stone Ghost, this was the end to a journey he had begun many sun cycles ago, when he’d mistakenly blamed a young warrior for a crime he did not commit. Until Stone Ghost stood over the corpse of Two Hearts, he could not say, “Here, it ends.”
Old Pigeontail looked over his shoulder, fully aware that Yucca Whip and Red Dog followed immediately behind him. After Pigeontail’s story about Carved Splinter, either warrior would gladly crack his skull open, and he seemed to know it.
Browser glanced back. Badger Dancer and Fire Lark bore old Horned Ram on his litter. They had looted the ladder from a collapsed room on the fourth floor, padded it with blankets, and made a platform to carry the Red Rock elder. Horned Ram looked gray and pale; each step that jolted his broken shoulder reflected in the corners of his constantly tensing mouth. When he met Browser’s eyes, it was with a look of loathing.
Yes, soon you will tell me what you know.
They headed south onto the road. When they had
gone far enough, Browser turned to stare up at the cliff behind Kettle Town. Blue Corn’s party labored up the stairway, climbing for the mesa top. It was the first step on their journey, and the Matron was already lagging behind.
“Do you think she believes it?” Catkin asked. “That she’s descended from First People?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Browser murmured. “So long as she never tells her people.”
“You think they will kill her if they find out?”
“I think they might.”
Browser looked back at Kettle Town. With the plaster cracked off of its once-pillared portico, the town looked like a squat grinning head with too many teeth. The image wasn’t macabre, or sinister, but rather reminded him of a perplexed and exhausted observer.
Blue Corn’s party reached the top of the cliff. For a few brief instants, they stood skylined, then one by one, they disappeared.
Well and good. The Matron was out of harm’s way.
The flat, washed clay of the canyon bottom ahead reflected the sunlight. A bow shot in front of them, irregular dots marked the roadway where it dived down into the wash.
Browser slipped his fingers along his war club. He and his club had become old companions, survivors of many desperate battles. The touch reassured him.
An ominous silence settled on the party as they approached the battleground where the bodies of the dead warriors lay as they had fallen. Even as they closed, Browser could hear the muffled gurgles and occasional faint hiss as the corpses warmed in the morning sunlight.
“Blessed Gods,” Rain Crow muttered as they drew up. “Did no one survive?”
“Only you, War Chief,” Browser said. “And that is a miracle. If you hadn’t crawled as far as you did, today
you’d be a wandering and homeless ghost searching futilely for your ancestors.”
They passed the first of the bodies; the blood had dried black. Expressions on the faces of the dead ran the gamut from tranquil, as if blissful in death, to contorted grimaces. Men with dried sunken eyes and receding lips watched them pass.
“Blessed Gods,” Fire Lark hissed, pointing with his war club. “That one. Look. He’s one of them. A White Moccasin. He’s been …”
“That’s Shadow’s work, my young friend.” Old Pigeontail smiled back at Fire Lark, enjoying the young warrior’s discomfort. “The man you see there is Bear Lance, one of Shadow’s old lovers. Sometimes I wonder whom to pity more, her enemies, or those that she takes a special liking for.”
The Mogollon and Rain Crow stared at the few dead who showed evidence of butchery. The bones looked oddly thin where they protruded from the thick muscles of a carved leg.
Browser ordered, “Move.”
As they started away, White Cone asked, “What sort of monster is she?”
“A monster as terrible as any in the legends of your people or mine,” Stone Ghost said.
Browser pointed ahead. “Yucca Whip, check the bottom of the wash before we cross and make sure that no ambush is waiting for us. Then guard the other side of the crossing and ensure our safety.”
“Yes, War Chief.” Yucca Whip charged forward, smoothly withdrawing a fistful of arrows from his quiver and nocking one.
“I wouldn’t believe it,” Old Pigeontail said under his breath.
“Believe what?” Catkin asked, sparing him a quick sidelong look before returning her attention to the crossing.
“That Fire Dogs would follow a Straight Path War
Chief. More, that members of the Bow Society—of all the Mogollon—would follow Browser.”
“Perhaps Poor Singer’s prophecy is more Powerful than you thought it was. Perhaps this alliance is just the beginning,” Catkin said.
“And perhaps,” he responded, “you are just a small group of fools who think that you are more than you are.”
Browser looked down into the vacant eyes of one of the dead White Moccasin warriors. Lightning patterns of blackened blood streaked his face.
Browser said, “We will soon find out, Trader.”
AS THE SUN dipped toward the western horizon, the cliffs shimmered the color of pure gold. Dusty added another stick to his campfire and looked around the canyon. Clouds filled the eastern sky, slowly heading west. He watched them for a time, seeing how their shapes changed; then he took a deep breath and savored the pungent scent of burning juniper. Maggie leaned back in one of the lawn chairs, her legs out straight, her eyes locked on distant thoughts.
Maureen had gone back to the dig, and said she’d return at sunset with Sylvia and Michall. He’d told her he’d have dinner ready, but it would still be a while before he’d bring out the grill and the buffalo burgers. He wanted a good solid bed of coals to roast them over, slowly, very slowly. It wasn’t every day a man had the pleasure of eating rich, succulent buffalo. Maureen had found the burger at a specialty food store in Santa Fe. He’d been saving it, hoping to cook it to celebrate a significant find—like today’s intact kiva floor.
Dusty walked back to the trailer, opened the squeaky door, and went to the little closet in the rear, where he
pulled out two more folding lawn chairs. He grabbed the small ice chest filled with beer on his way outside.
As he unfolded the chairs before the fire, Maggie said, “Dusty?”
“Yeah?” He heard the worry in her voice.
“Aunt Hail came to me in a dream last night.”
“She did?”
“She’s worried.” Maggie avoided his eyes. “She thinks the danger is closing around us. These words stuck in my mind. ‘Can’t you see him? He’s right there, looking over your shoulder, and laughing as he closes his hoop around you.’”
“Did she say who he is?”
Maggie shook her head, lost in thought. “No. Maybe it was just a dream. I mean, how do you tell the dif ference?” She looked up then, pleading. “Was it really Aunt Hail, or just my imagination?”
“I don’t know. You should ask your aunt Sage. Maybe she could help you.”
Maggie gestured impotence. “I’d love to. I’d call her, but she won’t trust the phone lines when it comes to talking about spirit things. She doesn’t trust electricity. What she means by that is that she’s unsure if witches can monitor it. It’s still so new that no one knows if witches can hear things through telephone lines.”
“Yeah, like the FBI. Think there’s a similarity?”
Maggie smiled at that. “I’d drive down there, but with Rupert leaving, I can’t.”
“He gone?”
She nodded. “He left me in charge. I didn’t get a complete briefing. He was in his office with Dr. Hawsworth for about an hour. And after Hawsworth left, Rupert didn’t look happy at all.”
“Yeah, Hawsworth has that effect on people. He’s sort of the human form of Kaopectate.”
He saw Yvette’s Jeep coming, and let out a soft groan. She’d looked like a skewered rabbit ever since seeing Hawsworth. He flopped into the chair and
reached into the ice chest for a bottle of Guinness.
She stopped twenty paces away, and dust boiled up behind her Jeep. The instant she got out, she cried, “I can’t bloody believe it!” She tramped toward him like a woman on a mission.
“What?” he called sociably.
“First I have to deal with my father, and then the FBI! I’m a suspect! In the death of a man I never even knew! Agent Nichols has been raking me over his own proverbial coals!”
Dusty gestured to the remaining lawn chair. “So, you want a Guinness or a Coors Light?”
“What?” she asked as though startled by the question. Her ash-blond hair looked like it hadn’t been combed since dawn, and she’d been sweating. Tiny curls framed her forehead. “Oh. Right! Damn. Set me up, Landlord.”
Dusty reached into the ice chest and shared a quizzical look with Maggie. “Who?”
She unfolded the other lawn chair and sat down. “Barkeep? Is that the word you use out here in the wilderness?”
“This isn’t a wilderness. That’s over by Kayenta.”
He popped a top on a bottle of Guinness and handed it to her. The way she upended the bottle and chugged made his brows lift in admiration.
“What a sodding miserable day this turned out to be.”
“What did Nichols want?”
She glared at him over the bottle. “Everything! He wanted to know when I entered the bloody country. All about the faxes and E-mails I’d been sent. How I came to know about Dale. What I felt when I found out. Did I hate him for being my mother’s lover? What did Fa … Carter do? What did he say? Did I have any reason to think Carter would have killed Robertson. And on and on and on!” She shivered and tugged the collar of her black coat closed. “Good Lord, Stewart, what are
you and Maggie doing sitting outside on a night like this? It’s freezing.”
“Pull your chair closer to the fire.” He threw another piece of juniper on the flames. “You’ll be warm soon enough.”
“And as to me,” Maggie said, standing and stretching, “I have a park to run. I’d better get back to the office. If Agent Nichols is up to his usual tricks, he’s got one of the bathrooms closed off and everyone’s in a panic.”
“Good night, Maggie,” Dusty and Yvette said in unison, and then turned to stare curiously at each other.
Yvette dragged her chair closer as Maggie got into her pickup and drove off.
“Maggie seems like a gem.” She rubbed her face, as though massaging the fatigue away.
“Yeah, she is. She’s a real special friend.” He looked at her. “You okay? I mean after some of the things Hawsworth said to you. I can’t believe that guy. I wanted to choke the living daylights out of him.”
“That’s just Father. I mean, Carter. Bloody hell, this is going to take getting used to.” The firelight cast an orange gleam over her pretty face.
She did look like Dale.
Dusty lowered his gaze and pretended to study the Guinness label while he hurt. Flames crackled up around the new tinder, and sparks spiraled into the cold air. “Yvette?”