Through the years, Yvette had analyzed and reanalyzed her relationship with her parents or, rather, the lack of it. Mum had been even more cold and indifferent than Carter. Yvette had always felt guilty around
them, as if she were at fault for something terrible and she’d never understood what it was.
Then she had discovered this curious brother who believed in Spirits and witches, and all sorts of things Yvette considered utter nonsense.
“I’m going bloody crazy,” she whispered, and absently listened to the vehicle idling outside.
The old Indian woman’s voice kept echoing in the back of her mind. Over and over she heard Sage Walking Hawk say:
“The Shiwana were there. When you were conceived … in the kiva … in the moonlight …”
But what did it mean?
A door slammed outside.
At the knock, Yvette called, “Come in. It’s open.”
When Mum opened the door and stepped in, her appearance surprised Yvette. She looked ravishing, wearing a full-length camel-hair coat, a wool suit jacket, tailored gray wool pants, and western-style boots. A silver concho belt snugged her waist, and she’d pulled her silver hair back into a ponytail that hung down to her collar. Her blue eyes had a predatory glitter to them.
“Been out stalking the wily male of the species again, Mum?” Yvette asked, reading that look she had grown passingly familiar with.
“I’d forgotten what Taos was like.” Mum smiled. “I guess I never realized I’m getting old. It isn’t so bad in Boston. I’m part of the society. Men know me. Powerful men, who can provide the things that interest me. Here, well, I’m afraid it’s a younger crowd.”
“Sorry ’bout that, Mum.”
Yvette moved her coffee cup in little circles over the scarred tabletop while Mum looked around the trailer. Finally, Yvette asked, “What are the Shiwana?”
Mum gave her a speculative look. “That’s an odd question coming from you. The Keres tribe believe that the Shiwana are spirits of the dead who climbed into
the sky to become cloud beings. They bring rain, they watch over people. The Hopi call them Kachinas. The Zuni refer to them as Koko. Why do you ask?”
“Are they gods?”
“Well, that’s debatable. Whites categorize them as ancestor spirits with supernatural abilities. What the people actually think is anybody’s guess.”
Yvette gripped her coffee cup. When she’d worked up the courage, she asked, “What happened the night I was conceived … in the kiva … in the moonlight? Were the Shiwana there?”
Mum started as though caught completely off guard, but she quickly recovered and leaned against the kitchen counter. “What are you talking about?”
“Just answer the question, Mum.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about the spirits dancing the night I was conceived.”
Mum laughed. “You’ve lost it, dear. A few days in the Southwest and you’re a raving lunatic.”
Yvette looked up. “Is that why you killed Carter? Was it the last part of the ritual you performed the night I was conceived? Or just plain witchcraft?”
Her mother’s face paled. “Carter’s …”
“Dead. Yes.”
“When?” she asked breathlessly. “How?” She came over to the table and eased down opposite Yvette.
“He was killed a week ago and dumped upside down in the same kiva where they found Dale Robertson. His feet had been skinned. I don’t know much more about it. The FBI is still investigating.”
Mum’s fists clenched on the table. In a strained voice, she whispered, “Oh, my God.”
Yvette watched her mother’s eyes widen in fear. “Tell me what happened that night, Mum. I’ve a right to know.”
Mum’s fear turned to anger in a heartbeat. Her voice
cut like glass: “Do you want to know the whole of it, Yvette, or just the good parts?”
“The whole, please, Mum.”
“Well, first of all, daughter of mine, let’s get one thing clear: You don’t have any rights when it infringes on my privacy. Secondly, I doubt you can stomach the people you’ll have to deal with to hear the full story. I’m supposed to rendezvous with one of them in half an hour.”
“I can stomach them, Mum. I’ve managed with you and Carter over the years. Might I go with you?”
Mum gave her the same murderous look she had when Yvette had been seven and accidentally knocked over a prehistoric pot Mum had displayed on her desk,
the careless hateful look of a stranger.
“You want to know what happened the night you were conceived? No matter how frightening or ugly?”
“I do, Mum.”
Ruth Ann shook her head as though disgusted with her. “All right, daughter, I’ll make it short and sweet, and then I’ve got an appointment to keep.”
“Fine, Mum. Let’s hear it.”
Her mother glanced around. “I came to see your brother. Where is he?”
“He and Maureen went out to the site with that charming FBI agent, Sam Nichols.”
“Well, too bad for him, then.” Mum got to her feet and her necklace fell forward.
“New pendant?” Yvette asked.
Mum lifted the black stone from where it hung on her breast. “An old one, actually. I’ve had it for what seems an eternity. I used to swing it over Dusty’s crib when he was a baby, to hypnotize him to go to sleep.”
Mum tucked the pendant back into her jacket, leaving Yvette barely enough time to make out that it was a snake with a glistening red eye.
All in all, Yvette thought it a perfect match for
Mum’s personality. “Good, now I want to hear about that night.”
“You won’t blush, will you?”
“After so many years with you, I rather fancy that as unlikely.”
“We’ll see,” Ruth Ann began. “Dale and I had been …”
SHADOW STARED AT Browser as if across infinity. Finally she nodded. “You will swear to me that you will act as I wish? I am the descendant of the Blessed Night Sun, as are you. We are Red Lacewing Clan. Just as in the days of our ancestors, if I were to choose you, you would become the Blessed Sun, Browser, the ruler of the Straight Path Nation.”
“I will do whatever you ask of me.” A hollow prickling invaded his chest. How much time had passed? “But what about Two Hearts?”
Shadow looked Browser up and down and smiled as she pulled her white dress over her head and tossed it aside. She stood naked before him, beautiful. Challenge lit her large dark eyes. “His fate is up to the gods. Come. If you wish to seal this bargain, let us do it now. You and I, here, in front of these witnesses.” She clasped his hands and drew him to her, pressing her naked body against him.
She was calling his bluff. Any chance Browser might have had to delay had just been denied him.
In a mocking and irreverent tone, Shadow said, “I, Shadow Woman, of the Red Lacewing Clan, choose
you, Browser, as my leader, my chief.” She spoke the ritual words with curious ease.
Browser’s fists tightened at his sides. Those were the words the Blessed Night Sun would have said to the man she had chosen to Join with. To the man she had chosen to become the Blessed Sun.
Browser responded. “I, Browser, of the Red Lacewing Clan, accept the responsibility for our people, Blessed Shadow.”
According to the ancient traditions, they had just become husband and wife. Browser’s skin crawled when he looked at Shadow. An animal excitement lit her eyes.
“May Spider Woman bless our actions this day,” he said, and put his arms around her in an iron grip.
Her lips opened and he saw the pulse beating in her temple. In that instant, she read his souls.
Browser shouted,
“Now, Rain Crow!”
Browser shoved Shadow off balance, twisted her around, and brought his muscular arm down across her throat.
The speed with which she reacted stunned him. He had no more than gotten hold of her when she sank her teeth into his arm and grabbed his testicles. A scream broke from his lips, and his frantic jerk pulled her teeth loose. She clung to him, trying to twist his scrotum off his body with one hand, while the other reached up and clawed for his eyes.
At the edge of his vision he saw Rain Crow swing his war club into Thorn Fox’s stomach. Stone Ghost had stumbled back, dragging the little girl with him.
Browser used his forehead to butt Shadow hard in the face. At the impact, her head rocked backward and she staggered, overbalancing him. Together they crashed to the floor.
In the mad scramble that followed, she scuttled on all fours for the ladder. He clasped a handful of her bead-encrusted hair and punched her in the face. She
flipped, catlike, powerful, stronger than any woman he’d ever known. Her knee shot for his throbbing crotch and yellow light blasted his brain.
Her hand flashed up from the side. Like a striking snake, she slammed him in the head with a hearth stone. Browser roared and threw himself on top of her.
To his left, he caught the bizarre image of Stone Ghost bending over Two Hearts with a broken shaft of human leg bone.
Shadow screamed as Browser clamped both hands tightly around her throat. She bashed his shoulder, arm, back, anywhere she could strike with the stone, but he kept his grip on her throat. Bucking like an elk in deep snow, she tried to throw him off. Each blow of the stone thumped hollowly, painfully, through his body, splintering the world. Doggedly he tightened his grip on her throat, hearing the liquid sounds of her protruding tongue against the back of her palate.
The image fixed in his brain: her parted lips and heaving breasts, her hot breath on his cheek as she struggled for air.
When Shadow’s flailing arm lost its strength and the stone fell to the floor, he stared down into her widening eyes, vaguely aware of the blood that dripped from his battered head to speckle her smooth skin. Between his knotted hands, he could feel her pulse as it slowed and see her eyes growing vacant. He felt the Blue God as she settled on his shoulders, hovering and expectant.
My wife. My wife
. The disconnected words repeated in his brain.
I am killing my wife.
“Browser!” Stone Ghost’s voice barely cut through the exaltation.
“Browser! Behind you!”
Browser’s gaze shot up, and he saw Stone Ghost—crimson-spattered—leaning over Two Hearts, a bloody bone in his hands.
“Behind you!”
Browser twisted, but not in time. The blow that was meant to crush his skull landed in the corded muscle
of his shoulder, just below the neck, stunning him. Then a hard body slammed into him, toppling him to one side. Thick, muscular arms wrapped around his, breaking his hold on Shadow, prying him away from her.
Thorn Fox kicked him in the belly, and the blow of his war club numbed Browser’s spine. He collapsed, dazed, to the dirt floor, unable to catch his breath.
As Browser fought to roll over, he caught sight of Rain Crow, lying on his back in the corner, his arms sprawled. Was he dead?
Thorn Fox’s club came down again, and Browser saw a tiny form dart at the edge of his vision. Browser blocked the next blow with his left arm, heard the bone crack, and a searing flash of pain shot through him. He lurched up, grabbed the club with his right hand, and jerked with all his strength, pulling Thorn Fox off balance. The man fell, and Browser drove his fingers into Thorn Fox’s eye sockets. He felt his fingertips rip through the tissue, and blood gushed out over his right hand and ran down his arm.
The silence that followed Thorn Fox’s shocked scream seemed to deafen. Browser shoved the blind man off him and stumbled to his feet.
Thorn Fox, whimpering, crawled away, his hands searching the floor for his lost war club. Rain Crow got to his knees and wavered. With one final swing of his club, he broke Thorn Fox’s neck. Then Rain Crow slumped to the floor, panting.
Browser looked down at Shadow. He had made a mistake once before, believing that he’d killed Two Hearts, but not taking the extra moment to make certain. Browser walked to Shadow’s blood-smeared naked body and reached out. He touched her wide, dark eye. She did not blink or flinch. When he withdrew his hand, only the bloody fingerprint marred the glassy orb.
“Uncle Stone Ghost, let’s—”
An inhuman shriek rose from the little girl’s throat.
She raced forward and threw herself over her mother’s dead body, clawing at her skin, squealing incoherently.
Browser staggered back, breathing hard. “Uncle, the warriors down below … will have heard the screams.”
“Yes, but they may have thought they were your screams, Nephew.”
Stone Ghost watched the blood pool from the lethal gashes in Two Hearts’s throat and chest; then he dropped the spearlike bone onto the kiva floor beside Shadow’s spindle.
Browser winced at the ache in his left arm. One bone was broken at least. Since it didn’t flop, the other must have been intact, but, gods, it hurt.
The little girl rose and madly skipped around Shadow’s body, humming a haunting song. Her filthy black hair bounced as though alive.
Browser went to Rain Crow, pulled the warrior over, and saw he was still breathing. “War Chief?”
Rain Crow whispered, “Gods, my head. I feel strange, Browser. Tingly, and everything’s gray. I can’t see … can’t …” His eyes were wide, unfocused. “They killed my sister’s …”
Browser put two fingers to Rain Crow’s throat. He knew the instant the man’s heart stopped. He shook his head and lowered his hand.
Stone Ghost asked, “What now, Nephew? It won’t take long before they figure out …”
A shadow blackened the kiva entrance.
“WHERE COULD SHE be?” Dusty asked as he and Maureen walked out into the evening, away from Maggie’s cabin. The sound of voices came from the other cabins, soft and happy. Someone laughed. Dusty lifted his gaze to west Chacra Mesa. The fading rays of sunset
made the canyon walls gleam like varnished copper.
“We’ve tried the dormitory. Neither Sylvia nor Michall have seen her. We could try Rupert’s,” Maureen suggested.
Tired and frustrated, Dusty said, “I’d really like to find her.”
“Dusty,” Maureen warned. “She has a lot on her mind: her aunt’s death, there have been two homicides in her park, Rupert just returned with a thousand questions. She probably needs time alone.”
“Probably, but I still have to find her.”
“Do you really think she has to immediately hear that Steve found two witches?”
“Yes, I do. Remember 10K3? Remember how Hail Walking Hawk reacted? Maybe a White person wouldn’t care, but you can damned well bet that Maggie wants a heads-up. Finding two witches has ramifications for the traditional community.”
He led the way through the scrubby sage to the park superintendent’s house. For Chaco Canyon standards, it was actually pretty nice. Dusty had been in it many times.
They followed the gravel walk around to the front, and found a man standing at the door. Dusty slowed, half irritated that some stranger had beaten him to Rupert. The man knocked. But no answer came. He knocked again, waited, then turned to leave.
“Hey, Lupe!” Dusty started forward, smiling. “Long time no see!”
“Stewart? Is that you?”
Lupe might have been in his forties but tonight he looked fifty. He wore a leather jacket and a black felt cowboy hat with a huge silver concho band. He took Dusty’s hand, grasping it hard. “God damn, man. Good to see you! What’s the latest on Dale’s murder?”
“The FBI’s still working on it. Steve found two Anasazi skeletons in the kiva today. They had stones on their heads. You get my drift.”
Lupe’s expression went tense. “Yeah. You be careful, huh? That’s bad stuff.”
“Hey,” Dusty said with a sigh and changed the subject. “I hear you’re bilking tourists for off-tune flutes these days.”
“Yeah, man. I got my stuff in big-time galleries and there are collectors, people with money, buying flutes these days.” He glanced at Maureen. “Hey, Maureen, you still can’t find a decent guy to hang around with?”
“There’s a limited selection out here.” She smiled. “How have you been?”
“Better,” Lupe replied. “It’s a tough time all the way around. But next time you need help getting this
cabron
in a truck, you call me.”
Dusty said, “Lupe and I drank our first whiskey together, got in fights, and did all the things teenage boys aren’t supposed to do.”
“Yeah, God, we had fun. You remember that time we poached that deer up by Chama? Man I thought we was dead when that highway patrol car stopped us.”
Dusty playfully punched Lupe in the shoulder. “We had a taillight out. Lupe was cool as ice. He just acted like a perfectly mannered kid. When the cop asked him where he was going to school, he said, ‘At the military academy at Roswell, sir. I’m going to start as a lieutenant when I enlist.’ The cop told us to get the light fixed, and sent us on our way with our deer safely in the trunk.”
Maureen smiled.
“So, you know where Dad is?” Lupe hooked a thumb at the dark house.
“Nope. We’re looking for him, too.”
Lupe frowned and reached into his leather coat. “Hey, could you do something for me, man? These are for Dad. I gotta go. I gotta reception tomorrow in a gallery in Taos, and the radiologist said that Dad demanded a copy of these test results as soon as they were done. Could you make sure he gets them? And
this”—he lifted a flannel bag—“is a flute I made for him. It’s beautiful. Turquoise inlay. My best yet.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Dusty smiled and took the bag and the envelopes. When he saw the return address in the glow of the yard light, Dusty’s head jerked up. He just stared at Lupe.
Lupe studied him thoughtfully. “He ain’t told you?”
“No.” Dusty felt sick to his stomach.
“God, that’s where he was all last week. One test after another. It’s cancer, man.” Lupe scuffed the ground with his shoe and glanced uneasily at Maureen. “But you don’t tell Dad that I told you.”
Dusty tucked the envelopes into his coat pocket. “Thanks,
amigo.
Really.
¿Cuanto tiempo?
”
“Seis meses … más o menos.
Reggie’s taking it really hard. He won’t talk to nobody about it, just sits in his room in the dark with that old painted box that he found in Dad’s basement years ago, the one Dad kept his letters in.”
Dusty reached for Lupe’s hand again and held it in a strong grip. “Drive carefully getting back to Santa Fe, okay. I don’t want to lose you, too.”
“Not me, man.” Lupe grinned sadly. “Tell Dad I love him. I’m outta here.”
Dusty waited until Lupe got into his car and started away; then he lifted a hand in farewell. Lupe must have seen him through the rearview mirror. He waved.