I give him a do-you-hear-yourself look, complete with raised eyebrows and clucking tongue. “You are a shape-shifter. I’m a vampire. What’s going to attack us?”
“Didn’t you hear what I’ve been saying? Skinwalkers aren’t afraid of us. One already hit you with a bone charm. It’s just good luck that I recognized what it was and got it out of you in time.”
“But now we’re on to them. Nothing will get close enough to try again. We’ll be in a vehicle with windows up and doors locked. Don’t see how anything can possibly happen.”
Frey presses the palms of his hands together. “No. Even if I was stupid enough to risk it, I won’t risk drawing them to Sarah’s. I won’t put my son and his mother and aunt in danger.”
He picks up the half-eaten sandwich and snaps off a bite, as if punctuating the end of the conversation. His concern is real. I capitulate to it with a sigh and look around the hogan. “What are we going to do all night? Don’t even have a book to read.”
“How about sleep?” Frey replies. “Haven’t done much of that in the last few days.”
“Will we be safe? What if they come back?”
“I don’t think they will. They have no way of knowing I removed the charm. The logical thing would be for us to take off. To go for help. If we stay out of sight they should leave us alone.”
I suppose Frey’s thinking makes sense and he is right about one thing—we haven’t gotten much sleep in the last twenty-four hours. I push the sleeping bags and mats out to the middle of the floor, work around Frey eating his picnic lunch and set things up. The sleeping bags appear to be new, at least, and of good quality. I stretch out, a test run.
“Not bad. Now if we could just cover that hole in the ceiling.”
Frey looks up. “Why would you want to do that? You can see the stars.”
Along with bats or flying insects or anything else that might wander in. But I know if I say that to Frey, I’ll get another lecture about nature and being bigger and stronger than anything that could fit through that hole.
I roll over onto my side. Maybe if I don’t look, I won’t see. It’s worth a try.
“Good night, Frey.”
“
Danootch’ííl
, Anna.”
THE SOUND OF THE WIND AWAKENS ME.
It’s pitch-black in the hogan. If there’s a moon out, it’s doing nothing to penetrate the dark. Once my eyes have adjusted, I look at my watch.
Midnight.
I sit up to find Frey awake, too, staring hard at the door. The rawhide flap covering it moves to the wind gusts, billowing out and in as if blown by bellows fanning a fire.
I listen. The soft pad of bare feet approaching. I jump to my feet. Frey, startled, does, too.
“You heard it?” he whispers. “I thought it was my imagination.”
Not imagination. Someone is walking around outside … someone or something.
The vampire erupts, bursting the fragile shell of humanity instinctively at the threat. I touch Frey’s chest, growl, “Stay here.”
Then I’m sliding out of the door, sticking close to the walls of the hogan, a shadow among shadows, a beast among beasts.
I see him, working his way around the hogan, slowly, carefully. Not barefoot. Moccasins on his feet. His smell is familiar. I draw the vampire back enough to appear human before I confront him. His back is to me.
“George?”
His shoulders twitch involuntarily and he whirls around. He releases a sharp breath. “Shit, Anna, you scared me.”
“What are you doing here?”
Frey steps out. “What’s wrong?”
I see now what prompts Frey’s question. George’s face is ashen in the dark, a pale specter, drawn and anxious. He’s dressed in buckskin pants and tan vest. He shifts uneasily under Frey’s intense stare.
Frey grabs his shoulders. “What’s happened?”
George closes his eyes, inhales slowly. “It’s Sarah.”
“Sarah?”
George puts his hands on Frey’s shoulders now, pulls him close. “
Sik is
, there’s been an accident.”
CHAPTER 24
F
REY LETS HIS HANDS DROP TO HIS SIDES. “WHAT do you mean? What kind of accident?”
George tightens his grip on Frey’s shoulders. “Sarah. And Mary. Coming back from the tribal council. Their truck went off the road. Sarah must have been driving too fast. It flipped. Neither was wearing a seat belt.”
I watch Frey try to process what George is telling him. His body is so still, his face so expressionless, it scares me. I step closer, drop my voice to a hoarse whisper, asking the question I know Frey is afraid to ask. “What about John-John?”
Frey looks at me, drawing a shaky breath.
George never takes his eyes from Frey. “John-John wasn’t with them. He’s all right. Did you hear me? John-John is home with my wife.”
Frey’s stony expression finally breaks. I sense his pain. His jaw quivers, his eyes widen, brows draw together with the effort to keep from howling. His body shudders, racked with emotions he has no words to express.
I know what he’s feeling. I’ve felt it myself.
I don’t know how to console him. I do the only thing I can think of. I step between Frey and George and wrap my own arms around my friend’s trembling body.
“What do we need to do?” I ask George, holding Frey tight, supporting him as he leans into me.
“The four who are to prepare the bodies are with them now. They are friends of Sarah’s and will take care of the ritual bathing. Daniel will have to choose what items are to be buried with them and how they are to be dressed. He will also have to choose where they are to be buried.”
From his answers, it is obvious the Navajo have very specific burial customs. No outside police. No funeral homes or embalming. “How long do we have?”
“Burial will take place four days from now. Do you wish to return to Sarah’s? I will bring John-John to his father when he awakens. Daniel should be the one who breaks the news.”
I nod that I understand. “I’ll get him to Sarah’s. Thank you.”
George lifts his hand in silent salute and walks toward his car, parked next to the Jeep behind the hogan. Only when he’s driven away and Frey and I are alone do I remember—I never found out what was decided at the council.
Right now, it doesn’t seem important.
Frey doesn’t say a word. Not when I get him settled in the Jeep, not when I return from packing our things out of the hogan. For once, I’m glad I’m not privy to his thoughts. The pain would be intolerable. He may not have been close to Sarah now, but she was John-John’s mother and that alone is a powerful connection.
I manage to find my way from the hogan to Sarah’s house—more vampire instinct and senses than anything else. I don’t turn the Jeep’s lights on; I can navigate far better in the dark by picking up our scent and watching for our tire tracks in the dirt.
How different retracing this path. John-John’s laugh echoes in my head. Yesterday he was happy.
The house is dark when we pull up. This time, no welcoming flute to greet a new day. It’s almost daybreak but the sky is leaden and heavy with impending rain.
I go in first, turn on lights. Not because we need light to see, but in an effort to chase away the gloom.
It doesn’t work.
When Frey comes up the steps, I know he feels the same thing I do. The house has lost its spirit. The quiet, the emptiness press in on us.
Only John-John will be able to make it a place of life again. And I doubt that will happen for a while.
Frey sinks into the couch. Buries his face in his hands. But still no tears. No release.
I sit on the coffee table in front of him. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Some food?”
He rouses a little, drops his hands, meets my eyes. “No. Thanks. Just sit here with me, will you, until John-John comes?”
I move next him. We sit there side by side, not touching, but closer in spirit than we’ve ever been.
After a while, Frey stirs. “At least John-John’s home has been spared.”
I swivel to look at him. “Spared? What do you mean?”
Frey’s voice is husky, devoid of emotion. “It’s the Navajo way. If Sarah and Mary had died at home, their parents would have most likely had the place burned to the ground.”
“John-John’s home?”
“The belief is that after death, one goes to the underworld. To protect against the deceased returning to the world of the living, no contact must be made with the body and that includes the place they died. The place would be destroyed.”
I’m trying to process how such a belief could still be considered relevant in the twenty-first century when I’m hit with the implications of something else Frey said.
“Sarah and Mary—their parents live here on the reservation?”
Frey nods. “I only hope they allow me to take part in the burial. While we weren’t married in the eyes of the state, when Sarah told them she was going to have a baby, they insisted we go through a traditional Navajo ceremony. In the eyes of the tribe, I am her husband. In their eyes, I deserted her and my son to live outside.”
A worm of uneasiness twists in my gut. “What’s going to happen to John-John? Will they insist he stay here with them? Will you allow it?”
Frey presses the palms of his hands against his eyes. “I can’t think about that now. I can hardly bear the thought that I’m going to have to tell him his mother and aunt are gone. How am I going to do it?”
His voice breaks. I move to put my arms around his shoulders. I’m stopped mid-gesture by the sound of a car approaching. I feel Frey tense and draw in a breath.
George is here with John-John. I push up from the couch. “I’ll let them in.”
Frey doesn’t answer or move. I hardly know John-John, but my heart is as heavy as Frey’s at how that little boy’s life is about to change.
I don’t wait for a knock but swing the door open.
It’s not George coming up the porch steps. It’s a man in a beige uniform, a gun on his hip. He’s wearing a badge and the car parked in front of the house bears green and yellow stripes and emblazoned on the side
Navajo Nation Police
.
He is as startled to see me as I am by his unexpected presence. He sweeps a round-crowned, broad-brimmed hat from his head. “Ma’am. I’m here to see Daniel Frey. Is he in?”
I nod him inside. When he brushes past me, I get a whiff of citrus aftershave and the fresh scent of fabric softener. His uniform is crisp, ironed creases as sharp as a ruler. His gun leather creaks where he rests one hand on the holster. In the quiet of the house, it’s like the rasp of a ghostly voice.
Frey has the same reaction I did. He stares a moment, then recovers and stands to greet the officer.
“I’m Tony Kayani. Officer with the Navajo Nation Police. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Frey shakes his hand, gestures over Kayani’s shoulder to me. “This is my friend, Anna Strong.”
Kayani half turns, nods in my direction, turns his attention back to Frey. “Can we sit? I have a couple of questions to ask you.”
Frey sits back down on the couch. Kayani takes one of the chairs across from him and I take the other.
Kayani takes a notebook from a breast pocket. But no pen. He rests the book on his knee. “I understand you arrived yesterday.”
Frey nods.
“And that you have been estranged from your wife and son for some time.”
“Yes.”
“May I ask why you came back now?”
Involuntarily, my shoulders tighten. How is Frey going to answer that?
“I came to visit my son. As you noted, it’s been a while since I’ve seen him. It was time.”
“And what business did you have with the tribal council?”
Another involuntary shoulder twitch. How could he have known about that? Frey is quiet for a long moment. Maybe too long. Kayani leans toward him.
“Is there a reason you don’t want to answer that question?”
Frey bristles at the tone. “Is there a reason you’re asking it?”
Kayani smiles in a tight, determined way. “Sorry. I realize this is a difficult time. I also realize Sarah wasn’t addressing the council on her own behalf, was she?”
He doesn’t look at me. Perhaps he doesn’t know, but the implication hangs heavy. In profile, Kayani reminds me of the picture on the old Buffalo nickel. Broad forehead, straight nose, tight lips turned down at the corner. His dark hair is short and brushed straight back. His greyhound-lean frame is as tightly strung as the close weave on Sarah’s rugs. His posture and attitude suggest something more than a law officer’s impartial inquiry into a tragic accident.
“Officer Kayani?”
He turns slowly, as if reluctant to look away from Frey.