“Forgive me for disturbing you,” Browser said. “Redcrop, I would speak with you, if you are not too tired.”
“I’m not tired, War Chief. What is it?”
“Alone,” he said softly. “I would speak with you alone.”
“Oh, forgive me.” Straighthorn rose to his feet. “I must get some rest anyway. Redcrop, I will see you tomorrow.”
She said, “Thank you, Straighthorn.”
Straighthorn bowed to her, then to the War Chief, and walked to the ladder. As he climbed down, he heard the War Chief say:
“I have something important to ask you, Redcrop, but no matter what you decide, you must not speak with anyone of our conversation tonight. Not Straighthorn. Not your best friend. No one. Can you do that?”
There was a hesitation, then, in a small voice, she answered, “Yes, War Chief.”
STONE GHOST STOOD UP FROM THE FIRE WHEN WATER SNAKE strode by on his way to his chamber. The youth looked haggard. Long black hair hung around his narrow, weasel-like face in dirty strands, and his leather cape bore a thick coating of dust.
“Forgive me, warrior,” Stone Ghost called. “I was hoping we might speak for a time.”
Water Snake stopped and turned. He carried his war club in his right hand. “I am very tired, Elder. Perhaps tomorrow.”
He started to walk away.
Stone Ghost called, “You were standing guard last night, weren’t you?”
Water Snake heaved an irritated breath and turned back. “Yes. What of it?”
“Well, there is something I do not quite understand.” Stone Ghost rose and walked toward him. “You see, just now, as your party returned, it sounded as if you called up from the river trail.”
Water Snake gripped his war club more tightly. “We did.”
“But if I could hear you tonight, how is it that you did not hear your Matron’s screams last night?”
Water Snake’s face flushed. “I don’t know! I just didn’t. Perhaps she did not scream.”
“Oh, I think she did. I studied her tracks this morning. Her killer knocked her facedown into the dirt not more than one hundred body lengths from the village plaza. If I were running for my life, I would scream. Wouldn’t you?”
Angry, Water Snake snapped, “I heard no screams, old man! How many times must I tell you?”
Stone Ghost gestured to the roof of the tower kiva, where Browser knelt beside Redcrop. “Were you standing up there when, your Matron left the village?”
Water Snake glanced up. “Yes.”
“You saw her leave?”
“I did. What is your point?”
Stone Ghost smiled and walked closer. “Well, it’s just that I stood right up there this afternoon, at the very edge of the roof, and was surprised to discover that I could see the place where your Matron was attacked.” He stopped two hands from Water Snake and gazed curiously into his brown eyes. “Even if she did not scream, how is it that you didn’t see her running for the plaza?”
Water Snake gripped his club in both hands as if to wring the life from it. “It was dark! Are you accusing me of deliberately—”
“I am not accusing, warrior.” Stone Ghost said softly. “I was just wondering if perhaps you had left your post? Sometimes it is necessary for a warrior to leave his post, to go explore a strange sound, or examine a place where he saw unusual movement. Did you do that?”
Water Snake tapped his thigh with his club and gave Stone Ghost a withering look. “The tower kiva was my post. I did not leave it. Now, I am tired. I’m going to my chamber. If you have more questions for me, ask them tomorrow.”
Stone Ghost bowed and smiled. “Of course. Thank you for speaking with me.”
Water Snake stalked away.
Stone Ghost folded his arms beneath his feathered cape and watched Water Snake duck beneath his door curtain. The leather swayed, revealing the deerhides that covered the floor and the array of war clubs hanging on the back wall.
Stone Ghost waited to see if the young warrior would look back, if he feared that Stone Ghost still watched his chamber.
In less than twenty heartbeats, a hand pulled the door curtain aside, and Water Snake’s eyes glinted with reflected firelight.
Yes, he’s worried, afraid that I know more than I do. Where was he last night? What was he doing?
Stone Ghost turned and hobbled toward his own chamber.
M
AUREEN PUSHED THE BUTTON ON THE BOTTOM OF THE five-gallon water jug that stood on the foldout table, and let the clear stream flow over her left hand to rinse off the dust. She held her right hand under next, then dried off on the towel nailed to the juniper tree.
A single ray of sunlight lanced the clouds, slanted over the camp, and cast long shadows across the ruins, searing the cottonwoods to the east a brilliant yellow.
“It’s me, Stewart,” she called as she knocked on the door.
“Come on in.”
She opened the door and entered the camp trailer, sniffing as she stepped around Stewart, who stood at the stove, cooking. He wore faded blue jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt. Gratefully, she slid into the padded booth behind the flimsy table.
“Do you need any help?”
Dusty fiddled with the three pans on the stove. “Nope. I’m just whipping up my usual culinary masterpiece for dinner.”
The scent of spices, fried meat, and something green filled the air. “Smells great. What is it?”
“Jalapeño cheeseburgers, Doctor, with beans for vegetables. The hamburger’s been in the cooler for about a week so I thought it was time. Nothing like aged meat, you know?”
She watched him suspiciously, unsure what his definition of “aged” was, but decided to change the subject. “Have any coffee?”
“Vee’ola.”
He made a grand gesture, reached into the overhead cabinet, and produced a plastic cup. A soot-encrusted coffeepot perked lazily on the back burner. Stewart poured with a flourish and set the cup on the veneer tabletop. “Be generous with your tip.”
“The French word is
Voilà
, Dusty, so the correct mispronunciation
would be
Vo-eela.
And the best tip I can give you is that you shouldn’t get your foreign-language instruction from American TV.”
Stewart turned to give her a surprised look. “How would you know? You mean you get American TV in Canada?”
“We’re drowning in it.” She sipped the coffee. “Umm. Stewart, this is wonderful coffee. If your professional career falls apart, I could get you a job at Tim Horton’s.”
He turned back to his pots and pans. “No, thanks. I’d have to be nice to people. The strain would kill me.”
Maureen smiled and looked around the worn interior of the trailer, studying the familiar bleached wood pattern, the sweat-stained cushions, and the battered bench in the front that folded down into a bed. A sleeping bag lay wadded in one corner under a hanging Coleman lantern.
She asked, “So, Dale vanished off to Arizona? Last time I showed up it was a family emergency that drew him away. Maybe he just doesn’t like me.”
“Actually, he adores you,” Dusty said, and glanced at her over his shoulder. “He just has bad timing, that’s all.”
He retrieved a big Bowie knife from the silverware drawer, whipped it back and forth across his Levi’s, as if cleaning the blade, and began dicing jalapeño peppers.
Maureen gazed out the small window at the river flowing lazily below and took a long drink of coffee. She’d been worried about Dale. The last time she’d talked to him, he’d sounded frail, older. “How is Dale?”
“As cantankerous as ever. Last summer he took up anthropological genetics, if you can believe that. He’s been working with somebody named Scott Ferris at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. When Dale comes out to the site these days, he spends the entire evening talking about mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome research that traces modern humans back two hundred thousand years.” He smiled. “Actually, it’s great to see. He hasn’t been this happy in years. Learning new things has always been his passion.”
Dusty’s voice softened when he spoke about Dale. “Incidentally, Dale just moved to a new place.”
Maureen brushed long strands of dirty black hair away from her face. After the wind today, her braid looked like the tail of a frightened cat. “He moved? I thought he’d been in that house since forever.”
“Fifty years, but he said the old place was too big. He bought a one-bedroom house that he swears takes twenty minutes to clean.”
Maureen stood and reached for the coffeepot to refill her cup. The rich aroma bathed her face. She sat down again and said, “How’s his health? The last time I spoke with him, he was complaining about his knees.”
“They’re still bad. He’s had trouble ever since that old half-breed witch took a dislike to him.”
Maureen sipped her coffee. “When did this happen?”
“Let me see,” he said thoughtfully. “I think I was twelve or thirteen, which means it must have been around twenty-five years ago.” Dusty reached for an almost empty bottle of Guinness and shifted to face Maureen. His blue eyes glittered in the lantern’s gleam. “It was Dale’s own fault. He’s always been too curious for his own good.”
“How so?”
Dusty smiled as he remembered. “He’d been out working on a site on the Hopi reservation and befriended an old Hopi medicine man. The elder told Dale about a secret cave on the north side of the Navajo reservation where witches met. The medicine man said that the witches gathered there at night to plot against their victims, have intercourse with dead women, and cannibalize a few babies. Naturally, Dale wanted to take a look.”
“Naturally. What did you find?”
“We went up there around midnight. Dale made me stay down the hill near the horses while he sneaked up to the cave. Now, according to him, the witches were standing around a sand painting, nude, except for masks. One of the witches shot an arrow into the sand painting and Dale swears his right knee went out from under him. The pain was unbearable. When he got to his feet again, he discovered the painting was of him—mustache, fedora, even cowboy boots. The witch shot another arrow into the painting, and Dale’s left knee went out. He charged stumbling down the hill, white as a sheet, and he’s had trouble with his knees ever since.” Dusty’s blond eyebrows lifted. “I guess he’s just lucky the Wolf Witch didn’t shoot him anywhere else.”
Maureen smiled and eased her cup down to the table. “The Wolf Witch?” She could hear the sudden moan of wind through the junipers, and out the grimy window, could see the tents rippling.
“That’s what his victims called him. God, he was a crazy old man. He claimed to have been descended from the most powerful witch
in the world—an ancient Anasazi witch. The wolf-hide mask he wore looked old, too. I’d wager it had been in his family for at least a hundred years.”
She said, “Did the Wolf Witch really eat babies, like the Hopi medicine man said?”
“Oh, yeah, but that’s standard for witches. They’re especially renowned for digging babies from fresh graves and boiling them at night. The Wolf Witch’s real talent, though, was sucking magic.”
“What’s sucking magic?”
Stewart flipped the burgers, and grease crackled. “Usually, it’s a beneficial form of magic. When someone gets sick, a medicine man or medicine woman will suck the evil out of the body. I’ve seen holy people remove bullets that way. They suck them out and spit them on the floor, then—”
“Be serious,” Maureen scoffed.
Dusty tilted his head, his blue eyes measuring her. “It’s something I can’t explain, Doctor. I was raised on reservations, and I’ve seen things that—well, let’s just say a lot of people recover from their illnesses and go on their ways happy as larks after being healed through sucking magic.”
Maureen gave him an askance look. “All right. Go on. You said that the Wolf Witch had a unique talent for this kind of magic. How so?”
Dusty gestured with his Guinness. “He would go in pretending to be a healer, and when the relatives left the room, he’d suck the sick person’s soul out of his body.”
This story didn’t sound near as funny as it would have a year ago, before she’d met Hail Walking Hawk. “Really? How did he do that? I mean, did he suck the soul out through the nostrils or ears?”
“No. He drilled a hole in the skull, sucked the soul into his mouth, then blew it into a specially charmed pot from which the soul couldn’t escape. Then he took it home and forced the soul to do his bidding. This is the evil side of the soul-pot ritual we were discussing in Durango.”
Dusty turned suddenly and went to the rear of the trailer. “Speaking of which, you wanted to look at these.”
He handed Maureen a bagged skull and the bone “bead” he’d shown her in Durango.
“Definitely female,” she said, as she carefully slipped the skull and bead from their bags and set them on the table before her.
“Yeah, I thought so.”
Maureen took the “bead” and placed it beside the hole that had been cut into the woman’s head. She turned the skull over to look through the foramen magnum. The dendritic patterns of the meningeal grooves matched those on the endocranium. “I’d call that a match, Stewart.”
He nodded. “Why do you think the skull was in the burned kiva and the bead was in the room next to the kiva?”
“Maybe the person who lived in the room was a priest or healer and kept the circlet of skull to—” Maureen lifted and turned the skull to the light. “My, my.”
“What?” He bent closer.
Maureen could smell the woodsmoke on his clothing and feel his warmth. It felt good. “See these striations?”
Dusty blinked. “Where?”
“Here, and here.” She indicated the parallel lines. “They skinned her face. Mortuary preparations?”
Dusty ground his teeth for several moments, his gaze going from the skull, and back to her eyes. “I’d say that it’s more likely cannibalism.”
Maureen made a skeptical face. “Cannibals usually cook the head, then break open the skull to get to the brains. Her skull is intact. I wager it’s part of a burial ceremony that we don’t understand yet.”
“Hmm,” Dusty said and smiled.
“What are you smiling at?”
“It might be witchcraft.”
Maureen eased the skull to the table and leaned forward, ready to hear more. “Really? Why?”
Dusty caught the intent expression on her face and stopped. “I don’t recall you being particularly interested in witchcraft before.”
The last time they’d worked together, they’d argued violently over ghosts and witchcraft. Dusty gave credence to all sorts of superstitions. Maureen insisted upon scientific proof.
“It’s a recent fascination, Stewart, is that okay?”
“You bet,” he said in ecstatic agreement. “Is it okay if I decide to abandon archaeology and become a stockbroker?”
Maureen’s eyes narrowed. “You think I’m lying?”
“I didn’t say that. I just meant that given your background, it seems
unlikely you’d suddenly develop an attraction to something as unscientific as witchcraft.”
Maureen self-consciously lifted one shoulder. “After that last project, I picked up Marc Simmons’s book on southwestern witchcraft. Magpie, Sylvia, and Elder Hail Walking Hawk spurred my interest. I’ve done a little reading. Not enough to qualify as an expert by any means, but a little.”
Dusty’s eyes bored into hers like blue diamonds, as if trying to see into her soul.
On impulse, she said, “Want to tell me why you didn’t leave the basilisk in the ground?”
His face slackened. “It was too scientifically valuable to leave in the sand, Doctor. You should know that. Aren’t you the famous Dr. Cole who argued vehemently to study the 10K3 burials, despite the Native religious taboos?”
“That’s me.”
“Then the reasons I catalogued that artifact should be as clear as the sky.”
At the discomfort in his voice, she asked, “You said these witches dig up the bodies of babies and boil them? What do they do with them after they’re cooked?”
“Usually, they feed them to unsuspecting victims.” He canted his body sideways to peer out the trailer door. “Here come Steve and Sylvia. Uh-oh, from their expressions, they’re having a heavy conversation. Probably trying to figure out what to do with each other.”
“I noticed that they vanished into the trees down by the river. How long has this been going on?”
Dusty shrugged. “They’ve been friends for years. I knew they liked each other, but I guess it’s become more than that.”
She studied him over the rim of her coffee cup. “You seem a little—”
“Concerned?” He smiled. “Sylvia’s vulnerable. I worry about her.”
“She worries about you, too, you know.”
“Yes, I do know. We both have some unpleasant memories from our childhoods. A lot of nightmares. We’ve had a few midnight talks over the years after one of us woke up bathed in cold sweat. She doesn’t sleep with a baseball bat because she’s had normal relationships with men.”
He didn’t have to say more. Sylvia had told Maureen about the men in the foster homes where she’d spent most of the first eight years of her life. Sylvia’s descriptions of the abuse still gave Maureen bad dreams. And Dale had told her things about Dusty. About how Dusty’s mother used to lock him in the cold dark basement when she wanted to punish him. Dale said he’d come by once and heard Dusty screaming for his mother. She was standing in the kitchen talking to Dale, apparently oblivious. Dusty had been four years old at the time.