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Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear,W. Michael Gear

Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries (43 page)

BOOK: Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries

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“I don’t have cause to search his house, Stewart. So far, I can’t prove he’s done anything wrong. But why? What would I be looking for?”

The agent climbed the stairs and headed toward them.

Dusty said, “Dale’s missing journals.”

AS HE RAN up the road toward High Sun House, Browser looked down at his white cloak and white moccasins. They flashed silver in the dim evening light. Even at night, he would make a perfect target. He tried not to think about it. He had to have faith that the plan would work, that they would still think him too incompetent to have thought up something this clever and daring. He forced his legs into the distance-eating trot he had developed during the sun cycles of warfare.

High Sun House dominated the southern skyline. He cast a glance over his shoulder and there, a hard hand’s run to the north, Center Place projected like a dimple from the mesa north of the canyon. No signal fire yet.

Gods, this wasn’t going to be his last run, was it? He reached up to massage the slight ache that lay behind the scar on his forehead. He could feel the dent left by Elder Springbank’s war club.

Elder Springbank, in reality, the witch, Two Hearts—he had been coiled in their midst the whole time. That was the trouble with witches, they hid and worked their evil from unsuspected places. Two Hearts had brought him here, to this most desperate gamble of his life.

This was by far the most delicate part of the plan. He had to get close, but not close enough that they could see his face. Then, he had a hard run, at least a
hand’s worth, in which he could not be caught.

High Sun House was a compact three-story town built on a high point with a view for four days’ run to the south. From here the First People had tied their southern empire together. Distant rebellions were reported, and important visitors were heralded days before they could physically arrive.

Browser concentrated on his pace, and thought about the fires that once had been lit, and the mirrors that once had flashed the Blessed Sun’s messages to the distant towns and houses. How odd that he, a descendant of the First People, was about to lure his relatives out into the open so that they could be killed.

A secret part of him wondered what his great-great-great-grandmother, the Blessed Night Sun, would have thought. Would she hate him for this?

As he approached High Sun, his skin began to prickle as though swarmed by insects. Where it dominated the heights, High Sun looked like a square bastion of purple against a bluish-yellow evening sky. Browser slowed as he neared the northern wall. Gods, they wouldn’t have a guard outside, would they? Some warrior who would rise from one of the piles of stone toppled from old shrines?

To his relief, a voice called from the wall above, “Who comes?”

“Hurry!” Browser cupped his hands. “War Chief Browser, of the Katsinas’ People, is searching the towns below the staircase. He and his warriors are tearing Pottery House apart! Two Hearts is at risk. It is only a matter of time before they find him!”

Then Browser turned and ran as he had never run before. His white cape flapped like monstrous wings behind him.

The man yelled, “Wait! How many warriors does he have?”

Over his shoulder, Browser called, “More than we thought!” and ran harder.

The road took him straight north.

How long did he have? Against trained warriors, who had certainly been preparing for a night raid on Kettle Town, he doubted he had one hundred heartbeats before they pelted down the road after him.

And if Springbank is really there, inside High Sun, they will know this is a ruse.

Would they still come boiling out after him? Were they even now perched on the high walls, watching his white cloak disappear into the darkness, laughing at the absurdity of a War Chief who could pitch so lame a diversion and then run away?

As if to allay his fears, a distant twinkle of fire blazed to life near Center Place, now nothing more than a dark hump on the distant mesa.

Catkin! He was sure of it. She had done it! Her diversion must be working. It had to be working.

He hadn’t had the time to worry about her until now. But as he ran, fear traced fiery lines through his veins. He might die tonight, and if he did, it didn’t matter. But if she died, and he lived …

Browser shoved the thought away. Fearing for loved ones sapped a warrior’s strength. Instead, he forced himself to dream—to dream of what it would be like to run away, just he and Catkin, Uncle Stone Ghost, and maybe some of their trusted friends. Could they find a place with fertile soil, a small supply of water, and live in peace? Gods, was that so much to ask? Not fame, or power, or prestige, just the simple peace to raise corn, love Catkin, and perhaps see a couple of their children live to be adults?

A shout broke the silence, and Browser twisted his head to look back. Dark shapes lined out on the road behind him. He almost laughed with relief. Two Hearts must not be at High Sun House. This desperate scheme might work after all.

If he lived. If Catkin did her part. If …

If only they had had time to love each other that afternoon.

With his life balanced by a thread, the world depending on his next actions, why did that one thought lodge between his souls?

The shouts grew louder, and he could hear them coming, their feet pounding out his doom.

Browser ran with all his might.

“HE TOOK IT from me! He … took … it! Where is he hiding it? I must have it!”

Piper crouches on the dark northern side of the kiva, scratching shapes into the crumbling plaster with her fingernails. The plaster screeches its upset. She scratches harder to cover Grandfather’s wheezing voice.

“Piper. Where’s … your mother? Go find … your mother!”

Grandfather thrashes from side to side. His arms are a dying bird’s wings, flopping, trying to fly.

She scratches in time with the thumping sounds, making them go away.

Mother was not here when Piper arrived.

But there were three warriors. Grandfather ordered them to pull the ladder up through the rooftop opening, so Piper couldn’t climb out again and run away.

She grits her teeth and scratches so hard that her fingernails break and bleed. Red streaks the wall.

She looks at it and thinks how beautiful it is.

Red on white, like the blood on Grandfather’s cape.

“Piper! For the sake of the true gods! I need … water. Bring me water!”

Piper glances at the canteen leaning against the fire pit stones, then scratches harder and hums, making the
scratching sound with her mouth, making it very loud.

Grandfather wheezes and can’t seem to catch his breath. Baby bobcat mews are coming up his throat.

“Piper I—I’m witching your breath-heart soul … putting it in a rock … a—a pendant … that was buried long ago.”

Piper’s hand freezes. She can feel her heartbeat slowing, and her lungs struggle for air. She reaches down with both hands and holds tight to the turquoise necklace Stone Ghost gave her. He said it would protect her. He said it was very Powerful.

“Yes,” Grandfather whispers. “You can feel it, can’t you? That pendant … rests on a dead woman’s breast
…locked in darkness …just as your breath-heart soul will be …forever. Forever in darkness.”

Grandfather reaches out to Piper with a clawlike hand. “Bring me water!”

But Piper can’t.

She can’t move at all.

CHAPTER 33

WHILE MAUREEN CHOPPED up the makings for a salad, Dusty cooked dinner. Pots filled with macaroni and cheese—southwestern style—bubbled on the stove. Dusty’s version of the dish contained a large amount of diced Ortega green chilis, and several crumbled chunks of extra sharp cheddar. Additionally, tonight’s fare included fried potatoes, sliced thin and cooked in butter in the cast-iron frying pan. He’d sprinkled chili powder instead of salt on top.

A real vegetarian delight.

Sylvia sat in the back corner of the booth, a thoughtful expression on her face. She alternated between munching on cheesy fishes and sipping from her can of Coors Light. Though she’d washed her hands and face after the day’s work, dust still coated her brown hair and green T-shirt.

Michall, to her nutritional credit, snacked from a bag of unsalted sunflower seeds. She sat across the booth from Sylvia with her red hair pinned up. A thin line of mud showed just above her brown turtleneck.

“This is so bizarre,” Sylvia said. “I mean, I’ve run bits and pieces of dead people through screens for years. But, I mean, wow. This is Dale’s dirt.”

“Yes,” Dusty added seriously, “and don’t forget it.”

“I wonder why the UNM field schools didn’t dig this site,” Michall asked.

“I don’t know,” Dusty said as he stirred more cheese into the macaroni. “They dug most of the Rincon small sites between 1939 and 1942.”

Michall frowned. “As I recall, it caused a lot of problems when they discovered that the small houses were occupied at the same time as the Great Houses, but either by different people, or the same people living differently.”

“The first,” Sylvia said. She accented her point with a handful of cheesy fishes. “If you buy Steve LeBlanc’s warfare theory, and Christy Turner’s Chaco hypothesis, then the country bumpkins from the hinterlands came to Casa Rinconada to be impressed by the grand Chaco priests. The priests put them up in the small houses and, after dark, showed them miraculous wonders.” She stuffed the cheesy fishes into her mouth and slurred, “Tha’s why the trench is in the floor. The priests could rise up out of the underworld right before the hicks’ eyes.”

“Your mother taught you never to talk with food in your mouth,” Dusty said irritably. “Show us some common courtesy.”

Sylvia washed it down with Coors and answered, “Courtesy is never common. Especially around you.”

“It’s the basilisk.” Maureen shot her a warning look. “It’s eating at Dusty. Me, too.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in it?” Sylvia studied her fingers, dyed yellow from the crackers. “Or has experience changed your mind?”

“I don’t believe in it,” Maureen said with certainty. “It’s just a carved stone. But it gives Dusty nightmares and I have to consider that.”

But as she started to cut up tomatoes for the salad, she wondered why, if she didn’t believe, the little fetish worried her so much.

“What’s even more weird is the FBI finding the note buried in the snow. I’m never going to feel the same about Casa Rinconada.” Sylvia shook her head. “It used to be one of my favorite sites. I mean, you walk down there and you can feel the power, you know? Even after all these years. It still hums.”

Dusty slammed his fork down and braced his hands on the counter.

Sylvia jumped. “What did I say?”

“Nothing. It—it’s not you. I just keep thinking. Those dark stains on the dirt. The fact that Dale was killed—”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Maureen cautioned, wondering if Dusty was finally going to shatter into a thousand pieces. “Let’s wait for the blood analysis before we come to any conclusions about what happened down there.”

“But … the note …”

Sylvia came to attention. Her green eyes narrowed. “What about it? You haven’t told us anything.”

Dusty didn’t reply for a while; then finally he said, “It said something like: ‘Dale. Hello old friend. Almost two cycles of the moon have come and gone since that terrible night. What you took from me cannot be forgiven. On the night of the Masks, when the Dead walk
the world, come to the great corner kiva, old friend. I shall be waiting.’” Dusty picked up his stirring fork again and aimed it at the pot like a knife. “It was signed Kwewur.”

“Who’s Kwewur?” Michall asked with wide eyes.

Dusty said, “A katchina from a dead clan. From Awatovi.”

Sylvia nodded. “I read about this. The Hopi burned Awatovi to the ground because they thought the village was filled with witches. Then, at Polacca Wash, they chopped up the captives.”

Maureen finished the salad, set the bowl aside, and went to refill her coffee cup from the pot on the stove. She glanced at Dusty, judging his mood, before she asked, “Two cycles of the moon? How long is that?”

“A little more than thirty-seven years,” Dusty replied. “But I have no idea what happened at Casa Rinconada in 1964.”

“Dale took something from Kwewur. At least that’s what the note says. Something that couldn’t be forgiven. What could it have been?” Maureen slid into the booth beside Sylvia and set her coffee on the battered old tabletop. “It’s all so cryptic.”

Headlights flashed through the trailer windows, and Sylvia put her hand against the glass to block the glare. “Hey, it’s Magpie!”

Dusty stepped to the door and opened it. “Hi, Maggie. Come on in.”

“Hi,” Maggie said, but she’d stopped short of the door, and was holding something in her hands. “Losing things already, Stewart? I’m glad this is a report and not a bag full of sacred artifacts.”

She handed him a thick booklet, the kind copy places made with plastic binders. It was paper, eight and a half by eleven.

“This isn’t mine.” Dusty took it, squinting down at it in the lantern light. “Wait a minute. This was just lying outside?”

“Yes, on the ground.” Maggie pulled her coat off and hung it on the peg by the door. “Smells great. Was I smart enough to get here in time for dinner.”

“This is a joke, right?” Dusty asked, still holding the bound pages. “You didn’t really find this on the ground outside.”

Maggie lifted an eyebrow, catching the serious tone in Dusty’s voice. “I saw it when I pulled up and stopped. I thought it was yours so I picked it up. It was lying right outside the door, on the ground. Want me to go put it back?”

“What is it?” Maureen got to her feet and walked over to Dusty. She read the front sheet and whispered, “Dear God.”

Dusty swallowed hard and handed it to her. “Please guard this while I get the pistol and take a look around outside.”

Dusty went to the rear of the trailer and came out with his pistol.

“Stewart, that’s not what I think it is, is it? You know the rules about firearms.”

He gave her a steely look. “You, of all people, know what we’re up against. You didn’t see a thing, Maggie. And neither did anyone else in this trailer. Right?”

Maggie gave him a worried look, and jerked a nod as he shouldered by and slipped out into the darkness. She took a deep breath, shook her head, and leaned sideways to read over Maureen’s shoulders. “What is that? It looks like …”

“Dale’s handwriting? Yes. This is one of his private journals.”

Sylvia came over and took it from Maureen’s hand. “How did one of Dale’s private journals wind up outside the trailer on the ground?”

Maureen rubbed her arms, a sudden chill in her spine. “More to the point, who left it there? And why? What do they want us to read?”

AN ARROW RATTLED in the rocks a body’s length from Blue Corn. She ducked and almost lost her precarious footing on the canyon rim. A cold wind blew out of the starry west, teasing her hair and fluttering her dress.

“That way!” Rain Crow pointed with his war club, sending four of his warriors scrambling off to the east. A misstep meant a fall to the canyon, a bow shot below them.

This was madness, trying to fight a running battle in the rimrock above Straight Path Canyon. Boulders jutted from the canted bedrock, and could hide one, two, or no assailants. Three of her warriors had been wounded, perhaps some were even dead by now. When she looked back over her shoulder, she saw the flickering on the rooftop where some thrice-cursed fool had built a fire.

Another arrow hissed into the rocks below her. From instinct, she bent down, despite the pain in her leg, and picked it up.

“There!” Rain Crow cried. “No, you fools, off to your right. Just below the crest of the hill!”

“It’s a diversion,” Blue Corn said as she inspected the thin wooden shaft. She stumbled painfully in the gloom. “They want us off balance. This is a willow stave. Probably a piece taken out of an old sleeping mat.”

“It may be a diversion, but some of those arrows are real. We must run these rats down, before they pick us all off.” Rain Crow watched his warriors as they charged forward, bent double to decrease their target area. At the slow rate of their advance, the mysterious
archers would have more than enough time to abandon their positions and retreat.

“No, pull back,” she ordered. “Rain Crow, this is meant to wear us out, to keep us from the canyon.”

He stopped short, and she could feel his eyes on her as he considered the situation. To date they hadn’t had a clean shot at one of the darting, weaving targets.

“But, Matron—”

“Fall back!”

Rain Crow called, “Retreat! Regroup at the stairway.”

“Gods know, Rain Crow, climbing down that stairway is where we will be the most vulnerable. We need every archer we have.”

She turned and picked her way back over the rocks and loose soil. Her aching hip sent fire up her side, but she couldn’t limp, not on this rotted slope.

Rain Crow came to offer his hand, and with his help she made her way back to the roadway. The rising sandstone hid Center Place from her view, but below, part of Kettle Town’s walls were visible.

“What happened?” Horned Ram stood, guarded by his Red Rock warriors. They had arrows nocked in their bows.

“A diversion,” she told him. “Phantoms shot splinters at us, then fled.” She offered the willow stave.

Her warriors re-formed, eyes on the eastern edge of the rim where their tormentors had disappeared.

Rain Crow studied the dark rocks warily as he started to say: “I think we—”

They rose from just under the lip of the stairway, four of them, loosing arrows from beneath their white cloaks.

The ambush came as a complete surprise. Blue Corn instinctively dropped to her belly, trying to wiggle down into the worn sandstone. But she could only cover her head and listen to the screams of her warriors.

“By the gods, how did this happen?” Horned Ram bellowed.
“We had to practically step on them!”

“Rise!” Rain Crow shouted. “There are only four of them! Follow me!”

“Black Stalk is shot through the guts!” someone cried.

“Go!” Blue Corn ordered. “I’ll tend to him. Avenge him! In the Flute Player’s name,
go
!”

Blue Corn watched her warriors rise, hunched figures with bows, ready to loose deadly arrows as they scampered to the top of the stairway.

Rain Crow’s voice carried, “Where did they go?”

“Careful. Watch out.”

“I don’t see anything!”

Blue Corn crawled over to Black Stalk and rested his head in her lap. The young warrior gripped the arrow shaft that stuck out of his abdomen just below the navel. Despite the darkness she could see the spreading blackness of gut blood as it soaked the panting warrior’s shirt. She ran cool hands over his hot face.

“You’re going to be all right, Black Stalk,” she soothed. “Just hold on.”

“Matron?” he asked through clenched teeth. “Blessed Flute Player, it burns like fire.”

“It’s the gut juice,” she said. On the night breeze she could smell the sour stench of punctured intestines.

He shivered, his feet kicking slowly, futilely as his sandals slid across the gritty stone.

“Matron,” he whispered. “I would ask a favor?”

“Of course, Black Stalk. Anything within my power.”

Sweat trickled down his face to dampen her shirt. With a trembling and bloody hand he unhooked the war club from his belt. Offering it, he said, “Kill me, Matron. Quickly. I’ve seen wounds like this. I don’t want to die slowly. And if you pull this arrow out, you’ll take half of me with it.”

“Black Stalk, I—”

“Please, Matron. You’ve seen gut-shot men die before. You
know
what it’s like.”

At the pleading in his voice, she took the heavy war club, and eased his head down so that he stared up at the glistening Evening People.

“It’s a … good club, Matron,” he said through gritted teeth. “My father … made it … before he … died. Straight … and true.”

BOOK: Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries

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