Charnel House (13 page)

“Your friends from Sausalito briefly mentioned that you were worried about some of our legends,” said George Thousand Names, leading us into the house. It was a calm, elegant place, built of polished pine, with Indian rugs and cushions all around. Through a half-open sliding door I could see a modernistic kitchen with a ceramic range and microwave oven.

Jane gave George Thousand Names a pottery jar of tobacco she had bought that morning in Healdsburg. “I've heard it's kind of traditional,” she said. “I hope you like Klompen Kloggen.”

George Thousand Names smiled. “I don't know why white people are always so apologetic in the face of tradition,” he said. “Sure, that's a fine brand. Won't you sit down? How about some coffee?”

We sat around on comfortable cushions on the floor, while a young Indian girl who was presumably George Thousand Names's maid percolated coffee for us. Just behind George Thousand Names's shoulder, the sun slid in through the wide window like a lance, and gave his aged head a brilliant halo of light.

“There is something in both of your minds that is troubling you greatly,” he began. “You fear that you have no comprehension of what it might be, and that you will both be swallowed up by it.”

“How did you know that?” I asked him.

“Very easy, Mr. Hyatt. It shows on your faces. In any case, white people don't usually consult Indian medicine men unless they feel they have exhausted every possible explanation that their own culture can offer.”

“We're not at all sure that this has anything to do with Indian legends, Mr. Thousand Names,” Jane said. “It was just a guess. But the more we find out about it, the more things that happen, the more it seems to point this way.”

“Tell me about it. From the beginning.”

I explained about my job at the sanitation department, and how Seymour Wallis had come in to see me about the breathing in his house. Then I described what had happened to Dan Machin, and next to Bryan Corder, and finally to Seymour Wallis himself. I talked about the pictures of Mount Taylor and Cabezon Peak, and about the bear-lady who was missing, and about the doorknocker with the hideous face.

George Thousand Names listened to all this calmly and impassively. When I'd finally gotten through, he lifted his head. “Do you have any idea what you're describing to me?”

I shook my head.

Jane said, “The whole reason we've come up here is because we can't understand it. I work in a bookstore, and I looked up Mount Taylor and found there were all these stories about Big Monster connected with it, and the First One to Use Words for Force. I wouldn't have thought much about it, except that the First One to Use Words for Force was supposed to come back by the path of many pieces or something like that, and it somehow seemed to click. I can't even explain why.”

The Indian girl brought us coffee in pottery mugs and fresh pecan cookies. She must have had a psychic sensitivity to my innermost thoughts, like George Thousand Names. Being served up with a plateful of fresh pecan cookies almost made up for having “Moon River” on the brain.

George Thousand Names said softly, “Every Indian demon has a common name and a ritual name, like many European demons. There were, for instance, the Eye Killers, who were said to have been created by a chief's daughter abusing herself with a prong from a sour cactus. Then, as you say, there was Big Monster, whose real name was quite different, and the First One to Use Words for Force.”

The medicine man seemed to be choosing his words carefully. He bit into a pecan cookie with immaculate dentistry, and chewed for a while before he continued.

“The First One to Use Words for Force was the most terrible and implacable of all Indian demons. He was wily and cunning and vicious, and his chief enjoyments were causing hatred and confusion, and satisfying his lust on women. The reason we call him the First One to Use Words for Force is because his tricks and his savagery created in the hearts of men their first feelings of fury and revenge.

“As you may know, there are benevolent Indian gods and evil Indian gods. At the great council of the deities, the evil gods sat facing the north and the good gods sat facing the south. The First One to Use Words for Force, however, was so treacherous and malevolent that he was accepted by neither side, and he sat alone by the door. He was the demon of chaos and disorder, and the Indians sometimes say that when he was asked in ancient days to help to place the stars, he tossed his own handful of stars up into the night sky at random and created the Milky Way.”

George Thousand Names sipped his coffee. “Is this what we're up against? This First One to Use Words for Force?” I asked.

The Indian's face gave nothing away. He replaced his coffee mug on its saucer, and delicately patted his lips with a clean handkerchief.

“From what you have told me, Mr. Hyatt, it seems more than likely.”

I didn't know whether he was trying to put me on or not. Knowing the dry sense of humor that Indians have, I guessed he could have been pulling our legs. I could just imagine him retelling the story of how the dumb white folks had come all the way up to Round Valley to ask his advice, and how he'd solemnly told them about a demon who threw stars up in the air, and how the white folks had gone away convinced they were up against some ancient redskin spirit, and the whole damned tribe would be busting their sides.

“Likely?”
I asked him cautiously. “What's likely about a demon?”

He smiled. “I sense your suspicion,” he said. “But I assure you absolutely that I am not playing with you.”

I couldn't help coloring up a little. In front of this medicine man, I felt as if I had a television screen in my forehead, giving a late late show on everything I was thinking. Whatever his sense of humor was like, he was a real astute guy.

“The First One to Use Words for Force was the only Indian demon to conquer death. He died many times, sometimes as false proof of his love for a woman, sometimes as the consequence of a punishment meted out by the other gods. But each time, before he went to the underworld, he made sure that he hid in the upper world the essential ingredients he needed to come back to life again. His breath, his heart, his blood, and the hair he cut from Big Monster's head.”

The sun had now dropped behind George Thousand Names's back, and I could hardly make out his face in the darkness. I said, appalled,
“His breath, his heart, and his blood?”

He nodded. “That's why you were right to come up here, Mr. Hyatt. From what you have said this afternoon, it seems that the First One to Use Words for Force has decided to return to life, through the medium of your unfortunate friends.”

“But I don't understand,” Jane said. “How could a demon's breath and blood and everything be
there
, inside a house?”

“It's quite easy. The First One to Use Words for Force was banished to the underworld many centuries ago, long before any white man discovered this continent. In those days, medicine men were almost gods in their own right, and even if they weren't actually able to slay the First One to Use Words for Force, they would certainly be capable of sending him temporarily back to the underworld. From what you say, I expect that the demon hid his vital parts in a forest or in the ground, and when this house was constructed, it was unwittingly built out of trees or out of stones in which the First One to Use Words for Force had instilled his many pieces.”

“But what about all those pictures of Mount Taylor? The demon couldn't have put those up. And what about the doorknocker?”

George Thousand Names raised his hands. “Of course the demon himself didn't put those artifacts there. But I expect that his influence in the house has been strong for centuries. Those people who have been unfortunate enough to live there have probably done many things, quite unconsciously, to prepare the way for the demon's eventual return to life. I expect that the doorknocker you talk about is a likeness of the demon's face.”

“And the pictures?”

“Well, who knows?” he asked. “But remember that the ancient Indians used to draw pictures of prominent landmarks from a whole variety of different angles so that they could locate hidden hoards of weapons or supplies or underground springs. All those prints of Mount Taylor and Cabezon Peak could be a very sophisticated form of pictography, and if you put them all together, you may find that they lead you to some spot where the First One to Use Words for Force has secreted something important.”

“Like what?” asked Jane. “I mean, whatever it is, it must be
very
important.”

George Thousand Names smiled at her benevolently. “I don't usually like to hypothesize, my dear, but my guess would be that those pictures lead the way to the shorn-off hair of Big Monster. The First One to Use Words for Force cut off Big Monster's hair because it had magical properties that made the wearer invulnerable to human and supernatural weapons. It was said to be as gray as iron, this hair, and as strong as a whip. From what I recall of the legend, the First One to Use Words for Force hid the hair in the New Mexico lands of the Acoma and Canoncito Indians, so that the twin gods who killed Big Monster would never find it. But it was discovered, and spirited away, and nobody knows where. Without that hair, the demon would be open to attack, and would never have the stamina he needed to remain in the world of men and living spirits.”

I sat back on my cushion. George Thousand Names was so calm, so self-possessed, that I could no longer consider he was joking. But what he was saying needed such an enormous stretch of the imagination to believe that I wasn't sure I could accept it even now, no matter how sincerely he had said it. If it hadn't have been for Dan and Bryan and Seymour Wallis, I would have politely finished my coffee and left. But two of them were sick and the third was lying dead in the morgue, and what he had told us was the only explanation that anyone had given us so far.

“If the First One to Use Words for Force is the demon's ritual name, what's his common name?” Jane asked.

George Thousand Names raised an eyebrow. “You've probably heard it,” he said. “The demon is usually called Coyote. The dogs of the desert were named after him. It's a name that means cunning and cajolery and vicious trickery.”

I coughed. “Is there any way we can tell if he's really around? Is there any sign, any giveaway mark?”

“Like poltergeists, which are frightened of fire? Or vampires?” Jane suggested.

“Coyote comes in many guises, but you can always recognize him. He has the face of a demonic wolf, and he is always accompanied by signs of bad luck,” he described. “Like what?”

“Like thunderstorms, or sickness, or certain birds or animals.”

I felt that familiar freezing sensation around my scalp. “Gray birds?” I asked the medicine man. “Gray birds that sit there and never sing?”

George Thousand Names nodded. “The gray birds are Coyote's most constant companions. He uses their feathers to fletch his arrows, which is something no Indian warrior would ever have done. The gray birds are the birds of disaster and panic.”

“I've seen them.”

For the first time, George Thousand Names leaned forward, his face intent and pale. “You've
seen
them?”

“Thousands of them, literally thousands. They're all perched on the roof of the hospital where Dan Machin and Bryan Corder and Seymour Wallis were taken. My own sanitation department was around there yesterday, trying to get rid of them, but they wouldn't leave.”

“They're actually there?” he asked, as if he couldn't believe what I was saying. “You saw them with your own eyes?”

I nodded.

George Thousand Names looked away. His eyes, gleaming and bright in the folded wrinkles of his skin, seemed to be searching into some invisible faraway distance. He whispered, more to himself than to Jane and me,
“Coyote
…
so it's come to pass.”

I licked my lips uncertainly. “Mr. Thousand Names,” I said, trying not to sound too much like a white tourist bartering for Indian blankets, “is there anything we can do? Or is there anything you can do to help us?”

He jerked his head toward me and stared at me as if I was losing my bananas. “I? what can
I
do in the face of a demon like Coyote?”

“Well, I don't exactly know. But if
you
can't do anything, what the hell can
we
do?”

George Thousand Names stood up and walked across to the open window. It was around five o'clock now, and the sun was only a couple of hours above the treeline. He stepped out on to the balcony, and Jane and I glanced worriedly at each other as he stood there, gazing out over the hills and the rivers of Round Valley. I stood up, too, and followed him out into the open air. There was a fresh smell of pine and woodsmoke in the air, and from far away came the echo of someone chopping logs.

“Someone has set this ancient evil working again,” he said hoarsely. “Somehow, Coyote has come together again.”

“I don't follow.”

The medicine man turned and looked at me. “The way the gods and the medicine men dismissed Coyote to the underworld was to make sure that he was split up into parts, and that he had no means of recovering those parts. The first four times he died, he hid a flint on his body, so that he could dig up his breath and his blood and his heartbeat all over again. The last time he died, the gods made sure that he had no flint, and no ax. All that could possibly have conjured him up again was the Bear Maiden.”

“Mr. Thousand Names,” I said. “I don't like to seem ignorant, but these legends are pretty much beyond me. I mean, I find them all a little hard to swallow.”

He turned away. “Of course you do,” he said, in a flat voice that was neither irritated nor indulgent. “How do you think
I
felt when I first heard about Jesus Christ walking on water?”