Daniel Hecht_Cree Black 02 (46 page)

52

SEATTLE. MONDAY, back at the office. Eight a.m. sharp. Joyce unlocked the door to PRA's suite, turned on the lights, tossed
the pile of mail onto her desk. The light on the message machine was blinking and the digital readout told her that there
were thirty-two messages waiting. Through the door to Cree's room, she glimpsed the big views of Elliott Bay and the smile
of bright blue sky above. She and Ed had arrived Sunday midafternoon, and she'd spent the rest of the day just relaxing and
mooning around. She'd done some stretching to ease the soreness in her thighs, then went for a run along the shore of Lake
Washington. The rez was great, but it sure felt good to be around a body of water again.

Joyce measured ground Nicaraguan beans into a paper filter, filled the reservoir of the coffee machine, and turned it on.
As it perked, she listened to the calls and took notes on pink message slips for Cree and Ed. By the time she was done, the
coffee was ready. She poured a mug and took it and the mail into Cree's office, where the Bay and the Sound could keep her
company as she went through the week's correspondence.

Between the calls and the letters, there looked to be some promising cases in their future; Ed would be glad to see this stuff
when he came in this afternoon. Cree, too, when she got back later in the week and once she got over the exhaustion and existential
upheaval that would likely follow the Oak Springs case. Cree was on a perpetual learning curve, rising so steeply Joyce was
sure it would one day take her right off the planet. Which day Joyce was determined to forestall as long as possible.

A couple of inquiries had come from people who'd been seeing glowing orbs, one in San Francisco and one right here in Washington,
not far from Seattle; Ed would like that, because orb reports were on the increase and the phenomenon promised to be particularly
susceptible to physical analysis. There were people troubled by standard-issue phantoms in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota;
the person in Maine said hers looked like a druid shaman, like old representations of Merlin. Coincidentally, she claimed
to live near one of the supposed pre-Columbian, pre-Viking druidic archaeological sites that occurred throughout the Northeast.
Another letter requested help on a poltergeist case in Kentucky and came complete with newspaper clippings with photos of
household objects hurtling through the air. Poltergeists always gave Joyce a shiver.

There was even a terse letter from Mason Ambrose in Geneva, accompanied by a check for five grand; the old creep was donating
Cree's fee on behalf of Oak Springs School. Trying to redeem himself. Joyce was glad to see the check, because most of the
remaining envelopes contained bills and the PRA bank account was, as always, running on fumes.

When she finished sorting and filing, she got herself another cup of coffee, put her feet up on Cree's desk, and stared out
the window. She thought back with satisfaction to that last day and night in Oak Springs, which made up for some of the frustrations
of the rest of the investigation.

Saturday night, after booking seats for the return flight, she had opted to stay with Cree at the school in the hope that
there'd be time in the morning to squeeze in one last horse ride, which she'd decided was easily as good as sex and had fewer
risks. Plus there was some other business to see to.

After Julieta had gone back to the faculty residence, she and Cree spent the evening in the big ward room, talking only occasionally.
Cree was exhausted and feeling alternately good and then unsettled about the outcome here. They agreed it had been an instructive
case, and most of its details had worked out well, but they'd also agreed that a smack upside the head for Nick and some fleeting
humiliation for Donny wasn't enough. The absence of justice was a real craw sticker. There certainly was a lot of comeuppance
due those two. And due Lynn Pierce, who had done her best to bring the school down. Joyce had been tempted to tell Cree what
she'd found and figured out during her research, but Cree was not in a receptive state of mind for such things. And anyway,
some details were best kept to yourself.

Cree went on about how she felt only pity for the nurse: perpetually grieving for her long-dead husband, wounded, consumed
with envy, fragile, but concealing it all with her coy, insinuating smugness. It wasn't easy to be Lynn Pierce, Cree said,
and it couldn't be much fun.

Firing Lynn and throwing some anxiety Donny's way was about as far as it could go for Julieta, Cree said. Julieta had to move
on now; she didn't need obsessive concerns for justice or revenge complicating things. It was more important now for her to
find the gentleness in herself, to be free from the past and let her love blossom with the good-looking doctor—yaddah, yaddah,
all the therapy hooey dear Cree was so prone to.

Actually, Joyce didn't disagree with her in the slightest. But.

Later, when she was sure Cree was asleep, she had gathered up the photocopies she'd made at the newspaper archives, and scanned
them again to make sure she had the details right. It was ten-thirty when she went to find the nurse.

Cree and Julieta need never know.

Lynn Pierce wasn't in her bedroom, but Joyce found her in the examining room, tidying up. The silver head bobbed and its thick
braid swung as Lynn stooped to pick something up. When she sensed Joyce in the doorway, she straightened and turned quickly,
her eyes so wide the bronze speck glinted in the lights.

"Didn't mean to startle you," Joyce said. "I called out from the hallway, but I guess you didn't hear me."

"I'm about to go to bed. Do you need something?"

"I'm just saying good-bye. I have to leave early tomorrow. I understand you'll be leaving soon, too."

"Yes." Tight-lipped, eyes hard and suspicious.

"But I hear you've got another job all lined up."

"Highly skilled medical practitioners and administrators are hard to find out here. I'm fortunate to have professional contacts
who respect that fact. I'll be assuming my new position next week."

"Yeah, I saw Donny earlier today. He thinks the world of you. I guess you've worked for him before, right? Up at the Bloomfield
mine. Your husband, Vernon, too. I'm sure he'll take good care of you."

"Is there something I can do for you, Ms. Wu?" Lynn Pierce took a paper towel from a dispenser and feigned preoccupation with
a smudge on the stainless steel counter.

"No. But there's something I can do for you."

"Oh, that's so kind of you!" Lynn's voice was coy, but when she turned back toward Joyce, her eyes were not. The look confirmed
Joyce's sense of her:
This gal is dangerous.

"Vern, he was a pretty important man in the McCartys' operation?"

Lynn could tell she was being baited, but as Joyce had hoped, she couldn't resist indulging her pride in him. "Vernon was
chief explosives engineer at the Bloomfield mine. He was the very best in his field and received numerous commendations for
his safety record. He supervised all explosives operations and staff. It's a very important part of coal mining."

"So he probably rubbed shoulders with Garrett McCarty now and again. And Donny."

"Vernon was invaluable, and it's to the McCartys' credit that they knew what they had in him and made a point of treating
him well. Vern's office was just down the hall from Donny's in Bloomfield. Vern appreciated their respect and trust."

Joyce nodded. "Do you know what's been going down around here in the last few days? Aside from you telling Donny everything
about Tommy Keeday?"

Lynn looked at her speculatively. After a moment, she took a cigarette pack out of her smock, unfolded a little foil ashtray,
and lit up. She blew the smoke at the ceiling. "You're kind of a disjointed conversationalist, Ms. Wu, did you know that?
Are you going to connect the dots for me, or do I have to guess?"

"Oh, heck," Joyce said, "I'll connect 'em. Why not."

Lynn narrowed her eyes as she sucked hungrily on her cigarette. This time she blew the smoke at Joyce and stared confrontationally
at her.

"Your husband once told you something he'd overheard the McCartys talking about, didn't he? Way back, like in 1986, not long
before he died. Something very juicy and hush-hush about Julieta. That's how you knew she'd had a lover back then. A Navajo
guy. That's why you figured she acted so strangely sometimes—maybe Tommy Keeday was her child."

"Isn't he?"

"What else did Vernon tell you? Did he tell you that Garrett murdered Julieta's lover? Buried him in the ravine over at the
north end of the mesa?"

That news clearly caught Lynn by surprise. She said, "No!" and then must have realized it was an admission that Joyce had
been right so far. A mask slipped over her face.

"No, of course you didn't know. Because all this time you've been thinking Joseph Tsosie was the father. But he wasn't. A
man named Peter Yellowhorse was, and that's who the McCartys killed. And Vern found out. And he made the mistake of letting
them know he knew."

"You're thinking you can sour me on Donny McCarty, but I don't believe any of this. And you're not subtle enough."

Joyce tossed photocopies of the
Gallup Independent
articles onto the counter next to Lynn's white, clenching hand. The nurse glanced at them despite herself.

"When did Vern tell you, Lynn? Think back. Because I know when Vern died and how he died."

Lynn tore her eyes away from the photocopies.

" 'Explosives expert killed in coal mine accident,' "Joyce read out loud. "Think about it. Best safety record in New Mexico,
but he manages to blow himself up November fifteenth, 1986. A couple of weeks after Peter Yellowhorse was murdered, probably
a few days after he overheard Garrett and Nick, or maybe Donny and Nick, talking about it. A few days after he told you the
juicy gossip. He knew what they'd done, and it was dangerous knowledge, Lynn. Nick was up at Bloomfield a lot right around
then, wasn't he? Really think it's all a coincidence?"

Lynn was holding her cigarette in the V of her fingers, high in front of her, but she had forgotten it. Joyce could see in
her eyes that she was thinking back, checking the dates, the details. The tumblers spun and began clicking into place. After
a moment, Lynn took a long, long, deep breath. The deadly, metallic look in her eyes chilled Joyce.

Lynn turned back to the counter to stub out her unfinished cigarette. She busied herself with a tray of scalpels. Her hands
shook badly at first but then steadied as they moved among the bright blades, putting them one by one into the sterilizer.

"Good-bye, Ms. Wu," Lynn Pierce said expressionlessly.

Joyce left her and went back to the ward room where Cree had been sleeping peacefully. She had felt a little twinge of guilt,
knowing Cree probably wouldn't approve. But, hey.

Turning the basket,
Joyce thought. She couldn't be one hundred percent sure she was right about Vernon Pierce's death. But those bums deserved
it in any case. Donny, Nick, Lynn—the three of them deserved each other, and Lynn was already launched, something like a
human heat-seeking missile, coming in under the radar. Oh, it would take a while; she would settle in at the mine and think
about how best to do whatever she'd do. But you didn't have to be a Las Vegas bookie to figure the odds on Donny's and Nick's
continuing health and happiness were not so good. Joyce made a mental note to check the Albuquerque papers once in a while
to see how it turned out.

She finished her coffee, checked her watch and found that she'd been sitting for almost an hour. Still, she felt good and
lingered a little longer.

Cree would be back on Thursday. She'd have a lot to think about. She'd done an incredible job with Julieta and the gorgeous
Navajo doctor, zeroing right in on the crucial knot that held everything back, kept everything snarled. But Joyce doubted
she'd do as good a job when it came to her own love life. Ed hadn't talked about the parallels there, but Joyce was sure he'd
noticed them. You'd have to be a major dummy not to. And of course Cree would come back all bent out of shape by it. For more
reasons than one. She'd absorbed so much of Julieta McCarty, she probably couldn't even tell whether her feelings toward Ed
were truly her own, or some kind of resonance with Julieta's thing with Joseph. Heartbreaking, really.

On one hand, Cree was as ready for a man as anyone Joyce had ever known, but on the other hand, it was complicated. Joyce
couldn't decide where the problem lay, exactly. Once, she would have said, Easy—the shadow of her dead husband's hanging
over her, her very own ghost. And the cure for that was obvious. She'd told Cree as much last spring, and Cree had wisely
gone back to see Paul in New Orleans.

But maybe it was more complex than that, more even than making a choice between Ed and Paul. Seeing Cree out there, riding,
walking, the way she expanded into the place, Joyce knew she'd come back in love with the land, the rocks, the big sky, the
Navajo medicine men, even the ghosts, as much as with Paul Fitzpatrick or Edgar Mayfield. Cree wasn't all that available because
she already had a lover: mystery. Or maybe just
life.
The mystery of life. Whatever.

Joyce honestly had no idea how you could help somebody with a situation like that.

53

THE OLD Keedays' place was transformed. The Evil Way was not as large or long a ceremony as others, but it still required
substantial preparation. Tommy's closest aunts, uncles, and cousins had come to participate and help out, along with a few
nonfamily, including Cree, Julieta, Joseph, and Joseph's uncle. With the medicine man and his two assistants, there were around
two dozen. Pickup trucks and station wagons were parked haphazardly all around the grandparents' home. The kitchen stove in
the trailer was going, and a couple of fire pits had been set up outside to help prepare the food needed to nourish the gathering
during the two-day Way. Two sheep had been butchered and now hung from the branches of a small cottonwood, soon to be roasted.

Cree helped Ellen make piles of fry bread, dropping the dough disks into smoking oil, spearing them with a fork, rotating
them as they bubbled, flipping them when the underside was golden brown. It was good to see Ellen again, to bask in her goodwill
and good humor.

She met relatives, tried to keep track of their names and connections to Tommy, gave up, decided it didn't matter. They were
all family. They were here to help him. To heal him. To remind him who he was.

The mood was mixed. In general, the preparations created a festive atmosphere: people laughing quietly as they worked, exchanging
gossip, chipping in food and money, giving orders to each other, complaining. But there were no young children present, and
an undertone of solemnity and concern grew as the time for the ceremony itself drew closer. Being possessed by a spirit was
serious and dangerous. Even the inevitable half dozen dogs seemed restrained and generally stayed out from underfoot.

Ts'aa'lil'ini, the Singer, was a small, vigorous man in his sixties. He was dressed in khakis and a white shirt with an antique
Pendleton blanket worn over his shoulders as a robe, and had a serious face. Cree found his dignity and gravity imposing.
Ellen and the grandparents introduced her to him, explaining in Navajo her connection to the situation. He nodded his head,
his bright, knowing eyes on Cree's, and invited her to participate. Cree thanked him sincerely, explained she'd be more comfortable
just helping out on the periphery of things, and let him go about his work.

Cree watched as Ts'aa'lil'ini and his helpers brought the ceremonial materials from their pickup and laid them out in the
appropriate order. Corn pollen, plant materials, colored sand for sand paintings, mountain tobacco, spirit gifts, fire materials:
One of the assistants, a chubby man in his late twenties, explained the significance of each and the role it would play in
the ceremony. The basket on which offerings would be placed was made of sumac bark, he told her, which gave it its scent.
The whole thing was intricate and full of symbolism that was rooted all the way back in the beautiful and complex Navajo creation
stories. Cree was aware of standing on the far side of a vast cultural canyon that made real comprehension difficult. After
a while, awed and overwhelmed, she excused herself and went to sit over near one of the sheep sheds, where she could take
it all in but not get underfoot.

She had done her part. What Tommy needed now, she couldn't help with. He was in the best possible hands.

Julieta and Joseph had come together, made the rounds of introductions, and got right to work with the others. The mutton
would be buried in coals, so Joseph and a couple of other men were digging shallow trenches near the fires. Julieta helped
bring firewood, lugged cases of soft drinks from trucks, joined Ellen at the fry bread assembly line. Sometimes Joseph paused
to watch Julieta. Sometimes she'd turn her head to check on him. When they passed near each other, Cree saw, you could practically
see it in the air between them: a shimmer of mutual awareness, fraught with desire and anticipation. The sight was very gratifying.

A tall, very thin Navajo man came toward her from the hogan, cupping a match around a cigarette as he walked. Joseph's uncle,
Cree remembered. She'd met him only briefly but had liked him instantly. He was elderly but hale, his nose veined from too
much whiskey, fingers stained from too many cigarettes, his suit somewhat out of date but clean and well pressed. He struck
her as the kind of guy Pop would have liked.

"Yaàtèeh,"
Cree said.

"Hey, you say that pretty well!" Uncle Joe said, looking impressed. He sat down stiffly against the log fence next to her,
unconcerned about getting his suit dirty. He spat out a tidbit of tobacco and squinted at the men working near the fire pits.
"Know what it means? It's how we say hello, but it means 'It is good.'"

"I didn't know. That's lovely."

"Nice day for this. Perfect weather. That's a good sign for the ceremony." Uncle Joe looked up at the benign sky, then glanced
over at her. "Taking a breather?"

"Oh, I was just getting in the way. It looks like it's all under control." She smiled over at him and he returned it. "I'm
a little tired," she confessed.

"From what Joseph tells me, you've already done old Ts'aa'lil'ini's work for him. He should return some of the gifts."

"Not at all. This is just what Tommy needs. This is just right."

Uncle Joe chuckled at himself. "Listen to me! 'Old'? Who am I to talk? The guy's younger than me! Did anyone tell you what
his name means—Ts'aa'lil'ini?"

"Nope. What?"

" 'Basket Maker.'"

He gave her a sideways grin and a sharp look as if this information was a gift or surprise for her, and Cree nodded as though
she understood. She found him enormously charming and concluded that he must have been quite the lady-killer in his younger
years. Like Ellen, he was the kind of person you immediately felt you'd known for a lifetime.

Uncle Joe got serious and narrowed his eyes as he continued watching his nephew. Joseph had taken off his white shirt and
was digging in his T-shirt. He had a good build, nice proportions, muscles that moved smoothly in his shoulders as he levered
and lifted the shovel. Over near the trailer, Julieta turned her head to admire him briefly. Cree was surprised to feel a
little pang of jealousy.

After another moment, Uncle Joe sighed, explained he'd better go help out, and creaked to his feet. Still looking at Joseph
and Julieta, he dusted the seat of his pants and straightened his jacket.

"The kids'll be good looking, idn't it?" He tightened his tie while checking his reflection in a hubcap nailed to the shed
wall and looked pleased with what he saw. "Runs in the family," he explained.

Later, Julieta took a break and came over to join Cree. She looked ravishing, ten years younger than she had just three days
ago. She gathered her big skirt and held it as she crouched down next to Cree. They watched people come and go for a moment
in silence.

"They're going to be starting soon. You sure you don't want to be in the hogan?"

"I'm sure, Julieta. I'm just an outsider. I'd rather be over here right now. But I'll go along with the ceremony from here,
trust me. If anybody wonders about the strange
bilagâana
sitting out here in lotus position, just tell them I'm weird but harmless."

"It's not a problem. The family's glad to have you. They're grateful." They sat in silence for a moment, and then Julieta
turned to Cree again.

"Tommy wasn't the only one who was possessed." It was not a question.

"Yeah, well. We've all got our ghosts," Cree said. She remembered vividly the sensation of expulsion, of being emptied, that
she'd felt as much in Julieta as in Tommy when Peter had stepped off the porch and into nowhere. Despite all the wrenching
emotion and danger, Julieta had handled the whole encounter with admirable grace and strength. She doubted that if Mike appeared
to her, returning to her ten years after his death, she'd be able to find the way.

"I have a lot to thank you for, Cree. Joseph and I both do."

"Oh, yeah? Like what?" Cree shot her a mischievous grin. "I want details!"

Julieta looked away, her face reddening, and made her own, private smile. "You're terrible! And you're too observant for your
own good, Dr. Black. He is a marvelous man. But I'll leave the details to your imagination."

They sat for another moment.

"Anyway, I wanted to return something of the favor. Or the challenge, however you might look at it. Forgive my presumption,
Cree."

Julieta's seriousness stalled Cree in midair.

"You have a . . . boyfriend, right? In New Orleans?"

"There's someone I'm getting to know, yes. I'll be going out there in a couple of weeks. Why?"

"I was wondering. You've known Edgar Mayfield a long time, haven't you? You two seem very close."

Cree felt her serenity fall away, replaced by uneasiness. A feeling of exposure and doubt. When she'd seen Edgar and Joyce
off, she'd been reluctant to physically let go of Ed. She'd wished he wasn't so blue, that he'd seen how much he'd helped
her even if it wasn't in the technological or scientific sense. She'd resolved to try to tell him when she saw him back in
Seattle. Then she'd gotten confused again, thinking about just what she'd say.

Julieta bit her lips. She looked like she wanted to say more, but then must have second-guessed herself. She stood quickly,
brushing the dust from her skirt. "I should get back," she said.

Okay,
Cree was thinking.
Right, okay. She's right, and I don't want to wait eighteen years to figure out something that important.
She felt close to crying and couldn't figure out just why.

But Tommy had emerged from the grandparents' trailer. He was dressed in new jeans and a bright white shirt, a broad silver-inlaid
belt, a heavy turquoise necklace, and a brilliant headband. His red moccasins were exquisite, no doubt lovingly made by one
of his aunts. He walked solemnly between his grandfather and his uncle Raymond, looking a little embarrassed at being the
center of attention, sobered and intimidated by the seriousness of the ritual. Still, when he saw Cree, he tossed her a quick,
shy smile before continuing on to the hogan door.

It was a smile Cree knew she'd remember for a long time, the kind you take out of memory and touch and treasure, like a favorite
piece of jewelry from its box.

She watched them go into the hogan, and after a few minutes the compound was empty. It was quiet except for the low voices
from inside, muffled by the blanket that hung over the open doorway. She shut her eyes and savored the feel of the event.
A soft wind moved through the shallow canyon, past the derelict hogans and sheds, and caressed the cottonwood trees. The clean
scent of the desert, tinged with sage, mixed with the smells of roasting mutton and woodsmoke. Cree realized again just how
much she'd miss this place, these people. The thought of leaving broke her heart. Everything broke her heart.

She took off her shoes and pulled her feet onto her thighs. She shut her eyes and felt herself drawn into the hogan, the hearthlike
place at the center where all those energies converged. The air changed when she heard
Hastiin
Ts'aa'lil'ini's voice inside, and though she couldn't understand the words she was spellbound by its rhythms, awed by his
authority.

Cree intuitively felt what he was doing and tried to find a synesthetic metaphor that would describe it. It was a weaving
together, she decided. In daily life, all the energies of living and dead were disparate, often conflicted and chaotic. But
the ceremony had invited the living people here as well as the important ghosts and now the medicine man was bringing together
all their separate lines. Through the prescribed actions of the ritual, he was gathering the strands of the individual lives
and personalities and psyches one by one and guiding them into a beautiful weave of ancient design.

Basket Maker!
Cree realized abruptly. Joseph's uncle must be an amazing man, to have known she'd discover the meaning of the medicine man's
name.

Eyes shut, feeling like she was floating in the soft desert air, Cree could sense the ceremony, almost see it: Yes, it was
like a basket, honoring each strand, giving each participant a purpose, containing and protecting each individual psyche.
The People and their ghosts
were
the basket even as they were
in
the basket being woven here. Ts'aa'lil'ini was gathering the strips in his strong hands, bending them gently, weaving together
living and ghosts and past and future into a beautiful thing much more durable than the fleeting present. The troubled ghosts
would be acknowledged, included, and calmed. He guided each strand to where it must be, creating the basket that for thousands
of years had proved so beautiful, practical, enduring.

Today Tommy would know he was safe in the center of the basket, and, just as important, that he was himself a crucial strand.

Cree just sat, awed and humbled. Stunned. Grateful. Heart wrenched wide open. Still on the verge of tears. There was so much
she had to learn.

Yaàtèeh,
she thought.
It is good. Yaàtèeh.