Red Fox (23 page)

Shan nodded, not looking
the least bit surprised or put out.

“
Yes,” he said. He played
with the rings on his finger, twirling them around in a hypnotic
fashion. “I would like to talk about you all think.”

I glanced at Bird,
remembering what he had told us upstairs. We were going to have to
take the dumb white folk route.

“
Well, I’ll tell you I’ve
never seen anything like this before,” I confided. I know my voice
was taking on a higher tone to match my ‘gee golly’ eyes. “These
ghosts sure are a persistent bunch. At home, we call them
poltergeists.”

Shan didn’t seem to buy it.
“You all came looking for me today because you heard I was a
medicine man.”

“
True,” I said quickly.
“But then we realized how ridiculous that was. I mean, not that you
were a medicine man. Not at all. It’s just afterwards we had a talk
about it, using all of our ghostly knowledge, ha, we decided it
can’t be anything more than your regular old haunting.”

“
Or stupid punks from town,”
Miguel spoke up.

I looked at him, surprised,
and helped. “Yes or it could be stupid punks from town. Throwing
rocks, killing your sheep….”

“
Getting crows to attack
you?” Sarah said.

I wish she could see me
glaring at her. “Oh that, well obviously I’m just a bird magnet or
something.”

“
And a fox magnet,” she
added pointedly. At that, Shan gave her a sharp look. The subtle
exchange went unnoticed at the table but gave me a weird
feeling.

“
Yes. And a fox magnet. One
thing’s for certain, you have an abundance of curious wildlife
here.”

I wasn’t sure how to handle
the room. Sarah and Shan seemed almost accusatory as if they wanted
us to admit what we really thought was going on. Will wanted to
avoid all talk and downplay it, yet he was the only who wanted us
there. He was the one with the actual problem but he didn’t want to
discuss it in front of anyone else. Then there was Bird who knew a
lot more than he was sharing. The only thing he did share was that
we had to keep our plans from everyone. Which left me really
fucking confused when it came to what we could talk
about.

Dex and Maximus looked
equally conflicted which would explain why they weren’t saying
anything.

“
So, all that talk earlier
about curses and skinwalkers,” Sarah started. My head snapped up.
We never mentioned skinwalkers. I tried to keep my face emotionless
but I was freaking out inside. I felt Dex tense up beside
me.

“
That didn’t mean
anything?” she continued. “Wanting to talk to a medicine man to
protect you?”

Will pointed his fork at
her, looking as angry as I had seen him, his neck growing a vibrant
shade of fuchsia along his bulging jugular.

“
No one has even mentioned
skinwalkers, Sarah. You know we don’t believe in that superstitious
nonsense.”

“
Then why do you look so
afraid?” she countered. “Surely the kids have heard of the yee
naaldlooshii? The skinwalker.”

“
No,” Dex said, leaning
forward. “We haven’t.”

I’m pretty sure her blind
eyes rolled underneath her glasses.

“
With all the animals,
rocks and happenings in the night, I was sure that would be the
first conclusion you’d be drawing.”

“
Well maybe we think it’s
all a bunch of nonsense as you seem to believe it is and don’t want
to bother wasting our time with it,” Dex retorted. He flashed his
eyes at Maximus. “Isn’t that right, buddy?”

Maximus pursed his lips,
nodding. “Yeah, I reckon Mrs. Lancaster, I’m not really equipped to
deal with that sort of thing. I still believe there is some kind of
haunting here.”

“
And no curse?” Shan asked.
He sounded disbelieving, as if we couldn’t answer that one to his
liking.

“
Actually, I told them
about Navajo curses,” Bird said, tugging at his shirt collar. “I
knew they’d take it with a grain of salt, not being Navajo like I
am. And like you are, Shan. But they dismissed the idea pretty
quickly.”

Wow. Bird wasn’t kidding
when he said he didn’t want anyone to know what we were up to. I
really wanted to hear his reasoning behind it. I glanced up at the
grandfather clock nearby. It was just after 8PM and the bar was
waiting for us. Answers were waiting for us.

Sarah crossed her arms and
sat further back in her chair. I had no idea why she seemed to be
so put out by our reluctance to talk about anything Navajo related.
Everything seemed to be a battle between her and her husband. Maybe
she was trying to prove something to him, though I couldn’t be sure
what.

And Shan. I observed him
casually. He didn’t seem bothered, not that he ever really did. His
face was still shining and body language was open. But his eyes
were on Sarah. They looked stern, disapproving almost. I had seen
that look in my father’s eyes many a times.

Maybe they are having an
affair
, the thought streaked across my
head. I don’t know why I thought that but it kind of made sense.
All these untold looks at the table. Her disappearing into the
cabin with him, albeit briefly. Perhaps all of this had nothing to
do with us but just with them. Sarah and Shan were having an
affair, Sarah was reverting back to her old ways and taunting Will
with Shan’s beliefs, the very beliefs that Will gave up. As if I
couldn’t like her any less.

“
They were right too,” Will
said, getting out of his chair. “If I thought any of these
occurrences had something to do with the Navajo way, I wouldn’t
have brought these white folks here. Now, I don’t care if we find
out it is punks or if it’s some ghost, I just want the problem
fixed. And that’s what these people are here to do.”

Oh…crap. What was I just
saying earlier? Oh yes, how we couldn’t just leave Will here with
the problem unsolved. And what did the boys say? That’s right, that
it wasn’t our problem and we weren’t expected to do anything about
it.
I found myself glaring at Dex and Maximus.
You morons
.

Will started collecting
plates and took them into the kitchen.

“
It was such a lovely
dinner Will,” I called after him brightly, pushing my anger
away.

I heard a mumble from the
kitchen. I looked at everyone else. Shan was twisting the giant
turquoise ring around and around, his face blank. Miguel brought
out a pack of toothpicks, which Dex asked for one. Miguel obliged,
having warmed up a bit to Dex during the course of the night.
Maximus was staring at me. I could see he was sorting through the
situation like I was. Sarah was still stewing in her chair. Bird
didn’t say anything more. Actually his lips looked sewn shut. He
picked up the remainder of the plates and joined Will in the
kitchen.

There was no dessert or
coffee. I heard Bird veto that in the kitchen by telling Will that
we probably wanted to get straight to work, especially after all
the dinner chit chat. We must be eager to get things going. Then
came our alibi: We were going to go into town and on the highway
and shoot some night shots for atmosphere.

Meanwhile, as I was
eavesdropping on their kitchen talk, the conversation at the table
was now very awkward. So much so that Miguel left without much more
than a quick wave.

“
You know, if you have any
questions about the Navajo way, I would be more than willing to
teach you some things,” Shan offered. Sarah perked up a
little.

“
Like what?” Dex asked. He
hid it well, but I could hear the disbelieving, almost suspicious
affliction in his voice.

“
There’s a lot my friend.
And I know you don’t believe in some of our…myths. But I think you
would find it all quite educational. And we have a range of natural
solutions.”

“
Natural solutions?” I
repeated.

“
Yes,” he smiled directly at
me.

“
Organics are commercial
now, but we have always been living and breathing off the great
earth. We have teas, herbs, rituals that can solve anything.
Anything you wish. Anything you want. We could try some out.
Tonight.”

“
Ah, we’re going into town
to shoot some footage,” Dex put in, obviously having overheard Bird
as well.

Shan steadied his gaze at
him. “That’s too bad. I think tonight would be a great night to be
a little more open-minded. Nighttime is when the spirits roam and
when our hearts are speaking the clearest.”

“
Maybe tomorrow?” Maximus
offered.

“
Oh, I have no doubt you’ll
be wanting to see me tomorrow,” he said. He sounded innocent enough
but I wasn’t sure of anything in this place. Everything felt
ominous.

He wiped his mouth with his
napkin and placed it neatly on the table. He got out of his chair
and turned to Sarah, “Please thank your husband for the lovely
meal. It’s time for me to retire. Still in a bit of
pain.”

“
Yeah, what happened with
that?” Dex questioned, also getting up and facing him.

Shan eyed him
distrustfully. “Chest pains.”

“
Your heart?”

“
Yeah,” he said. He sent a
furtive glance at Sarah. “My heart.”

And then he was gone, the
cold wind from outside gusting in as he closed the door, making the
napkins on the table rise and fall. Of course, now it was us and
Sarah.

She knew it. She sighed and
slowly got up. “All right. I’ll leave you kids to whatever you are
doing. Wasting our time by the sounds of it.”

We didn’t say anything.
There wasn’t anything to say. We just looked at our hands and
waited until she was walking upstairs before we made any
movements.

I exhaled. I felt like I
was holding my breath for the last few hours.

“
Dude,” Maximus
agreed.

Time to get cracking. We
told Will and Bird we were going upstairs to gather our equipment.
We still didn’t speak, feeling that there were too many eager ears
in this house, until we got our equipment in the Jeep.

“
I’ll take my own car,”
Maximus said. “I’ll be staying at the hotel again
anyway.”

He got in and drove off. I
climbed into the passenger side of the Jeep. Time to get to the
bottom of this.

CHAPTER TEN

Even sitting in the Jeep,
away from prying ears and eyes, I still didn’t feel all that
safe.

“
Are we meeting Maximus at
the bar?” I asked Dex, staring out the window, watching the shadow
of Will go about in the kitchen.

“
Yup,” he nodded, texting
Maximus as we spoke.

“
And where is Bird meeting
us?”

“
I assume he’ll come find
us at the bar too,” he said, pulling the car into reverse, then
rolling out along the bumpy road until we were under the
Lancaster’s’ gate and on the open road.

“
Just to clarify, we aren’t
really doing night shots are we?”

He shook his head. “No
m’am, we are not.”

The black desert rushed
past my window, that unfathomable darkness stretching on as far as
I could see. The headlights provided the only light, illuminating
just the grey, gritty pavement as we rolled over it. Inside, the
glow of the dashboard and consoles sparkled like tiny beacons in
the pitchy interior. I felt like I could see our car from a
bird’s-eye view, a tiny moving dot of light surrounded by nothing
but never ending emptiness. It gave me the shivers.

“
Perry?” Dex
asked.

I looked at him, his face
shadowed, his expression obscured.

“
What do you
think?”

It was hard to say. Where
to start?

“
I think,” I said slowly,
tracing my fingers along the window pane. “We might be in over our
heads.”

And it didn’t feel good. I
felt like we were running out of time and losing our grasp on the
situation. And the more I thought about that, the more scared I was
to go back to Portland with a big fat FAIL hashtag.

“
If it makes you feel any
better, I think we’re fucked too,” he said bluntly.

No. That did not make me
feel better.

I sighed, having to ask,
“How come?”

He started laughing. Really
laughing. Hard enough so that he was shaking in his seat. I stared
at him, dumbfounded and a bit disturbed.

When he calmed down, he
sputtered, “For one, I’m having a hell of a time trying to keep my
mind thinking straight.”

“
You seem like you’re doing
OK,” I told him truthfully.

He looked at me sharply,
such a contrast to his laughing fit. So when he said with lowered
voice, “I’m not,” I believed him. I nodded, unsure of what to say
to that.

He continued though, voice
slightly more upbeat, “For another reason, Maximus is fucking me
off.”

“
Huh?”

“
For another reason,” he
went on, “I think we may be dealing with more than just one thing
here and I don’t even know what one of those bloody things is. And
finally, I think every single person at that ranch is lying to
us.”