The Night Visitor (2 page)

Even the shaman does not understand everything the little man says. The
pitukupf
—like other oracles—tends to speak in sinuous riddles.

Long ago, the elders say—far longer than even the mountains can remember—the little man attached himself to the Utes. They are his adopted tribe; they nurture him in their hearts and in their campfire tales. He is a friend to the People, but he is also somewhat eccentric. Old Utes warn the uninitiated: never, never tether your horse near the dwarf's home. This goes double for your pinto pony. The little man detests horses… especially spotted horses. If they are found near his badger-hole dwelling, he will most certainly kill them. If you don't believe it, ask Gorman Sweetwater, who lost a fine horse in
Cañon del Espiritu
just four years ago… strangled with vines.

There are rumors that the
pitukupf is
a thief, but this is not so.

It is true that now and then he borrows a little of this and some of that. And always forgets to return it.

Why?

Because he has his needs. And is somewhat forgetful. He is what he is.

Now the Utes know very well that their dwarf has no dealings with Navajo or Shoshone or Cheyenne, much less the pale-skinned
matukach.
Even so, there are persistent reports that the little man has shown himself to some who are not of the People. An elderly Hispanic woman over at Bondad (she has also seen angels) claims she spotted the dwarf standing on the banks of the Animas on All Saints' Day; he bowed impishly and tipped his hat to her! Five years ago, a white policeman told Daisy Perika how he followed tiny footsteps in
the snow and had a brief glimpse of a child-sized creature who walked like a very old man. A Navajo follower of the Jesus Way has mentioned regular talks with the dwarf. They have—so the preacher says—smoked the same pipe. And discussed many deep matters. To the traditional Ute, such reports from Hispanic and
matukach
and Navajo are foolishness—silly talk best ignored. The dwarf would certainly have no dealings with those who were not of the People.

Quite aside from her communion with the dwarf—and like all her shadowy ilk the world over—Daisy Perika dreams many strange dreams. She has beheld horrific visions of blackened, frozen corpses floating above groaning skeleton-trees… warm blood pelting down like summer rain has stained her wrinkled face.

These dark dreams, these pale visions, these urgent communions with the
pitukupf …
have provided warning of every sort of visitation.

Almost.

Not the least premonition had hinted of what would accompany this approach of night. The skin on her neck did not prickle, neither did shadowy sprite flit in the corner of the shaman's dark eye… no coiled serpent writhed a cold warning in her gut. On this particular evening, Daisy Perika had not the least inkling that a very peculiar someone was approaching. No, the shaman's usual resources had thus far failed to quicken her pulse.

And the unbidden visitor was already close at hand. Cloaked by the gossamer fabric of twilight was he… sheathed by a dry skin of blue-gray clay. With the same timeless patience as the sandstone women who wait eternally on Three Sisters Mesa for the world to end, he also tarried at his lonely post. Caring not for ticking clock… nor phase of moon… nor falling aspen leaf that signaled summer's end.

The night visitor, moving in an odd, shuffling gait, comes near to the shaman's trailer home. He is weary and wanting rest. But he has important business to conduct here, and a man's work must be done before he can sleep.

*  *  *

The mouth of flame flickered… blue and yellow tongues of fire licked at the bottom of the blackened iron pot. The thick brown broth responded with a cheerful bubbling and popping. Wielding a stained wooden spoon, Daisy Perika stirred the hearty stew. Rich vapors rose from the brew; they curled and writhed seductively. She sniffed. And was pleased. When the old woman was but a child, her mother had taught her how to prepare this meal.

Bittersweet memories of youth passed before her mind's eye; she sighed with deep yearning.

The Ute woman had lived within a mile of this lonely spot since the day of her birth. First in a house of pine logs with a pitched roof of rusted tin. Now, in a small trailer-home crafted of steel ribs and aluminum panels. Though she sometimes longed for the days of her childhood, Daisy grudgingly admitted that hers was a far easier life than her mother's. She has electricity, a propane tank, a deep well with a Sears Roebuck pump that has not faltered for almost fifty years. She owns a good radio and a black-and-white television that works most of the time. Someday, she might even have a telephone. Someday.

But though a thousand summers have faded with the first frost, as many winters have draped the rounded shoulders of the mountains with shawls of woolly white, much about this land is the same as in her youth—and ever will be. Yes, the important things are unchanged. The brown earth is the same… and the blue sky. Three Sisters Mesa still looms above her, as if the Pueblo women who were turned to stone watch over their Ute sister in the rugged valley below. The mischievous winds of autumn playfully fling handfuls of sand against the Ute woman's trailer. Swollen November clouds still carry the pregnant promise of heavy snows in the San Juans.

The night visitor cares not whether snows may cover him… nor if the sun will ever shine again. He canngot concern himself with such small matters. His whole mind is focused on his consuming obsession.

Daisy Perika often reminds herself of this: though there are certain drawbacks to living in the solitude of the wilderness,
there are advantages as well. Loneliness is more than compensated for by not having to put up with too many fools. Except for Cousin Gorman, of course. Gorman Sweetwater still stops by on his way to check his white-faced cattle who forage for bits of grass in the Canyon of the Spirits, but he is often mildly drunk and always thoroughly foolish.

There are a few visitors who are always welcome, Charlie Moon being chief among them. Daisy Perika feels fortunate to have a weekly visit from her nephew and wishes he would come more often. But a tribal policeman's life is a busy one. And he's a healthy young man whose mind is bound to be occupied by other matters. Like young women. Young men and young women, she reminds herself, should enjoy each other. Life's few pleasures pass us by soon enough.

Daisy Perika once enjoyed the company of men. She has endured three husbands. And buried them all. Now she is very old and enjoys few of life's pleasures. Except for food. Lately, she invests much thought into what she will have for her next meal. Lamb stew is good, that is true. Hamburgers are tasty too. And pinto beans cooked with onions. Boiled new potatoes and fried green tomatoes. Fat bacon snapping in the skillet with a heap of scrambled eggs.

But nothing…
nothing
is as good as posole.

Especially if the green chiles are from the flat fields down at Hatch. And the pork is fresh from Fidel Sombra's pig farm up by Oxford. Of course, you must know how to fix it just right. A few pinches of salt. A half dozen good shakes of coarsely ground black pepper. And before the brew goes on the burner, two tablespoons of flour to thicken the broth.

She gave the iron pot a final stir, then twisted the knob to lower the flame for a bubbling simmer. A sudden gust of wind strained against the trailer's aluminum skin. The steel bones squeaked and groaned, but did not break. The sturdy little house was much like its occupant.

The winds blow like a fury around the night visitor, who squats under the tossing boughs of a fragrant juniper. But he does not feel the chill in it.

*  *  *

Satisfied with the fruit of her labors, Daisy ladled out a generous helping into a heavy crockery bowl and seated herself at the kitchen table. She smeared margarine over the last slab of black rye bread. The cupboard was getting a little bare. Her nephew would come by on Monday and drive her into Ignacio to shop for groceries. It was Charlie Moon's day off from his job at the Southern Ute Police Department, so he'd show up in his big pickup truck. She'd have preferred to ride in the SUPD Blazer—the seat was easier on her back and you didn't have to step so high to get in.

Daisy helped herself to a spoonful of posole. Then, a bite of bread and margarine. A long drink of cold milk. The old woman closed her eyes in rapt pleasure. My… such a feast.

Moreover, she was entertained as she supped.

The FM radio dial was tuned to KSUT, the tribe's radio station. And because it was Saturday evening, she listened to a program all the way from Minneapolis. Lots of good music… and
The Lives of the Cowboys
, with Lefty and Rusty who had themselves a bath maybe once a year and were always chasing after some saloon gal. Like any woman in her right mind would want to snuggle up to a fellow who smelled worse'n his horse. But Daisy's favorite character on the show was the detective. Guy Somebody. She smiled and dipped up another spoonful of steaming posole. That Guy was always in some kinda scrape. Sometimes he got shot full of holes by gangsters, but he must be a fast healer because he was always healthy enough for next week's show. And like them pitiful cowboys, he was always in love—but never got himself a woman. Maybe he didn't bathe neither.

When her meal was finished, Daisy stashed the leftover posole in the refrigerator, washed the bowl and spoon, and took a halfhearted swipe at the blackened iron pot. She glanced at the great sea of darkness rolling against her window, and yawned. Time for sleep. She switched off the kitchen light, and opened the door to the bedroom at the center of her trailer-home.

This day had been as ordinary as a day can be for a weary
old woman who lives practically in the mouth of
Cañon del Espiritu.
This night would—so Daisy thought—be like ten thousand others. As she switched off the lamp by her small bed, the realization came suddenly—much as a crooked finger of lightning illuminates a dark landscape. A chill shudder rattled the shaman's aged bones.

And she knew as only one of her kind can know. She was not alone.

Someone was there… outside.

Cloaked in darkness.

Watching.

Daisy moved warily to the window. She pulled the curtain aside, looked toward the dirt lane that led to the rutted gravel road. The stars were like glistening points of white fire. The cusp of half-moon was sailing high, bathing the earth in a creamy light. She squinted. The few piñons and junipers stood there, precisely where they should be, as familiar as old friends.

But something else stood there among the trees.

A man.

The old woman tensed. And regretted the fact that she didn't have a telephone to call for help. What about the double-barreled twelve-gauge in the closet—was it loaded? Well, if it wasn't, there was a box of shotgun shells on the shelf above it. She flipped a switch, turning on the porch light. Maybe that would scare this prowler off.

It did not.

He moved several paces closer to the trailer; now his gaunt body was illuminated by the sixty-watt light bulb. The night visitor had piercing blue eyes, matted locks of straw-colored hair, an untrimmed beard. And he wore something that caught the shaman's eye. It was a pendant of polished wood, suspended on a cord around his neck. The ornament was long as a man's middle finger. Round on the top, pointed on the bottom. And curved… like a bear claw.

The pendant was all he wore.

Except for an uneven coating of caked mud, the man was naked as the day he was born.

Well. This was not your run-of-the-mill prowler.

The winds whipped at tufts of rabbit grass, rattled the dry skeletons of Apache plume. But the frigid gusts did not seem to cause the nude man any discomfort. He merely stood there. And stared at the old woman in the window. He was apparently quite unconscious of his nakedness. Or his mud-caked skin.

The effect, though unnerving, was also mildly comical.

Daisy grinned. The old woman—who was no stranger to either drunks or idiots—opened the window. “Hey… what're you doing out there?”

He hesitated… then raised his fingers. Touched his mouth.

What'd this yahoo want… something to eat? A cigarette?

Daisy noticed something on the side of his neck. Looked like a smear of dried blood. “You hurt or something?”

The visitor passed his hand over his head… barely touching filthy, matted hair. He muttered something under his breath… showed her his hand. It was no longer empty. On his grimy palm was something smooth and white. And spotlessly clean.

“A hen's egg,” Daisy muttered. So the naked tramp could turn his hand to a trick or two. “What else you got up your sleeve? You gonna pull a jackrabbit outta your hat?” But, she reminded herself, this pitiful magician had neither sleeve nor hat. Nor britches.

He stretched out his hand.

Did this dirty fellow want to give her the egg? She waved the offer away. “No thanks, Houdini. I buy mine in town. By the dozen.”

The Magician gave no indication that he understood. Nor did he offer a word to explain his presence.

But Daisy Perika felt no need for an explanation from this naked, mud-caked half-wit who was blessed with a small conjuring talent. What had happened was clear enough. This white man had wandered onto tribal lands without permission. Probably a college student on a hiking trip. He was either drunk or pumped up on some kind of drug—only a boozer or a dopehead would shed his clothes on such a chilly night. And from the look of him, he'd stumbled into one of them black-mud bogs over in Snake Canyon.

It was a record for Daisy Perika. Never in such a short space of time had the old woman made so many errors.

But just how he'd gotten himself into this fix was of no great interest to her. If this bug-brain didn't get some help, he'd freeze stiff as a board before morning. And she was the only help within a mile. So she had to do something. Daisy Perika—who was a long way from being a fool—was not about to let a crazy naked white man into her home. She pointed to indicate an easterly direction. “Go that way.”