The Night Visitor (39 page)

The Ute-Papago child came near. “Yes, Aunt Daisy?”

The old woman put out her hand. “There's some candy here. Two each for you and the white girl.”

Sarah accepted the wrapped peppermints. And counted six pieces. She looked up at the old Ute woman.

The shaman said nothing. But she looked toward the badger hole.

Sarah—who had been here before—understood.

Good girl. Daisy reached into the overcoat pocket again. And put the plump little sack of tobacco into Sarah's hand. No words were necessary.

Sarah Frank immediately went to the badger hole. She squatted, carefully placing two peppermints and the sack of
tobacco at the crumbling edge of the dark burrow. The little girl got up and backed away slowly, her eyes fixed on the offerings. Half expecting a tiny hand to emerge and snatch the gifts away.

Daisy watched with satisfaction. If it ever came up in a conversation with the Catholic priest, she had not left any gifts for the
pitukupf.
The child had done it, and without a single word of instruction from her. Father Raes was a clever fellow, but he'd have to get up very early in the morning if he wanted to stay a step ahead of her!

Butter Flye tugged at the old woman's coat sleeve. “Hey.”

She glared down at the pale, chubby face. The accusing blue eyes.

“How come she can go to the hole and I cain't?”

“Hush,” Daisy explained, pleased that she had such a way with words.

The little girl muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a very grown-up expletive. Something she'd picked up from her no-good father, Daisy thought—and wisely chose to ignore it. The suggestion was, in any case, anatomically absurd.

Sarah doled out two peppermints to the smaller child.

Butter pocketed one, unwrapped the other with grubby little hands, popped it into her mouth. And smiled up at the old woman. “Thanks, Daisy.”

“Hmmmf,” the old woman said. But she was becoming almost fond of this foulmouthed little blackguard. The tribal elder sat down under the dreaming tree. She leaned against the piñon trunk, and cradled the shotgun in her lap. Daisy gave the girls a stern look. “I got to rest some. Might close one eye, but the other one′11 be open. So don't you two wander away.”

Sarah nodded solemnly and took a firm grasp of Butter's tiny hand. “We won't, Aunt Daisy.”

Like an old hen in a straw nest, Daisy settled her bottom to get comfortable. She closed her eyes.

They stood and stared at the odd old woman.

“She don't got one eye open,” Butter observed.

Sarah did not respond.

Gradually Daisy's face relaxed. Her mouth fell open.

Butter wriggled free from the older girl's grip. She moved close to the sleeping figure. And peered into Daisy's mouth. The old woman was very still. Seemed not to breathe… Butter turned to frown at the older girl.
“I
think she's dead.”

Sarah shook her head. “No she's not.”

“She
looks
dead.”

“That's just the way really old people look when they sleep.”

“Oh.”

Daisy did, of course, dream.

She dreamt perfectly ordinary dreams. Of absurd conversations with perfect strangers. Of a spotted horse who talked endlessly about tribal water rights. Of a fine meal of fried oysters at an Ignacio service station. Of a visit from Cousin Gorman Sweetwater, who announced his upcoming marriage to a Chinese woman who anchored the news on a Denver TV station. Such stuff as that.

But the Ute elder did not dream the shaman's dream.

The children invented games to pass the time. Kick the pebble at the prickly pear. Spit on the spiderweb. Toss the stick at the stump.

The old woman's nap dragged on. Ten minutes. Twenty. Half an hour.

The games became tedious.

Butter took a hard look at the reclining figure. “I still think she's dead.”

Sarah expertly tossed a juniper twig at the stump. Hit it dead center. “I'm ahead three points.”

The white girl had a tight-lipped, determined expression. “If she's dead, we'll have to pile rocks on her. To keep the buzzards from pecking her eyes out.” Butter found a half-pound slab of sandstone and was about to drop it on the sleeping woman's abdomen.

Sarah quickly took the rock from the smaller child's hands.

Butter was not annoyed by this intervention. But she was terribly bored.

The older girl decided that a nap was the best way to keep the smaller child out of mischief. “Let's sit down and rest.” She maneuvered Butter under the juniper tree, and sat down by Daisy. Sarah leaned her left shoulder against the sleeping woman, and hugged the white child with her right arm.

Within moments, Butter was yawning. Finally, her eyes closed.

Sarah knew that she must remain awake. And watchful. What if a mountain lion creeped up on them? Someone would have to wake Aunt Daisy, so she could scare it away with the shotgun. But the sun was high now, and quite warm on her face. The bed of juniper needles was so wonderfully fragrant… a mountain bluebird sang the sweetest song… and she was so snug in her heavy coat and long woolen stockings. Mr. Zig-Zag climbed onto her lap and licked her face with a sandpaper tongue. Within a few minutes, the Ute-Papago child was feeling deliciously comfortable. Quite against her will, Sarah Frank's dark eyes closed. Soon, she was fast asleep… under the shaman's sleeping-tree.

Sarah Frank sat cross-legged in the lair of the dwarf. It was a funny little room. The walls were dirt and rocks; long hairlike roots hung from the ceiling. The only light came from a small hearth, where embers of aged piñon burned cherry-red. Gray smoke curled upward into a sinuous tunnel. The badger hole, she assumed. Somewhere just above, Daisy and Butter were sleeping in the sunlight. The
pitukupf
sat on a stool by the hearth, staring oddly at his young visitor. He seemed ill at ease, but he was very gentle. As if concerned that he might frighten the child.

He was terribly old-looking. And had ugly yellow teeth. But she thought the little man in the green shirt somewhat comical, and almost cute.

He spoke to her.

Sarah could not understand a single word he uttered, though it did sound like the Ute tongue. But the most absurd things occur in dreams… she understood his thoughts.

This is what the little man was thinking:

He was displeased with Daisy Perika and had no intention of appearing to the aged Ute woman. But the dwarf knew that the child had left gifts for him. While Sarah watched, he cracked a peppermint between yellowed molars. Then he poured a dab of tobacco in a brown leaf and rolled a small, crude cigar. He touched the end of this assembly to the embers, then began to puff with evident appreciation. Sarah—who did not approve of this unhealthy habit—wrinkled her nose and tried not to inhale the pungent smoke.

When his homemade cigar was spent, the dwarf came close to the child, uttering unintelligible, though soothing words. She understood that—if she was willing—he would send her on a wonderful journey. To a strange place where she would witness a marvelous event.

She loved to travel.

“When would I go?” she asked.

And got her answer. She would take her leave
on that night when the moon did bleed.

The child—who knew full well that the earth's satellite could not bleed—thought this a most peculiar thing to say. And wondered if this little fellow was on the up-and-up.

The dwarf was not a patient soul. He required an immediate decision. Would she go?

Sarah hesitated, then nodded her assent.

The
pitukupf
took a small blue feather from his shirt pocket, and touched her forehead.

So it was that she departed from the badger hole.

The Ute woman and the pudgy
matukach
child stood watch over the unconscious girl. The old shaman was astonished. She had never imagined that this might happen. For one thing, Sarah was only half Ute. But on the other hand, it was the child who had placed the gifts at the badger hole. Maybe the little man didn't care if you were half Papago as long as you brought him presents. The thought galled the Ute elder.

Sarah Frank groaned. Her eyes, half-closed, rolled upward. Only the whites showed.

Butter Flye, who was hungry for lunch, tugged at Daisy's coat. “Why don't we just wake her up?”

“Because,” the shaman said, “she isn't sleeping.”

Butter looked up quizzically. That didn't make any sense. Unless… “She ain't dead, is she?”

“No,” the Ute woman said, “she's not dead.”
Not exactly …

Sarah's legs jerked spasmodically; she moaned. The child opened her eyes and looked around wildly. Who was this old woman… this fat little white girl? Mr. Zig-Zag came and leaned against her chest. And purred. And gave her a lick on the nose for good measure. And then it began to come back to her. She stood up stiffly.

Daisy patted her head. “You all right, child?”

Sarah, still somewhat dazed by her experience, nodded dumbly.

The old woman shouldered the twelve-gauge. Despite her intense curiosity, Daisy Perika would ask no further questions of the child. It would not be proper. So the trio headed down the long, sandy trail toward the mouth of the canyon. Toward a certain kind of reality.

Butter Flye had picked up a stick. She used it to knock dead flowers off reedy stems.

Mr. Zig-Zag made a useless leap at a small rodent, who disappeared into a tiny hole in the crotch of a scrub oak. When the cat gave up his futile pursuit, the gray mouse poked its head out to deliver an outraged diatribe to the feline.

Sarah Frank floated along, barely feeling her feet touch the ground. She was adrift in a current of most peculiar thoughts.

Daisy Perika paused near the entrance and shuddered. The towering excavation tent—with its three great peaks—suggested an enormous black owl. With dark brow, leathery wings spread in malign reception. Not sleeping. Waiting.

For a lunch of mice, perhaps.

The Ute elder looked down at these two of such tender
years, one clinging to each hand. She spoke to the chubby white child. “You sure you want to do this?”

Butter Flye—who was sucking at her thumb—nodded. She seemed not the least alarmed to return to this place. It was, of course, not in the belly of night as on her last visit. But the pale autumn sun cast long shadows of the old woman and her charges. The shades clung to their heels like hopeful tenants… ready to claim right of occupancy should the human souls depart.

Under the central peaked dome of the tent, the quartet of academics sat around the card table. The two elderly paleontologists, the pretty young archaeologist, the perpetually amused physician who played well at all the world's best games.

Moses Silver folded his hands like doubled fists on the flimsy table. He eyed each of his companions in turn. His daughter returned his weak smile. Robert Newton avoided eye contact. Cordell York was, as usual, quite at ease. Moses cleared his throat. “It seems, my esteemed colleagues, that we find ourselves on the horn of a dilemma.”

“In light of the nature of Mr. McFain's most peculiar death,” Newton muttered, “one finds the expression… somewhat unseemly.”

“Robert, I do beg your pardon,” Moses said.
Stuffy old goat.

Cordell York—who was enjoying himself immensely—grinned wickedly. He winked at Delia, who pretended not to notice this small attention.

“Please,” she said, “let Father have his say.” To encourage him, she patted Moses' liver-spotted hand.

She was more like a sorrowful mother than a respectful daughter, Moses thought. He lowered his eyes to study his hands. Hands that had done so much work. For so many years. He stretched out his fingers, and studied these remarkable products of a billion years of tedious evolution. Soon the skin… the flesh… the tendons… all would be dust. Only the fragile bones would remain. And these only for a time. “There are certain issues that must be resolved.”

Cordell York tapped a long pipe stem against his lower incisors.

Clic-clac.

Clic-clac.

Clic-clac.

Moses fixed his tormentor with a cold glare.

The physician, thus challenged, clamped the pipe stem between his teeth.

Moses continued. “The flint artifact removed from the premises by Mr. McFain is lost to us. Perhaps irretrievably. Even though we have several excellent photographs made by the journalist, we are not in possession of the one piece of unequivocal physical evidence that would verify the association of early humans with the mammoth remains. So,” he attempted without success to make eye contact with the doleful Robert Newton, “our only remaining evidence is… the markings on the femur.” His meaning was perfectly clear. It was time for a firm decision from the world's expert on butchering marks. Were these incisions on the mammoth's femur evidence that some ancient hunter had carved himself an extremely rare steak off the hind leg of the elephant? Or were they merely the marks of a predator's tooth? The answer, in light of the missing flint artifact, seemed all too obvious to Moses Silver. But Newton had been noncommittal.

Robert Newton had gotten the general drift of things. He sat there, staring at the table, rubbing his callused hands together.

Cordell York relighted the pipe, and made three quick puffs. “Robert, it's time to stand up and be counted. So tell us, old boy—is it or ain't it?”

Newton licked his lips. “As you all know, I have studied the markings on this femur with considerable care. I have taken high-resolution microphotographs. I have compared the shallow incisions to dozens of others from fossil bones known to be the result of stone-age human butchering practices. I have also compared the markings with modern carnivore tooth marks on bones of prey; these were made by a variety of predators, including African lion, Bengal tiger, Canadian wolf, and …”