The Parting Glass (Caitlin Ross Book 4) (23 page)

Marilyn scurried away. After a moment’s hesitation, Timber followed her. He did not kiss me goodbye.

Zee and I got into the cab. I got into the front seat this time. Things had changed.

Zee started up the cab, but did not punch the meter. He, too, understood the difference in the situation. He was working for Timber now. And the pay would be poor.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Library,” I grunted. The engine revved, and off we went.

On the way down the Canyon, I filled Zee in on Stonefeather’s story, at least the parts he needed to know. He accepted it with equanimity, and didn’t ask too many questions. I blessed whatever force had put him in our path.

He dropped me at the library’s Arapahoe entrance and whizzed away to whatever mysterious place cabbies hang out until needed. Mentally girding my loins, I went in and headed for the computer catalog.

I’d chosen the library because I didn’t keep many resources on Native American spirituality at the shop. Sure, I had the common ones, like Black Elk and Hyemeyohsts Storm, as well as a few pamphlets by Sun Bear. Most of the other stuff was, in my not so humble opinion, trash, a lot of it written by white folks with a little training and a lot of romantic nonsense in their heads. I thought the library a better bet for finding out something real. So I waded through the catalog, searched the stacks for likely books, scholarly and otherwise, and established myself at a table in a dim corner of the second floor. I’d been there about an hour, taking notes on a stack of call slips I’d filched from the front desk with a stub of pencil I’d borrowed from the unsmiling librarian, when Zee reappeared.

“He needs his kit,” the cabby informed me.

I dug around in my fanny pack for my keys. It did not seem at all strange to be trusting Zee with them on such short acquaintance. He probably had the same effect on everyone.

“Here.” I stuck my nose back in my book. “In the bedroom on the second floor, the canvas sack. Don’t meddle. And don’t steal anything. Anything walking out of my store on its own carries a curse you wouldn’t believe.”

“As if I would,” Zee smirked, starting off.

“Hey!” I poked my head back up, halting Zee in his tracks and startling a couple nearby grad students into premature grey hairs. “Do me a favor and call the parks department. Make sure Flagstaff isn’t booked tomorrow morning. I’m not going to have time.”

He waved and left. Another hour later, he was back.

“He says to make sure you eat something.”

I rolled my eyes. He would.

“Fine.” I slammed shut a dusty survey of Indigenous Peoples at the turn of the century and gathered up my notes, leaving the scattered volumes for the librarians to reshelf. “I think I’ve found everything I’m going to, anyway. For as much good as it will do me.”

Zee took me to Falafel King, where he bought me a sandwich and a Coke and watched me until I finished them. Timber had given him explicit instructions, it seemed. Then he deposited me back at Beljoxa’s Eye and left again. I made a couple phone calls and went up to the attic, where I unearthed several boxes of craft supplies. Back downstairs, I made a couple more phone calls while sorting through an assortment of crystals and gemstones. When Zee found me in the late afternoon, I was sitting in the middle of the showroom floor, surrounded by odds and ends of fabric, cotton batting, bits of leather and drifts of loose feathers, my embroidery box open by my knee, trying to sew a turquoise bead onto a miniscule stuffed bear.

“Whatcha building?” He crouched down beside me.

“None of your business. You don’t get one, anyway,” I said without looking up.

“Testy. Why don’t I get one?”

“Because you’re Above, and as far as I can find out, It doesn’t have a totem animal.” I bit off the thread and tugged on the bead to test it. Satisfied, I glanced at the cabby for the first time. “Gods above, what have you been doing?”

He looked like someone had ground out the contents of an herb mill all over him. Several. Flaky grey-green stuff covered most of his exposed skin like sudden-onset leprosy, and his long, blond hair was full of it. He also smelled pretty strong, not in a bad way.

“Cutting sagebrush, mostly.” Zee crossed his legs and dropped to the floor. “And peeling willow bark. Do you have any dried kinnikinnick?”

“I keep it in my tea caddy.” I picked up a crochet hook and hunted up a ball of red thread from a nearby basket. “No. I don’t have that kind of thing around, as a rule. Try the store on the Mall.”

“Okay. Just thought I’d ask you first. And I need to find Stonefeather’s house. Timber said you could give me directions. Oh, here’s your keys.” He tossed them at my lap.

“Stonefeather’s house?” I paused in making a six-crochet chain. “What do you want to go there for?”

“Seems there’s a ceremonial outfit he didn’t burn.”

“I hope you have a strong stomach.”

“Cast iron.” He slapped the area in question.

I told him where to go and returned to my work, not without offering up another heartfelt prayer to the powers that had led me to Zee. We literally could not have pulled this off without his help. Too, his regular bulletins from the Canyon kept me from worrying about Timber overmuch. I had no doubt of my lover’s competence in his singular field. Still, I knew the business was meant to test him to his limits. And sometimes even competent people failed tests. I didn’t like to think of what might happen to Timber, if. There might not be enough of him left to put back together.

By dark, I had my end of things as ready as it was going to get and had cleaned up the showroom. I’d fed McGuyver and managed to heat a can of soup for myself. I knew I should go to bed soon. I couldn’t quite manage it. Not yet.

Zee swung by one last time.

“I took them up to the site,” he told me. “Stonefeather and your man. They needed to be there through the night.”

“Okay.”

“Everything’s fine. You should get some sleep.”

“Did he say to tell me that?”

“Well, no,” Zee admitted. “Neither one of them is talking much right now. They’re in…that other place. It’s still good advice.”

“Yeah. I guess.” I stared out the window, wishing I could penetrate the darkness all the way to the top of Flagstaff Mountain. Impossible. I barely had enough energy left to send a thought Timber’s way, and a good thing, too. Timber did not need the distraction of my mind reaching out to his over the distance. If I could.

“Caitlin, go on. You can’t help by staying up all night worrying.” Zee fidgeted with the beads on his wrist, discomfort in every line of his body. He didn’t much like being here with me at the moment, nice-looking woman or not. Probably not so much, right now; I felt depleted, grey and small. I thought Zee the kind of man who, in other circumstances, would offer a hug about now, but he didn’t know if it would be appropriate. I touched his arm to let him know I appreciated the thought.

“Okay. I’m going.”

“I’ll be back around four, four-thirty. I’m going to pick Marilyn up first.”

“We’ll be here. Thanks.”

He left. I went upstairs. I took off my jeans and t-shirt and left them in a puddle on the floor. My bed seemed far, far too big all of a sudden.

It took me a long time to fall asleep.

At five o’clock the next morning, Zee’s cab took the last sharp turn on Flagstaff Summit Road, heading for Sunrise Amphitheatre. I sat up front with Zee. The three women I had chosen to assist me in holding the space were crowded into the back. Marilyn, in her customary white, today a long-sleeved tunic and leggings, sat wedged against the left window, staring out with a blank expression. Sage, in a horrible yellow track suit, scowled from the center, a position to which she had been relegated due to her shorter legs. Gina, in a red pantsuit, had the right window. I’d told them to dress for warmth; sunrise on the mountain would be chilly. Style didn’t matter, only color.

I wore black. Black sneakers and jeans, a black fisherman’s sweater over a black camisole. At my feet lay a canvas satchel containing the charms and supplies I’d concocted the day before.

I’d hesitated over asking Gina to participate. The others I could count on. I’d trust Sage with my life any day of the week. And Marilyn, though she might be a flake, had a goddess riding her. That had to amount to something. But Gina was a Mundane. In the end, I’d picked her in spite of it. She had an emotional connection to Stonefeather; she was already involved. She deserved to see the end of the matter. All those factors made her a better choice than anyone else who might have more mojo going for her.

She’d tried to demur.

“Caitlin, no,” she’d said over the phone. “I believe in what you do. I get readings almost every week, don’t I? But I’m not like you.”

“I need it to be you,” I’d told her. “You don’t have to do anything except keep your place in the circle and imagine your energy reaching out to Sage and me. We’ll take care of the rest.”

I prayed it would be that simple.

Before we’d left Beljoxa’s Eye, I’d led us all through a grounding, settling the energy, connecting us to the Earth Below, and weaving the threads to join us together in the circle. I’d figured it better to do that part in advance, rather than wait until we reached the site. For one thing, grounding after we all took our positions felt awkward and out of place to me. For another, I didn’t want to exert too much influence on Stonefeather and Timber. I had an idea the Powers they were dealing with were not those of the Ground. Bringing them Down To Earth might cause problems.

I could sense the threads binding us now.

Zee pulled the cab over to the side of the road. We all piled out and walked down the short trail through the woods from the parking area to the amphitheatre proper. Zee took point, and I brought up the rear, feeling like a mother hen herding her chicks along. Often, before a major Working, I found myself in a silly frame of mind. I tried not to let it put me off my purpose.

The trail opened out into a clearing paved in flagstone and ringed on three sides with raked rows of crude stone seats, paths leading between them. On the remaining side, where the edge of the mountain fell away toward the town below, stood a low, curved stone altar, also crude. In circle of flagstone at the center, two dark figures sat, hunched and silent. I smelled wood smoke and sage, and a few other things I couldn’t identify, and sighed with relief. They’d had a fire. I’d worried about that. It may have been midsummer, but nights in the high country could be downright cold. Sometimes it even snowed. I didn’t think Stonefeather, in his diminished state, could have survived that. And Timber had enough to cope with.

One of the figures sitting by the dying fire stirred, a slow, drugged-looking motion. Not quite present. It got up, stumbled a little, and recovered. I recognized Timber, and my heart lurched. Even in the dim light of false dawn, I could see he was exhausted.

The five of us who had just arrived joined the two who had been there all night. Timber’s eyes passed fleetingly over each of us, huge and unfocused, the blue of them swallowed up in black. Stonefeather gave no indication he’d noticed us, but sat still as a stone, head hanging. Weary, meditating, unconscious—I didn’t know. Several objects had been arrayed in front of him, I saw now. A pipe with a long stem of carved wood and a stone bowl. A coup stick decorated with feathers and beads. A rattle with similar decorations. An incongruous Ziploc baggie of some kind of herb—smoking mixture, I thought. Timber’s drum lay nearby.