The Parting Glass (Caitlin Ross Book 4) (3 page)

To trust or not to trust? I didn’t know. However, I did know the stranger presented some mystery, and in order to find out more about it I was going to have to take a risk.

“All right,” I passed the Soul Catcher back to him. “Come to the shop at two. I’ll talk to you then.”

I bolted the last of my cold coffee, threw a few bills on the table and left him. I had made it halfway back to the shop before I remembered that I still did not know his name.

My noon client—an out-of-towner whom I had never met before and would probably never meet again—turned out to be one of those skeptics who visit psychics just so they can prove how fraudulent the whole business is and maybe garner a funny story to tell at the bar. Ordinarily in those cases I made an effort to jolt the client out of her complacency and make the reading something to remember, but I’m afraid this time I left the woman just as skeptical as when she came in. I had too much on my mind to do a better job, what with Stonefeather’s plea and the mysterious stranger’s appearance and all.

McGuyver, my shop cat, gave me my first warning of the stranger’s imminent arrival. Having hung the “closed” sign from the front door soon after my client’s departure, I was in the back room, dusting an already immaculate display of amethyst and amber rune stones, when the cat roused himself from his nap at the top of the highest bookshelf, jumped down onto my shoulder and from there to the floor, and sauntered into the front room. Soon after, I heard the jingle of chimes as the door opened. The click of its shutting sounded very loud in the empty shop. My stomach clenched; I was all too aware of being alone with a man I didn’t know and didn’t altogether trust.

After a moment’s hesitation, I followed the cat and found him sprawled on the carpet in the front room right in front of the stranger, who had squatted down to rub McGuyver’s silky black stomach. The cat writhed in ecstasy, his purrs filling the silence with the sound of utter contentment.

“Don’t think I’ll throw caution to the wind just because McGuyver likes you,” I said waspishly. “He’s a whore for attention.”

“McGuyver?” The stranger glanced up at me through that disobedient lock of hair.

“I named him after the television show. He has a way of getting into everything. But maybe you don’t have that program where you’re from.”

“I’m from Oregon,” he said with a puzzled air. “Och, you mean the accent. Well, I am Scots by birth. We emigrated when I was nine, but I’ve been surrounded with it my whole life, so I never lost the way of speaking. My Gran….”

“Hang on.” I held up my hand to forestall any more family history that might be forthcoming. “I’m sure your life story is very interesting. But I still don’t know who you are.”

“Och, right ye are.” He gave McGuyver’s belly a final pat and stood up, offering me his hand. “My name’s Timber. Timber MacDuff.”

I stared at his hand but did not take it. I knew how it would feel: warm—I had noticed both times he touched me how warm his hands were—callused, and big enough to engulf my own. The kind of hands that could strangle an enemy or gentle a woman with equal ease.

I took a step back and crossed my arms across my chest, thrusting my own hands under my armpits.

“So Timber MacDuff. What’s your business with John Stonefeather?”

He colored at my rebuff and his face closed like a vault door. All at once I regretted not taking the hand he had offered, but it was too late now. He had already lowered it and thrust it into a pocket of his jeans.

“I was sent to find him.”

A thousand questions circled in my mind. I settled on three.

“Sent? Why? By whom?”

Now he took a step back. McGuyver mewed tragically and followed, winding around Timber’s ankles, begging for more attention. Timber ignored him. Instead, he ran his eyes over me in an appraising manner, eyes narrowed. He shook his head.

“Nae, I dinna think I’ll tell ye just yet.”

“Not tell…? Why?”

“You may not trust me, Caitlin Ross. But I have even less reason to trust you. I’ve at least given you token of who and what I am. You’ve given me nothing.”

“You came here knowing my name. You know I’m a witch,” I said with some asperity. “That’s not exactly something I advertise to the masses.”

“I only know it because you attacked me with your powers,” he countered. “A poor basis for trust, that.”

I gaped at him.

“In fact, you attacked me as soon as I mentioned Stonefeather’s name. In my eyes, that means you’re hiding something.”

“Like what?”

“Like the fact that you were the last person to see him.”

“How do you know?” My thoughts rushed straight to Sage. He would have had plenty of time to find her and talk to her between our meeting at breakfast and now. And since Sage didn’t take the matter seriously, she would have had no reason to hold out against Timber’s obvious charms.
I’ll kill her,
I thought.

“I have my ways,” he said, his hand straying to the thong holding his Soul Catcher.

No reason to kill Sage, then. Well, that was something of a relief.

“So you have your brand of magic too. Oh, right; I knew that. Why don’t you use your
ways
to locate Stonefeather, then?”

He looked uncomfortable. “I tried. It didna work.”

Interesting. Maybe he wasn’t as good a shaman as I had supposed. Or maybe he hadn’t yet completed his training. But then, he wouldn’t have a Soul Catcher hanging around his neck. Especially not one with all the signs of being well-used. No wonder he looked uncomfortable; a fully trained shaman should be able to locate another in the Otherworld without any difficulty. I couldn’t help feeling a little smug about it, but for manners’ sake tried hard to keep my emotions off my face.

“So I don’t trust you and you don’t trust me,” I said. “We seem to have reached something of an impasse.”

“It would help if ye told me why ye dinna want to help me find Stonefeather.”

I shook my head. “No deal. Besides, I might lie.”

“I’d know.”

That made me chuckle. “You may be a shaman, but I’m a witch, remember. I can block you as easy as shutting a door.”

“Then what do you suggest? As we’re getting nowhere with this conversation.”

“Other than you going away and leaving me alone?” I gave him a rather nasty smile and he grimaced. “No, I can see that won’t do. Well, I don’t have any artifact to share with you to prove my trustworthiness. You might ask McGuyver though. I’m sure he’d give me a good character reference.”

I meant it partially as a joke, but Timber’s face grew very thoughtful.

“Aye,” he said. “Aye, that would work. I think I shall.”

He crouched down and chirped to the cat, who had given up on getting more attention and wandered off to explore the area behind the jewelry case. To my great surprise, McGuyver at once bounded over to Timber, where he sat between the man’s bent knees, his tail wrapped primly around his feet. Golden eyes met sapphire in a long moment of silent communion. Then Timber straightened up again and McGuyver stalked away on his own enigmatic business.

“So you have animal powers too,” I commented, unfazed. “They must come in handy.”

“Aye.” Timber’s eyes were still a bit unfocused. “They do at times. Well, he says he doesna like what ye feed him and ye can be a right wee bitch—as I already knew. But you’re all right.”

“Thanks for the recommendation,” I snapped at McGuyver, who, of course, ignored me.

“He also says Stonefeather was here, but he left of his own free will and ye had nothing to do with it. In fact, ye’d promised to help him.” He lifted an eyebrow in question. “Help him with what, I’m wondering?”

We stared at each other for a long time, neither willing to give an inch. After what seemed like an hour, but was probably only a few minutes, McGuyver emerged from behind the jewelry case, slouched over to where Timber and I stood locked in our senseless, silent skirmish, plopped down between us and meowed.

The tension broke as both of us laughed.

“He says power struggles are useless; we’re on the same side,” Timber translated.

“I heard him,” I said, but still couldn’t bring myself to say any more.

Timber heaved a sigh. “Look, we’ve started out on the wrong foot. It’s no wonder ye dinna trust me after I showed up here last night the way I did. Let’s start over.” He extended his hand. “I’m Timber MacDuff.”

This time I returned his handshake. His hand felt just as I imagined it would and I had some trouble to keep my feet as a wave of warmth washed over me.

“Caitlin Ross.” I swallowed, knowing I had to make the next move and, despite everything, reluctant to make it. I stood there for what seemed a long time, my hand in his, good sense warring with trepidation. What I feared, I couldn’t say. Perhaps I knew this meeting would change my comfortable life into something richer and stranger than I could have imagined, witch that I was.

“Come into the kitchen,” I said at last, good sense winning out. “We can talk more over tea.”

Our hands still clasped, I led him to the back of the shop. McGuyver followed us, his tail waving in the air like a flag of victory.

Chapter Three

T
imber settled himself in one of the slat-backed chairs drawn up around the big oak table at which I taught my Thursday night Tarot class. McGuyver cast an indignant eye over his empty food dish below the kitchen counter, and then leapt up onto the table, where he butted his head against Timber’s arm, begging for more of the big man’s attention. I bustled about filling the kettle and getting mugs out of the cupboard, trying not to remember that the last person for whom I had performed this service had disappeared without a trace in this world or any other. But my active and too curious mind couldn’t help going over the possibilities. 

“What do you fancy?” I asked my guest, to give myself a minute’s respite.

“Hmmm?” Timber looked up from scritching McGuyver behind the ears. “Oh, tea, ye mean. Anything.”

“Earl Grey all right with you?”

He nodded and I took two bags from the Twinings box, hoping he wasn’t one of those tea snobs who insist on loose leaves. But when I set the full mug down in front of him, he merely toyed with the bag, for all appearances too deep in thought to concern himself with Mundane matters like tea leaves.

I gathered up my own mug and sat down opposite him.

“Well.” I sipped my scalding tea, burning my tongue. “Shall you go first or shall I?”

“I will,” he replied, much to my relief. I noticed his accent had faded a bit now that we’d come to terms. Curious. “My bit of the story starts before yours, I think. I’ll spare you the details of how a man of Scottish heritage came to study Native American shamanism. I met my teacher quite young—he was a friend of the family—and he saw my potential. He didn’t take me on until a few years later, though. Och, I can tell by the look on your face you want me to get to the meat of it. Well, some months ago—as much as a year, perhaps—my teacher began to be worried about an associate of his.”

“Stonefeather.”

“Aye, it turns out so, but he didn’t give any names at the time. He only told me he had met this associate at some gathering of spirit walkers from different Nations, and he was troubled about something this other man had in mind.”

He sipped his own tea and a smile lit up his face. “Lovely. Most Americans don’t brew tea near strong enough.”

He inclined his head towards me to acknowledge my superior tea-brewing prowess. I refrained from pointing out that I’d just poured boiling water over the bag, and as he hadn’t taken the bag from his mug, his tea was bound to get even stronger with time. It felt too good having his smile turned on me.

“Anyway.” He went on with his story. “About ten days ago, my teacher called on me. He’d met this associate on the pathways,” he peered at me to make sure I knew what he meant and I gave him a slight nod, “and found out this other shaman was planning something very bad and dangerous.”

“The idea he had mentioned at the gathering, no doubt.”

“No doubt. At least, my teacher had no doubt. And he instructed me to come here and find this other shaman. To stop him, if I could, and help him sort out the consequences if I arrived too late.”

“Let me guess. Your teacher didn’t tell you what this bad and dangerous venture might be.”

“Well now….” Timber flushed a little and his hand strayed again to the thong around his neck. “This was supposed to be in the way of a final test for me, ken. The last test before I earn my own place. I should be able to find out everything I need to know and accomplish the task in ways I have open to me. Besides, my teacher seemed unwilling to speak of it directly. I got the impression this other spirit walker was up to something….”

“Shameful? Dirty?” I supplied.

He shook his shaggy head. “Too dangerous even to mention for some reason. Or disturbing. Something he held as…an abomination. In any case, something better not spoken of.”

“Oh, wonderful.” I’d learned in my career as a Tarot reader and psychic about town that the things people thought were better not spoken of were just the things one needed to discuss in detail. I didn’t think much of Timber’s teacher for not getting the lesson long ago. And as for setting Timber a final test in which he had to root out and avert something too dangerous even to mention….

Some of my fury must have shown on my face, for Timber reached across the table and laid a hand on my arm.

“Look here. Not so long ago shamans expected to face death—real death, not some metaphor—in their final test. Some survived and some didn’t. That was simply the way of it. The ones that didn’t survive would not have been fit, ken.”

“And you expected that kind of test?” I wondered if he could feel how my arm shook. I wondered if I shook from indignation or something else.

“It didn’t surprise me to be trained in the old way,” he answered, which was no answer at all, in my opinion. His eyes locked with mine for a moment. To my shock, he looked away first.

“In any case,” he said, drawing back his hand, “I agreed to the test. But by the time I came here to Boulder, all trace of my teacher’s associate had vanished from the pathways. My helpers could give me nothing but two names: Caitlin Ross and Beljoxa’s Eye. The first was a person, obviously, but the second puzzled me for a good while. I thought it must be some kind of oracle, perhaps one I could contact through this Caitlin Ross. It wasn’t until I looked your name up in the phone book that I found it was a shop. And so….”

“So you came to see me.”

“Aye, I did. With results we both know. So now your part of the story, if you please.”

“I don’t have much to tell.” I lifted my shoulders in a helpless shrug. “Yesterday John Stonefeather came to see me. He was upset about something. I was distracted and not listening properly; there were people in the shop and I had a client coming. I promised I’d help him and took him back here. I made him a cup of tea and told him to wait for me. He didn’t.”

“And that’s all you know?” He seemed disinclined to believe me.

“Yes. Except…. Except my friend, Sage, told me he had been to see her, raving about some kind of dark being following him. She thought he was drunk or suffering the D.T.s.”

“Ah. So Stonefeather is known for a drinking man, then?”

“You might say so, yes.” I thought of the last of Stonefeather’s ceremonies I’d attended, at which he’d been so drunk he could barely hold his rattle. I’d been so embarrassed for him I’d left early. He must have been embarrassed as well, for as far as I knew he hadn’t conducted a ceremony since.

“Poor man. It’s too bad,” Timber said.

“He does try to control it. But he just can’t. He was drunk when he came here.”

“I wonder at that, if he was afraid of something. Alcohol can open the pathways.”

“Or shut them down.” A thought struck me. “Could that be why you can’t find him through your usual methods?”

“I doubt it.” Timber shook his head. “I should at least have been able to find some trace of him. But I found nothing.  No, if I can’t find him it’s either because he doesn’t want to be found…or because something is keeping him from being found.”

“Like the being he seemed so afraid of?”

“That would be my guess.”

I took a sip of my now-cold tea and examined him over the rim of my cup.
Dark being or some human aligned with the forces of darkness,
Sage had said. I had withheld information on that score on purpose. Timber seemed all right; his energy felt good to me and I had made a decision to trust him. Still, I had no guarantee yet that he was not an ally of darkness. And I still had no real idea whether I wanted to aid or thwart his search for Stonefeather.

“So do you have any ideas about finding him?”

“A few.” Again, his hand strayed to the thong about his neck in the way I had come to see it did both when he considered his shamanic abilities and when he needed reassurance. “But not many I’d like to try just yet.”

“Then what?”

“Well, I hoped you’d be able to help me. My spirit guides did give me your name, after all.”

There it was again: the plea for help I couldn’t ignore. Under my breath, I cursed Timber’s spirit guides and cursed John Stonefeather again just for good measure.

“I don’t see how I’m going to help you. I do some trance work, but nothing in a shaman’s line, so if you couldn’t find him in the pathways I certainly won’t be able to. My cards can’t give us any more than a general idea of what’s going on unless we have a specific question to ask. And….”

I noticed Timber holding up his hand for silence.

“I wasn’t thinking of help in the magical line,” he said.

“Then what?”

“Simple, Mundane detective work. You know the man. You know the community here. You can help me find where he’s gone to ground.”

Now I shook my head. “You misjudge my place here. I’m not a community-oriented witch. I go to a few ceremonies and know a few people, that’s all. My life is more or less solitary. I run the store, I read for clients and I feed McGuyver. I don’t think I can give you the kind of help you mean.”

“But Stonefeather came to you for aid. And, unless I’m mistaken, you have at least one friend. You mentioned her.”

“Sage Randall, yes.”

“And she saw Stonefeather before you did?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact she sent him to me…. Why are you laughing?” For Timber had choked on his tea and had to try very hard not to spit the contents of his mouth all over the table.

“Because, d’ye not see?” He wiped his eyes on the back of his wrist. “This is just the kind of help I’m looking for. If I can’t track Stonefeather in the present, I must track him in the past.”

“You mean, finding out where he’s been might lead you to where he is.”

“Surely. So I must meet with this Sage person and see what she has to tell me. Can you take me to her? Or tell me where she might be found?”

I thought for a minute. This time on Saturday afternoon, Sage would be at the dance studio. If we were lucky, we could catch her before she left for the day.

“I could tell you where to find her, but I think I’d better go along. If you just walk up to her and start asking questions about Stonefeather, you might get more than you bargained for.”

He opened his blue eyes wide. “Another witch?”

“Of a different sort, but yeah.” I drained my tea and stood up. “We’d better get going. I think her last class is over at four and it’s a bit of a walk.”

Timber drained his own tea and followed me out of the shop and up the street, keeping one pace behind my heel like a well-trained dog. I might have felt some discomfort at his being behind me, were it not for the fact that I didn’t want him to see my lip twitching. For the second time that afternoon, I had not been entirely truthful with him.

I didn’t want to accompany him to protect him from Sage. I wanted a front row seat for her reaction when she got an eyeful of Timber MacDuff.

Sage Randall’s dance studio was located next to an old Futon Factory, in a section of warehouses at Pearl and Twenty-First streets, all of which had been converted to studios devoted to one or another of the arts. A sculptor and painter shared one space; a nationally-known photographer rented another. Opposite Sage’s place was the home of Boulder Dance. With their rusted tin siding and sagging roofs, the two studios looked the same from the outside. They even sounded the same, drumming being the accompaniment of choice to all kinds of dance in Boulder. In fact, newcomers often mistook one for the other. Nobody made the same mistake twice, however. Where Boulder Dance’s studio was plain cinder block with one mirrored wall, the interior of Sage’s studio was decorated with highly-colored murals of large, white-clad, black-skinned women dancing the very dances Sage taught—not a sight one soon forgot. Just inside the door stood Sage’s personal altar, on which resided a photograph of her Haitian grandmother. To one side of Grandma Brigitte stood a statue of St. Peter that Sage had somehow bribed from the local Catholic parish, which represented Papa Legba, the opener of doors. To the other stood a black Barbie doll clad in a pink ball gown, the stand-in for Sage’s patron, Erzulie, Goddess of love and dance. Beeswax votive candles burned on the altar day and night, and a china dish always held some kind of offering. Flowers or fruit, by and large, but sometimes shiny black and green feathers that looked as though they had come from a rooster’s tail. I never asked where Sage got the feathers.