The Shaman Laughs (42 page)

Hoover was wiping at his eyes. "If I told you, you wouldn't believe…"

Parker's problem was solved. "Don't worry James. The Bureau takes care of its own."

Daisy Perika, who had watched Hoover savor every morsel, shuffled slowly down the Durango street to the spot where her niece had parked her aquamarine Saturn. She was twenty dollars poorer, but it had been a good investment. The sha-man's face ached from the strain, but she couldn't stop smiling.

The solicitous niece helped the old woman into the sedan and drove away.

Daisy was a good Catholic. She knew that revenge was wrong, but she rationalized that this was a special case. This FBI man had accused her of serving dog meat to a guest, and in doing so he had insulted the People. That could not go unanswered. Justice must be served. Sometimes, of course, justice could be served on a platter. With mashed potatoes and gravy. Now the shaman laughed. She laughed until streams of tears blinded her.

Daisy's niece glanced at the elderly woman, but she dared not ask any questions. When this old woman had been up to something, it was best to remain ignorant.

Daisy recalled Hoover's rapt expression as the special agent gobbled up the delectable sausages. She also remembered Dr. Schaid's alarmed expression when he heard her bizarre request. The animal doctor was worried about getting into trouble with the authorities. He had hesitated until she assumed her
₅
most solemn expression and insisted that the tissue specimens were needed for a secret Ute sacrificial rite. The
matukach
, who entertained absurd notions about mysterious Native American ceremonies, were so gullible.

And, in a way, she had not lied. It had been a sacrifice. The neighborhood
sarichi
might be howling high notes at the moon tonight, but they sure wouldn't be chasing bitches in heat. Not after sacrificing their
cuquavi
!

The shaman's laughter shook her small frame, leaving her weak and drained.

Scott Parris pulled the stiff collar of the leather jacket over his throat; he squinted against the wind-driven sleet that stung his eyes. He pushed his battered felt hat down until a stabbing pain from the fifteen stitches at the base of his right ear took his breath away.

The rocky, treeless hillside was disfigured with intermittent clumps of dead sage and chamisa. The markers were starkly simple. This lonely place was not a cemetery. This was a graveyard. Forlorn acres where the bodies of the poor were interred in sixty-dollar plastic caskets paid for by the good citizens of La Plata County. It was a resting place for the unknown. The forgotten. The policeman had promised himself—he would never forget! Every year on this day, God willing, he would be here.

This grave, like most of the others, had no tombstone. Just an aluminum tube supporting a plastic holder. He pulled a tumbleweed off the marker. The paper card behind the cracked cellophane window had a typed entry:

HERBERT ECKER

The anonymous typist had not bothered to enter the date of birth. Or of death. Parris looked over his shoulder, making sure he was alone. But there was no need for concern about privacy; hardly anyone visited this place. Especially on this day. He focused on the card in the plastic holder and held onto his hat brim as a gust of wind snatched at the dead weeds on the grave mound. The shrill voice of the wind promised a blizzard before the year was new.

"Well, kid," he said hoarsely, "time rolls on down the road, and I guess we're along for the ride." The policeman felt enormously self-conscious, speaking over a grave… as if the dry bones could hear his voice. He removed his hat, braving the stinging crystals of ice.

"It's already Christmas Eve. You can see I made it with a day to spare." His throat was tight; he wiped at his eyes with his sleeve. He paused for a few seconds, taking deep breaths of the frigid air. A promise made. A debt unpaid. The little book was in his coat pocket, but he was determined not to use it. After endless hours of rehearsal, he would get it right. Word for word, from beginning to end. Scott Parris cleared his throat. And began…

'
'A bunch of the boys were whooping it up, in the Malamute Saloon; The kid that handles the music box was hitting a jag-time tune
.…"

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Southern Vte Reservation

a't the mouth of canon del espiritu

The golden eye closes softly… day's farewell is a sly wink on the horizon.

Now, it begins.

Upon the crests of barren mesas, shadow-streams flow slowly over the amber sands. With all the stealth of serpents, these dismal currents slip silently over basalt boulders, slither among clusters of yucca spears… one darkling reaches out with velvet fingers to stroke the gaunt limbs of a dwarf oak; another paints ghostly images on a cracked wall of stone.

This is but a prelude to true night, when black tides spill over towering cliffs to flood the deep channels of meandering canyons. The oldest among the People whisper tales of serpentine creatures that swim in these ebony rivers
—
the elders chant guttural, monotone hymns to keep these dark spirits at bay
.

A powdery blue mist swirls about the squat figures sitting on the summit of Three Sisters Mesa. The sandstone sisters bow their heads under the stars… and sigh… and sleep an eternal sleep.

But not everyone rests so well on this night. Sleep
—
if it can be called sleep
—
comes with shivers and groans. Dreams
—
if they can be called dreams—invoke shifting, amorphous shapes… muttering, mocking voices… pale, gaunt hands that beckon. And on occasion cold fingers caress the dreamers and bring them gasping from their almost-sleep
.

These dreadful apparitions are, of course, delusions. Images inspired by unhealthy imaginations… by troublesome bits of food that lie undigested in the gut. They are twilight's lies… wicked tricks played by shadows… midnight's hollow deceptions. They are mere fantasies.

Except… when they are not.

Daisy Perika has eaten a delicious bowl of greasy posole on this particular evening, and now a growling stomach interferes with her need for rest. While a tilted cusp of moon drifts across a crystalline sky, the Ute woman rolls over in her little bed, and groans. Daisy is not awake, neither does she sleep. The old shaman drifts in that chartless sea that separates this land of ordinary consciousness from that distant shore of honest slumber.

Though her eyes are closed, she can see her surroundings with a terrible clarity. Troubling apparitions flit before the weary woman. Dreams. Half-dreams.

And visions.

She stands alone on a flat, lifeless plain of flinty pebbles… under a mottled-gray sky that knows neither moon nor star. There is a sudden rolling, rumbling of dark clouds that live and breathe… a crackling snap of bluish flame as thin fingers of lightning reach for her.

But it is not electric fire that touches the dreamer… a warm, heavy liquid rains from the sky, pelting her upturned face with a crimson pox. She licks a drop from her lips; it tastes of salt… she shudders and spits it from her mouth. Now the scarlet deluge is hail… it hammers on her head… and hands… and feet.

A rapping-tapping… a ringing-pinging…

She pleads to the Great Mysterious One to make it stop… the repellent shower subsides.

But now an abominable thing approaches the shaman… floating, twisting, tumbling in the tortured eddies of the night—like a rotten log caught in the current of a swift stream. It slows… hangs above her… suspended as if from invisible wires for the dreamer's close inspection. It is a dead thing. A blackened, frozen carcass… an eyeless corpse.

And this is only the beginning.

Ignacio, Colorado The following day

Scott Parris turned the blunt nose of the old Volvo into the graveled parking lot. By the time he'd slammed the door, Charlie Moon was waiting in the entrance of the Southern Ute Police Station. Moon's coarse black hair brushed against the cedar crossbeam above the six foot-eight inch doorway.

Parris shook his friend's outstretched hand. "Headed down here as soon as I got your message."

The Ute policeman glanced up at the midday sky. A red-tailed hawk circled low. Looking for lunch, he figured.

Parris squinted at the hawk, then at the Ute. "What's up, Charlie?"

Moon's smile was a wary one. "Come inside pardner."

Daisy Perika was sitting quietly in Charlie Moon's office, her wrinkled hands resting in her lap. She was waiting patiently for the lawmen. Much of her life had been spent waiting, and it did not bother the old woman.

Her nephew appeared in the doorway. "Scott's here," Moon said.

Granite Creek's chief of police, a six-footer with broad shoulders, was dwarfed by the big Ute. The soft-spoken
ma-tukach
removed his battered felt hat and nodded in a gesture of respect. "Mrs. Perika."

"Sit down," the old woman ordered, as if Charlie's office was hers to rule. By common consent, it was.

Both men sat; Moon on his oak desk, Parris on an uncomfortable wooden chair, painted a dull green. Government surplus or a BIA castoff, he guessed.

Daisy Perika sat with her eyes closed, as if calling up some lost memory.

Parris glanced uncertainly at Moon; the Ute policeman's face was unreadable. He turned his attention to the old woman.

She opened her eyes and stared at his chest. As if she could see his heart thumping inside his rib cage.

The silence was difficult for the white man. "How've you been, Mrs. Perika?"

"Knee's been hurting some. And my back. But I'm better now."

Parris grinned. "Glad to hear it. That you're better, I mean."

Once more, she lapsed into silence.

Parris waited. When she was ready to speak, she would.

Daisy Perika cleared her throat, and directed her words to the
matukach
. "I asked Charlie to call you. To get you to come down here to the reservation." She sighed. "I'm too old to travel all the way up to Granite Creek. Besides, that mountain air is too cold for my bones."

Parris nodded expectantly; his smile had been replaced by a nervous tic that jerked at the left side of his mouth.

Charlie Moon smiled thinly; the troublesome old woman had refused to say a word about what was troubling her until the
matukach
policeman arrived. He hoped this wouldn't be too embarrassing.

"Last night, I didn't sleep too good." Daisy rubbed at her eyes. "And I had me a dream."

Charlie Moon rolled his eyes and looked up at the buzzing fluorescent lamp on the plastered ceiling. Aunt Daisy had insisted that Scott Parris drive almost a hundred miles to hear about a dream! It was a good thing the
matukach
policeman was a patient man. And fond of this peculiar old woman.

She cut her eyes at Moon. "And this dream, it showed me something that is going to happen," she said firmly. "Something bad."

The lawmen waited while she gathered her thoughts. Such visions were sacred, and meant primarily for the enlightenment of the dreamer. The old shaman would tell the policemen only the essentials.

Daisy looked down at the faded blue-print dress draped over her arthritic knees, and felt somewhat foolish. It had all seemed so real, so important. "There was blood… it fell like out of the sky… like rain." She glared at Charlie Moon, as if daring him to dispute her. "There was a… a dead person… with no eyes. And I heard a funny sound. Like this." She picked up a ball point pen off Moon's desk and tapped it hard against an oversized aluminum coffee mug. Ping… ping… ping… The old woman paused and looked accusingly at the mug. "No," she said thoughtfully, "that's not quite what it was like."

Parris glanced at Moon.

The Ute was looking down at his oversized rawhide boots. This was damned embarrassing.

"That's all," the old woman said in a weary voice. She wanted to go home. Her feet were cold, and she heard a faint ringing in her ears.

Parris got up from his chair; he squatted beside the old woman's chair. He had come to understand her as a son understands his mother. "This vision… what does it mean?"

She blinked owlishly at him, then looked up at her big nephew. She could sense that Charlie Moon, despite his outward composure, was uneasy. Her nephew tried so hard to be a modern man, to think like the
matukach
. But in his soul he was still a Ute. "Some who are of the People, and some who are not of the People, will die. And…" her voice was a hoarse whisper, "… they won't die easy."

Moon got off the desk and shoved his thumbs under his heavy gun belt. He went to the window and looked at the sky. There was no sign of the red-tailed hawk, but a pair of acrobatic black grackles chased a hapless raven. A single leaf-shaped cloud floated on the westerly currents.