The Visitant: Book I of the Anasazi Mysteries (47 page)

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Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear,W. Michael Gear

BOOK: The Visitant: Book I of the Anasazi Mysteries

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“I don’t think he planned on having a heart attack that night, Maureen.”

“Oh, I know. His death was just so unexpected. He was as healthy as a horse. Cooking supper one minute, dead the next. The doctors said it was a genetic defect, like that Russian figure skater, a flaw in the heart. Some odd form of arrhythmia.” She lowered her head. “I miss him all the time.”

Dusty saw the pain flash across her face, and wondered about John—about how much it must have hurt him to be torn away from a woman like this one. No wonder he had followed her halfway across the continent.

If somebody loved me as much as she loved him, I’d probably fight death, too.

In the distance, Dale’s camper creaked, and he stepped out and walked toward the blazing campfire. His gray hair had an amber gleam.

Maureen continued, “John’s death left a big empty hole inside me, Stewart. I’m only half of a person. I spend a lot of time talking to my people about death.”

“Your people? The Iroquois?”

She propped her elbows on her knees. “No. The dead I spend my days with are in the lab. I think physical anthropologists have a different perspective on the dead than most people. I’m not afraid of them. They’re my friends. We talk a lot about John, about dying. About how easy it would be to let go, then I could find John, and be whole again.”

Dusty sat up and stared hard into her sparkling ebony eyes. “If you ever get to the point where you’re seriously contemplating ‘letting go,’ I’m a plane flight away. I’ll send you a ticket. You can come down and spend a few days observing what suicide does to those who live through it.” He thumped his chest with a finger.

She cocked her head, giving him that careful scrutiny he had come to appreciate. “Be careful, Stewart. That’s the sort of thing a friend would say. Feeling dizzy? Slip of the tongue?”

“I’ve been feeling dizzy since I met you, Maureen. I thought it was the heat.”

She laughed.

Dusty ran his fingers over the gritty surface of the rock. “Have you ever considered that maybe you need some time away? It can’t be easy working and living in the same places where you built your life with John. Don’t you see him everywhere?”

“Yes, I do.” The lines around her eyes tightened. “I’ve considered taking a sabbatical. The university owes me one. For years I’ve covered everyone else’s classes while they took time off for research, but I’ve never really had a reason to—”

“Well, you do now.” He held a hand out to the site. In camp he saw Hail Walking Hawk rise from her chair and walk out toward the filled-in burials. “There are a lot of women down there who’d really like you to find out who they were, and why they died. You might say ‘no’ to me, but how can you say ‘no’ to them?”

Maureen used the bottom of her bottle to make small circles on the sandstone. A grating sound filled the night. “I’ll think about it. That’s all I can promise.”

He propped himself up on one elbow, and inhaled the scent of the pinyon pine fire. The breeze had turned cool, soothing. It fluttered loose strands of hair around Maureen’s face.

“That’s enough, Maureen.”

HAIL TOOK THREE STEPS AND STOPPED TO CATCH HER breath. She could see the pile of dirt and fallen stone that marked the ancient pueblo to the east of the burials. The greasewood growing up through the middle shimmered pale blue in the evening light. She clenched the elk antler knob on her walking stick and fought the nausea that threatened to send her back to her sleeping bag. It had been a bad day. She’d been chewing pain pills like candy, but they’d barely dented the agony.

On the western horizon a single cloud hung, its charcoal center outlined with a brilliant pink halo. The night smelled sweetly of wood smoke and freshly turned earth. She forced her feet forward.

When she reached the pueblo she propped her walking stick and eased down onto the cornerstones. The rocks felt warm beneath her yellow-flowered white dress.

On the big rock to Hail’s right Dusty and Washais talked, their voices rising and falling with the wind. They sounded happy.

Magpie still worked in front of their tent, packing things as Hail had ordered, but her eyes were fixed on Hail. She lifted a bony hand to her niece to tell her she was all right, and Magpie waved back, but it was a tense gesture. Sweat matted Magpie’s short black hair to her round face, making her dark eyes seem as large as a wounded doe’s.

Hail smiled sadly. She knew what it was to watch a loved one fail before your eyes. You felt helpless and broken. But that was
the way Utsiti had created the universe. People’s times came and went. That was all.

Just like these poor women.

The freshly filled graves resembled dark freckles on the land. She’d sprinkled corn pollen on the Haze child, and sung his spirit to the Land of the Dead. As he’d climbed out of the grave and flown away, his joy had almost burst Hail’s heart.

But …

She frowned.

The evil was growing, as though once loosed the witch’s soul was pulling Power from the glistening stars and gusts of wind. She could feel him slipping around her on ghostly feet, watching and whispering in a language she did not understand. He’d been Powerful. Much more powerful than Hail, especially in her condition. His presence had left a stain on the very air she breathed, on the grains of sand, and the twinkling sky. What sort of creature had such Power? Only the Shiwanna, known as Kachinas by other tribes, could breathe their souls into the world and have them stay for a thousand years. Perhaps he had not been human at all. Maybe he—

“Aunt?”

Hail squinted her white-filmed eyes at Magpie. Her niece walked toward her with her arms folded over her chest. Her white T-shirt blazed against the background of dark cliffs.

“You just couldn’t stay away, eh?”

Magpie tilted her head, embarrassed. “I came to tell you that I’ve finished packing. We can leave whenever you want to.” She sat down on the toppled wall beside Hail and gave her a worried look. “Are you ready?”

Hail pointed with a crooked finger. “Our red tent is still up.”

“Sylvia said she would take it down tomorrow and keep it for me. I want to take you home, Aunt. Please?”

She’d watched Hail eat pain pills all day, even poured them out for her when Hail’s hands shook too badly to open the bottle. With each pill Magpie’s face had lost a little more color, her eyes had gone a little wider.

“I guess I’m ready. There’s nothing more I can do here. The evil is too great for me.”

“Too great for anyone, I imagine. That’s why it’s still here.” Magpie took Hail’s hand and held it tightly. Her skin felt cool. “Let’s go, Aunt Hail.”

Hail sucked in a deep breath of the fragrant night air and let it out slowly, savoring the feel of her lungs moving, and her heart beating.

“I’m ready, child.”

Magpie helped Hail to her feet, and they walked back through the silver veil of starlight holding each other as if for the last time.

Just before they reached the campfire Hail heard a deep male voice. She stopped dead in her tracks, and her eyes lifted to the canyon rim. Ghostly laughter echoed, vicious, frightening. The hair at her nape stood on end.

“Aunt?” Magpie said in sudden terror. “What’s wrong?”

Hail’s eyes narrowed. Junipers swayed in the wind on the rim. “Nothing, child,” she whispered. “He just knows he’s won.

“ … Again.”

EPILOGUE

A
S NIGHT SETTLES UPON THE LAND, THE SNOW TRAILING
beneath the clouds turns into a gray starlit veil. I watch it blow across the canyon. Its movements are sinuous, graceful.

The snowflakes cool my hot skin. The day has been long and arduous. My hands are shaking. As the flakes melt, and mix with the blood on my face, red tears roll down my cheeks, and drop silently onto my white deer-hide cape.

“Please!”
the girl calls from behind me.
“Don’t hurt me again!”

She breaks into sobs.

I inhale the fragrances of snow and damp stone.

From my essence and light, I have created six gods. This girl is not one of them, but she will do until I find the rest. I know where three of those gods sleep … including the one lying beneath the fresh mound of earth below. They put a stone on her head. I watched them do it. Her souls are locked in the earth now. The wrenching sounds of her little girl cries are gone, wiped clean from my souls. She’ll never be able to hurt me again.

I’m free. I have been forgiven.

For now.

“Two Hearts? I’m sorry for whatever I did! Please, I beg you! Let me go!”

Shadow’s footsteps on the bare sandstone are quick and impatient. Breath hisses in and out of her nostrils. At moments like this, just before the end, she has a pungent feral scent, like an animal in heat. It stokes the fire in my veins.

I hear her voice in the soft patting of snowflakes on the rim, whispering, “Now, now, now.”

My hands shake more violently.

I turn, and my eyes fasten on the girl’s young body staked out naked in the falling snow. Blood flows from a hundred small, carefully placed
incisions. Shadow stanched each with a glowing stick, but the blisters ooze. She is so beautiful. Long black hair haloes her face.

“Two Hearts!”

“Yes, my daughter, I’m coming.”

My steps are those of a wolf, graceful, silent … .

BY W. MICHAEL GEAR AND KATHLEEN O’NEAL GEAR FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES

NORTH AMERICA’S
FORGOTTEN PAST SERIES

People of the Wolf
People of the Fire
People of the Earth
People of the River
People of the Sea
People of the Lakes
People of the Lightning
People of the Silence
People of the Mist
People of the Masks
People of the Owl
People of the Raven
People of the Moon
People of the Nightland
People of the Weeping Eye
People of the Thunder
People of the Longhouse
The Dawn Country:
A People of the Longhouse Novel
The Broken Land: A People
of the Longhouse Novel
People of the Black Sun: A People
of the Longhouse Novel

THE ANASAZI MYSTERY SERIES

The Visitant
The Summoning God
Bone Walker

BY KATHLEEN O’NEAL GEAR

Thin Moon and Cold Mist
Sand in the Wind
This Widowed Land
It Sleeps in Me
It Wakes in Me
It Dreams in Me

BY W. MICHAEL GEAR

Long Ride Home
Big Horn Legacy
Coyote Summer
Athena Factor
The Morning River

OTHER TITLES BY
KATHLEEN O’NEAL GEAR
AND W. MICHAEL GEAR

The Betrayal
Dark Inheritance
Raising Abel
Children of the Dawnland

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