Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries (51 page)

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

BOOK: Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries
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Bill waited for Hawsworth to comment, then said, “I’ll bite. Why is that interesting?”
Dusty was watching Hawsworth, their eyes locked in mutual loathing. “Because he could have called it ‘sacred datura,’ or ‘western jimsonweed,’ or ‘Indian apple,’ or even
Datura meteloides,
but he didn’t. You see, sacred datura is an interesting plant. The blossoms were used historically to put infants with colic into a drugged sleep. Just the fragrance can make you dizzy, impair your ability to think and walk. Sometimes
curanderas,
medicine women in the backcountry will use it to deaden pain before setting broken bones or pulling teeth. It doesn’t take much, fifteen to twenty seeds, to kill an adult. But even a nonlethal overdose can cause permanent insanity.”
“But Dr. Robertson wasn’t poisoned,” Bill reminded.
“That’s not the point,” Dusty said.
“Then what is?” Bill sounded irritated.
“Toloache
is the word witches use for the plant, Bill. No one else calls it that.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Hawsworth said shortly. “I’m an anthropologist. I know the names!”
“Yes,” Dusty agreed. “And the FBI doesn’t. You were counting on that, weren’t you? What’s
toloache
to Agent Nichols? Nothing. Just another weird anthropological word. One he couldn’t easily cross-reference. Witches survive through misdirection. They like being clever, thrive on outsmarting their opponents. They like working at night—whether they’re collecting
toloache
or sucking a man’s soul out through a hole in his head.”
This time Hawsworth stepped forward, his bony fist rising to shake under Dusty’s nose. “You’re just like Dale: an arrogant loudmouth. You don’t know the half of it, Stewart. Well this time the trickery is over. The
stakes have risen. Kwewur will get you, just like he got Dale, and it will fill my soul with joy when it happens.” Hawsworth stalked away.
On impulse, Dusty called, “Too bad about Cochiti! Watch your step around cliffs, Carter. It’s a long way down.”
Hawsworth gave him a look that would have splintered bone. The tall man folded himself into his Chevrolet, slammed the door, and started the engine. Throwing the car into reverse, he swung around and roared off on the way to the loop road. Tires squealed as he made the turn onto pavement and accelerated.
“Someone ought to tell him the park speed limit is thirty-five,” Sylvia noted as she fished more cheesy fishes from the box.
Yvette swallowed hard, struggling to keep her composure. “Excuse me.
Toloache?
Cochiti? Did I just miss something?”
Maureen’s expression was thoughtful. “Dusty just accused your father of being a witch—and he didn’t exactly deny it, now did he?”
“That is one dangerous man,” Dusty whispered.
“I don’t think you did yourself any favors here today, Stewart,” Bill noted as he scribbled furiously in his notebook. “He doesn’t strike me as the forgiving kind.”
“That makes two of us,” Dusty replied.
 
 
BY LATE AFTERNOON, the sun began to break through the clouds, and shafts of golden light lanced the cliffs, but the west wind had a real bite to it. No one complained, because no one even seemed to notice the cold.
Dusty stood beside Yvette, clasping his fleece collar
beneath his chin, as he studied the progressing excavation. The fallen kiva roof lay exposed, the soil black with charcoal. When it had burned, the south side had fallen in first. The northern half, which they were excavating, had hinged, so the roof poles and cribbing sloped downward, disappearing into the unexcavated south half of the kiva. Michall had taken, stabilized, and bagged core samples for tree ring dates; then she’d collected soil samples, and mapped in and photographed the burned beams.
Dusty prowled the rim of the kiva like a hungry coyote, staying just behind the yellow tape. In the center of the rich black earth Michall and Sylvia had excavated from the kiva, a round brown spot marked the location of the old pot hunter’s hole.
“Hey, Bill?” Dusty called. “I want you guys to consider something.”
“Yeah? What?” The FBI agent looked up from his notebook where he jotted observations.
“Dale was laid in that hole upside down. The person, or people, who buried him didn’t dig a new hole, they reopened this old one. I mean, Dale’s head was right over that brown intrusion down there in the kiva roof.”
“Uh-huh.” Bill studied him. “What’s your point?”
“If that hole was dug in the sixties, your unsub and the pot hunter may be the same guy.”
“Or girl,” he added. “Sure, Stewart, maybe. Or it could be wild-assed coincidence. Maybe the dirt was softer here, because it had been dug up before.”
“Yeah, well, it would have been, but—”
“But that’s the point. If I’d just murdered someone and was looking for the easiest place to bury them, I would not have spent my time stabbing a shovel into sand that’s been filtering into the kiva for the last eight hundred years.” He offered his hands for evidence. Swollen red blisters dotted his palms. “It’s hard as Hades. I would have tested a few places, and dug where
it was the softest. Right here.” He pointed to the old pot hunter’s hole.
Yvette leaned toward Dusty and asked, “Could Dale have done this? Dug this hole back in the sixties? Maybe the person who killed him buried him here as a payback for digging this hole? Or for taking something he found.”
Her once immaculate black wool coat was covered with wind-whipped sand. She must have been freezing. She had her arms wrapped around herself, toughing it out.
Dusty shook his head vehemently, then abruptly halted.
That was an interesting idea. Not about Dale, but maybe someone he’d worked with. He turned to look back at the Casa Rinconada kiva and recalled the things Ruth Ann had said, about how often she’d come out here in the sixties. Sunlight blazed from the kiva’s perfectly fitted stones. Dale would never have dug a hole in a site unless it had been gridded first, and excavated according to accepted scientific methods—but Ruth Ann was another thing. She’d gotten out of archaeology because she’d hated it:
“I wanted the good stuff quick, so I could get out of the dirt.”
As he turned back, Dusty saw the green Chevy Suburban coming up the road toward them. Dusty had been wondering where Nichols was.
He looked at Yvette. “Dale never potted a site in his life. And this was a pot hunter, a vandal, somebody who wanted the good stuff quick. Even if an archaeologist had dug that hole and the records were lost, it would have been excavated differently. The walls would have been square. Not only that, Dale was immaculate when he dug. He’d never have backfilled it with a beer can and a big chunk of tibia.”
Bill had been listening and taking notes. “Okay, Stewart, what’s your take on why this hole’s dug in
the north half of the kiva? Why not smack dab in the center?”
“The center is generally where the roof entry is. The fire pit sits below that, so that the smoke goes straight up and out, right? The only thing pot hunters find in fire pits is charcoal. Prehistoric charcoal doesn’t sell for squat on the open market. The best chance for pottery or artifacts is on the north or south next to the wall. That’s what our pot hunter was doing.”
“Are many pot hunters women?” Yvette asked.
Dusty paused, glancing at Maureen. She inspected some burned fragments of bone that Sylvia had recovered from the screen.
Dusty shook his head. “Not usually. Women pot hunters in the Southwest are generally in their fifties or sixties, and married to men who are the true aficionados. They mostly run the screens and do the surface collecting. They’re the types who hand out cups of iced tea and wear fluffy sun hats.”
“I daresay you don’t much approve of them,” Yvette noted.
“Not even slightly.” Dusty glared at the hole. “But this wasn’t dug by a weekend pot hunter. This is much more to the point. It’s focused.”
“How can you tell that?” Maureen asked as she looked at the brown soil so perfectly outlined in black. “It’s just a hole.”
“No, it’s not. The pot hunter had some archaeological savvy. He knew where to dig to get to the good stuff the fastest.”
“Would Carter Hawsworth have known that?” Maureen asked.
Dusty shot Yvette a sidelong look to catch her reaction. “Yes. He would have.”
“Oh, my God, this floor is …” Then Sylvia yelled, “
Shit!
”
Dusty jerked his head up in time to see Sylvia drop the shovel and claw at the air as a section of pit floor
collapsed beneath her. A sodden thump followed, and dust fountained up. The ragged hole had the same rough diameter as a fifty-five-gallon drum lid.
Dusty screamed,
“Sylvia!”
 
 
OLD PIGEONTAIL’S LIGHT brown eyes seemed to peer right through Browser’s body as he said, “It’s a bit more difficult than you think, War Chief. You see, Shadow sent me. She wants you to know that Obsidian has been taken to High Sun House.”
To one side, Catkin shifted, her moccasins grating on the room floor. She had crossed her arms, the fingers of her left hand tapping a nervous cadence on the wooden handle of her war club.
Blue Corn and Horned Ram watched in silence from the rear of the room, their eyes wide.
Browser stroked his chin, glancing at Stone Ghost. “Why there?”
“I assume,” Pigeontail said, “that Shadow is going to pull Obsidian’s heart out there. Two Hearts is convinced that it will save his life.”
Browser’s gaze sharpened. What was Pigeontail’s hidden motive here? Why was he doing this? And he recalled something with a start.
In Browser’s mind’s eye he could see that sunny day as he, Redcrop, and Uncle Stone Ghost had walked across Longtail village’s plaza to the small fire. There Matron Ant Woman huddled beside the flames as she ate corn cakes. It had been the day after Matron Flame Carrier’s funeral, during the Feast of Mourning.
The image was so clear: Ant Woman’s age-creased expression, her dark eyes seeing so far into the past. Stone Ghost had asked about Flame Carrier’s early life, about the time when she was a young woman. The old woman’s reedy voice filtered out of Browser’s memory …
“Old Pigeontail was from somewhere near Green Mesa. He frequented our village. He’s still around, charging outrageous prices for his trinkets. He may know. And your Matron was married to him for a few summers.
” And then she had admitted: “ …
Spider Silk ordered her to marry him. I never knew why.
”
Browser felt a cold chill run down his back as he studied the old Trader, noting the bones underlying the loose flesh on his aged face. And suddenly he knew why the Blessed Spider Silk had ordered that long-ago marriage.
“Catkin,” Browser said softly, “remove your war club.” As she quickly complied, Browser said, “Thank you. Now, at my command, I would like you to break Pigeontail’s shoulder.”
Catkin said, “Yes, War Chief.”
Pigeontail swallowed hard, then asked, “What are you saying, Browser? I have told you the rules under which I must work.”
“I think my nephew understands that, Trader,” Stone Ghost replied evenly.
“Then what is this about? Why would you have the deputy strike me?” Pigeontail raised his hands in supplication.
“So that it would hurt more when we bound you,” Browser answered. “And binding you would be a necessary process before we dangled you upside down over the fire. Not a hot fire, mind you, but rather a bowl of glowing coals. If we do it correctly, we can sear the skin off your skull, and as it blisters, the brain will begin to boil beneath the charring bone. Handled correctly, it doesn’t kill, but I’ve heard that it will leave
the survivor mostly demented and in pain.”
“You are not frightening me, War Chief.” His head high, Pigeontail’s nostrils flared with disdain. “If you do this thing, you will reap nothing but trouble. Traders will walk three days out of their way to avoid you and the Katsinas’ People. You will be shunned by all good people. It is that threat of retaliation that has protected Traders since the beginning of time.”
Browser removed his own club and slid his hand up and down the shaft. “Our world is dying around us. I’ve seen graves robbed and the bodies butchered as if they were deer. What is one tortured Trader in a time of famine, death, and man-eating White Moccasins? What is your pain compared to entire kivas full of children being incinerated because their parents believe in the wrong gods?”
“War Chief, I don’t think—”
“That I care?” Browser inspected the stone war head; the chert cobble that he had lashed there so long ago was nicked along the edges, bits of dark matter in the deep cracks where he’d been unable to clean it. “Tell me, Pigeontail, how many summers were you married to our dead Matron? Two? Three?”
The question seemed to catch Pigeontail by complete surprise. “Married to …”
“Our dead Matron,” Browser told him. “Flame Carrier. The Blessed Spider Silk ordered you to marry her. As I recall the story, you were younger than our dead Matron, and the two of you fought like beasts.”
Pigeontail’s expression drooped. “Who told you about that? I’ve tried to forget it my entire life.”
Browser slashed a blinding backhanded blow, the war club whistling through the air, its passage whipping Pigeontail’s white hair.
“How many summers?”
“Three,” Pigeontail cried as he flailed backward, only to have the tip of Catkin’s club jam hard into his back, propelling him forward with a jolt.
Stone Ghost stepped to one side and said, “Trader,
we do not do this lightly. As you are no doubt aware, my nephew and I are descended from the Blessed Night Sun. You see, since most Traders are Made People, they would not retaliate against the Katsinas’ People for murdering a First People’s spy—especially one working for the White Moccasins.” Stone Ghost stopped, cocking his head to study Pigeontail’s reaction. “What does Shadow really want?”
A slight sheen of sweat had broken out on Pigeontail’s forehead. “She wants revenge. The destruction of Two Hearts’s warriors last night has thrown her into a violent rage. Beyond that, Two Hearts is dying. He is desperate for two things: Obsidian’s heart and the turquoise wolf that War Chief Browser stole from him.”
“And you?” Browser asked as he swung his club. “What is your place in all of this? That you are the eyes of the White Moccasins, I understand, but—”
“I am not their eyes,” Pigeontail hissed. “I go where I will and do as I please. I serve no master but myself. They have their own eyes, and believe me, they are everywhere.” A faint sneer bent his lips. “What about you, War Chief? Whom do you serve? The Made People? The ones who hunted your ancestors the way they would have had they been but rats or other vermin? Or do you serve the katsinas?”
“I serve my people,” Browser said, and thrust his war club into Pigeontail’s face to stifle the man’s rebuttal, adding, “I’m just trying to find out who my people are, Trader.”
“So, tell me, War Chief,” Pigeontail demanded despite the club shoved against his lips. “What do you
really
believe?”
“I believe in Poor Singer’s prophecy,” Browser said truthfully. “I believe the words that Gray Thunder spoke in Flowing Waters Town: That we will only survive if we lay our differences behind us. Myself, I have never seen a katsina. I don’t know if they exist or not. But Gray Thunder’s words were of hope, of a way to
live together. The Made People hunted us down because we made slaves of them and committed terrible atrocities. Maybe the horrible deeds of the past must be paid for, but the ways and means of the White Moccasins, Two Hearts, and Shadow are wrong and I will destroy them.”
“You would turn against your own kind?”
“My kind!”
Browser thundered, bulling forward and pushing the old man back against Catkin’s club. “My kind doesn’t eat the flesh of men! My kind doesn’t murder entire villages of men, women, and children, and most of all
, my
kind doesn’t burn kivas filled with children!”
“The gods demand these things, Browser!” Pigeontail roared back. “The Blessed Flute Player, Spider Woman, and the Blue God, like the First People, are in a battle for their lives!”
“Then let the gods fight their own battles,” Browser said.
Pigeontail met his glare. Eye to eye, they stood; then, several breaths later, Pigeontail shrugged. “Why should it matter? You are one man. Very well, pack up and go. Take your Fire Dogs and leave. If you won’t fight for your people, at least promise me you won’t fight against them.”
“You think it’s that easy? That I can just walk away? That I can forget what Two Hearts and Shadow did to my wife? Forget the friends they have killed? Am I supposed to leave the ghosts of those hideously burned children to wail in lonely pain? To ignore the way they killed my Matron—your onetime wife? What they did to her body? The soul they stole by drilling a hole in her living head? And leave Obsidian for that monster and his misbegotten spawn to murder?”
“If you stay, it will cost you your life, Browser.” Pigeontail was watching him, searching his expression … for what?
“My life?”
“And that of your party.” Pigeontail smiled. “Although Shadow’s warriors might want Blue Corn released.”
“Blue Corn?” Stone Ghost asked.
Pigeontail gave him a curious look. “She is one of us. I don’t think she knows it, but she is. Most of her lineage is descended from the First People. She is not pure, having intermarried with Made People, but enough of the blood remains that it is worth keeping her alive.”
“I don’t believe it!” Blue Corn blurted.
Pigeontail shrugged. “What you believe doesn’t change the way things are. Your great-grandmother made the decision not to tell her children. At the time it seemed prudent. The Made People were at the height of their power. Prospects for our kind were dim. It was a way to maintain control of Flowing Waters Town. The place, as you know, was important to us. It was supposed to be our new beginning, a fresh start after the Blessed Featherstone led us out of Straight Path Canyon.”
Blue Corn’s eyes slitted as she studied Pigeontail. “I’m supposed to believe that? That I’m descended from First People?”
Pigeontail shrugged again. “I have no care what you believe.”
Stone Ghost stepped forward and examined Blue Corn’s face. “What is your clan?”
“She is descended from the Red Lacewing Clan,” Pigeontail answered. “Of the Blessed Weedblossom’s lineage.” He gestured around. “Ironically, Kettle Town was once theirs.”
“Weedblossom?” Blue Corn whispered, her thoughts knotted around the revelation. And in that instant she looked suddenly unsure, casting an unnerved glance at Pigeontail.
“So my entire party can just leave?” Browser asked. “We can walk out of here without being attacked?”
“That would be permitted … provided you turn that little turquoise wolf over to me.” Pigeontail’s curt nod guaranteed it. “As to your safety, I will make the case to Shadow.” A curious amusement lay behind his eyes. “She has a certain, well, softness for you, War Chief.”
“Why do we need anyone’s permission? I thought the White Moccasins were killed in the ambush last night?” Under Catkin’s critical gaze, Pigeontail might have been a mouse beneath Coyote’s nose.
Pigeontail lifted an eyebrow. “That is today, Deputy. What do you think will happen tomorrow, or a moon from now? You have dealt the White Moccasins a stinging blow. Had it been your pride that was slapped so ignominiously, would you forget about it? Just let it go?”
Browser made a face against the sinking sensation in his stomach. “What of Obsidian? May she go with us?”
“I told you, War Chief, she’s in High Sun House, being prepared for the ritual sacrifice.”
Browser read that slight gleam in the Trader’s odd eyes, as though he were waging a desperate gamble.
Browser nodded at his deputy. “Break his shoulder, Catkin.”
She was well into her swing when Pigeontail ducked away, yelling, “Wait!” He rolled sideways as Catkin’s blow sailed through empty air. “Gods! You’d do this thing? Hang me over fire?”
“Deputy,” Browser said in chastisement, “you’re losing your skill. I told you—”
“Wait!” Pigeontail screamed as he skipped to the side on his old legs. He had his hands up as Catkin circled, preparing for another blow. “Blessed gods, War Chief, are you mad?”
Browser growled, “I’m tired of being made a fool of! Perhaps your death will show them I’m serious!”
Catkin deftly chased the old man back into corner of the room and lifted her club to strike.
“In the name of the Flute Player!” Pigeontail wailed as he looked into Catkin’s implacable eyes, “What do you want to know?”
Browser roared, “I wish to know where Obsidian is!”
Pigeontail wearily slumped in the corner. “Telling you won’t make any difference. The rituals are almost finished.” Catkin lifted her club again, and Pigeontail rushed to say, “She is in Owl House! In the kiva, bound across from the Blessed Two Hearts!”
“How many warriors does Shadow have?”
Browser’s blood ran hot and swift in his veins, eager for the battle. His enemy was just over there, across the canyon, poorly guarded and vulnerable.
“Two. The sentries who had been assigned to guard the elder. They keep watch from the rooftops. There were three, but Shadow sent one of them to Starburst Town for reinforcements.”
Browser shot a glance at Catkin. “Then we must hurry.” He noticed that Blue Corn had a dazed look, as if she had come adrift from the world, eyes focused on some distance in her head.
Catkin watched Pigeontail with narrowed eyes. “This is a trap, Browser, and you know it. Is one life worth the risk?”

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