Last Chants (12 page)

Then he hoisted himself up, sliding into the rock. I noticed he was careful not to touch the dried spot.

Edward stood inside, bending to avoid the rock's eggshell curvature. He leaned back as if to rest his hips against the bowl's rim, bracing himself with his hands.

“Maybe Seawuit stood so he could greet whoever was walking up; maybe he was already leaning against this spot. Either that or he stood up when he got knifed. He must have turned around and tried to climb out, leaving a big old blob of blood and guts right here.” He hopped out of the rock.

He stood a long time looking in.

I looked in, too. Other than the big splotch, it was hard to tell the difference between the rock's crevices and mosses, and other, possibly nefarious, stains. Edward touched a couple of spots, then walked around the rock.

“They probably swatched off some of the little splashes. And organ matter in the big patch.” He was behind the rock now, hidden by the curved canopy top. “You ever have a hankering to be a detective, Willa?”

“No.” I'd had my Nancy Drew moments, but I'd bungled them, and in retrospect, they hadn't been much fun.

“Well, you want to give me a hand, anyway?”

I had a long history with Edward, resulting in a hard-won distrust. But I am not completely petty. He'd made me breakfast, and he'd paid for my haircut, after all.

I went around to where he crouched behind the rock. He looked up at me.

“Basically, I want to trace arcs around this rock, going back and forth over the ground bit by bit. I want you to start on the other side and do the same thing.”

“But we'll be covering the same ground.”

“That's right. With luck, if I miss something, you won't.” He shaded his eyes against the bright white sky. “You with me?”

“Okay.”

I crossed to the other side of the rock and began a slow arc, at times passing Edward and at times opposite him as if we were locked in some mating ritual.

I had the pleasure, as we neared the edge of the clearing, of shouting to him, “Found something.”

“Cheap shale arrowhead?”

Rats, he'd seen it. “Yes. Aren't you collecting this stuff?”

“No. Just looking at it. Leave it where it is so the cops can come back and find it, if they get the urge.”

“Have you found anything else?”

“Plenty of stuff. I doubt any of it's important. I'll take you back around and show you when we're done.” There was a certain pompous pleasure in his tone.

But true to his word, he walked me back through the clearing, stopping at various locations. Edward showed me wood shavings, a beer tab, a knotted string, a tiny rusted bell, a squashed spoor, and something that looked to me like a tiny dirtball but he thought might be a blood drip.

“But,” he grinned, “you did spot the arrowhead.” Leaving me no time to reply, he continued, “Of course, that probably found its way here after Seawuit died.”

I tried not to look impressed. “Why do you think so?”

“Because it's too big for the cops to have missed.”

“What about the other stuff? Do you think any of it's important?”

“I didn't know Billy Seawuit, so I have no idea.” He seemed cheerful enough about it. “Any thoughts where Arthur might be?”

“I don't even know the possibilities. He could be . . . flying around in a UFO. Although I hear they don't stop here.”

Edward looked at me askance. “They don't?”

“No. The other-dimensional whatever manifests as a demigod here.” My turn to look at him askance. “And you call yourself a detective.”

O
n our way back to the cabin, I showed Edward the spot where I'd found the bedroll. It was gone now.

“We should talk to some of the people who live out here in the woods.” I faintheartedly hoped he'd disagree.

“Okay. Halt. We'll double back to the clearing, take a different trail. I'll show you one of the favorite camps. You wearing good shoes?”

“Good for impressing a new boss on the first day of work.”

“Babe shoes, huh?”

“Don't call me ‘babe.'” What happened to the politically correct youth I'd lived with all of eight months?

“I was talking about your shoes. At least they're not high heels.”

The terrain on the other side of Bowl Rock was rough and lovely, with a stream defining a steep gorge, and the mix of redwoods, fir, and pines giving way near the water to oaks and
alders and vast patches of manzanita and monkey flower, all identified for me by Edward. Where the trail ended at the stream, we followed its muddy, log-littered path until we picked up another trail.

I wasn't used to getting up at seven. I wasn't used to long hikes before lunch. But it's difficult to complain in front of someone with a history of poking fun at you.

Finally, when my shoes were as muddy inside as out, when my jeans were stiff with dirt and stitched with brambles, Edward slowed to a cautious pace. He motioned for me not to speak, though I'd been lost in a fantasy of comfort and sleep for the last twenty minutes.

I caught up to him. We'd taken a trail through sparse forest to an area of spiky, tough-leafed shrubs. Through an opening in them, I could see movement. Someone in a white shirt was moving first in one direction, then another. Because of the bushes, it was impossible to tell what he was doing.

“I'll do the talking,” Edward said. “Hey, friend,” he shouted. “Coming up to you.”

I could see the wisdom in not interrupting hermits without calling out a warning.

We crashed quickly through the bushes, not allowing the person time to run off.

He looked surprised, half-crouched as if he'd wheeled around when he heard Edward's greeting. He was skinny, perhaps in his late twenties, wearing jeans and a too-small blue vest over a big, dirt-streaked white shirt. A canvas hat trimmed with ribbon and feathers was pulled low over his shaved head.

Around him were all the comforts of home: a lean-to made of sticks and green garbage bags, several buckets full of water, a pile of potatoes, a stone fire ring beneath a drying rack hung with meat strips.

The man straightened as he assessed us. His shoulders relaxed.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi, there.” Edward's tone was friendlier than normal. “I've got a little cabin up here; I fish. This is my . . . babe. How ya doin'?”

“I'm getting by.” He looked pathetically thin, but his grin seemed happy. “You're out for a hike?”

“Nope,” Edward admitted. “Fact is, I've had some problems at the cabin. Have you seen anything weird going on up here the last few nights?”

The man squinted, turning his head to look sideways at us. “No.”

“I'm not up here to accuse anybody. I'm here to reassure her.” He nodded toward me. “That there's no bogeyman, you know? But she thinks she saw a guy with a knife one night, a naked guy with a flute another night, an Indian guy, too.” Edward shrugged. “Doesn't sound like any of the regulars to me.”

The man looked relieved. “No. I haven't seen anybody like that.”

I disobeyed Edward. “Have you heard music playing at night? Panpipes?”

“A syrinx?” The man shook his head.

“A what?”

“Pan was chasing a nymph named Syrinx. When he caught her, she turned into reeds; you know, that grow in the ground. Pan cut some and made the pipes.” The man smiled, showing dark teeth. “That's what the pipes are called. A syrinx.”

I was surprised he knew that. I wondered if he'd encountered Arthur, if Arthur had burbled it to him. “Where did you hear the story?”

He seemed surprised by the question. “My father teaches literature at Rutgers. He used to tell me and my brother classical stories when we were kids. My brother's an engineer now. I'm a bum. Go figure.” He laughed, a quiet
hee-hee
that shook his shoulders.

“You lived out here long?” Edward asked him.

“Here or someplace like it, pretty much since I was eighteen. I like Canada way better than here, but it gets cold up there. I stay down here almost till summer. It's way prettier up there, though, way prettier.”

“Really?” I tried to keep my tone conversational. “I heard this was some kind of power spot.”

The man waved away the suggestion. “You hear a bunch of
New Age crap around here. All I know is, it's the prettiest spot this far south. But it doesn't compare to what you get in British Columbia or the Yukon.”

Just what Arthur had said. “A friend of mine was down here from British Columbia,” I pushed on. “Billy Seawuit. Did you know him?”

“Nope. I don't get in much.”

“He was a Native American. I thought you might have run into him.”

His brows went up. “I wish I had. What tribe?”

“Kwakiutl.”

“Oh, man. I've been all up and down Vancouver Island. If you see him, tell him to come up and visit me.” His thin face, made smaller by stubble instead of hair, expressed a goofy enthusiasm that made him look like a kid.

“Sure.”

“You want some jerky?”

I looked at the strips of meat hanging over a ring of cold stones. Flies buzzed around them. “No, thanks.”

We left him to his one-man village.

When we were out of earshot, Edward commented, “There's a fair number like him on this mountain—probably on any mountain. Hermits, survivalists, neo-natives, didn't get socialized into city life, or even town life. Assuming he's being straight with us.”

“He filleted that jerky with something, Edward.”

“True. I looked around, hoping his knife would be sitting out, but . . . ” A moment later, he scoffed, “A power spot? What the hell's a power spot?”

I explained about this land having heaved up out of the ocean and the gradual movement of redwoods across it. “Somehow that translates into a person feeling greater shamanic power here.”

“I had to ask.”

“Arthur's into this stuff.”

“I had him pegged for more of an academic type,” Edward observed. “More of a classics scholar.”

“He is—or he used to be. He's at least four people rolled into one. But this shamanic power spot stuff is new, since the last time I saw him. Maybe Seawuit got him into it.”

“Too bad. Sounds like a no-brainer to me.”

“How come we're going this way?”

“Talk to a family of mushroom pickers. I saw them up here last weekend. They usually camp in their cars for a week or so; they might still be around.”

We pushed our way through more chaparral plants. It took a few minutes to reach anything resembling a trail.

Edward spoke again. “So this power spot business, and sitting in the rock all day chanting . . . you think the old guy's Alz'ing?”

“As in Alzheimer's?” I wanted to leap to Arthur's defense, as I usually leapt to my parents'. I wanted to say, what's wrong with an adult being . . . eccentric? But Edward knew my parents, knew what a lot of trouble they'd been to take care of.

“It must have occurred to you he might not have been handed that gun? Maybe he did try to hold up that guy in San Francisco.”

“No. I can tell you that much: Arthur was more surprised than anyone to be holding a gun. I could tell from across the street that he wasn't intending to use it as a weapon,” I insisted. “You think I'd go throw myself in front of him if I thought he'd shoot?”

Edward shrugged.

“I'm not suicidal.”

“I'm just saying, as a judgment call—”

“It was right! I was right.” God, the man annoyed me. “I have good judgment.” If I'd had my law degree handy, I'd have brandished it as evidence of my practical nature, proof that I was not my mother's daughter.

We stayed in chaparral, dusty and full of meanly barbed shrubs, until we reached a dirt access road. Edward crossed to the center of it, scanning each direction, his hand shading his eyes like the Deerstalker.

“They must be gone, following the mushrooms.”

“How big a family?”

“Two preteen boys, an older girl, a mom, and a dad; illegal Cambodians; supposedly came to visit relatives, then melted into the forest. I guess they make enough cash doing this to support themselves during the dry season.”

“Well, unless Billy Seawuit was picking their mushrooms—”

“There were a couple of shootings north of here over mushrooms. Pickers have their territories. It's a cash crop, same as pot. Hell, chanterelles are eighteen bucks a pound at the supermarket. And there's a mushroom up here the Japanese will pay four hundred dollars a pair for.”

The woods were a busier place than I'd supposed. “What next? I'd love some lunch.”

“You want to go tell our friend you changed your mind about the jerky?”

Edward always did find himself very cute.

Before we reached the cabin, purely by accident, we spotted another encampment.

Edward whispered, “There's two of them. You better stay here. Keep your eyes open.”

He crashed swiftly through the brush and into their camp. I was tempted to follow. But I had the impression Edward wanted me to watch his back.

I shifted so I had a better view. Two middle-aged men stared up at him from a ground tarp. They'd had recent haircuts, and their clothes were nice and warm and clean-looking. There were backpacks beside them and thermoses between them.

One man leaped to his feet.

The other said, as if giving him a cue, “Great day for backpacking.”

“You drive down from the city?” Edward sounded casual, neighborly. I gave him points. “Lousy weather up there lately.”

“No, we're from Watsonville. Getting away from the wives.”

“Corporate retreat?” Edward laughed at his own joke. “Have you been out here awhile? A couple of nights? I'm looking for a buddy I hope didn't get lost.”