Season of Death (31 page)

“Could have been a private plane,” Ray thought aloud.

“Suppose so.” After a pause, Betty asked, “What’s going on, Ray?”

“That’s the million-dollar question.”

“You want me to arrange to have you picked up?”

He desperately wanted to say yes. But … The questions and coincidences and odd events were piling up, demanding his attention. Despite his reluctance to get involved, he was curious now. Why wasn’t Farrell in Juneau? Why was his plane sitting on the river? If he had never made it in from the archaeological site to the village … then … Was it really his head they had found?

“The head,” Keera said, as if reading Ray’s mind.

He stared incredulously at the girl. “Just a second,” he told Betty. Covering the phone with a palm, he asked Keera, “What did you say?”

“The head, the one on the river … I saw it.”

Ray realized that his mouth was hanging open. How could she possibly …?

“It was Dr. Farrell,” Keera told him confidently.

“How do you know that? Did the
voices
tell you?”

“Voice. Just one.” She looked at him, her expression innocent, even angelic: just your average ten-year-old Athabascan girl. “It told me everything, yes. But I saw it too. I saw Nahani kill him. That’s why we’ve been waiting for you.”

Ray mumbled into the phone, “I’ll call you back,Betty.” He flipped the phone shut and set it on the table. “Thanks again for lunch,” he offered in a distracted tone. How could the girl possibly know about Fred da Head? And how on earth could she confirm that it was Farrell?

“Keera go,” Uncle ordered. The girl stood and stepped to Ray’s side.

There seemed to be no point in arguing, and Ray didn’t have the energy. He bit his tongue as the old man raised an arm and began singing over them, blessing them. It was a nice gesture, but … When the hoarse, droning voice faded away, Ray sighed, “Let’s go.”

“Wait,” Uncle insisted.

“What …” Ray was no longer able to mask his annoyance.

“First wash face. Paint look silly.” Uncle followed this with a barking laugh.

Five minutes later, face freshly scrubbed, Ray stepped off of the front porch.

“Be careful,” Emma warned. “Listen to Keera. She’s the seer. You’re the Lightwalker.”

“Of course.” Ray rolled his eyes. He waved at Emma and started down the dirt path. Keera had to trot to keep up. The dog patrol raced from the brush and began yelping and nipping at them. Ray ignored them. Striding hard, he was intent upon putting distance between himself and the Colchuck home before Uncle wheeled out to offer a parting fable.

They were a quarter of a mile down the trail, in sight of the squat buildings of thriving downtown Kanayut, before Keera spoke. “How did you get to be a Lightwalker?”

Ray shrugged at the question. It was like asking, “Do you still beat your wife?” He finally sighed, “I’m not a Lightwalker, whatever that is.”

“It’s someone who walks with the Light.”

“That much I figured out. Anyway, I’m not someone who walks with the Light.”

She pursed her lips. “The Light is all around you. In front, in back … all around.”

Ray glanced to his left, his right, over a shoulder. “I don’t see anything.”

“Just because you cannot see it, does not mean it isn’t there. You cannot see gravity either.”

“I can feel gravity,” Ray countered, swinging his arms.

“Can you feel time?” she asked. “Time is passing like the current of a river. It is a silent guest, a mute companion, a shepherd ushering us forward.”

A Native Confucius in the making, Ray mused. This girl had a future writing greeting-card slogans. Gazing past the village, he noted a dozen tiny figures circling the pole on the beach. From this distance they looked like mosquitoes harassing a thin giant.

“The Light …” Keera said dreamily. “It goes with you. Follows you. Rests on you.” She studied him for a moment. “You don’t see it. Don’t feel it. But it is there.”

Voices … Visions … A Light that trailed after you like a stray puppy …
For Pete’s sake! The bit about the head, about it being Farrell, that had been rather intriguing. Even if it was some sort of parlor trick—mind reading or hypnotism or something. It had gotten Ray’s attention. But this … An
ever-present Light
? He decided to take her directly to the Community Center.

“You can’t leave me with Jackie,” she said.

Ray shuddered. Keera was beginning to give him the creeps. What was she, a witch? If he took off at a sprint, would she fly along at his side cackling?

“You have to go with me.”

“Go with you where?” Ray sighed.

“After I saw Nahani kill Dr. Farrell, the Voice told me to go to the place of no return, the land of deepest night, where even the light is like darkness.”

Ray nearly swore at her. “And where, exactly, is that?”

She glared at him with an exasperated expression. “The Red Wolf Mine. And I can’t go by myself. I need you, Lightwalker.”

THIRTY-THREE

R
AY SLIPPED OFF
his pack and sank to the wooden step. Working both temples with his fingertips, he resisted the urge to scream. He wanted to laugh maniacally, to yank his hair out, to cry uncle. For a long moment he closed his eyes and mentally transported himself to Barrow. Billy Bob and Lewis were back by now. What was Margaret doing? Leafing through maternity magazines? Jotting down possible names for the …

“Congratulations,” Keera said, taking a seat next to him. “You’re going to be a father, aren’t you?”

“How did you …?” Ray struggled to remember if he had intimated anything about that at lunch. No. Scowling at her suspiciously, he asked, “How do you do that?”

She shrugged. “It’s a gift. I inherited it from Uncle when I was very little.”

“You mean you went around doing ESP tricks when you were a baby?”

“They’re not tricks. But yes, the ability came before I could even talk. I started dreaming and hearing things.”

“Bizarre,” Ray muttered. “No offense, but that’s really weird.”

“Some people aren’t comfortable with my gift.”

“Really?”

Two minutes passed. A band of locals dressed in ceremonial garb emerged from the Center. They were followed closely by a group of whites: men with cameras, women oohing and ahhing, pointing as if they were on safari.

As another cluster of locals and tourists dribbled out of the Center, Ray considered his options. First and foremost, he could go home. That was by far the most preferable choice. Second, he could try to shake free of Keera, mill around town asking questions about Dr. Mark Farrell,
then
go home. That way he would at least fulfill his promise to Cindy. Third, he could bite the bullet and do the job right. Apparently, something had happened to Dr. Mark Farrell. Whether or not it involved Nahani, a rafting accident, or just a failure to communicate a change of travel plans, it was clear that he was missing. Since he might be injured, it was equally clear that someone had to go looking for him. And, at present, Ray was the prime candidate: a public servant and trained professional.

Ray sighed audibly, wrestling with the sense of responsibility and with the guilt he knew he would experience if he tried to shirk this duty.

A trio of youths approached the Center. Two were wearing baggy shorts and T-shirts. One shirt read “No Fear,” the other, “Local Motion.” Both boys had their caps on backwards. The third kid was wearing a caribou outfit, his face painted red. It was obvious from the dour look on his face that he was uncomfortable, even humiliated. Ray identified with the boy. He too had been forced to don the costumes, dance the dances, and celebrate the festivals. And he remembered that it had been fun until he was about twelve. After that it had been intolerable.

The interesting thing, Ray mused, was that as you grew up, you grew out of that attitude. He had never fully embraced all of the traditions, but neither had he fully denounced them. As an adult, he had come to value his heritage. Now the stuff about spirits and ghosts … The supernatural … He had never been able to swallow that. It got stuck in his throat like a bone.

He glanced at Keera out of the corner of his eye. After another long, melodramatic sigh, he said, “Tell me what happened.”

“You mean with Dr. Farrell?”

He nodded. Maybe her account could be useful somehow.

“On Thursday night, I woke up sweating,” Keera began. “I was having a bad dream. Except, when I opened my eyes, the dream kept going. Like a vision.”

Or maybe her account wouldn’t be useful whatsoever, Ray thought, backtracking.

‘I saw a man running in the forest. He was very afraid. Terrified.”

Mental health aside, this girl was rather amazing, Ray decided. Ten years old and she was tossing out words like
terrified.

“Someone was chasing him. Trying to hurt him.”

“Nahani?” Ray tried, half-seriously.

“I couldn’t see who it was. Just that it was an evil person. They caught up with Dr. Farrell and …” She cringed as if she were watching it happen all over again. “They swung something … some kind of tool. Like a shovel, with a long, sharp, pointed end.”

“A pickax?” Ray suggested.

“Maybe. Anyway, the first swing hit his leg.” Her face contorted at the image. “He fell into the river. Then a second swing hit him in the back. There was a crunch … an icky sound … and suddenly there was blood everywhere. I think he was dead then.”

I would imagine so,
Ray thought.
When this kid dreams, she really dreams.

“But even though he was dead, the person just kept…” She paused and her cheeks lost color. “They kept swinging and swinging the shovel-thing, like they were digging a hole. Except it wasn’t the ground they were hitting. It was … a person.” She was as pale as paper now, and Ray wondered if she was going to be sick.

Ray tried to imagine someone using a pickax to destroy a human body. It would certainly do the trick, especially if swung repeatedly. Now
he
was in danger of getting sick. He waited a beat, then asked, “What else did you see?”

“That was all. Until the next night at sundown. The Voice told me that Dr. Farrell had gone the way of the wolves, that he was being swallowed by the Land.”

Way of the wolves …? Swallowed by the Land … Ray shook his head. He had never heard these expressions. “Do you mean he fell into a mine shaft?” he asked, trying to connect the phrases to what Keera had said about Red Wolf.

She thought about this, her face returning to a healthy olive tone. “I’m not sure.”

“Did the Voice say anything else?”

“No. Except that a Lightwalker was coming. And he would find Nahani.”

Ray yawned, suddenly weary of hearing about voices and visions and malevolent woodsmen. Being a Lightwalker was exhausting.

“I saw the head the next morning,” Keera continued. “It came out of one river and went into another.”

“All by itself?” Ray mocked.

She shook her head. “You were carrying it.”

Nodding, Ray acknowledged that this was relatively accurate. He had, in fact, carted the severed head from the glacial steam, down the Kanayut.

“Then it disappeared into the water.”

Another startling insight. How could Keera have known that the head had escaped from the backpack and bounced out of the Zodiac? Maybe she had been watching from the bank? But she couldn’t have seen Farrell bludgeoned to death with a pick
and
Billy Bob hooking the head with a spinner,
and
the mishap on the river. Either this girl was truly remarkable or she was the best guesser on the planet.

“Anything else?”

She peered up at the sky, thinking. “Uncle said you were coming and that I should wait.”

Ray followed her gaze, as if the answer to all life’s questions was written in the heavens. “You think Dr. Farrell is … That he’s dead?”

“Yes.”

“And you think that maybe Red Wolf had something to do with his death?”

“Maybe.”

“What do you think I should do about it?”

The question hung as they both studied the marriage of bleach gray limestone peaks and cloudless blue.

“Did you talk to the sheriff yet?” she finally asked.

“Kanayut has a sheriff?” Ray smiled at this, relieved. He had assumed the village was run by council and was too small for formal law enforcement. A sheriff! That meant that he could hand this missing person case over to the local authority, relay what little he knew, and be done with it. “Where’s his office?”