Shadow Man (17 page)

As Daisy Perika had expected, Charlie Moon and his crew of cowboy-roughnecks left the Columbine at sunrise. She took a wool blanket and a mug of black coffee outside. Having seated herself on a comfortable birch rocking chair that faced the morning end of the porch, she pulled the blanket over her shoulders. As the warm sunlight slipped along the pastures, she sipped at the steaming black brew, hoped Louise-Marie would show up on time.

A bluebird winged her way by, found a perch on a spindly willow branch.

In the barn down by the river, an energetic mare kicked at her stall.

A westerly breeze playfully rolled a tumbleweed across the yard.

Daisy enjoyed all of these blessings.

Sidewinder popped his head up just long enough to peek over the floor of the porch.

The Ute woman pretended not to notice the furtive movement. She removed a biscuit-and-sausage-and-something-else sandwich from her apron pocket. Held it under her nose. “Mmmm. That sure smells good.” She smacked her lips. “But I think I’ll save it for later. Right now, I’ll just sit here and enjoy my coffee.” With a theatrical air of utter carelessness, she laid the tasty treat on a straight-backed chair beside her.

She counted off a minute. Then another. Then…

The head popped back up again. And just as quickly down.

When the occasion demanded it, Patience was a virtue the old woman could call to her service.

The present faded to past.

Sunlight moved along the redwood planks, stopped to warm her feet.

Underneath the porch, there was a barely perceptible grunting, also a curious bumping and thumping.

Her lips curled into a wry smile.
He’s gonna slip up behind me.
The crafty old woman put her coffee mug on the floor, closed her eyes, began to rock. She imagined herself singing in the choir at St. Ignatius.
Amazing Grace—how sweet the sound. That saved a wretch li-iike me.

There was no further indication of movement under the plank floor.

Daisy suddenly felt the hound’s hard stare on the back of her neck. And with her eyes still shut, she saw something that made her skin tingle. What she saw was
herself.
From behind. It was like an old moving picture, in black-and-white. The vision was somewhat fuzzy at the edges, but she could clearly make out the back of the rocking chair, her old gray head, a square post supporting the porch roof. The shaman was fascinated by the singular vision.
It’s like I’m seeing through that dog’s eyes.

Sidewinder watched. Waited.

Gradually the woman’s vision faded.

Daisy began to sing out loud. “Through many dan-gers, toils and snares, I have already come…”

The beast, who took some pleasure in hymns, pricked his ears. After she had been there
ten thousand years
he decided it was high time to make his move. And move he did. Up onto the porch in a single bound went the hound, head and shoulders slung low, six long strides, mouth open wide, hind legs kicking off jackrabbit-style in a powerful leap—the straight-backed chair went a-crashing and a-tumbling.

Daisy threw up her hands in mock alarm, wailed: “Oh my red garters—what was
that
? Was it a big mountain lion—a terrible gray wolf?—a thunderbolt straight from the top of Black Mountain?”

The dog slid to a halt at the end of the porch, turned toward the object of the carefully planned assault. The biscuit-and-egg-and-something-else sandwich was clamped in his mouth. The canine’s eyes laughed at the old woman.

“Why no,” Daisy said with a hooting laugh, “it was only an ugly, stupid old food-stealing dog.” She shot her victim a poisonous look. Precisely what
something-else
was—was known only to the cook.

Seasoning.

More specifically, three heaping tablespoons of extra-hot ground red cayenne pepper. One pinch was enough to season a big iron pot of pinto beans or keep the fleas out of your socks. One teaspoonful was enough to fell an ox. She waited for the symptoms. The dog would gag, she thought, then froth at the mouth.
Maybe fall down and go into spasms and convulsions. Maybe even die. That’d teach him a lesson he wouldn’t forget.
Daisy was a hard woman.

Sidewinder wolfed the sandwich down. Trotted across the porch to where the human being was seated. Licked her hand.

The red pepper remnants burned the skin on her fingers.

But she had faith in her diabolical concoction.
He swallowed it before he got a good taste. But sooner or later, somewhere down inside his gullet, it’ll hit him like a red-hot coal.
In a fit of hopeful whimsy, she imagined the thieving animal doing a couple of backflips before he dragged himself down to the river to gulp down ten or twenty gallons of water.
Any second now.

The seconds ticked away.

The dog, locally famous for eating watermelon rinds, old rubber tires, even lumps of anthracite, stood there for quite some time, trading expectant stares with the disappointed woman.

Are you a real animal—or some kind of skin-walker with dog hide stretched over your bones?
In the shaman’s world, stranger things had happened. Finally, the human being blinked.

Having stared Daisy down, Sidewinder stretched himself out beside her rocking chair. He slipped off into a delightful dream where his newly arrived benefactor appeared with a heaping tray of the delicious sandwiches. Deep in sleep, the hound licked his lips.

Daisy heard a painful grinding and coughing. Disappointed to determine that it was not the dog, she turned in her chair.
That sounds almost like a car.

It was. An almost-car.

The venerable Oldsmobile rattled the heavy boards on Too Late bridge. Pulling a billow of dust along behind, the black automobile made a wide U-turn, stopped beside Charlie Moon’s Expedition.

Roused from his sleep, the hound blinked with moderate curiosity at the tiny white woman who emerged from the vehicle.

While her friend approached the porch, Daisy rocked.

Louise-Marie LaForte was walking with the aid of a cane. A white patch was taped over her left eye.

“You’re late,” Daisy said.

“I’m sorry, dear.” Louise-Marie leaned against the porch, looked up at the enthroned Indian woman. “It’s been so long since I was here, that even with your directions I got all bum-fuzzled and befuddled. I had to stop a dozen times and ask people where I was. One smart-aleck little boy told me I was in Little Rock, Arkansas.” She cast a quick glance at the hound. “I’ve been so curious about what’s on your mind that I hardly got a wink of sleep last night. Now tell me—where are we going?”

Daisy got up from her chair. “I’ll tell you after we’re on the road.” She gave the white woman an appraising gaze. “You look like something that just crawled out of a coffin—you been sick?”

Louise-Marie nodded. “You know about my hip replacement last November. Well, in January my sugar diabetes started giving me fits. In March my liver turned my skin yellow, and right after that I had a bad attack of colonitis.” Recalling problematic kidneys, gallbladder, and spleen, she continued with the defective-organ recital. “Then, just last week, I had a cataract removed.” She pointed at her
good
eye, which had a distinctly milky appearance. “If I come along all right, the doctor will take this one out right after Thanksgiving.”

Gripping her oak walking stick, Daisy eased herself down the porch steps. “With you crippled and three-quarters blind, I don’t know if it’s safe for me to ride with you.”

The driver shrugged this off. “Oh, I do all right.”

Sidewinder trotted along ahead of them.

Daisy pointed her stick at the rear bumper. “Isn’t that a new license plate?”

Louise-Marie’s head rocked in a slow nod. “Ever since the Ignacio town police started fussing at me about having a fifty-year-old plate on my car, I put a new one on every month.”

The Ute woman gave the
matukach
motorist a look. “I thought they only had to be changed once a year.”

“I wouldn’t know about that. But my late husband collected plates from all forty-eight states—”

“I got news for you, Louise-Marie—there’s fifty states in the union.”

“Oh, that’s right—I keep forgetting. Anyway, he had plates from Alaska and Hawaii too, and some foreign countries. Out in the garage, I’ve got dozens and dozens of ’em, so first day of every month, I take one plate off and put another one on.” As she pointed at the current selection, there was an unmistakable sparkle of pride in her eye. “That one there is from Mexico.”

Daisy shook her head. “The cops catch you tootling around with a Mexican plate, they’ll take away your driver’s license quick as a shot.”

“Hah—I’d sure like to see ’em do that!”

“Oh, right,” Daisy said. “You never did get a driver’s license.”

This conversation was interrupted by an urgent sound. It was a keening whine, which might have been either a failing gas turbine or a windmill calling for lubrication.

The women gave the hound the desired attention.

He ruffed up a little bark.

Louise-Marie leaned to pat him on the head. “Poor old poochy-poo—what does oo want?”

“Probably a red-hot tamale with a side of Tabasco sauce,” Daisy said.
Or maybe a glass of ice water.
It was never too late to hope.

Sidewinder gave the Ute woman a peculiar look. Something odd glinted in his eyes. Something like intelligence, only better.

Almost mesmerized, Daisy was holding her breath.
He is talking to me. But not with words…with pictures.
The better to see them, she closed her eyes. What she saw more clearly now was the hound. But Sidewinder was not standing in front of her. The beast was in the Oldsmobile as it sped down the road, his homely head hanging out the window, tongue flapping in the breeze like a black flag!

Louise-Marie watched this silent intercourse with a delightful shiver of apprehension.
I do believe that Daisy is falling into one of her trances.
Two seconds later, unable to bear the suspense any longer, she tugged at the Ute elder’s sleeve. “What is it?”

Startled, Daisy took a moment to compose herself, then smiled at the brute. “He wants to come along.”

Disappointed at such a minor revelation, the owner of the vehicle shook her head. “I don’t like to have animals in my automobile. He might decide to move his bowels or something and—”

“Sidewinder is car-trained.” Daisy opened the rear door, pitched her walking stick onto the floor.

The animal climbed inside, sniffed at this and that, stretched his rangy frame across the backseat, yawned to show a mouth bristling with formidable teeth.

Accepting this latest defeat, Louise-Marie scooted herself behind the wheel. The small woman took some time to get situated on the stack of pillows that raised her just enough to see under the top rim of the steering wheel. She cast a Cyclops glance at her friend, who had gotten into the passenger seat. “Daisy, you should get yourself a car and learn to drive it.”

This suggestion being too foolish to waste a word on, the Ute woman responded with a snort.

“Now just watch what I do,” Louise-Marie said with a pedantic air. “First, I make sure this gear gizmo is in P. Then, I put my foot on the brake thingy.” She pointed at her right foot. “You see where it is—right next to the gas thingy.”

“I don’t need to see no
thingies,
” Daisy snapped. “You’re doing the driving. Me, I’m just along for the ride.” But she was watching her friend’s every move.

“Then I turn the key—see those little needles jump up?” More pointing. “That’s how much gas we’ve used, and that one’s the oil something-or-other, and that’s the T—which has something to do with the tires, and that’s the Bat, which I have never figured out. And this big needle in the middle—it tells us how fast we’re going.”

“Is there anything that’ll tell me how long I’ve got to sit here before you get this jalopy moving?”

Ignoring the snide remark, Louise-Marie started the engine. “Now, with my foot still on the brake thingy, I’ll put the gear gizmo into D, which makes it go forward.”
I don’t know why they didn’t call it F.
She pulled the lever. There was a slight lurch as the engine engaged the automatic transmission. She continued to give freely from her store of knowledge and experience. “The one thing I always do, is never put it into R, because that’ll make it go backwards.”
Which should be labeled B.
She set her chin. “Always Go Forward, that’s my motto.”

Daisy muttered a tart remark about where the widow LaForte could go. Her and all her kin. She had the good manners to use the Ute language.

The French-Canadian woman was oblivious to all but her demonstration of automotive locomotion. “Now watch what happens when I take my foot off the brake.” The car began to move forward. Slowly. She gripped the steering wheel with both hands. “And you steer with this.”

Daisy snorted. “Any fool knows that.”

“One would assume so,” the driver said. “I just wanted to make sure.” She allowed herself the faintest hint of a smile.

Suspecting that she had just suffered an insult, Daisy scowled at her teacher.

Taking an interest in the goings-on in cockpit, Sidewinder hung his paws over the front seat.

Louise-Marie steered the car in a wide circle, looping around a cottonwood tree. “Now I’ll put my foot on the gas. But oh, so gently.”

The car accelerated. Oh, so gently.

Despite herself, Daisy was becoming interested in a procedure she had previously ignored. It did seem to be awfully simple.
And anything Louise can do, I could do twice as good.
A dreamy look slipped over her wrinkled face.
If I had my life to live over, I’d learn to drive a car. Maybe even a motorcycle.
She closed her eyes, the better to see a striking image of herself. Nineteen years old, slim and shapely, shiny black boots, tight yellow slacks, brown leather jacket sparkling with a hundred silver studs. Perched on a big red Harley, going ninety miles an hour down the Alamosa Straight. Big smile flashing like the midday sun, black hair flying in the wind. It was something grand to behold.

The elderly motorists motorized slowly down the lane. Louise-Marie turned to beam encouragement at her reluctant pupil. “You see how easy it is? And it’s never too late to learn.”

As it happened, they were approaching Too Late Creek.

At the very instant the front tires rumbled onto the bridge, the hound licked Louise-Marie on her right ear.

The startled lady squealed. “Haaa-eee!”

The Olds responded to a vigorous twist of the steering wheel, sideswiped the sturdy pine railing.

Daisy grabbed for something to hold on to, prayed to God to save her from a plunge into the cold waters.

They passed over the bridge with nothing more than another dent on the fender.

On the other side, the driver chuckled. “That dog sure did surprise me.”
Almost as much as in the fifth grade, when Elmer Hooper kissed me in the cloakroom. I wonder whatever happened to Elmer after he went off to barber school—

Daisy slapped her hand on the dashboard. “Stop the car!”

Louise-Marie pushed the brake thingy to the floor. “What?”

“Get out.”

“But why—”

The Ute woman was already scooting across the seat. “Because from here on out, I am doing the driving.”

Earlier, when Louise-Marie LaForte had passed by the foreman’s residence on her way to the Columbine headquarters, Dolly Bushman had been running the noisy vacuum cleaner. This being the case, the foreman’s wife was unaware that Daisy had a visitor. The worn carpet was moderately clean now, and Dolly had other chores on her mind. For the last few minutes, she had been stalking a hyperactive fly. Now it was on the window screen.
Got you this time, you nasty little fiend…now hold still while I lower the boom.
She was about to swat the grown-up maggot into oblivion when she noticed something coming down the lane from the Too Late bridge. The black car was going so slowly that she was certain it was going to stop.
Who in the world could that be?
For the moment, she forgot about the pesky insect. Though the Oldsmobile was moving in an odd, jerking fashion—as if it might expire on the spot—it did not stop. Dolly watched as the vehicle lurched uncertainly by her house.
Well I declare, I must be seeing things…that looks like Charlie’s aunt at the wheel. Oh, Lord—what is she up to now?
The practical woman made an instant decision.
Well, whatever’s going on, I don’t want to know anything about it
. She closed her eyes.

The fly executed a tight figure eight, came to sit on the swatter. Then on her nose.