Shaman Winter (51 page)

“How's tricks?”

“I don't do tricks!” Fox replied.

Sonny sat and Marta delivered a cup of coffee and a steaming plate of huevos rancheros, the old-fashioned kind with blue corn flour tortillas, Rita's brand of beans flavored with chicos and her famous Nuevomexicano red chile con carne. Plenty of crisp hash browns on the side. Carbohydrates for the long day ahead.

Chica jumped up beside Sonny.

“This the dreaming dog?” Fox snarled as Sonny speared the two eggs so the yellow mixed into the beans and chile.

“Yeah. Chica Chicana. Wonder Dog. She can fly.”

“Bullshit,” Fox scoffed.

“You asked,” Sonny shrugged, then smiled as he dug into the food, satisfying the enormous hunger he felt. He figured he had gained a few pounds since Christmas. No sex, so he was eating a lot. Making vicarious love to Rita through her comida. In the morning she was a spicy plate of huevos rancheros, enchiladas with refried beans at lunch. Hot tortillas at every meal.

He glanced at the cash register where she was ringing out the yuppie blonde. She smiled. Sonny returned the smile. Someday soon she would be ready. Like the Canadian geese and sandhill cranes flying north in February, love had to return to the North Valley, it just had to.

“… you have to tell me,” the mayor was going on, “what the hell you mean dogs dream? You can't know. You can't get into the dog's head.”

“She gets into mine,” Sonny answered.

“Some of the city workers are betting their paychecks. Does she or doesn't she dream? Why don't we get a psychiatrist to check her out?”

Sonny frowned, looked at Chica then at Fox. A bureaucrat could run a city, but not dream. Fox was smart but he didn't know the invisible world of dreams. Fox had never been master of his own dream. Fox was no shaman.

“Do you dream, Chica?”

Chica barked and wagged her tail furiously.

“See?” Sonny burped, sipping Rita's rich coffee blend, better than Starbucks, and wiping up the carne adovada on his plate with a piece of tortilla.

“That's no answer! Let's test the dog.”

“Not on your life!” Sonny petted Chica. The last thing he would do is put Chica through any dream exam. Her dreams were hers. “What's happening in Jemez?” he asked to change the subject.

Fox shrugged. “So you know.”

Sonny nodded.

Fox leaned closer. “Remember the Bible, Sonny. There's a prophecy about the mountains. Because the enemy stands against you, even the ancient high places are in our possession. God speaks on the mountains, Sonny, and the only way to save them is to make a deal with the devil. Let us handle Raven.”

Fox bared his teeth. Sonny drew back. Fox quoting the Bible was scary.

A paranoid prophet gets you nowhere, the old man told him once, because he doesn't even know he's paranoid. This, after all, was the Chinese Year of the Ram. The sign was stamped on Fox's forehead.

“How do you know it's Raven?”

“He contacted us. He wants to deal. I suggest you don't get in the way.”

“What about the governor?” Sonny asked, baiting the mayor.

“Too bad,” Fox replied, “but he was no dream man!” He handed his check to one of his cronies. “Did the FBI call you?”

Sonny shook his head. “State police.”

“It figures. They know very little.” He leaned closer and whispered. “Someone murdered the governor, but it's not Raven. It's a terrorist plot. It's big, Sonny. We have to proceed with caution, not muddy the waters. Raven can help us. In fact, we have a press conference scheduled at six at the Hispanic Cultural Center.”

So, thought Sonny, Raven was already calling the shots. The bomb Augie mentioned was probably a hoax. To get him up on the mountain. Get him out of the city while he made his deals with the politicians. And both events were diversions. What Raven really wanted was to confuse, and in the confusion grab the Zia medallion.

“You better change your tie,” Sonny suggested.

“Look, Sonny, it's not just politics I'm talking about. What happened to the governor is just the tip of the iceberg. If you get involved it's going to hit you like a bucket of—you know.”

“You're saying I should stay out of it?”

Fox nodded. “Yeah, stay out of it. You don't want to mess with the big boys. My father used to say, the only words you'll never hear in New Mexico are
We sail with the tide
. You just missed your boat, Sonny.”

Fox grinned, turned, and hurried out, followed by his flunkies.

Sonny burped again. Lordy, Lordy, a satisfying breakfast, but sitting with Fox had left a bad feeling in the air. It was rumored Fox and the governor were business partners with Dominic. Fox had taken Dominic's money when he ran for mayor, and if the governor was dead that left Fox in charge of the henhouse, or the water house. If Fox didn't want him involved in the governor's murder, that was all the more reason to get involved.

He's no dream man, Fox had said. A dead governor can dream no more. Did they want the governor out of the way?

His cell phone buzzed and Sonny answered.

“Sonny, Augie. Where are you?”

“Having breakfast.”

“You were there when Raven infiltrated Los Alamos Labs.”

Yes. Raven had waltzed into the labs, or flown in like a brujo. He had stolen a plutonium pit from under the nose of Los Alamos security.

“You know the core of a nuclear weapon is still missing. So what if Raven sold it to Al Qaeda?”

Sonny paused. Raven would form alliances with anyone out to create panic.

“Don't believe me? What if I told you I have an Al Qaeda operative prisoner?”

“You have an Al Qaeda agent?” Sonny repeated. That got his attention. What the hell was an Al Qaeda operative doing in Jemez Springs?

“Here's what I'm guessing. Raven was paid by Al Qaeda. The FBI's been following this agent. All of a sudden he shows up in Jemez Springs. Walks right into my hands. You know what this means. Promotion for me. I call the shots.”

“And the Al Qaeda man is there to blow up Los Alamos.”

“To blow up the whole fucking mountain!”

There was a strain in Augie's
voice
. State cops like Augie didn't panic just because somebody knocked off their boss.

But two and two could equal Al Qaeda and Raven. Chaos was visiting the world. Today it was in Jemez Springs, and Raven would be there.

“It's a radioactive contraption. The lab boys have verified that. It's sitting in the Valle Grande. You can see it from the road. Right now they don't know if it's got a live pit, or some of that dirty nuclear stuff Al Qaeda has.”

Sonny glanced at his watch. The battery was dead, but it was spring equinox time all right. Raven time.

“All we know is there's a timer in the damn thing. Ticking away. If it blows, the lab boys think the Thing—that's what they call it, the Thing—will blow the mountain apart. Not only Los Alamos and the labs, but it might create a new volcano. Hit the hot stuff. I mean, half the state could go up.”

Sonny sighed. Augie was prone to exaggeration. The Thing really wasn't to scare the Los Alamos Labs, it was for Sonny. Raven had begun the game for the day, and Sonny sensed tragic consequences ahead.

“Raven left a message for you. Lab boys found it in the bomb. I'll wait for you at the Bath House.” With that, the phone went dead.

A frown crossed Sonny's face. Damn Raven! Yes, the games have started. I'll see him dead!

You can't kill him, the old man said.

I can! Sonny replied. I will!

You've been dreaming revenge, Sonny, and that's no good. Maybe he's already gotten to you.

Bullshit, Sonny scoffed. My mind's clear. He paused and thought awhile. And suppose he has. Don't we all have a shadow inside? Doesn't that part of the mind always make trouble? Isn't half the world troubled? Time to get rid of him, once and for all.

The old man shook his head. He knew even a shaman can be confused by spirit voices, and Sonny heard voices. In fact, it was often the dream shaman who suffered most from disruptive voices. Even the saints and holy men heard the devil's temptations. The struggle raging within the soul was a battle to still the voices.

“Maybe I am—” Sonny whispered.

He creates illusions, the old man said. Be careful. Don't look up in the sky for answers. Look inside. Shadow and light, it's all inside.

“Sonny.”

He looked up into Rita's eyes, eyes of love, and the ship he had to sail that day rocked in the water of her eyes, water of life.

“Don Eliseo?” she said softly.

“Yeah … he's quite a philosopher.”

“You two make a good pair,” she said, placing a bag with chicken tacos and a thermos of coffee on the table.

“You heard him?” Sonny asked, for the first time seeking confirmation.

“No. He belongs to you. Your helper.”

“I have to go,” he said.

“I know.”

He stood and kissed her. “I'll go by the cabin.”

Years ago, before real estate prices went out of sight, he had bought a cabin by the river in Jemez Springs. He and Rita had spent Sundays there, fixing it up. Then came the summer of the Zia medallion, the large gold amulet that would belong to Sonny or Raven, whoever won the contest. Raven tried to blow up a WIPP truck loaded with toxic plutonium waste; Sonny stopped him. In October he reappeared during the Alburquerque Balloon Fiesta, and again on the winter solstice.

Raven was a predictable threat. Always lurking in the shadows, he especially picked the solstices and equinoxes to do his dirty work, days of great ancient power, days when the sun was most related to the earth. Today the sun crossed the plane of the earth's equator. The vernal equinox. The world could fall one way or the other.

No doubt about it, he was making trouble on the mountain.

“Maybe you'll have time to take a mineral bath.”

Since Christmas Sonny had been driving up to the Jemez Springs Bath House to sit in a tub of the hot, healing water that flowed from a nearby spring.

Now the governor was lying dead in one of the tubs Sonny had used.

“If I have time.”

Rita touched his cheek. “Did I tell you you're looking great? Stay that way.” She paused then whispered. “I'm ready for one of those hot baths.”

That surprised Sonny. It's what he had been waiting for. For her to say the word. “They have a tub for two.”

“Maybe Sunday.”

Sonny felt a gentle knotting in his stomach, a welcome tightening in his throat. She was coming back from the trauma. The time of the spring equinox would be a time of love. Buds, flowers, and sprigs of grass were being pushed up from the dark earth by the spirit within.

From the jukebox Little Richard continued to shout. Diego shook the box and the arm of the old record player lifted, a new record falling into place. Fats Domino.

Sonny smiled. “Sunday sounds great. Weather's clearing—”

“And you?”

“I'm strong as ever, really. The numbness is gone.”

There was nothing she could say that would keep him home that day. If Raven appeared she knew Sonny had to go. She didn't know the depth of his need for vengeance, but she knew he had been waiting to make a stand. After all, who really knows what drives a man? Destiny? Fate? The daimon within?

“Cuídate,” she said. “I love you. I'll wait—”

She hugged him and quickly returned to the cash register.

Sonny looked after her. There were tears in her eyes. Did she know what he had planned for the day? Did she sense he had to get Raven? The voices he had been hearing were shadows from his dreams, and don Eliseo had said a man fears voices when he cannot see the person who is speaking.

“Hey, Sonny, adonde la tiras?” Diego asked, bussing the table.

“Jemez.”

“Cuidao con las Inditas.”

“I already got one,” Sonny replied.

Like Cleofes Vigil used to say, when the Españoles came they found all these beautiful Inditas de los Pueblos, Navajosas, y Comanches, and the lust of men who would never see the ocean again being what it was, ipso facto, the mestizo was born. Expanding the gene pool, something nature loves. We are los manitos de las naciones de la Sangre de Cristo, Cleofes used to say. The citizens of the city states del Rio Grande del norte. Each village a polis.

The Chicano mestizo. A man on whose body was written a history of suffering. A future of great beauty. A woman throwing off the shackles of a long oppression.

Sonny walked out to his truck and opened the beat-up ice chest. It was empty except for three cans of warm Diet Dr. Pepper rolling around the bottom. Sonny tossed the tacos and thermos into the cooler.

The bed of the truck held a shovel, some rope, an old sleeping bag and a tattered tarp, a very old pair of muddy boots, a collection of empty diet-soda cans, a frayed battery cable, and an odd assortment of wrenches, pliers, duct tape, and a coil of baling wire. With duct tape and baling wire he could fix anything. Chicano welds.

He and don Eliseo had gone fishing up in the Pecos a couple of years ago and the old man swore the sleeping bag and tarp were all a king needed to sleep well. If it rains you pretend you're a rock, he said, until the rain passes. A rock with eyes.

Got everything a PI needs, Sonny thought, satisfied.

Today's the day, he thought as he and Chica headed north on 4th Street toward Bernalillo, tuning the radio to KANW. The news was leaking out: an Al Qaeda terrorist had been apprehended. But no mention of the governor.

So the governor was dead. It was rumored that he visited the Jemez Valley because he was seeing a woman at the pueblo. A very nice-looking Jemez woman, a sculptor whose pottery was known and collected internationally.

So the governor had a liaison. He claimed he went for the baths to get rid of stress, but did he really go to visit a woman?