The Night Visitor (28 page)

Butter expertly applied Lemon Yellow to the hooked teeth of a
Tyrannosaurus Rex.
“Yes there is. I
seen
him.”

Sarah felt a cold shiver tickle her spine. “Where'd you see him?”

The white child fell into one of her sullen silences.

“You know what Aunt Daisy said about you stayin' out here after dark.”

Butter frowned at her memory of the obstinate old woman. Big people were always telling you what to do. And most of the time, you had to do what they said. But sometimes there was a chance to get even.

The older girl was getting fidgety. “You better come inside.”

Butter decided upon a delaying action. “I ever show you Toe Jam?”

Sarah shook her head.

Butter pulled the shoe box from its hiding place in the tiny closet. She set the enclosure on the table and grinned puckishly at the Ute-Papago child. “You wanna take the lid off?”

Sarah hesitated. “I ain't afraid. But it's
your
old box—
you
open it up.”

With all the sense of drama natural to small children, Butter removed the rubber bands. And slowly raised the lid.

Sarah leaned forward and made a horrid face. “Ick. He's ugly.”

The white child shook her head. “Not to his mamma, he
ain't.” Butter's mamma had always told her how pretty
she
was.

Mr. Zig-Zag, who had been napping in the sink, got up and lazily stretched one leg at a time. Then came to have a look at what was inside the box. The black cat hissed at the beady-eyed creature.

The beady-eyed creature hissed back.

This, Sarah thought, was an odd sort of pet. “What does he do?”

Butter shrugged. “He eats bugs and worms and stuff.”

Sarah grimaced at the thought. “That all he does?”

“Well, there's a trick that Daddy taught him.”

“What kind of trick?”

Butter told her.

The older child frowned. “I bet that's bad for his lungs.”

“His kind,” Butter explained patiently, “don't got no lungs.” The child did not know a lung from a kidney. But she had learned that if you make a statement with firm conviction, it is likely to be believed.

“I don't know,” Sarah said doubtfully. “It sounds kinda dangerous. Children your age shouldn't play with matches. And anyway,” she added with increasing confidence, “I don't think he could do that.”

“Watch, I'll show you.” Butter Flye—who had the necessary props close at hand—demonstrated her pet's remarkable ability.

In her wonder at this miracle, the eight-year-old child forgot the natural superiority of her additional years. “Wow,” Sarah said, “that's really cool.”

“Yes,” Butter agreed. And it raised some very interesting possibilities. She slipped the lid onto the box. “You know what we could do?”

“What?”

The white child explained what. Leaving out not the smallest detail.

“Oh my… I don't know—that wouldn't be very nice. And we could get in trouble.”

Butter shrugged. And played her ace. “Okay… if you're such a big fraidy-cat.”

And thus was the gauntlet thrown down—that ageless challenge which had provoked so many ill-advised adventures.

And would again.

It is a quite odd and unexplained phenomena—how an otherwise ordinary dream sometimes weaves a carefully plotted tale that… But the thing is best illustrated by an example. The dreamer finds herself in a restaurant, having a cup of green tea. Suddenly, a ski-hooded gunman bursts in. The terrified customers are ordered to keep their hands in sight; a pale clerk empties the cash register. As the bandit leaves, he warns everyone to stay put. And fires a warning shot.

Nothing so unusual about the dream.

Except this: the sound of the pistol shot coincides precisely with the backfire of an automobile passing just outside the dreamer's bedroom window. It is as if the anonymous author of the dream-tale had foreseen the future and carefully arranged the plot to provide the dreamed gunshot at the precise moment of the real-world backfire.

The old shaman who lived near the mouth of
Cañon del Espiritu
had had such peculiar dreams before. And was about to have another.

As the sun is barely over the mountains, Daisy Perika is dreaming a simple dream of a sweet summertime, decades ago. She is a skinny girl on a family outing: a picnic on the banks of the Pinos. Her mother has spread a red-and-white tablecloth over the grass. Daisy, as always, is more interested in fishing than in helping her mother. She has tied a Mormon cricket onto the hook with a long strand of her black hair—and immediately catches a fine cutthroat. She watches as Daddy cleans the fish. Now, her mother is lighting a little fire to cook the trout… In her lovely dream the old woman can smell the aromatic smoke curling up from dry juniper twigs. But this didn't smell at all like juniper smoke. It smelled more like… the sleeper's nose twitched… like tobacco smoke.

Daisy drifted up toward consciousness. And felt the nearness of… something.

She opened one eyelid.

And saw
it.

Perched there, unblinking, on her chest. Inhaling… exhaling… inhaling… smoking a cigarette!

The old woman's first instinct was to scream and fling her old body out of bed onto the floor. But she did not scream. Neither did she move a muscle. Because Daisy Perika is made of very tough old stuff. Like pine knots and elk horn. And ninety pounds of rawhide and oak held together with a glue of pure stubbornness. But there was another reason for her resolve: she had heard the sound of giggling from the kitchen. She smiled a thin smile. It was those mischievous girls, who thought nothing of frightening an old woman halfway into her grave. Just for a bit of fun.

Daisy moved her right hand slowly from under the covers. She snatched the cigarette from the horned toad's mouth. The old woman had expected the fat lizard to be startled, to scuttle off. But Toe Jam had evidently been in the quirky Flye family far too long to be surprised at anything human beings might do. Or maybe the habit of smoking had addled his pea-sized brain. The creature stared blankly at the woman's face, and seemed to belch. A small puff of latent smoke popped from his mouth. It is true that there is not much expression on the face of a horned toad. Even so, the elderly Ute woman was of the opinion that the reptile seemed much relieved to be rid of the cigarette, and grateful for her intervention.

Daisy heard a whisper that sounded like Sarah's voice: “What do you think she'll do, when she wakes up and sees him …?” More giggles.

The old woman smiled. She deftly scooped up Toe Jam. And for the first time since she had been a child, Daisy pulled the quilt over her face… and snickered. But this was not a wholesome snicker.

There was, indeed, a certain malicious quality about it.

As she prepared breakfast, Daisy Perika remembered her own youthful pranks.

Like the time she'd put a gopher in Daddy's coat pocket. A pocket gopher, of course. When Daddy had reached for his twist of Bull Durham tobacco, the sudden appearance of his fingers had startled the sharp-toothed rodent. Daddy, judging
from his high-stepping and heartfelt curses, had also been more than a little surprised. The stern man—who had not appreciated the subtle humor in the thing—had tanned little Daisy's backside with a willow switch. Old grump, Served him right that his finger had taken six weeks to heal.

So Daisy Perika understood that children will do such things. But one must deal with youthful shenanigans in the proper spirit. There were several appropriate ways for an adult to react—and every response used the opportunity to strengthen a child's education. Daisy Perika's favorite method was this: show the nasty little buggers just who they are messing with!

The old woman pretended to be unaware of the growing alarm shared by her small guests. The girls thought themselves unnoticed by a woman whose senses they assumed to be dulled by age. They were darting about Daisy's bedroom. Searching in her bed. Under her bed. In her closet. Clattering about the tiny bathroom. Finally, they wandered around the kitchen, glancing surreptitiously into corners. Sneaking sly looks under the table. Exchanging puzzled shrugs. Well, Toe Jam would turn up sooner or later.

When the old woman called them to breakfast, the girls dutifully took their appointed places at table. Daisy smiled sweetly at them. My, such worried little faces. She parceled out hot biscuits, then brought a heavy iron skillet from the stove. She sliced a puffy omelet into halves, then divided one of the halves into equal parts. Each child duly received her quarter-share.

Daisy poured each a small glass of milk, then sat down and sniffed contentedly. “I hope you two slept good last night.”

Two little heads nodded. Two small hands reached for forks.

“I slept pretty good, myself,” Daisy said. “But this morning, I woke up kinda sudden-like. Bad dream, I guess.” She managed a shudder.

As if she were blind, the children glanced at each other and grinned knowingly.

The old woman spoke with an unusual gentleness. “Eat your eggs now. Before they get cold.”

The children did as bidden, munching little bits of omelet. And discovered that it was very good. Had lots of cheese. And little bits of meat. So their appetites improved.

Sarah Frank held up a biscuit. “Aunt Daisy, may I please have some jelly on my bread?”

“Sure,” Daisy said. Such nice manners. She smiled at Butter Flye. “You want some jelly too?” This plump one never said no to food.

The white child nodded; her ponytail bobbed.

The old woman got up, put one hand on a painful hip joint, and hobbled over to the cupboard. She headed back with a small jar. “You girls enjoy your omelet?”

Two heads nodded.

“It's a new recipe I just thought up this morning.”

“I know,” Sarah Frank said. “You put chicken in it.”

The old woman turned and shook her head. “Oh no. Something with lots more zing than chicken.”

Sarah was puzzled. “Tuna?”

“Nope.” Daisy chuckled as she slammed a jar of grape jelly onto the table. “I'll give you a hint: ‘Breakfast is where you find it.'”

This produced only puzzled expressions.

She leaned close to the children's bewildered faces. “I found part of our breakfast just as I woke up this morning. It was
looking
at me!” She paused to allow time for this revelation to sink in.

The children's eyes grew large. It was Sarah who spoke. “D'you mean …”

Daisy sat down. The old woman looked across the table at her victims. “That was my very first horned-toad omelet.”

These innocents could barely comprehend such a horrid thing. They stared in horror at the barbarous old woman, who was calmly picking her teeth with a sliver of wood. They eyed the remnants of the omelet in their plates.

The bits of food seemed to look back. To accuse them.
Cannibals!

The girls looked at each other. Butter Flye began to wail. Sarah Frank put her hand over her mouth and gagged. They
ran onto the porch and made valiant attempts to spit out any bits of poor Toe Jam's carcass.

Daisy rocked back and forth, laughing until salty tears streamed down her leathery cheeks. Served the little criminals right.
That'll teach them to put a smoke-belching lizard on me when I'm asleep.

But there was an empty chicken tin in the plastic garbage bag under the sink. The horned toad was tucked away in her kitchen cupboard. In a red coffee can with holes punched through the plastic lid. When the time was right, she'd slip the ugly creature back into his shoe box.

But not right away.

I
T WAS WELL
past midnight. An egg-shaped moon with the patina of dry bone hung over the shaman's trailer-home. Near the mouth of
Cañon del Espiritu
, a famished red fox sniffed along a fresh rabbit trail. On this night, the hungry fox was not the only predator prowling the darkness. Looking for something young… and tender.

The children were in the guest bedroom at the far end of Daisy Perika's trailer. One was in a deep sleep. One was not.

Sarah Frank flopped an arm awry, swatting the smaller child across the face.

Butter Flye pushed the offending limb away.

Sarah rolled on her side, pulling away the covers.

Butter moved closer to her bedmate, tugging ineffectively at a corner of the wool blanket. It barely covered her legs. The smaller child shivered and whimpered. “I'm cold,” she said pitifully.

Sarah responded with a croaking snore.

Butter sat up in bed, her tiny hands doubled into fists. She kicked viciously at the larger girl's leg.

Sarah offered another snore in response.

Well, that did it. Butter slid out of bed and pushed her small feet into tattered bunny slippers. She wrapped herself in a thin cotton coat and stood staring at the bed she'd left. Wondering what to do. She could wake the old woman up and complain. But Daisy had threatened to make her a bed in the bathtub! That sounded awfully cold and hard. And what if the water came on when she was asleep and started filling the tub? Would she float to the top like a cork and bob around till someone fished her out? Or sink like a stone to the bottom… and drown?

Butter Flye shook her head in defiance. No, she wasn't going to sleep in no stupid bathtub. But the child knew just what she would do. Where she'd sleep just fine. Real warm and snug. She pulled on a long coat over her pajamas. The child unsnapped her change purse and pocketed the trailer keys. She slipped down the short hall. Past the bed where the old woman was sleeping. Into the kitchen. She reached for the doorknob. Turned it. Made a little squeak. In a moment she was on the porch, gently closing the door behind her.

Ooooo… it was so cold out here! She hurried down the porch steps and ran to the small camping trailer. She pressed the key in the lock and turned it. In a moment, she was inside, tumbling into her bed.