The Shaman Laughs (37 page)

Dear Scott P.:

Thought you might enjoy this on some lonely night when Anne is traveling.

Luv. Nancy B.

His smile vanished as he saw the cover of the paperback. The policeman put his hand into his coat pocket. It was still there. A crumpled copy of the liturgy that veterinarian Harry Schaid had passed out to the mourners at Benita Sweetwa-ter's funeral. He searched the wrinkled surface until he found the words:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death… De esta suerte, aunge caminase yo por medio de la sombra de la muerte…

Of course.

Emily brushed aside a moist wisp of hair and looked up from the deep furrow where she was planting the Parrot tulip bulbs under precisely eight inches of lightly fertilized soil. Fidel Sombra slammed the truck door and sat down on the edge of the front porch. He removed his new straw hat and scratched at his grizzled head. "Hello, dotter."

Emily wiped the rich soil from her delicate hands. "Good morning, Daddy." She wrinkled her pretty nose and smiled. The old man hadn't bathed in a week; he smelled like his pigs. "I've got some coffee on. Shall I bring you a cup?" Better that he didn't come inside, stink up the house.

"Nope. I've already drunk so much coffee today, it'd squirt out my ears." He had killed a six pack of Mexican beer. The old man removed a sheath knife from his belt and used the curved tip of the gleaming blade to scrape the dirt from under his horny fingernails. "Besides, your coffee ain't worth a sh—I mean, it's altogether too weak for me."

She watched her father and frowned thoughtfully. Instinctively, Emily sensed that something was wrong. Something. But what?

Charlie Moon sat across the booth, having lost interest in a piece of Angel's pecan pie. "I can't make an arrest with nothing to go on but your notion about Aunt Daisy's… uh… vision. It's not evidence."

"But it does fit," Parris said stubbornly.

"I expect," Moon admitted cautiously, "it could have happened that way."

Parris wondered whether the old woman had actually witnessed the mutilation of Arlo Nightbird from her perch on the side of Three Sisters Mesa. Perhaps she rejected the horrible scene from her conscious mind. Then, maybe she slept… and dreamed the vision. A collection of graphic symbols representing the victim and the mutilator. "So what do we do?"

The Ute's face was impassive. "Hoover," he said slowly, "believes Herb Ecker killed and mutilated Gorman's bull. And likewise for Arlo Nightbird. He's closed the case." Moon pushed the pie away; he dipped a spoon into his cup of lukewarm coffee. He stirred. "But maybe I should stir the pot… see what floats to the top."

Canon del Serpiente

Once again, the long finger dipped blood from the ancient depression in the boulder. The finger drew. Now there was a new representation of a human being on the sandstone. This new stick-man kneeled above the earlier figure of the Man of the Book. The scarlet fingertip made many small spots between the figures; they were tears. Kneeling Man wept tears of blood onto Dead Poet. Soon, they would be together.

"I don't see why this couldn't of waited till tomorrow." The old farmer's back ached and he had an overwhelming desire for a drink. A strong drink. Fidel Sombra rubbed a dirty sleeve across his mouth. "A bunch of my pigs got loose last night, and I been chasing the greasy little bastards all over La Plata County, from here to hell and back. I'm awfully tired." He waited in vain for the least bit of sympathy.

Emily had her little hand out, palm up. She spat the words at him. "That knife you were using for your manicure the other day; I was certain I had seen it before. Last night, I remembered. That was Arlo's knife. Give it to me. Now!" His daughter had that stubborn look that he remembered from her mother's face. It would be pointless to lie. Fidel sullenly removed the sheath knife from his belt and offered it to his daughter.

"I had assumed that animals chewed Arlo's ears off," Emily said. "But you had his knife. You must have… removed his…" Her words were interrupted by a shudder. "What did you do with…"

"No need to worry about it." He winked. "Fed 'em to the hogs."

She closed her eyes and shook her head in disbelief. Now her voice was soft, as if she was attempting to communicate with a moron. "Daddy… tell me what you did with Arlo's turquoise ear stud."

Fidel stiffened his back. That had been his favorite keepsake from the memorable trip to Spirit Canyon. "Don't have it no more."

Emily stamped her tiny foot. "Don't lie to me, Daddy. I'm not leaving this house until you give me the ear stud!" She was clenching the hunting knife in a tight little white-knuckled fist.

Emily was her mother's daughter, and Fidel was certain that she could tell when he was lying. "Honest, dotter. I don't have it no more."

"How," she said evenly, "could you not have it?"

Fidel was trembling; he couldn't take his eyes off the knife. "I… well… I kind of lost it."

Emily realized that he was terrified. She dropped the knife into her purse. "That's absurd, Daddy. How could you lose it?"

The old farmer explained precisely why he no longer had the turquoise ear stud in his possession. At first, the remembrance of his drunken prank made him smile. Then, he interrupted his narrative with snickers. Finally, it was too much to bear. Fidel Sombra cackled and wheezed until his ribs ached.

Charlie Moon wondered—had he been foolish to take up police work? There wasn't much money in it, and he had nothing better to do than answer another urgent call from Louise Marie LaForte. It was like he was her personal policeman. The old woman was a bit peculiar on her best days, and on her worst days she saw things. Louise Marie saw haunts. She saw the
loup-garou
. Louise Marie had probably had a taste of her homemade wine. Moon smiled—maybe she had tasted a quart. He turned the Blazer into her gravel driveway and, from long habit, glanced at the dilapidated house next door. A shade was quickly pulled in the upstairs window, blocking the flickering light from a kerosene lamp. So, the writer-taxidermist-lunatic was, despite repeated warnings, still spying on his neighbor. Taxi was getting to be a nuisance. The old woman was waiting on her porch swing. Moths danced a frenzied jitterbug in the dim yellow light filtering through a closed window shade; a small crockery pitcher was on a tray by her knee. Moon tipped his hat. "What's cookin', Louise?" She pointed to an extra cup by the pitcher. "Would you like some tea?"

"Never touch the stuff. What's the problem this time?"

Louise Marie drained the last swallow of "tea" from her cup, then hiccuped daintily. "This time it's bad," she said with an air of delicious mystery, "
very
bad."

"What's bad?"

She waved her little hand in a dramatic arc toward the heavens. "I have seen the northern lights dance over the earth, flapping her long skirts of blue fire." There was a long, thoughtful pause before she continued. Louise Marie had a sense for dramatic timing. "I have seen the
loup-garou
many times.
Oui
, I once even saw the great water monster with the long neck swimming in Missisquoi Bay in Lake Champlain, but," she murmured as she solemnly crossed herself, "I am a good Catholic so I never believed in reincarnation." Some things, of course, happened whether you believed in them or not.

Moon sat down beside her in the porch swing. The chain creaked ominously under the strain of his weight. "You mean like when dead folks come back as somebody else?" There was a vague memory he couldn't quite connect with. A memory of a dream.

"
Oui
," she said darkly, "or if they were very naughty, they may come back as
something
else."

He squinted at the thin sliver of moon rising over the Pinos. "Well, don't know as I ever thought much about it." He put his arm on the swing behind the old woman and patted her on the shoulder. "Is that why you called me out in the middle of the night, to talk about reincarnation?"

"He's back," she whispered. There was a sweet fragrance of raspberry wine on her breath.

"The
loup-garou
? I figured he was gone for good."

"Worse than
loup-garou
." Louise Marie shuddered. "Arlo Nightbird is back."

Moon stopped swinging and the old woman almost pitched forward onto the porch floor. "What'd you say?"

"Arlo," she said as she regained her composure, "he's come back. I heard this funny noise, just a little while ago." Louise Marie paused to pour scarlet liquor from the pitcher into the cup; she had a sip to steady her nerves. "Went out to check with my flashlight. Saw him in my garden. Then I called the police."

"You know," Moon said sternly, "you don't live in Southern Ute jurisdiction and you're not a Ute. You're not even any kind of Indian. You should have called the Ignacio police."

"The Town Police always say 'Call Charlie Moon,' " she said pitifully. "You're the only policeman who will come out to help a poor old lady." Louise Marie scooted closer to the big man.

The Ute policeman tilted his head back. He watched the countless stars. He could almost feel the whirling power of the galactic arms, flinging the earth through deep space. "What was Arlo up to in your garden?"

"He was rooting around, probably for some old potatoes. Or maybe grubs."

"Grubs?" Moon grunted. "Can't imagine Arlo having a taste for grubs."

"
Oui
. But he does now," she said patiently. "He came back as a swine, you see."

Moon smiled at the Big Dipper. "Well, I can understand how a person might have a hard time telling the difference between Arlo and a pig."

Her shoulders stiffened. "This is not to be taken lightly, Charles Moon. That pig was definitely Arlo Nightbird, come back to torment me."

Reason, the Ute decided, was his only weapon in dealing with the old woman's fantasies. "But why would Arlo visit
you
, Louise Marie?"

She shrugged, as if it was a great mystery. But Louise Marie had no doubt that the visitation was Arlo's revenge. She had, after all, called him a swine!

Moon turned his head to look down at the sharp little eyes peering up through a mound of wrinkled flesh. "What makes you so sure this particular porker was Arlo Night-bird?"

"Well," she said with firm assurance, "it couldn't have been nobody else."

"And why not?"

"That pig was wearing Arlo's big turquoise stud," she touched her left ear lobe, "Right here."

Charlie Moon trudged around the farmhouse, slogging through the mud that would turn into a hard plaster on his new boots. He paused, shaded his eyes from the sun, and shouted toward the barn. "Fidel… you out here?"

The old farmer appeared in the barn door. He removed his tattered Farmall hat, pushed a swatch of matted gray hair off his forehead, but didn't speak. Moon took long steps across the barnyard, hoping this would minimize the accumulation of mud on his boots. It didn't.

"How you doing, Fidel?" The policeman sat down on a moldy bale of hay and attempted to clean his boots with a handful of straw.

"Lots of chores to do," the old man answered sharply. "What brings you out to my place?"

"Heard some of your pigs got loose."