The Turbulence of Butterflies (Max Howard Series Book 6)

by Fischer G. Hayes

  I had forgotten about the snake and turned. It was moving straight at me with purpose and I shot it, almost cutting it in half. I loaded another shell and turned to face the jaguar.

  “I don’t want to hurt you. Go now and you can live your life out on this ranch.”

  I handed the rifle to James Lee and started walking toward the jaguar. The big cat got down in the dirt as if he thought he was part of it and hidden from me; he locked his eyes on to mine. Magali had been right. I was vain and believed there was a connection to this beast of the Mayan otherworld just as I’d had with the spotted jaguar. I realized my mistake too late about ten feet from the animal and I slowly moved sideways so James Lee would have a clean shot from where he stood. I wasn’t a complete fool.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I said to the jaguar, but knew it was wasted words. There was the look of death in his eyes. He already had me by the throat in his mind. The Jaguar sprung at me from ten feet and I think he believed he would make the distance with ease. He hadn’t counted on James Lee. I heard the gun shot and felt the big cat hit the ground two feet in front of me with a thud. He screamed and tried to stand, put James Lee put him down with a second shot.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to the jaguar and then walked over to where the Magali lay in the dirt. There was a small hole near her shoulder and there should have been a lot of blood on the ground beneath her, but there wasn’t. She moaned in pain and the sat up.

  “Itzamná curses you,” she said and managed to stand up.

  She looked around in the dirt for her machete. I saw it first and stepped on it. “Go. Continue your journey. The mask is not here,” I said.

  She picked up her staff where the rattle snake had been and she walked over to the jaguar and placed her hands on his body. She spoke to him and he opened his eyes. She then stood and waited for him to get up. When he finally got up they walked toward the trail down the side of the mesa.

  “That was intense,” James Lee said in the sardonic manner I recognized from his teenage years. “What the fuck just happened?” he demanded and waited for an answer.

  “Thanks,” I said to him for saving my butt from the jaguar. The woman had been right about me. I was a fool at times and put way too much stock in that notion that I was graced. Yet, despite myself, here I was, still alive and graced once again.

  “Well?”

  “Look, I want you and George to go back to Houston.”

  “Hold on a minute. There was a wounded woman lying here, just a minute ago. And, I just shot a jaguar. Now they’re gone. Tell me this isn’t our imagination. You saw it, right, George?”

  He nodded that he had and he walked the horses over to where we stood.

  “Trust me. Go home and don’t say anything about it. I don’t want people thinking you two are as crazy as I am.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until you explain what just happened.”

  I remembered what Sunny had told me when Angelina arrived on our ranch several years ago. We were both concerned about her influence over Juan and Maria so Sunny had consulted a professor of Mesoamerican history at Western Washington University. As he had explained it to her, if Angelina was indeed the descendant of powerful Mayan shamans, she might have had the mental ability to influence what others think and see. The Maya caste system resulted in a group of people that maintained their status and power through their ability to control what other people believed. The shaman priests and witch doctors had centuries to perfect techniques for mind control; their lives often depended on it in a society were human sacrifice was more the norm than the exception.

  “I can’t explain this anymore than I can expect you to believe what you saw. You just have to trust me when I tell you that all is not as it seems. The woman who just walked away is, or was, a descendant of Mayan shamans with a powerful ability to control what others think.”

  “Are you saying this didn’t really happen? It was our imagination?”

  “No, I’m saying that it doesn’t matter if it did or didn’t happen. We are selling the ranch, so let it go. You know how the mind works, son. You remember Iraq. Sometimes you have to let go of things that happen in order to maintain your own sense of reality.”

  I didn’t think James Lee would have a problem with the logic of that argument as a former behind-the-lines rogue sniper in Iraq, but I was worried about George. We both looked at him. I could tell he was scared to death.

  “George?” James Lee said.

  “Sure, whatever,” George responded but didn’t fool either one of us.

  He was white as a ghost and probably thinking about his future at Rice University going up in smoke. He also probably regretted ever involving himself with the Howard family. I put my arm around his shoulder.

  “George, it’s going to be okay. You have to trust me on this. That old woman is a trickster, a magician, and a caster of spells. The three of us know what happened and that’s the reality of it. Nobody else was here and so whatever we say won’t be real to them. Look around, do you see the bodies? We were under the influence of that woman and it was real to us. That’s all you can say about it.”

  “Listen to him,” James Lee said to George.

  That surprised the hell out of me because it was the complete opposite of anything that he had ever done growing up. However, I took it that I could now count on him and didn’t feel like we had to say anymore on the subject.

  “Hannah is doing some extra research for me on a new piece of the puzzle about the cistern. Let her finish and then I’ll explain everything else, as best I know it. I’ll call you in a couple of days. In the meantime, let the buyer know we’ll sell.”

  “It was just a casual conversation with the man. He could’ve changed his mind by now.”

  I nodded that it was okay. “I’ll be looking for a buyer on this end, too. George, are you going to be okay,” I said.

  James Lee put his arm around his half-brother. “Sure, he is.”

  I wasn’t so sure. I called Shane and watched George as he processed what had just happened.

  “Yeah, Max.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At the ranch house. We heard shooting. Is everything okay?”

  “Everything is fine. I need you to come and get James Lee and George at the bottom of the trail to the mesa. Then take them back to my ranch. Bring Hannah with you so she can ride one of the horses back to the corral.”

  “On the way,” he said.

  I smiled at George and took the reins of Sally. He was shaken, but like the kid brother he was to James Lee, he took his cues from James Lee as to how he should deal with what had just happened. He was doing his best to be cool about it.

  “You did good, son. The horses could have bolted and gone right over the edge of the mesa in a panic,” I said and patted him on the back.

  “Welcome to the Howard family,” James Lee said to him.

  Once we were mounted, I heard George say, “Max?” I turned and looked at him.

  “Tell me all of this was not my imagination,” George said.

  James Lee gave me a hard look that I remembered from his childhood. He was being protective and telling me to tread lightly with his half-brother. I smiled, adjusted my hat, and nodded at him to fall in behind me. He would have to resolve for himself if it was real or not.

  . . .

  On the ride down the trail, I listened to George recount to James Lee, what Shane had told him about our first encounter with the woman. James Lee was not the type of man to question the truthfulness of what George was telling him, especially in the face of what he had seen on top of the mesa. He would make up his own mind in due time. When we reached the spring-fed pool in the creek and let the horses drink, he still didn’t say anything in front of his brother, but I could tell James Lee was struggling to accept the idea of a woman cursed to wander the Texas Hill Country looking for a Mayan death mask.

  “We’ll talk again in a couple of days,” I said to him. He would’ve never
accepted that dismissal from me as a teenager without some argument, but as the man he was now after Iraq, he was willing to give me the benefit of any doubt he had about what had happened on top of the mesa. He had more wisdom than I did at his age.

  Hannah had ridden out with Shane. After Shane drove off with James Lee and George, Hannah and I lingered at the limestone pool.

  “Is it going to be a problem for you and Shane to make yourself scarce for a few days? Maybe a couple of weeks? The Mayan woman wasn’t too happy about me selling the ranch.”

  “I’m still living in San Antonio and Shane has his place in Bulverde. We’ll be okay.”

  “I don’t want either of you out here alone.”

  It was a quiet ride back to ranch house. Hannah must have sensed that I wasn’t in the mood to talk, so she took the reins of the extra horse and followed behind me and Sally without a word.

  I had to take the bull by the horns, I decided. I wasn’t sure, though, which horn of old Hidalgo to grab; Hidalgo being one of the longhorns on the family ranch and a metaphor for my dilemma. One the one hand, or horn, I had shot a woman in front of my two sons and they thought I had tried to kill another human being, no matter that she was going to kill me and possibly all of us. Then she got up and walked away. I didn’t know if they bought into the idea that what they’d collectively seen was in their imagination. On the other horn, or hand, there was no body, no evidence, and it gave credence to the story that she was merely a spirit of woman caught in a Mayan curse. So, the dilemma was: did I continue with the story that it was all in their imagination or did I tell them the truth that she was indeed the spirit of a woman and I had not really killed her, she was already dead.

  As we approached the ranch house, I no longer felt the anguish I had after shooting Magali. Aside from her getting up and walking away, shooting her was justified in my mind and I doubted anything would come of it. She had already killed one man and had threatened me. No judge in Texas would find fault with me defending myself against someone with a machete, if ever came to that. I didn’t think it would because there was the lack on any evidence that she even existed and my boys would never say anything.

  Nevertheless, my instincts told me this was about more than a mad Mayan woman or her ghost. I had the feeling that the jade Death Mask was more about things a simple man like me could never understand; much less appreciate in the grand scheme of things. Sell the property, I told myself, and get on with your life. You need to protect your family from anymore of this craziness. I didn’t have that many years left and things needed fixing before I moved on. There was: Elizabeth and Kevin; Sunny’s financial security; and, dear sweet Katie needed more of my time if she was going to turn out to be a woman of character. My mind reeled with all the things that needed looking after and then the Butterfly Pasture came to mind and it made me smile. It allowed me to put aside all that bothered me for the moment.

  .

  Chapter 20

  It was too far to drive to Austin and I didn’t want to talk to my attorney over the phone, so we compromised; we met at a BBQ joint in San Marcus near Texas State University. I stood outside the entrance and waited for him to arrive. The place was full of bikers.

  “Nice car,” I said as he stepped out of a new black Mercedes sedan.

  “It’s a present to myself for making partner.”

  “That means your fees have gone up, no doubt?”

  Sam didn’t say anything. He just flashed me a grin. As soon as we walked in the place, conversational noise dropped several decibels. The ambience and clientele had definitely changed since the last time I’d had the ribs here.

  “You think we should go somewhere else?”

  “Naw. Underneath the leather is just a bunch of good ol’ boys. They gotta eat like we do.”

  After we placed our order at the counter and we found a table, we went back to a separate area to get our tea and utensils. The place was definitely not pretending to be a full service restaurant. Sam was conspicuously over-dressed, but that was what I liked about Texas BBQ joints. We were all equals in front of a plate of good ribs.

  “I may have a buyer for the Pape Ranch.”

  “Hey, that’s great. If you need assistance in the sale, we have a good real estate team at the firm. I’m sure I can work a deal for you.”

  “I bet. I’ll keep you in mind,” I said, but doubted I would need the help. “I do need to know, though, if there will be any blowback from Constance Pickering when I sell the ranch. I don’t want her coming back at me saying I cheated her out on any discoveries of Spanish gold or antique artifacts. She’s greedy enough and spiteful enough to want some of the money from the sale of the property too.”

  “You’ll be okay. We set the LLC up so that she’s only entitled to a percentage of the monetary value of any treasure you find on the ranch that you put up for sale, not for the sale of the ranch property itself. By the way, Jonas Fiebrich has called the office twice wanting to talk to me. I haven’t returned his calls, yet. Do you know what he wants?”

  “No idea. I’m pretty sure he’s working with Constance Pickering, though. He knew about her translation of the Journal and I didn’t tell him about it.”

  They called our name and we went up to the serving counter and got our order. Once back at the table we ate pretty much in silence. Sam knew how I felt about small-talk and eating. I was about to dive into my banana pudding desert when he looked around for a no smoking sign. I pointed to the one behind him.

  “Anything special you want to talk about?”

  “Yeah. I want you to make sure that in the sale of the property Shane Wagnor can finish up the land restoration work and Hannah McCoy has access to the cistern site for her research. Will you look into that for me?”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. Did I tell you, I now have an assistant assigned to me?”

  “No, you didn’t. I guess that changes things. Now that you’re a partner in the firm, you’ll be too busy for me and I’ll have to break in some young kid fresh out of law school.”

  “Not at all. You’re my client, Max, you know that. I’m not going to hand you off to somebody else. Hell, representing you is what makes the practice of law interesting.”

  “And, profitable.”

  “Well, yeah, that too.”

  “Listen, the times is coming when I’m gonna tell you some things. It’s gonna be hard for you to accept, but you’re going to have to take me at my word in order for you to represent the interest of the Howard Family.”

  “That sounds serious. What’d you do?”

  I guess my resentment at his accusation was obvious.

  “I need to know the details, Max,” he said in his defense.

  “No, you don’t. What I need is to make sure you represent the Howard Family and its Trust, not just me.”

  “Okay, sure. I can formalize that relationship. I’ll send you the papers to sign. What’s this about?”

  “I’ll fill you in, soon. Just get it done. Also, I want to give my son, James Lee Howard, Power of Attorney, in the event of my death. And, thanks for lunch, I’ll get the tip.”

  “What tip? It’s self-service.”

  . . .

  There was an old, but well-maintained black Lincoln Town Car parked at the Meeting Center when I got home. That was a good sign, I thought, as I passed the Center on the road to my house. Emily was probably signing up some new business. Our house wasn’t that far from the Meeting Center as the crow flies, but the road to the house followed the contours of the rolling pastures and I soon lost sight of the Center. I heard a car coming up behind me, though, after a few seconds and I took my foot off the accelerator and slowed. When they started honking at me I slammed on the brakes and got out of the truck. I took offense at someone honking their horn at me on my own property. I had plans to give him a good what-for as I stepped down from the truck.

  The young man driving the car got out and stood at the open door. He was dressed in a black short-sleeve s
hirt and white collar.

  “Mr. Howard?” he said.

  “That’s me. Who do you are. honking at me like that?”

  “Bishop McCrory would like a word with you, please,” the young man said apologetically.

  As I approached the car, he opened the back door on the driver’s side.

  “And you are?” I asked.

  ‘I am Father Eduardo Alvarado. His Excellency, Henry McCrory, Bishop for the San Antonio Diocese is inside.”

  I looked inside the car and saw a man talking on his cell phone. He nodded at me as he spoke and motioned with his free hand to get in the car. I stood up straight, instead, and shook my head, no; I had no desire to get inside with him. Bishop or no Bishop, the man didn’t have enough manners to suit me.

  “Go on up to the house, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “We’ll follow you.”

  “I doubt that,” I said and started toward my truck before he could say anything. I knew I’d have hell to pay with Sunny for their sudden appearance at the house, but I suspected Emily had already called Sunny and given her a heads up. I made a wide one-eighty in the pasture and headed for Clete’s place to hide out until the visitors had left. Catholic clergy unsettled my stomach as much a Mayan ghost did.

  Both required a leap of faith on my part to support their existential belief in life beyond death. After the incident on top of the mesa, I was pretty much still in mid-air in my leap.

  I cut across the open pasture so he wouldn’t follow me. I paused on a slight rise and watched Sunny and Ariana come outside the house and greet the visitors. Ariana, in particular, seemed excited and hugged the young priest. Before they moved inside I saw Emily’s car come barreling over a rise and drive up to the house. They all turned to look in my direction and then they went inside.

  I figured the Bishop had uncovered my file from grade school archives at St. Paul’s Catholic School in New Haven and it was time to be held accountable for all the aggravation I had given the nuns. Or maybe, I realized, once I got serious, it had to do with the Spanish cistern on the Pape Ranch. The question was how in the hell had the Catholic Church found out about it?