Owl Dreams

by John T. Biggs

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  The pulsations at the back of Sarah’s head might be the prelude to a headache, but for the moment it was more like sound than pain.

  Raindrops falling on a canopy of leaves. Restrained applause after Tiger Woods sinks a twenty-foot putt at Pebble Beach. Bird wings pushing through the dense black air of a summer night.

  Yes, that was it. Night fliers looking for an easy kill. She opened her eyes, thinking she would see the birds as they passed overhead, but the only thing she saw was the full moon floating much closer than it should have been. The dead world circling the earth was the home of Diana, Goddess of the Hunt. She presided over the fickle hearts of lovers, the level of the seas, female cycles of fertility, and the transformation of men into monsters.

  “Even a man who is pure at heart . . . .” Sarah could almost hear her mother reciting a poem from The Werewolf—the old black and white movie starring Lon Chaney Jr. According to Marie, it embodied everything a girl needed to know about men.

  Members of the rugged sex were cunning and dangerous and eminently desirable. Fortunately for women, they were cursed with simple minds.

  As Sarah’s eyes adjusted to the moonlight, she noticed that the face on the moon wore lipstick. Galia 03 Rosy Nude. How had she missed seeing that before? The moon’s mouth opened slightly and the pink tip of a tongue traced the outline of those cosmetically enhanced lips.

  The moon’s eyes blinked. Could that be mascara?

  “It’s called the ‘smoky eye,’ dear.” Sarah wasn’t surprised to hear the moon speak with Marie’s voice. “A girl has to look her best even when she’s running for her life.”

  “Mother?”

  “You know I hate that name, Sarah. It makes me feel old and . . . old.”

  “What are you doing here?”

 

  “I might ask you the same question.” The eyes blinked. The mountains and craters of the moon were highlighted with almost undetectable tints of Guerlain Terracotta Bronzing powder. Marie’s face emerged on the surface of the barren world like a figure in a Gestalt illusion. It had been there all along, but remained invisible until the pattern asserted itself on the mind’s eye. Then it would never go away.

  “I suppose everyone has to be somewhere,” Sarah said.

  “Exactly right. Now where is that young man of yours?”

  A circle of birds flew around the moon, transforming Marie Ferraro’s face into a surrealistic icon, the sort of image that might decorate the walls of a Christian Orthodox Church designed by Salvador Dali. It was then Sarah knew she was dreaming.

  Owl Dreams. Where had she heard those words before?

  “Wake up, Sarah.” Marie was no longer a disembodied head with a halo of night flyers. She had a body now. Marie had arms, and they were shaking Sarah, rousing her from her mushroom-dust-induced anesthesia.

  “We have to get out of here before Doctor Moon finds us.”

  Sarah lay on a bed of leaves under a makeshift lean-to made of saplings and creeper. Her mouth tasted of stomach acid and nightmares. A thin film of oil coated her face.

  “Is it morning?” The dredges of a night’s metabolism had settled in Sarah’s lungs and added a smoker’s rasp to her voice.

  Marie didn’t have to answer her question. She could tell the time of day from the quality of the light that found its way through the wilting leaves of her shelter. Time had slipped past her without punching in or out on her biological timeclock. Hours had gone missing, hiding in the past where they could never be recovered.

  Marie gave Sarah a sip of water from a plastic bottle. “We don’t have much time, Sarah. Everyone else is ready to go.”

  “Everyone else?”

  The female thug who had held Sarah and Robert at gunpoint took her place beside Marie. She introduced herself as Thelma McCurtain, but told Sarah that everyone just called her Sissy.

  “Sorry for the misunderstandin’.” Sissy McCurtain handed Sarah an opened tin of Spam and a bag of barbecue-flavored Fritos.

  Sarah took the peace offering gladly. The salt would chase away her morning breath while the carbohydrates and lipids replaced those used up detoxifying the mushroom dust.

  Sarah had never met a Native American with a name like Sissy. The woman looked like one of the deranged hillbillies who routinely represent Oklahoma and Arkansas on nationally syndicated daytime talk shows. But when Sissy McCurtain wasn’t holding her shotgun in the murder-ready position, she displayed Indian behavioral traits Sarah encountered all over Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona.

  Sissy didn’t make eye contact.

  Unless she’s taking aim.

  She was soft spoken.

  Unless she’s making threats.

  She didn’t talk much.

  Unless she’s talking about her family.

  Sissy gave Sarah a quick breakdown of her lineage—something Native Americans often did within minutes of an introduction.

  “Momma was a Maytubby. Married a McCurtain back in the Seventies.”

  Hashilli had been a notorious relative her mother’s family had been trying to live down ever since he disappeared many years ago.

  “Caused quite a strain in both families when we heard the witch had come back home.” The Maytubbys had hoped they were rid of him for good.

  “Then he up and brings a woman to the cabin,” Sissy said. “Then other folks start comin’ around. It was only natural we thought you was the enemy.”

  The Maytubbys took turns guarding the property, mostly without a plan. They wouldn’t confront Hashilli. He was a relative and a man of power.

  “Might shoot his friends, though,” Sissy said. “Keep him from gettin’ set up here all over again.” There was only so much trouble one man could cause. The Maytubbys might be able to cope with a dangerous cousin, but when strangers got into the act, it was time for the family to take action.

  Sarah finished off her canned meat, chips, and bottled water. She was still thirsty, but the only liquid available was half a twelve-ounce bottle of Diet Sprite. She took a couple of short, gassy swallows, made a face, and then crawled out of the lean-to.

  Robert helped her to her feet. He had a bruise on his forehead the shape of a shotgun stock, but gusts of wind were blowing his hair into disarray, washing his mind clean of troubled thoughts. He smiled when Sarah explored his injury with tentative fingers. He didn’t recoil when she kissed it, in spite of her bad breath.

  “Sorry for the trouble.” Sissy said. “Best to leave quick. My car ain’t far, and there’s no telling when he might come lookin.’” She’d leaned her antique shotgun against a blackjack tree. She picked it up carefully and held it at arm’s length.

  “Somebody else might want to carry this. If it makes you nervous.” Sissy looked to Marie for an answer. Marie was the one who had found her lying unconscious in the woods. Marie was the one who had escaped from the witch and brought provisions. If Marie had a plan for driving the witch off Maytubby land, Sissy would pay close attention.

  “Anything you say,” Sissy told Marie, “It’s got my OK.”

  Marie made her command decision. “You carry the shotgun. Everyone else is afraid of it. Now we need to get out of here before Hashilli shows up.”

  Sissy winced when Marie spoke her cousin’s name. “Sometimes bad things come when you call them,” she said. “Best not write the devil’s name on the wall.”

  “Understood,” said Marie. “Now we have to go find Archie, although I was pretty certain it would be the other way around.”

  Sissy set off through the forest as if she had a plan. The others, who clearly had none, followed close behind.

  Sarah filled Marie in while they walked. “Archie’s at Bob’s Lake Country Motel. He and Big Shorty have attracted a lot of attention. It’s best if they stay out of sight for a while.”

  “Big Shorty. I had an old boyfriend who called his penis that.” Marie liked oxymorons. “Now then, I am clearly confused. Is this Big Shorty a real person?
I find it simply impossible to believe.”

  “He’s real enough,” said Sarah. “Your wits have a particularly keen edge this morning.” She’d seen Marie move through states of unbridled optimism and boundless energy before, but this was not simply the manic phase of her bipolar condition. She was genuinely happy, naturally alert, and mentally competent—under the worst possible circumstances. Robert had found a “cure” for his wind voices in Hashilli’s mushroom powder. Had the Choctaw witch given something to Marie?

  “Not Hashilli.” Marie looked apologetically in Sissy’s direction and promised to avoid the witch’s name in the future. “Archie is the one who cured me, at least for the time being. Sissy knows all about it. Knew it from the first second we met.”

  “It’s nature’s way is all.” Sissy stopped the party’s conversation as well as their march through the woods with an upraised hand. She pulled back the hammers on her shotgun and held it in position for a hip shot. She pushed through the branches of a red cedar and surveyed a clearing where her 1988 Plymouth Reliant was partially concealed by tall grass and saplings. Solar deterioration of the formally green paint and randomly spaced dents and rust spots made the car blend into the background like a soldier wearing camouflage.

  Nature’s way is all.

  Sissy took up a guard position between the headlights of the rusting Chrysler K car and motioned for the rest of her party to follow. Marie sat in the front passenger seat, the place of honor. Robert sat behind her.

  Sissy scooted in behind the steering wheel and handed the shotgun to Sarah, who was assigned the Sergeant at Arms position beside Robert and behind the driver.

  Several gallon-milk-carton-size boxes were scattered over the back seat of the vehicle. Sarah pushed them aside, looking for a seat belt as Sissy drove the automobile along an escape route that only she could see. One of the boxes tipped over, spilling several dozen round lead pellets onto the seat and floorboard.

  Sarah picked one up. Smaller than a marble but not by much.

  “Damn, what are these things?”

  “Double ought buckshot,” Sissy told her. “I reload my own shotgun shells.” There was also a box of brass-tipped red plastic tubes, a can of smokeless powder, and a container of primer caps. Sissy didn’t bother with store-bought wadding.

  “I make my own,” she said. “My Old Papa’s underpants is good for that. Old Mama give them to me when he passed.”

  With one final tooth-rattling jolt, they were on the road, headed for Bob’s Lake Country Motel. Sissy knew the way; Bob was her second cousin twice removed.

  Sarah didn’t understand the intricacies of extended family relationships.

  Sissy explained, “Not exactly a Maytubby. Not a McCurtain neither. Old Papa would have called him an asshole cousin.” She made a point of concentrating on the complexities of forest navigation. Sarah could see in the rearview mirror that Sissy McCurtain’s face was turning red.

  “Sorry for the dirty talk,” Sissy said. “Hope you’ll pardon my French.”

  “Ça n'est pas grave!” Everyone inside the Plymouth Reliant waited quietly for Sarah’s translation.

  “It means, I pardon your French.” One of the few phrases she retained from the University of New Mexico’s foreign language requirement. Very useful, along with, bonne chance, je ne comprends pas, and où sont les toilettes? Before that moment, she had never fully appreciated the value of a liberal arts education.