Follow the Crow

by B. B. Griffith

  You have to get him to come to ABQ. You have to try.

  I flip my car around and bounce over the median, kicking up dust and wincing when I hear the scrape of metal on rock, but I don’t care. I’m going back to him, and this time I’m not leaving without him. I turn up the radio to drown out my mind, but I still second-guess myself sick. Nothing is harder than treating a patient who doesn’t want to be treated. I’ve seen that look before, that black look that settled over him. It’s a look of pure despair that lives on the cancer floor, and you have to constantly chase it away or else it’ll find a home in you. But I’ve also felt that tug before. That small tug that he gave me when he thought I was leaving. If you’re completely gone, you don’t tug like that. He has it in him to fight. If he’s given up, I just gotta make him un-give up. That’s all.

  But when I get back to the hotel, he’s gone anyway. And so is his mother. Or she’s not answering the door. Either way, nothing stirs behind the shabby curtains when I slam the knocker down again and again until someone down the row screams at me to shut up.

  I go back down and sit in my car in the dark and try to think. I check the clock. It’s been a little under two hours since his chemo. He’ll be feeling like warmed over crap right about now. There is no reason he shouldn’t be on the couch or in a bed trying to sleep off nausea. It takes a lot to get a chemo patient to move. Last time it took the FBI and Joey Flatwood. This time it’s gotta be something as serious as that. He looked terrified today, but there was also a cold fury deep within him, like a frozen black soup boiling at the edges of the pot. It had to have been because of what he saw at the house. That sort of scene would shock anyone, but it was more. He saw something else there. Something that he needs to deal with.

  I take a deep breath and let it out, and it fogs the inside of my windshield. I grip the steering wheel. I know where he is, but I want to go back to that house about as much as I want this damn bell hanging around my neck.

  It doesn’t help that it’s as dark as a pit around Chaco at night. On the side streets like the one where Ben lives (or used to live, anyway) the lighting is spaced way out. A lot of the streetlights are in disrepair, if they’re there at all. There are bright orange cones of light every couple of blocks, but that only serves to make the homes in between darker than ever. His is the darkest of all.

  It looks like everything that was once good about the Dejooli home has fled this place, and the bad that is left is seeping out from underneath. The other side of the duplex is black, too. As is the neighbor’s house across the street, and the one kitty-corner as well. It makes sense, since the Navajo really hate death and the places where things die, but it gives me the impression that Ben’s place is slowly infecting everything around it. I check every angle before getting out of my car and make a lame attempt at protecting myself by gripping my keys so they extend between my fingers like cat’s claws. Lot of good that would do me. Probably just make me lose my keys before getting mugged.

  My footsteps on the concrete are the loudest thing around. I take to creeping, and if someone were to glance outside they might think I was the one out for trouble, but nobody looks. There’s nobody here at all, that I can see. But I feel Ben. I can feel his coloring like a whiff of smoke on the wind, and he’s terribly weak.

  The house is boarded up and locked and taped over. I won’t be getting inside through the front door, so I walk around, slowly. I keep my eyes on the sky for birds, and I strain my ears for any sound as I cut through an alley that leads through to the back yard. The gate there is open, and I pause. That’s when I hear the retching. It’s quiet, like he’s trying to muffle it, but in this silence it’s still clear enough.

  I peek around the corner and see Ben on his hands and knees in the backyard near where his father died. His whole body tenses with the retches and the effort to keep them quiet. Then, a moment later, he collapses on his side and spits and makes this soft mewl that rips me to pieces. I have to pull back behind the house and sit with my head against the side and scrunch up my face not to lose it. I’m supposed to be helping him. There’s no excuse for this right now, not even a breaking heart. I stand and smooth my shirt and then walk out back. Ben is still on his side and doesn’t seem to hear my approach.

  “Ben?” I ask quietly. He tenses and turns his head to me, but he’s like a lamed animal. He can’t quite turn the rest of his body.

  “Ben, it’s me. It’s Caroline.”

  A faint trickle of the beautiful, rich red comes back to him. I rush over, get down on my knees next to him, and brush his stringy hair from his watery, bloodshot eyes. The floodlight kicks on, and I can see just how bad he’s become. His neck and head jut out like a turtle’s from his hollowing body. He has vomit on his uniform.

  “Caroline. What are you doing here? You can’t be here,” he says, but he holds on to my arm for dear life.

  “Me? What are you doing here?”

  “This is my home.”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit. You need to be inside, warm, comfortable. With liquids and anti-nausea meds and ice cream and a terrible midnight movie playing in the background.” Is that a hint of a smile? Maybe. I hope so.

  “This one’s pretty bad. Worse than the first one. I think I’m gonna stop this chemo stuff.”

  “No you’re not. If you do, you’ll die,” I say, and I barely manage to keep my voice from clipping high at the end.

  “Eh,” he says. “I’m going to die anyway.” He says this like he might say it’s dark out tonight. “I think we both know that. It’s just killing what time I have left. Which isn’t much.”

  “We could try other regimens,” I say. “Maybe…maybe you—” but he quiets me with a soft squeeze.

  “Maybe nothing. I can feel it. And so can you. But I have to do something first. Here. And you need to go.”

  “No, Ben—”

  “Yes. It’s not safe for you. The people that I love get hurt, Caroline. Do you understand me? This thing begins and ends with me. Once I’m out of the way, it’ll leave you alone.”

  Oh, I understand all right. I understand that I think that he might have said, in some roundabout, guy-like, obscure Navajo way, that he loves me. If I could see myself, I’d be leaking gold, darkness and death be damned. Talk about food for thought at three a.m. I’ll be chewing on this one for years.

  “Caroline? Do you understand? You have to go. He’ll be here soon.”

  I shake my head again, and he tries to interject, but I stop him by putting my face right in front of his. “No, Ben. This didn’t begin with you. And it won’t end with you either. Whatever is happening here, it’s an old thing. Very old. And it’s bigger than you and me.”

  Ben tries to shake his head. “He’s got Gam’s crow, but I got something of his. Something that is important to him. Something he wants back,” Ben says, and he holds out an old beaded lanyard of some sort. I don’t quite understand him, but there’s no time to hash it out.

  “Yeah well, I got something else important,” I say, and my hand touches the cold metal resting on my chest. “And I need to talk to you about it—”

  But that’s when we hear the sound.

  It’s a strange whistling. Low, and in pockets, like the sound of a staff being waved through the air, followed by a small pop, like a ball hitting a glove. It’s out on the street first, and then closer: whistle, pop. Whistle, pop. Then, impossibly, it’s inside the house, without a door opening or closing. Both of us can hear it, low and muffled, but there.

  Whistle, pop. Whistle, pop.

  Moving from room to room. There’s a haphazard crash then, and some rough shoving of furniture from Ben’s grandmother’s room. We can hear it loud and clear from the backyard because her broken window looks out on us.

  We can see it, too. Or him, rather. A massive dark shape straightens and turns towards the window, and two black glints of eyes blink once then stare solidly at us. There is a flash of teeth, either a smile or a snarl.

  “Too lat
e,” Ben says and shuffles back to sitting. His hand goes to his gun and there is one more whistle, pop. Then he’s there in front of us. Like he stepped out of the air itself.

  “Hello, Danny,” Ben says.

  Danny’s a massive Indian in full war paint, his face dyed red from his forehead down to below his eyes, and his long hair is straight and as smooth as black water. He is shirtless despite the cold, but he steams like a bull, and all along his arms are spots and whorls of paint. He wears buckskin chaps and has bare feet, and in his hand is a knife the size of my forearm. It flashes in the moonlight as he adjusts his grip on it.

  “Ben,” he grunts. As if he ran across us at the supermarket. His face is as telling as stone.

  “Forget something?” Ben asks.

  Danny nods slowly. Ben holds out a leather string of beads. Danny looks at it and laughs. It’s a great, booming laugh. One that I can tell is seldom used, since it sets Ben on edge as much as it does me.

  “No. Not that. I no longer concern myself with trinkets of this realm. They mean nothing to me.”

  “What?”

  “Where did they put out your grandmother, Ben?” Danny asks, his voice quiet.

  Whistle, pop, and then he’s there in front of Ben. He shoves me aside with as much care as he would a curtain of beads. He grabs Ben, heedless of the gun, and pulls him up to his face, his feet dangling in the air. Ben’s eyes are wide with shock. Danny’s so close now that I can see that what I took for spotted markings are actually scabbed tears and claw marks. I remember the dead crow. The crow that didn’t go quietly.

  “I have no time for this, Ben. It calls to me. It is near. I must have it. I believe your grandmother was the Keeper. I must know where they put her out for the cliff burial. Perhaps the crows took it from her body.” His eyes are full of madness, brimming in the darkness. He never raises his voice, but he speaks each word carefully and each one drips with malice.

  And then Ben spits in his face. “Fuck you. You’re insane. You killed her, and my dad, and now you want to desecrate her burial? You stole her totem, Danny,” Ben says. He pulls his gun up and places it between them, right at Danny’s gut. “But now you’re gonna give it back.”

  Danny looks down at the gun with mild interest.

  “Always fighting. A rookie, but a fighter nonetheless. You would have made the circle stronger. But you are dying, so you are worthless to me. Your grandmother was strong, too. She fought, too, but she was old. No longer fit to be the Keeper. Your father was a loose end. Always at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  He ticks each of them off like he’s reading a grocery list.

  “The gambler was unfit. Flatwood is too,” he says.

  Ben peers into his eyes with growing horror, looking for any light, but he can see as well as I can that there is none there. “You killed all of them,” he says.

  “Not Flatwood. Not yet. But I did convince you to banish him while I continued my search for the bell. He’s an industrious rat, though, and he found a totem despite his banishment. But I will find him and take it. Then I will have three. Triple the power. Better to find the bell. It took me years to find my first totem with the gambler, and then your grandmother’s dropped in my lap at the Evilway. Things are moving faster. More becomes clear to me every day.”

  “But why? Why?” Ben asks, and his color fades, guttering.

  “We are the first people, Ben. And we will be the last. A Navajo must be the Keeper of the Bell. A worthy Navajo. Strong in the old ways. Not an old crone, or a hopeless addict, or worthless trailer trash like your friend Flatwood. Me. It must be me.” His voice is a fervent whisper now. Like a muttered chant.

  “Go to hell, Ninepoint,” Ben says. And then he fires his gun.

  Whoosh, pop. Danny flicks in and out of existence at the same time. Ben drops heavily to the ground, and a moment later Danny is standing just as he was, unscathed. He looks down upon Ben and narrows his eyes.

  “You would have killed me?” he says, and his tone is tinged with surprise. “You? You would have killed me?”

  Ben looks blankly at his gun, then up at Danny. He swallows and tries to kick away, but Danny is there, grabbing him by the lapel and jerking him up to standing.

  “Fool. I have two crows. I am untouchable. And now I must kill you,” he says. “It is only fitting. In the end, I’m just bringing about the inevitable.”

  It all happened so quickly—in the span of half a minute. The gunshot is still ringing in my ears, and everything around me, the very black of the night itself, seems to sway and hitch. I wonder if I’m having a panic attack or passing out, but when Danny Ninepoint grabs Ben, everything snaps back into focus. I throw myself at Danny. I don’t care how big he is. I don’t care how strong. I don’t give a shit who this man is, or about the crow totems or even about the bell. All I know is that nobody should speak to Ben like that. That condescending “you,” as if he were less than human. Nobody should speak to anybody like that, but especially not to Ben, a guy who is ripping precious days from the jaws of death itself just to set things right, a man who cares nothing for himself and everything for those around him. That is the type of man who deserves the most respect. Buckets full of respect. Not a fucking “you?”

  I catch his knife hand on the windup. He wants to slash across Ben’s throat, but I grip him by his arm like I’m climbing a tree, and he hitches mid-swipe. I pull down his arm and try for the knife. I manage to turn it in his hand a bit and yank it free. I feel a quick, cold pain across my palm, then a terrible running warmth. The knife falls to the ground. He goes for it, but I grab at his face, flinging blood, dark and glittering in the moonlight, all over him, and press my bloody palm into his eyes.

  “You bitch!” he says, and he backhands me. I stagger back. I feel like I took a frying pan to the head.

  “Unclean,” he says, wiping at his face. He mutters more, but I can’t hear him. My head feels like someone poured boiling water over it. My hearing is wavering, and my face stings like fire. He picks up his knife again and wipes my blood off on his chaps. “I’ll deal with you afterwards,” he says, then turns back to Ben and points a finger at him as if Ben were a child. “You should have come alone.” He steps towards him. Ben is watching me with blank shock, his hand loose around his gun. He sits like a worn teddy bear: slouched, tipping. Danny grabs Ben’s hair and grimaces when a tuft of it comes off in his hand. Ben looks up at him. Then beyond him. Danny pauses.

  That’s when I hear it too. It’s a tittering sound. And the wavering in my vision is back, but this time it’s not from any slap to the face. The entire night is moving.

  “What’s that?” Danny asks.

  Ben’s blank stare falls slowly back into focus. Then it’s Ben’s turn to smile.

  “You’re wrong, Danny.”

  Danny’s face shows a crack of fear. Faint, but there. He looks around himself as if he’s lost. He can hear it, too.

  “What…what are you doing? What are you saying?”

  “I said you’re wrong.”

  “Why?” Danny asks, looking all around to pinpoint the source of the sound we’re hearing, but it’s no use. It’s the night itself, oozing black.

  “Because I was never alone.”

  There’s a brief stillness then, an expectant hush when I can hear everyone breathing. Then, from out of the darkness, three sharp calls of a crow, and then the night explodes around us.

  I didn’t see any birds because there was nothing to see but birds. Crows everywhere. They painted the roofs and weighed down the trees. They bowed the wires and covered the fence lines. They’d sat still as stone upon the grass and the dirt, watching the three of us until that very moment, and then every single one of them flew right at Danny Ninepoint.

  He’s there one moment, and then he’s not. But this time he doesn’t disappear. The crows won’t let him. They cover him like tar, raking at him and slashing and tearing, and only his screams can be heard. Then even his screams succumb to the rush of
feathers, a sound like the shaking of a forest in the wind. I hide my head, I scream, I scramble to Ben. He holds me, and I bury my head in his arms as the black vortex rages around us.

  And then it’s gone.

  When I look up, there is nothing but blood on the grass and feathers floating in the air. And there, on the ground where Danny had stood, are two small stone crows. One that had belonged to the gambler, and one that had belonged to Ben’s grandmother. We watch in stunned silence as one black feather floats to the ground in front of our faces.

  I turned to Ben. I want to kiss him. To tell him he’s saved us, somehow, by calling down the night. He’s figured it all out. I am in his arms. This is the perfect time for a kiss. This is textbook. This is it. If it’s ever going to happen, it’s going to happen now.

  But Ben is crying. He is in a ball sobbing quietly to himself on my shoulder and saying their names over and over again. All of them: Gam, Dad, Ana, Joey, and yes, even Danny. All of them. So instead I just turn towards him and hold him.

  And that’s when the agents come.

  They walk slowly into the floodlight, one after the other, stirring tufts of feathers with each step. They have eyes only for the crow totems. Each snatches one with greedy abandon, their eyes glimmering. As they touch the totems with their bare hands, they flicker a bit in and out of focus, and terrible grins spread across their faces. I’m beginning to think they don’t know that we’re here, but then Parsons speaks.

  “Thank you, Mr. Dejooli,” he says. “We’ll take it from here.”

  Then both of them blink out of existence.