by Sarah Dreher
Hard Rock or Pikyachvi, what was hidden inside that pile of sandstone and caves would give him Power. If not actual sorcerer-power, there were plenty of superstitious 'skins around who would be so afraid of him they'd piss their pants at the sound of his name. And who'd stab each other in the back for the honor of keeping him supplied with silver and turquoise jewelry and handwoven rugs. Shit, he'd have them heathens turning it out so fast they'd be afraid to sleep nights for fear Hosteen Begay'd catch them napping and steal their souls. Give him a year, he'd have it nailed down so none of the local 'skins would deal with anyone but Mr. Hosteen Larch Begay. Then watch the money come his way.
And if the bundle brought real Power... well, Mr. Larch Begay wasn't beyond thinking Big.
But he had to find it first. He couldn't fake that. They'd know. Sometimes it gave him the willies, the things they knew.
He knew a few things, too, children. He knew that the white broad from the east was working with the old Hopi.
He knew she'd be along pretty soon now, looking for her girlfriend.
He knew neither of those white bitches would leave here alive.
* * *
The figure on the top of the mesa turned and ran. She had to find cover.
The arroyo tempted her, in spite of the danger. It was, simply, the only place to hide between here and the mesa. Even at that it was tricky, the banks eroded to a height of no more than a foot at times. Still, it was better than walking up to the place fully exposed. All she needed to attract even more attention was a brass band.
She slipped down the bank and pressed close to the sides. Crouching, she eased forward, and risked a peek over the edge of the ground. Now there were two figures on the mesa, a sure indication she had been seen. And she was rapidly reaching the limits of her protection. Time for a little thinking and planning.
She found a niche in the bank just large enough to let her disappear from sight, and pressed into it.
The important thing right now was to take the offensive. Begay had the advantage of strength—which was a pretty big advantage, as any woman in an abusive heterosexual relationship could tell you. It was also safe to assume he was armed.
She, on the other hand, was smaller, quicker, and—she hoped—smarter. And she had the advantage of Right, if not Might, on her side. Which seemed to count for very little in today's world.
She knew where Begay was, and he probably knew she had arrived. So they were even on the surprise factor.
Normally, the wise thing to do would be to wait for darkness. But Begay was a Coyote-man, and his animal vision would spot her before she saw him. Or his Coyote ears would hear her. Or his Coyote nose would smell her. Or he would pick up her presence on his animal radar. Darkness definitely gave the advantage to the Coyote-man.
So the man could see her in daylight, the Coyote at night. Which left her with twilight, a confusing time for both humans and animals.
And which, out here, at this time of year, with no moisture in the air to hold the light, lasted about as long as a heartbeat.
Certainly not long enough to cover that open, flat half-mile-at-least between here and there.
She rested against the crumbly stream bank and invited the Spirits to drop a few ideas into the suggestion box in her head. The Spirits, apparently reluctant to intrude on her Personal Space, maintained an eloquent silence.
Well, that's how it is with Spirits. What they do best is set up interesting little problems and sit back to watch us mortals bumble through. "Hah! Let's see you get out of this one, Oedipus!"
She was thirsty. Very thirsty. Her tongue felt swollen with thirst, her lips cracked and parched. The sun pulled water from her, drying her skin to brittleness. She was almost afraid to move, for fear she would crumble like an autumn leaf.
Look, she told herself firmly, the only way you're going to get water is to whistle up a cloudburst, and that would be more water than you're prepared to handle. So you can't have water. You also can't have a car, a steak dinner, a good book, or a movie. What you can have, however, is patience. So let us concentrate on that. Let us get into Being Here Now. She closed her eyes and felt the warm sand around her.
Her ears picked up the slack. She could hear a pebble fall from the edge of the bank, the tick of a desert insect, the faint sigh of air moving past a blade of grass.
And the sound of footsteps!
Two pairs of footsteps.
Coming her way.
She pressed against the earth wall and held her breath. But there was no way they could miss her. Not if they checked out the stream bed. And since they were looking for her and not taking a Sunday stroll, they would certainly check out the stream bed.
She thought about the cloud trick. She wished she'd practiced it more. But a cloud? Here in the middle of the desert? It would be as eye-catching as a Christmas tree in July.
The footsteps drew closer.
Stopped.
She waited.
The intruders were silent, as if trying to sense where she was. Maybe hesitating in case she was armed.
The silence grew longer.
She wanted to scream.
They came closer. She could hear breathing.
Seconds passed.
A klaxon siren split the air and sent adrenalin exploding through her body.
Something touched the top of her head and tugged gently at her hair.
She looked up.
The donkey blew air at her through its big oval nostrils.
Stoner laughed in spite of her fright. "Boy, am I glad to see you."
The animal backed away and gazed around nonchalantly, then bent its neck and began to pull up tufts of dried grass.
Okay, things are looking up. She could use him for cover. As soon as twilight closed in, she could crouch beside him and make her way up to the mesa. It might even mask her smell.
The trouble was, the burro was moving away from her, grazing upstream. "Hey," she whispered, "don't go. I need you."
It twitched its ears as if it understood and kept on walking and grazing.
Something told her it wanted her to follow.
All right, she thought with a sigh of resignation, crazy time again… She got slowly, carefully to her feet and crept after him.
When the cave entrance was but of sight, the burro tossed its head, telling her to climb out of the dry wash. She scrambled up the bank.
The setting sun touched the highest peak of the Sacred mountains as the donkey turned north on a path that would take them around the mesa.
She decided to let it lead, and ran to catch up.
"Listen," she said, "I know this is a crisis, but I've been wandering around out here all day following a crow..."
The burro looked at her sympathetically, as if it understood all too well how difficult crows can make your life.
"I'm awfully tired, to say nothing of thirsty, so could we slow the pace a little?"
It turned and nudged her with its side, inviting her to get up.
She thought about it. It wouldn't be like riding a horse, after all. The burro wasn't ten feet tall like most horses. And probably not particularly fast. Certainly not mean-tempered. Burro was just a soft little chunky thing with round brown eyes and a gentle spirit.
On the other hand, friend Burro was awfully small.
"Thanks, anyway," she said, slipping one arm across the donkey's back. "I'll just lean."
As they walked... and walked... and climbed... and walked and climbed some more… it occurred to her that it would be pitch black by the time they reached the cave. And Siyamtiwa had not thoughtfully provided a flashlight, or taught her how to light a stick without matches. She opened her medicine bag and probed inside with one finger. Corn meal, turquoise stone, bit of bone, feather. Nothing to make light.
All right.
She supposed she could wait until morning.
On the other hand, inside a cave it didn't matter if it was night or day.
Burro veered to the left,
toward a pile of rocks lodged in a hillside. She caught a glint of lavender, and realized it was a reflection of the evening sky. A reflection in water.
A tiny spring bubbled from the ground, waist high, the water momentarily trapped in a shallow depression in a rock—a natural catch basin—before it spilled onto the sand and trickled away. Prayer sticks, brightly painted and decorated with eagle down, surrounded the pool of water.
A shrine. She hesitated, then remembered Siyamtiwa's words. "Everything's sacred."
Burro waited as she knelt and drank from the spring. The water was cool and bright, and tasted a little like the tea Siyamtiwa had been serving her. Probably some dissolved mineral. Whatever it was, it made her senses come alive, her body feel rested and alert, her mind clear.
She offered up a prayer of thanks to the Water People.
By the time they reached the top of the mesa, there was nothing left of the day but cardboard cut-out silhouettes of mountains against a thin mauve line of sky. The mesa top was studded with clumps of rabbit brush, stunted juniper, and mesquite. Burro seemed quite pleased, and immediately began to graze.
Stoner looked around. He wouldn't bring her here on a whim. There must be something she was supposed to find.
They were above the mouth of the cave now, above the spot where Larch Begay searched the desert through binoculars and thought about switching to his Coyote senses. She could see him, many yards below. Possible to slip up on him from behind, but there was no path to take her down, and the drop was sheer. She'd never make it without attracting attention, if she made it at all.
She sat on the ground and chewed her lip. She knew there must be an answer here, if she could only...
A rear entrance into the mesa!
Of course. That made sense. That would be what Burro—who was certainly not an animal given to tricks and frivolity—wanted to show her.
She gazed around. It must be a very small opening. Or hidden. Hidden behind one of those coarse, tangled clumps of mesquite.
There were hundreds of them, and the light was going fast. It would be turning cold soon, the air...
Air! The air inside the cave would be a different temperature from the outside air. Cool air from inside the earth would flow outward, setting up drafts. So it should be possible to feel the cave entrance.
Except at the instant when the outside air had cooled to the temperature of the inside air.
Which was in serious danger of happening at any moment.
She got to her feet and went from bush to bush, feeling for drafts.
Darn. If it was there, it was too slight to feel.
Smoke would respond to even the faintest air current. But she had no way to make smoke.
But she did have a feather, a hawk feather in her medicine bag.
She took it out quickly, held it over each mesquite bush, and let it drop.
It floated to the ground, straight and true as a stone. Once, twice, three times.
On the fourth drop it wavered, then floated horizontally for a moment, and came to rest on the twisted stack of green mesquite.
She moved closer, reached into the bushes with one hand, and hoped there were no rattlesnakes taking the evening breeze on that particular spot.
A faint, cool draft caressed her fingers.
She had found the back door.
Now, Friend Begay, we'll see what is what.
The grin that was forming on her face died away. Assuming the entrance to the mesa was large enough for her to slip through, she now had to crawl, climb, or slither down into the ground, in total darkness. With no idea where she was going or whether she'd find the way out. With no guarantee the whole thing wouldn't fall in on her.
She'd never crawled into a tunnel in the earth before. For one simple reason...
She'd always been afraid of dark tunnels and underground caves. Freud could make whatever he liked of it, the fact of the matter was dark places under the earth made her breath stop and her heart pound, and liberated the more morbid elements of her imagination.
She didn't like the idea of doing this.
In all probability, she wouldn't even enjoy reading about it.
But she didn't have any choice.
Stars began to show in the eastern sky.
She started to dismantle the pile of mesquite. The bushes were intertwined and spiny. It was like trying to untangle barbed wire. And it was hard to see. By the time she had cleared an opening, her hands were covered with tiny, itching, burning punctures and her nerves were completely shredded.
She sat down to rest and try to pull herself together. As far as she could tell, the tunnel entrance was a narrow shaft, just large enough for her to slip through—lucky her. Whether it narrowed, and just how far it went, whether it sloped or dropped, whether it was empty or full of crawling things, she wouldn't know until she was in it.
The one thing she could tell was that it was very, very dark.
But it would soon be dark outside anyway. Dark is dark, right?
Wrong. There is night-in-the-open dark, with room to breathe and the stars all twinkly and friendly overhead. And there is cold, claustrophobic, chest-pressing, tons-of-earth-ready-to-fall-on-you, not-knowing-where-you’re-going-or-what's-going-to-meet-you-or-if-you'll-ever-get-out darkness. This is not the same commodity. This is definitely the Short Blue Corn Way.
Smoke drifted upward over the rim of the mesa. Wood smoke, smelling of meat. Dinner time below. It made her aware of her own hunger, which was considerable.
She took a moment to indulge in self-pity.
Voices. Begay, grumbling or complaining, angry and a little drunk. And the other... familiar... young. Jimmy Goodnight, of course. It didn't surprise her. Jimmy Goodnight was the kind of kid—not to bright, eager to please, easy to flatter—that was always taken advantage of by the big kids. Set up to do their dirty work, and to take the rap when they got caught. Anything to belong.
It did surprise her, though, that Jimmy Goodnight had been in on kidnapping Gwen. If he had been. He had seemed fond of her, in the shy awkward way most adolescent boys seemed to be attracted to her. Which Gwen said was a good thing, even though it was sometimes a pain in the neck. Because, if you don't generate some kind of emotion—be it fear or attraction—in adolescent males, they can make your classroom a living hell. The worst thing a teacher can do, Gwen said, is lose control of an adolescent male.
Stoner thought it applied to more than teachers.
So why was Jimmy Goodnight doing this? Or did he even know what was really going on? Maybe he didn't. Maybe what he had told her was all he knew, that Larch Begay was taking him to find a treasure.
That made Jimmy Goodnight a potential ally. But not one she really wanted to count on.
He had, after all, stolen the doll.
This is hardly the time to be obsessive, she told herself. Now the brightest planets burned cold holes in the western sky, and the constellations began to take shape around them.
Time to get going.
She felt among the mesquite bushes and found the opening again, all too easily. She went down on her knees and stuck her head and shoulders inside.
She fit, damn it, and barely.
She took one last look back at her friend Burro.
He bobbed his head in a happy, optimistic sort of way.
It was strangely comforting.
She stretched out on the ground, closed her eyes, and crawled into the opening.
After a few moments she opened her eyes. The darkness was solid. And it was quiet. Completely quiet. Dead space.
She took a deep breath and crawled forward, grateful for the slight breeze that touched her skin and reminded her that there was air here.
The tunnel slanted down gradually, like a coal chute. If she shifted her shoulders, she could feel the walls. But it wasn't too bad. If fact, the worst of it so far was that if she had to turn around...
She decided that this was one of the things it was better to do without thinking.
The trouble was, it was hard not to think.
Maybe she should try a quick psychic scan of the area. She wasn't quite sure how to do that, but...
She focused on the knot of energy she still carried in her stomach. Maybe this was what it was good for.
On the other hand, it might be something she should have looked into when she got home.
She gathered up the threads of concentration and brought them to rest around the knot.
Okay, now, spread out.
Nothing happened, except she realized she had stopped crawling.
Not good. The point of this little exercise is to take your mind off what you're doing.
She put herself in motion again.
Okay, from the top. Pull the energy in...
From the fingers and toes and arms and hands and legs and shoulders.
And send it down to the energy-place.
Keep moving.
Now, release it. Send it out like sonar. Wait for echoes.
She sensed something off to her right and ahead. A slight answering tingle.
Gwen.
From straight ahead there was nothing, which could be meaningless, or dire. If it meant there was only solid rock ahead, and this tunnel didn't turn before then, and she was stopped dead with rock all around and a couple of tons of earth on top of her, and no way to turn around, and the air starting to go, and maybe somebody going up top on the mesa and finding the Burro and putting two and two together, and blocking up the entrance, out in the middle of nowhere with nobody to hear if she yelled ...
A sudden blast of energy from her left took her breath away. It struck like lightning, then rattled through her in echoing, pulsing waves.
Jesus!
It stretched her flat on the ground, rolled over her, and spread like ripples up and down the tunnel.