She felt uneasiness in the pit of her stomach.
“Palmer, are you down there?”
Only silence answered.
28
Bernie continued down the trail, past the overlook and a few more switchbacks. The route grew steeper and required concentrated focus. She searched for Palmer’s tracks, calling his name, disappointed in the lack of response. She zipped her jacket against the thick cold.
Then she heard what sounded like a muffled human voice above her on the slope, invisible in the fog bank. “Palmer?”
No one called back. Hikers, she thought. Or maybe it was a single hiker talking to his dog or even himself. Or maybe even Chee or the feds calling for Palmer, the same as she had been.
She heard the voice again—no, two voices this time, both male, a rumble of conversation confused by the fog. She couldn’t tell if they were hiking up toward the rim, or away from her on the long trudge toward the river. “Palmer! Is that you?”
The voices stopped. After a few moments of silence she heard rocks colliding with other rocks and then a louder, crashing sound of someone or something falling and sliding far above her.
“Palmer?” She looked up the trail and beyond it into the boulders and vegetation that clung to the slope until everything disappeared into the gray cloud. She didn’t see any rocks rolling her way, but she knew the noise had come from the slope above her and to the right, probably the location of the other trail. To investigate it, she would have to forge her way up the slope. The disturbance meant something was wrong, and the odds were high that Palmer was involved.
She used her hands and arms as well as her feet and legs to climb toward where she’d heard the noise, stopping to catch her breath when she had to, wishing the fog had stayed in the canyon so she could see what lay ahead and locate the connecting trail more easily. Each time she stopped, she listened for other human sounds, called Palmer’s name, and heard only silence in reply.
She paused again when her lungs called for mercy. Maybe Palmer had returned to the lunch area. Maybe Chee had found him and she should head back—it was long past the twenty minutes they’d agreed on. But the feeling in her gut and the memory of the argument and the scrambling above her told her to give the search a few more minutes. She was bound to find the other trail soon.
She came to a place where the hillside flattened. She took a sip from her water bottle and reassessed the situation, looking for a sign. On the slope above her to the right, she spotted a splash of turquoise through the chilly fog, the same color she’s seen in Palmer’s coat. “Palmer? Palmer, are you up there?”
She muscled her way up toward the color. When she got closer, she knew she had found his prized Pendleton. She heard a moan.
“Palmer!”
She saw him a few yards below the place where the discarded jacket lay, his white shirt nearly invisible through the fog. He sprawled on his back, wedged between the trunk of a ponderosa and a rock. His pressed jeans were streaked with dirt. Without the tree, he would have continued sliding, probably with enough momentum to break his back and fracture his skull. She squatted next to him, grabbing the tree for balance. She could see his chest lift and sink. He was breathing, but barely. She touched him as she said his name again.
His eyelids fluttered open.
“It’s Bernie. I’ll help you. Don’t try to move.”
He looked at her with a hint of recognition, then closed his eyes again. She noticed his paleness, and that sweat beaded on his forehead. His lips trembled. She didn’t see any obvious bleeding, a good sign in an otherwise difficult situation.
“Try to relax now. We’ll get you out of this.”
He opened his eyes and found her face. “Whaa happen?”
“I think you fell.”
She removed her jacket and gently placed it over him. Palmer’s shoulder pushed against the tree in an awkward, painful-looking position. She took his cold hands in hers. “Don’t worry. We’ll get through this.” Her backpack had first aid supplies. She knew Chee would be looking for them. She felt the tension in her neck and shoulders relax a bit.
A rustling above her caught her attention. She glanced toward it, attempting to see through the thick fog. “Hello! Is someone there? Chee? We could use some help.”
The rustling came closer. “Bernie? Is that you?”
It wasn’t Chee’s voice. “Who’s there?”
“Byrum Lee. You’re way off the trail. Are you lost?”
“I’m fine. It’s Palmer.”
The rustling stopped. “Palmer? What’s going on?”
“Looks like he had a bad fall.”
“Hang tight. I’ll be right down.”
“No, it’s too steep. Find some help. Get Chee. We’ll have a challenge getting Palmer out of here.”
Lee kept coming. “I’m an old medic, remember?”
She heard rocks jostling loose, skidding footsteps.
“Is he conscious?”
“Barely.”
“Did he tell you what happened?”
“No. I just found him. It looks like he fell.”
Palmer squeezed her hand, and she saw terror in his eyes. He shook his head no.
The clattering overhead grew closer. She heard a change in Lee’s tone. “I can see Palmer’s coat now. Climb back to the trail and start to hike out. We’ll probably need a copter to evac him. Go get that process started. I’ll stay with him.”
“Palmer’s frightened. I don’t want to leave him alone. What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I was helping Denny Duke and his mom at the food truck. And I figured it would be good for someone with some emergency experience to be on the trip, just in case something went wrong. I noticed Palmer walking out toward the rim, looking down at the fog. He was stumbling. When I didn’t see him come back for lunch, I got worried, so I went searching for him.”
Looking for Palmer but not calling his name? “Did you tell Chee?”
“I didn’t have a chance. You should go for help. Every minute you wait increases the chance of his dying.”
She heard Lee traversing the slope as he spoke, knocking rocks loose to cascade toward her and Palmer. She heard him swearing. Then came a different noise, a dry, shuffling sound like a person riding the soles of his boots down a scree field.
She spoke softly to Palmer. “Are you afraid of Lee?”
He nodded, but she knew confusion sometimes accompanied diabetic shock. Still, it was odd that Lee could arrive again to help an injured man. Odd that a medic and building contractor would volunteer to work at a food truck. She recalled the Lieutenant’s warning about coincidences.
Lee appeared above them. He took the last few steps toward the place Palmer was wedged and turned to Bernie.
“Let me in there so I can assess the damage.”
She noticed that he had a backpack, larger than hers. Was it filled with emergency supplies? She moved away slightly, and Lee crouched next to Palmer, resting his hips against the tree. “Hey there, can you tell me where you hurt?” He reached for Palmer’s wrist.
Palmer flinched. “Stop.” His voice was a trembling whisper.
“Easy man. I’m just checking your pulse.” Lee turned to Bernie. “You’ve got to go up the rim and find some help. His heart is racing. His skin is cold. We can’t do anything for him here.”
“Do you have a space blanket or something else in your pack that will help him stay warm? Maybe candy that could bring up his blood sugar?”
“Stop with the questions. Go for help.”
Palmer said, “No.”
The fog had grown thicker. It reminded Bernie of the heavy smoke in a sweat lodge, but instead of being hot, she felt uncomfortably cool without her jacket. As she slipped on her backpack, she watched Lee adjust his position, and she saw him put his hand on Palmer’s left arm, just below the questionable shoulder. He leaned down.
Palmer’s howl of pain made her wince. He struggled weakly to free himself from Lee and moaned.
>
“You’re hurting him. Stop it.”
Lee’s voice had a sharper edge now. “He’s delirious with pain. I think his back is broken. I’ve got something in here to help him, something to take care of that.” Lee reached in his pocket and pulled out what looked like an oversized marker.
“What is that?”
Palmer’s eyes opened wide. “Insulin. Bastard.”
“It’s something for pain.” She heard the tension in Lee’s voice. She knew he was lying. Lying and dangerous.
Palmer’s voice rose. “No.”
Bernie put her hand on her gun. “Show me what you’ve got there. I can reassure him. Tension always makes pain worse.”
“What? Say again?”
She knew he had heard her. Then she saw the flicker of a smile.
“I’ll show you. Stand up so you can see better.” Lee moved toward her as she rose, clutching the device in his hand. He lurched and pushed against her, hard.
The unexpected contact launched her off balance before she could draw her weapon. She felt the bone-jarring impact of rocky ground. The energy of the fall and angle of the slope forced her body quickly downhill, sliding headfirst, gaining momentum. Using her legs and heels, arms and fingers, she struggled to slow her descent and to change her position to avoid the worst of what lay before her. She moved too fast for the terror of the situation to catch up with her. The speed of the fall outdistanced the pain.
Finally, her side slammed into the stump of a dead ponderosa and she stopped.
Stunned, she took a minute to gather her wits, let her heart rate slow to what could pass for normal. She lay still, afraid to move or even breath, reconstructing what had just happened. The push was no accident. Lee had probably shoved Palmer, too, and planned to make sure Palmer was dead before she’d interrupted him. What was happening to Palmer now? She forced her breath to quiet so she could listen more closely to possible sounds on the slope above her. At first, she heard only the rush of her own blood in her ears. She stayed motionless, and then noticed the stones clattering. She put her hand on her gun in case Lee had begun the descent to check on her.
Then the noise began to fade. He must be climbing up, away from her.
As she surveyed the bodily damage the fall had caused, she recognized that bone-chilling cold seeped from the ground into her skin, into her blood, and now seemed to circulate into her heart. Her palms stung from the abrasions made by the rocks as she’d struggled to break her fall; her hands were bloody, and several nails had snapped off to the quick. Her back and her hips ached. But fingers and toes, arms and legs responded when she gingerly tested them. Motion hurt, but it was possible. She inhaled deeply, thankful that her ribs didn’t scream with the pain. She winced as she moved her neck, but the effort didn’t make the throbbing in her skull any worse. She could see and hear.
Not only was she alive, she realized she was furious.
Lee had tricked her, made a fool of her from their first encounter at Shiprock. The details would sort themselves out, but her rising anger provided a surge of energy. She forced the pain aside and pressed her sore hands against the frigid earth to push herself to sitting. She decided to wait a moment for the light-headedness to pass before trying to stand. Another fall meant disaster, but she couldn’t linger long. She knew Lee would kill Palmer if, in fact, the man wasn’t already dead.
Then she heard something or someone approaching from behind. Lee? No, he would have made more noise. She turned her head and watched the mountain lion gliding toward her. The big cat walked cautiously, pausing after each step. She could see its ribs as it came closer. She readjusted herself to watch the animal as it circled to stand in front of her. She felt primal, brain-stopping terror, the hardwired response of prey to a predator. But, simultaneously, the cat’s grace and beauty stirred her sense of wonder.
Náshdóítsoh stared at her with its bright carnivore eyes and growled as it paced. She looked back and held its gaze. Slowly, she moved her hand to her gun and felt its reassuring presence. She didn’t want to shoot, but she couldn’t let the lion kill her without some attempt at self-defense
Then, from that place in her pounding heart that knew hozho, she began to sing the song her grandmother had taught Mama. The song of courage and protection Mama had sung to her and to Darleen. A song about the beauty that surrounded them; a song honoring the lion itself.
Náshdóítsoh stopped walking. It lowered its muscular body to the ground and raised fur-lined ears. Náshdóítsoh, the guardian assigned by the Holy People to protect Turquoise Girl. Náshdóítsoh, the one who helped The People by sometimes leaving behind for them a portion of the deer and elk it killed. She could feel the cat watching her. Its rope-like tail twitched.
She studied the broad nose and golden eyes rimmed with deep black, and then her eyes settled on its strong paws as she sang. She noticed the way stiff white whiskers stood straight out from its snout and the triangular shape of its head. Her voice grew stronger, her hand resting more lightly on the gun. The song’s rhythm and repetitions, its poetry and simplicity, became her prayer. She appreciated the mountain lion, not only as an animal to be reckoned with but also as one of the mysterious First People in existence before her tribe of five-fingered beings came to walk the earth.
When she had finished the words she remembered, she added new verses to praise the animal’s long legs, its thick winter fur, and the taut muscles beneath the sand-colored coat.
Then, as silently as it had arrived, náshdóítsoh rose and turned away, bounding down the slope with fluid grace, disappearing into the fog.
She ended the song and closed her eyes.
After she stopped shaking, she stood and removed her backpack, encased in dirt from the fall and the downhill slide. She pushed the crust off with her bloody hand, unzipped the front pocket, found her red emergency whistle. She slipped the whistle into her pants pocket. She felt something small and smooth, the talisman Sandra had given her. Náshdóítsoh. Bernie adjusted her pack and began the painful climb up the slope, fueled with adrenaline and a sense of both power and peace. She put the whistle in her mouth and blew as she hiked, when she could spare the breath. Chee must be searching for her and for Palmer. If the noise alerted Lee to the fact that she had survived, let him come. She wouldn’t hesitate to defend herself. And she’d protect Palmer, too, if he was still alive. The lion had taught her well.
She used her sore fingers for balance and leverage, inching her way up, hoping she was on course. The fog made the task harder and left her disoriented. Without the struggle against gravity, it would have been tough to know up from down.
She reached a section of the slope where she expected to see Palmer, or at least encounter something familiar. But nothing looked familiar. Rocks, bare patches of earth, scrub oak, the long brown needles fallen from the ponderosas, the darkness of their trunks and rich vanilla smell of the bark enhanced by the fog’s damp presence. She called, “Palmer?”
She heard a moan. She yelled again, heard nothing encouraging. Was she hoping for too much, wishing too hard? She spotted a footprint and then another and realized they were her own from before the fall. She came to a place where the slope flattened slightly. As she waited for her heartbeat to slow, she noticed something turquoise ahead of her on the ground.
Palmer looked worse than when she’d left him, but she found a pulse as she pressed her sore fingers against his neck. She blew her whistle. Again, and again.
As he looked for the mediator he’d been assigned to keep safe, Chee’s anxiety grew. Palmer wouldn’t walk off and leave his precious black bag in an outhouse. Whatever had happened, happened because Sergeant Jim Chee was still the screwup Lieutenant Leaphorn, his mentor, knew him to be.
Then there was the Bernie problem. They had agreed to regroup in twenty minutes, and the deadline had long since passed. His curious wife could have found an interesting plant, gotten mesmerized by the view, and lost track of time. She knew how to handle herself outdoors, but t
he thickening fog made finding the trail confusing for anyone. No reason to worry, he told himself, but he worried.
He called again and again for Palmer. Maybe the FBI team would find him first. Maybe they already had. Maybe Bernie had found him and they were eating lunch right now. He eased his way along the narrow, winding dirt path that led deeper into the fog bank and ultimately to the heart of the canyon. The fog had muffled the natural sounds of the birds and the wind. With no proof the mediator had come this way, he’d turn back in a few moments. He saw rocks, dirt, bits of vegetation that disappeared into the grayness. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted movement: a tan, muscular, long-tailed shape heading away from him. He whispered its name, náshdóítsoh. He watched it, a creature on earth before the birth of the Hero Twins, disappear as quietly as the fog.
Then he noticed a place along the side of the trail where the soil had been freshly disturbed. He squatted and found a print made by a waffle-soled hiking boot, a smallish indentation. Bernie’s? Then he heard a whistle, too sharp to be a bird cry. “Bernie!”
Chee climbed toward the sound. The whistle came again, and he yelled, “I’m coming. Keep blowing.”
He found her squatting next to Palmer. She’d wrapped her jacket around him and held her hands against his face and neck.
“What happened to him?”
“I’m not sure. I’m glad you’re here. We have to get him out of this place.”
He bent close to Palmer. “It’s Chee.”
Palmer didn’t respond.
Chee touched his face. “The nurse in ICU called. She said to tell you that Rocket opened his eyes. He wants to see you.”
Palmer’s face shifted to a trace of a smile.
He looked at Bernie, noticing the dirt on her clothes, the blood on her hands. “What happened to you?”
She shivered and he saw the glistening in her eyes. “I sang to náshdóítsoh. And Lee tried to kill me.”
Song of the Lion Page 26