Rook & Tooth and Claw

by Graham Masterton

  “I suppose you’re taking Catherine White Bird?”

  “Of course. I mean, this was what inspired the trip in the first place, her being a full-blooded Navajo and everything.”

  “And a very alluring full-blooded Navajo, too.”

  “What am I supposed to say? That she looks like the back side of a totem pole?”

  “OK. Who else is going?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t asked them yet. But I really wanted you.”

  Susan said, “This won’t work, Jim. You and I, we’re just not suited. You say tomayto and I say tomato.”

  “I know that. But that’s not the point. I need a clear-thinking, intelligent, responsible adult on this trip. I need a woman who can keep an eye on two or maybe three young girls in a difficult situation. I need somebody with a good grasp of ethnic cultures and the ability not to annoy me. You were the only person I could think of.”

  “Window Rock, you say?” she asked him.

  “Window Rock … and maybe Fort Defiance, too. You know what the Navajo call that? ‘Meadow Between Rocks.’ It’s going to be really, really interesting.”

  She looked up at him and he wished desperately that she were in love with him, but that was fate. “I don’t know why I’m saying yes,” she told him. “But, yes. When were you planning on going there?”

  “Oh … there’s no rush. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at five o’clock.”

  “Tomorrow? I can’t go tomorrow. In any case, my last lecture doesn’t finish until twenty after four.”

  “I meant five o’clock in the morning. We’re catching the first flight to Albuquerque.”

  Susan opened her mouth and then closed it without saying a word. She watched Jim walking off down the corridor to his classroom and she thought to herself that she might like him more than she had ever admitted.

  “I’m taking a short cultural trip to the Navajo reservation in Arizona,” he announced to Special Class II. “The reason I’m doing it is to find out more about Catherine’s background so that I can help her develop as an English student. Of course I’ve done the same for several other members of the class … Rita, you remember when I spent some time with your family and friends, so that I could get a better handle on Spanish culture. John … you kindly invited me to spend a weekend with your Vietnamese friends, and I enjoyed every minute of that, except that I was so clumsy with my chopsticks that I kept dropping thit bo to on my shoes.

  “I can take two of you with me. One of you should be a girl, so that you can share a room with Catherine. The other – well, it doesn’t matter. Girl or boy. Whoever wants to come.”

  Sharon X put up her hand. “Please, sir, I’d love to. I’m so interested in oppressed cultures.”

  “OK … anybody else?”

  Mark Foley cautiously lifted one finger. Mark was cocky and funny, but he was one of the least academic students in the class. He was shorter and slighter than most of his contemporaries, with a pale, bruised-looking face and badly-cropped blond hair. His jeans and T-shirts were always very clean, but most of them were worn out and frayed. The sole of one of his trainers flapped when he walked.

  “You, Mark? You want to come along?”

  “Well, sure. I never flew before. It won’t cost anything, will it?”

  “No … Catherine’s father is generously picking up the tab. All you need is a couple of changes of clothes and a toothbrush.”

  “Hey – think your dad’ll let you go?” asked Ricky Herman.

  “I don’t care what my dad says,” said Mark, defiantly. “I’m going anyway.”

  Jim said, “If you have any problems with your father, Mark, just have him give me a call.” He had dealt with Mark’s father before: a real Bluto type who owned a run-down body shop in Santa Monica. He spent all day thumping second-hand Chevies into shape and all evening sluicing down jugs of draft beer at KC’s Bar. He had told Jim to his face that as far as he was concerned Mark’s English course was a waste of time because Mark spoke English already, didn’t he? and poetry was ‘all that faggot stuff’.

  “Mrs Whitman will be taking over while we’re gone … but there’s a special project that I want the rest of you to do for me. I want you to find out all that you can about the Navajo people and Navajo culture, especially their religious beliefs. See if you can find out the names of their spirits and any colorful stories about them. When we come back, we’ll be able to discuss what we’ve discovered in Arizona with what you’ve managed to discover here.”

  Ray Vito said, “Have a good time, Mr Rook. Bring us back some firewater and a couple of squaws.”

  “You and your racial stereotyping,” Sharon protested.

  “Yes, Ray – you should be ashamed of yourself,” put in Ricky. “You greasy spaghetti-eating opera-loving Eyetie.”

  Jim stood back in amusement as the entire class started to shout racial insults at each other. Sometimes it did them good to come out with all the words that nobody was allowed to use any more. It made them realise that most racial slurs were only words, and that what really mattered was how well they got along and how much they liked each other. After a few minutes they all collapsed in laughter.

  “Right, then,” said Jim. “That’s enough political incorrectness for one day. I’ll see you Friday morning, hopefully.”

  He take a long last smiling look around the classroom, trying to give himself a clear picture of every face. After all, this might be the last time that he would see them.

  * * *

  Their flight from LAX was delayed for nearly an hour and they arrived at Albuquerque International Airport just before lunch. As they crossed the concrete apron the temperature was over 93 degrees and the wind was as dry as a whip.

  All through the flight, Catherine had been unusually quiet and thoughtful. Jim caught up with her as they approached the terminal building and said, “Catherine – hey – are you all right?”

  She brushed back her hair with her hand. “I think so. But frightened, I guess.”

  “Frightened of what? This guy you’re supposed to be betrothed to? We’ll sort him out.”

  “I’m more frightened of me.”

  “You? Why should you be frightened of you?”

  She turned to him, and looked at him intently through her windblown hair. “I feel like there’s something inside of me…something that’s making me feel confused. Like I’m angry about something but I don’t know what. I felt it the last time I dated Martin, I don’t know why. But here I can feel it much more.”

  Jim thought of the dark, jagged shadow that had followed her at Universal Studios. “Maybe it’s just your age. When you’re young, you know, you do feel confused.”

  “I don’t know, sir. It feels like more than that. It feels so black. It feels so angry. It’s like a wildness in me, do you know what I mean?”

  “A wildness,” said Jim. “A wildness that comes out of nowhere at all?”

  Catherine said, “Yes. That’s it. That’s exactly it.”

  “Let me talk to you later,” said Jim. “Meanwhile, let me see if I can fix up our connecting flight.”

  “Hey, it’s hot here,” said Mark, wiping his forehead with the back of his arm. He was carrying an old grey canvas sports bag, but his Nike trainers were brand-new and shining white. When his father had heard about his trip to Arizona, he had taken him straight out and bought them for him. “I think it’s a total waste of time but you ain’t going to show me up by going nowhere with no flappy shoe.”

  Sharon was wearing a shocking-pink T-shirt and white satin shorts and she looked like an Olympic athlete. “I’m so excited,” she enthused. “I mean, isn’t it beautiful here? So warm!”

  Susan gave her a smile. Susan, as usual, was looking very Doris Day, with a blue headband and a crisp sleeveless white blouse and a pleated skirt in yellow-spotted cotton.

  “Jim?” she called. “Don’t forget the infantry.”

  Inside the chilly air-conditioned terminal, with its highly-polished flo
ors, Jim went to the West New Mexico chartered airline desk. An overweight woman with a huge blonde lacquered hairstyle turned around and called, “Randy! Mr Rook and party!”

  Out of the back office came a wiry-looking pilot with a deep tan and a snow-white crewcut to match his snow-white shirt. “How’re you doing, folks? Anybody want to use the fixings before we go? Don’t like to see my passengers fidgety, that’s all.”

  He led them back out onto the heat-baked concrete, where a twin-engined Golden Eagle was waiting to fly them to Gallup. Mark sat up front with the pilot while Jim sat next to Catherine and Sharon and Susan sat in the back. They waited their turn on the runway behind the rippling backwash of a Boeing 737 – then, when it was their turn, Randy took them up ‘like a flea hopping off a dog’s back’. Immediately they angled west-north-westward, with the sun filling the Golden Eagle’s interior with dazzling light.

  “Said you’re headed up to Window Rock?” asked Randy.

  “That’s right,” said Jim. “We’re on kind of a college field-trip. We’re doing a project on the Navajo way of life.”

  “These days, that’s not much different from any other way of life,” Randy remarked. “Don’t be disappointed if you don’t see nobody in feather headdresses and bone breastplates. Window Rock’s pretty much the same as anyplace else around here. It’s got motels and restaurants, and a fairground, and a bank, and a community building and an FHA housing development. They’ve even got their own medical college these days.

  He sniffed, and then he said, “Don’t forget to buy yourself a rug, though. You can’t visit the Navajo reservation without coming back with a rug. Teec Nos Pos, they’re the best.”

  Jim remembered that Catherine had given a talk in class about Navajo weaving, and told them that rugs from Two Grey Hills were easily the finest, with more than 80 wefts to the inch. But this morning she stared out of the window at the dry, wrinkled ground below them, and said nothing. Once or twice she glanced at Jim and gave him a tight, uncommunicative smile, but that was all. Jim was trying his best to make her feel protected, but he didn’t really know what he was supposed to be protecting her from.

  He had seen a jagged shadow around her – a shadow that nobody else could see – but he had no idea what that meant. Was she actually possessed by this smoky, bristling spirit? Or was it nothing more than an omen – a spiritual warning that the beast was hunting for her, too? The trouble with signs and messages from the other side, they were never spelled out in plain English. Everything was communicated by hints, and suggestions, and faces seen in distant windows.

  “Did you ever fly before?” Randy asked Mark.

  “No, sir, never. Today’s my first time. I thought I was going to be biting my nails but I wasn’t.”

  “I mean did you ever fly an airplane before? I mean, like, yourself?”

  Mark violently shook his head. “No, sir! I don’t even own a car.”

  “Well, you have to start sometime,” said Randy. “Take hold of the controls, let’s see what you can do.”

  “Me?” said Mark, in a very much higher voice than he’d meant to. “I can’t. Supposing I crash?”

  “You won’t crash. You don’t have the experience to crash. Come on, take hold of those controls.”

  Mark gripped the controls so tightly that there were white spots on his knuckles. The Golden Eagle dipped a little, and tilted to one side, and the engines gave a threatening drone. But the pilot said, “Relax, you’re doing fine. Just keep her on an even keel, that’s all. Like, resist the temptation to nosedive.”

  Gradually, Mark gained confidence, and began to fly the Golden Eagle straight and reasonably smooth, with only one or two stomach-disturbing dips and swoops. The pilot showed him how to use the pedals and how to adjust his speed. “You’re a natural, boy. You should make yourself a career out of this.”

  Jim watched and smiled. He had never seen Mark so excited. He thought – God, if only more people took a little time with boys like Mark, and showed them what they were capable of doing, instead of always telling them that they were dumb and useless.

  “What do you think, everybody?” Mark called back. “Think I’m a pretty good pilot?”

  Sharon said, with a big wide grin, “You know something, Mr Rook? I’ve never been so scared in my whole life.”

  They were flying over the last slopes of the Cibola National Forest, only a little more than 10 miles away from Gallup. Jim looked down and he could see their shadow dancing through the trees. “Little more height,” Randy told Mark. “That’s it. Want to make sure we clear that ridge up ahead.”

  Mark pulled the controls back, but as he did so, the Golden Eagle’s port engine let out a loud burp, and then another, and another. Randy checked his instrument panel and lifted his sunglasses so that he could see the engine nacelle more clearly. “Well,” he announced, “we’re not on fire, I’m very happy to say, and we’ve got plenty of gas. Guess we might have a fuel-line blockage.”

  The engine burped even more loudly, and then sputtered, and abruptly died. Susan reached forward and took hold of Jim’s hand, and squeezed it hard. Jim turned around and said, “It’s OK, don’t worry. You too, Sharon. This kind of thing happens all the time.”

  Randy said, “Don’t panic, folks. All we have to do is feather the prop, and land on the other engine. You can’t crash one of these babies even if you wanted to.”

  Susan said, “I hope that’s not famous last words.”

  Jim tried to smile at her but found that he couldn’t. He could feel his sweaty shirt clinging to his back. He had never liked small airplanes, and he had been clenching his fists and curling his toes ever since they had taken off from Albuquerque. The plane suddenly tilted to port and the starboard engine let out a low-pitched moan of protest.

  Sharon moaned, too; and Mark said, “Oh, shit. Oh, shit.”

  “Let’s keep our heads here, folks,” said Randy. “We still have plenty of height and we’re only five minutes away from Senator Clark’s Field at Gallup. This may be a little on the rough side, but there’s nothing to get hysterical about.”

  The plane plunged again, and then soared upward, leaving Jim’s stomach about a hundred feet below. Mark sat in the co-pilot’s seat grim-faced, with his hands tucked firmly into his armpits. Susan was gripping Jim’s hand so tight that her fingernails were digging into his skin, and Sharon had her hands over her face, although she was peeping out from between her fingers. When he looked at Catherine, however, she was sitting calm and still, her chin slightly raised, and her eyes staring straight ahead.

  “Catherine?” Jim asked her. “Catherine, are you okay?”

  Catherine didn’t answer, but Jim was sure that he could see that shadow around her, even though the airplane cabin was filled with sunlight. She looked almost as if she were wearing a ghostly funeral veil. She was staring straight ahead, straight at the instrument panel, and her lips were moving, as if she were whispering something.

  “Coyote … Coyote … Coyote …” that was all he could catch, over and over again.

  “Catherine?” he repeated.

  He reached out to touch her, but as he did so, all the indicator lights on the Golden Eagle’s instrument panel winked out, and all the dial-pointers dropped back to zero. The starboard engine rumbled and shuddered and abruptly cut out. They were swallowed by an eerie quietness. All they could hear was the whistling and the buffeting of the wind.

  Randy jiggled the switch to restart the starboard engine, but nothing happened. “Nothing,” he said. “All the damned electrics are dead. Never known this happen, never.”

  “Can you glide in?” Jim asked him.

  “I don’t know. The way we’re dropping, we won’t make Senator Clark’s Field.”

  Mark said, “Oh, shit! We’re not going to die, are we?”

  “Die? Hell, no!” the pilot told him. “We’re going to belly-flop in somebody’s alfalfa, that’s all.” But Jim could tell from the way he spoke that Randy’s mouth was
dry, and that he was just as frightened as the rest of them. They had one last ridge to clear, which meant that they would have to maintain enough height to fly over a line of tall, jagged trees. But the Golden Eagle weighed over 3½ tonnes and it felt to Jim as if it were dropping out of the sky as promptly as a grand piano. The trees rose higher and higher in front of them, and soon they were almost brushing the upper branches.

  They were never going to make the ridge. They could all see it now. They were already below the level of the taller trees, and there wasn’t even a gap between them which Randy might have tried to fly through.

  Susan whispered, “Oh my God, Jim. Oh my God.” Sharon was holding her head in her hands, and her eyes were wide with panic. Jim felt sick with fear and helplessness, and a wrenching grief, too. He had come out here to save himself, and Catherine – but now they were both going to die, and they were going to kill Susan and Mark and Sharon, too.

  “You got to brace yourselves,” said Randy. “With any luck, the trees’ll act like a cushion.”

  You know they won’t, thought Jim. They’ll smash us to pieces, and there won’t be anything left for the rescue services to pick up but arms and legs.

  Jim turned to Sharon and Susan. “Take your shoes off, then heads down, hands over your neck.” The Golden Eagle lurched and dropped as Randy tried one last desperate effort to gain a little more height.

  Jim looked at Catherine. She was still sitting up straight, her eyes fixed on the airplane’s instrument panel. The shadow around her was even more distinct now, blurry and patchy, as if he were viewing her through a black-and-white photographic negative. What was more, her eyes were totally black, with no whites showing whatsoever.

  “Catherine!” he shouted at her, and gripped her wrist – but then he instantly recoiled. He hadn’t felt the smooth slim wrist that he had expected. He had felt something thick and cold – something that was bristling with coarse, matted hair.

  “Catherine, listen to me! It’s Jim Rook! Listen!”