“There is a Sun Wheel,” Lili said. “I think you must go there. It has something to tell you. Go as soon as you can.”
In some strange way all the old resentments, old jealousies seemed to lessen and belong to the past. Until now, Christy knew, she really hadn’t been ready.
“I’ll go to the Sun Wheel,” she told her mother. “I’ll go as soon as we return to Redlands.”
Christy didn’t wait for lunch with her mother and aunt. As soon as they reached Nona’s house, she made some excuse to Nona and fled. She went across the valley on foot, climbing up the road that ran to Victor’s.
She called his name when she reached his cabin but had no answer. On the mountainside above she’d heard a car following the higher road, but there had been no other sound on the sunny air except for a few lazy bird calls. Oliver Vaughn lived up there, but the woods were thick, and since he didn’t like Victor, she wouldn’t be disturbed. For a little while she would sit inside the Sun Wheel and let herself dream. She would think of her mother’s words and try to find her own serenity.
White sand, circling the Wheel, shone in the golden brilliance of noonday. Victor’s cabin stood just below the space where Deirdre had created the Wheel. On three sides of the clearing, woods formed a dark half circle. Sun rays slanted through erratically, touching tree trunks here and there with bands of cinnamon light. Only the Wheel itself was bright in full sun.
Christy chose her quadrant carefully and sat down on the ground within the boundaries of sand and rocks. This quarter held earth energies for the south. The color of the basic stones was white, and the segment stood for children, soft winds, enlightenment. She would be safe here. Perhaps a child who was waiting to be born would come and sit beside her within this Wheel—where they might begin to know each other and the child could make the right choice. A strange whimsy, when she had for so long given up the idea of marriage and children. Yet now it was comforting. She could almost feel the caress of the soft south wind against her cheek, and the loving touch of the child on her hand.
Victor had told her that when he came upon Deirdre that last time she’d sat in the area that stood for death and the unconscious. These symbols weren’t necessarily sad. They could mean a merciful release into a happier existence. Perhaps that was what Deirdre had wanted. But why? Why would life on earth have become something from which she longed to escape?
Never mind—she hadn’t come here to think about Deirdre, except incidentally. She needed help for herself. She rested her forehead against her knees and closed her eyes. Meditation was part of her daily ritual, encouraged by Lili when she was a little girl. It was something Nona believed in too: to go within and shut out the world in order to find one’s own deeper peace. In many ways it was a form of prayer.
She relaxed slowly, allowing anxiety and troubling questions to flow away from her. Once she reached out to touch a white stone nearby, and its sun warmth seemed to fill her with life and hope. She wanted only to be quiet and empty herself. Only then would whatever might choose to speak to her come in. If she could reach that state of charmed serenity that always surrounded Lili, the Sun Wheel might bring her the enlightenment she longed for.
When the fog began to drift in, she tried to dispel its disquieting effect. No! she whispered in her mind. Not now, not here. But of course there was never any way to stop it when the mists started to billow around her. She could only sit helplessly and watch.
Then the mist lifted, cleared, and the vision came. Again she was on top of that cliff she meant never to visit. The arch of a rainbow curved above the trees—strangely ominous, since it always seemed to predict her own death. Then someone was there with her—someone who held her in a strong, murderous grasp, moving her toward the cliff’s edge.
In terror Christy cried out in her real voice, and the fog rolled in, obliterating everything.
With her face still pressed against her knees, Christy tried to quiet her trembling. The longed-for peace the Sun Wheel had given her so briefly was gone. Shaken, she opened her eyes and stared at the figure sitting on the big stone in the center of the Wheel. Victor had stepped quietly into the circle and was watching her.
“You’re all right, Christy,” he said quietly. “Whatever it was that frightened you, it’s gone now.”
“It was the future.” Her voice trembled as she answered him. “This time I’ve seen something before it has happened. My own death. And very soon.”
“Don’t accept that,” he told her. “Your gift hasn’t been used enough, and you may have misinterpreted. A talent needs to be exercised, not resisted. Hayden fights it too—harder than you do. Then the pictures that come are confused and misleading—perhaps even prompted by your own fears. You both need to open yourselves to the light and accept what has been given you.”
She tried to shake off the sense of horror and bring herself back to the present. “Talk to me, Victor. Have you thought any more about last night?”
He didn’t answer. She saw his stillness—an alert, watchful stillness—and stiffened to a sense of present danger.
Victor lowered his voice when he spoke. “Don’t move or do anything sudden, Christy. We have a visitor. Turn your head slowly and look behind you. But stay where you are.”
She obeyed, turning until she could see the snake coming across the grass outside the Wheel. It flowed along in its own mysterious way, its head raised and moving from side to side, its small black tongue flickering, testing whatever lay ahead. Strangely, she didn’t feel frightened now, even though she could see quite clearly the copper markings on the snake’s head.
Making no sound, the creature followed along the white sand and rocks that marked the Sun Wheel’s circumference. Now and then it paused to explore the air inside the rim of sand and stones, but it made no effort to come across the boundary. If Victor and Christy were anything more than rocks, the snake gave no sign. When it had examined a quarter of the Wheel’s rim, it seemed to lose interest, and Christy watched it glide over the grass and disappear into the woods.
She turned to look at Victor. “It’s strange, but I wasn’t afraid.”
“You knew you were safe,” he told her. “There’s nothing evil about a snake. It’s only trying to live its own life, and it really has very little interest in us, unless we threaten it. Besides, it would never cross the Sun Wheel’s boundaries unless we invited it in.”
Christy looked at him quizzically. “I’m not that close to the mystical that I can trust what you’re saying.”
“That’s true,” Victor agreed calmly. “You’ve lived too long away from woods and hills and unobstructed distances. But the mystical lives in you deeply, and you need to allow it the freedom to grow.”
She stirred uneasily, not wholly able to accept what he was saying. “Right here where there are woods and hills and distances—all this natural beauty—some terrible happenings have surfaced. Perhaps events we might call evil—though my mother doesn’t believe there is any such thing. She guards against dangers, but she forgives too much.”
“Perhaps it’s unwise not to believe. Maybe we need to make more moral judgments—first of all about ourselves.”
“That leaves the old, unanswered question,” Christy said. “How does anyone judge wisely? When we pretend that evil doesn’t exist, it can grow behind our backs without any opposition. Only I haven’t any idea what’s good and sound in me, let alone in others.”
Victor gazed off into the woods where the snake had disappeared. “I expect we’re all a mixture of good and evil. Maybe that’s what our lives are about—growing and learning how to tell between the two. In the end, we have to make choices for ourselves. It’s those who never accept the mixture who become dangerous.”
His tone was almost sorrowful, as though the struggle he had made in his own life to find a choice hadn’t always been sound. There was often a quiet wisdom in Victor Birdcall, but there
was also a great deal of regret and self-blame.
“It’s strange to be afraid of a rainbow,” Christy mused. “In the visions I’ve had recently there’s always a rainbow—and it seems to be a warning.”
“Warnings may be good. They can be portents to help guide us. In any case”—he smiled—“there’s a concept others have offered that you might think about: Dying isn’t dangerous. If there is nothing afterward, you won’t know the difference. But, more likely, there are still more adventures ahead—and that could be interesting.”
“But I want to do so much more with my life now. I haven’t begun yet. Not really.”
“Of course it’s better to live—but without fear. And there’s still time for you, Christy.”
How blue his eyes were—how bright and deep. Eyes that had come to him from another heritage than his Indian side.
She smiled back at him. “You’re so different now from when we first met. I didn’t trust you at first, and now I seem to.”
“Thank you. I don’t care to be easily read. Perhaps that’s one of my conceits.”
They were silent for a little while, dreaming within the safety of the Sun Wheel. But that couldn’t last, and Christy roused herself.
“Victor, what am I to do? How can I help Hayden and Donny? I care about them both—but I can’t even help myself.”
“There’s a possible way,” he said, pointing. “Go over there into the fire quarter of the west and ask for wisdom. When you’ve been told what you need to know, come into the house. I’ll wait for you inside. Then you can tell me what you mean to do.”
She felt comfortable with him now. “Thank you, Thunderbolt Man,” she said, and stepped from the gentle south quadrant into the fires of the west. Victor went away and left her there, and she sat down again on the grass. This time she crossed her legs and rested a hand on each knee, palms up and open—in the way she’d so often seen Lili do.
At first she was aware only of the woods about her, with Victor’s cabin below; aware of the point where the snake had entered and lost itself among the trees, quickly camouflaged. Far overhead man-made contrails streaked white paths across the blue of an otherwise cloudless sky. Then she closed her eyes and invited the western fire to fill her and bring the wisdom to act, and to overcome her own fears.
This time when the mists cleared she saw the past. A dark-haired woman sat sketching rather crudely with a pencil. She worked quickly, so that a llama figure emerged on the pad. The woman was trying to give it human characteristics, and she smiled wryly as she worked. Not a happy smile. Christy sensed that she was trying to draw herself—though she was a writer, not an artist. Those were Rose’s big, dark eyes—in caricature. The llama lips smiled as Rose had done in those photographs on her book jackets. Then the sheet was removed from the pad, and everything faded away.
Overhead the sun grew hot, and Christy felt as warm as though the western fires of the Sun Wheel had lighted her from within. Her direction had been given. Now she knew what she must do, and there must be no more delay.
She went to the back door of Victor’s cabin and tapped. The door swung wide at her touch and she stepped into a room that welcomed her. She had vacationed with Nona in Western states, and she recognized some of the objects Victor had chosen for his surroundings.
Before the hearth lay a Navajo rug of brown and beige earth colors, laced with a lightning slash of turquoise blue. Zuni dolls—kachinas—rested at each end of the mantel, with a pottery bowl in the center— perhaps from Taos. Over the wooden couch an Indian blanket had been spread, adding a touch of warm reds to the room.
Christy expressed her delight. “This is perfect, Victor. It suits you.”
He looked quietly pleased. “When my wife and I lived in New Mexico our house was full of plastic and chromium because that was what she wanted. I didn’t care. At that time I’d grown a long way from the reservation of my grandparents and I wanted her to be happy. Here by myself I have a few things about that I really like.”
How deeply did he miss his wife? Christy wondered. How had her terrible death affected him? Especially with the aftermath of false accusation and imprisonment. He must still be trying to work his way out of that.
Behind the couch stood a long oak table, and Victor gestured her toward it. “Is this what you want to see?”
Spread over the surface were a number of crude sketches, and Christy knew at a glance that this was Rose’s work. She must have intended these as a base from which Nona could develop her more professional drawings for the llama book.
“What about your promise to Donny?”
“You have his permission. He consulted with me this morning, and I agreed that it would be a good idea if you went through Rose’s plans for the book. He trusts you not to tell anyone else about them yet.”
Christy hesitated. “How can I promise that? What if I see something that I’ll need to tell Hayden about? Or Nona? Or anyone?”
“Then I think you would need to talk to Donny first.”
“Have you gone through the sketches yourself?”
“Donny said it was okay. I think you should look through them now, Christy. Even if they don’t trigger anything consciously, they may prompt you to sense something I haven’t caught. They aren’t happy drawings. They’re not much like Rose Vaughn as I knew her.”
Victor drew a ladder-backed chair to the table and Christy sat down to pick up the first picture. The stream that ran through Floris’s property was recognizable, and so was a glimpse of the high steps that climbed to her house.
The Rose llama was the heroine of the story, obviously, and Rose must have drawn her tongue in cheek—at least in the beginning. The first sketch showed an affectionate creature, eager to kiss anyone who came along. In the next drawing a human figure—clearly Oliver, as Christy could recognize by his handsome profile—stood at the fence, and Rose’s long llama neck reached over the top rail, and she was kissing him on the cheek. It seemed a teasing gesture more than a loving one, and Oliver’s response seemed to be displeasure. Christy felt suddenly uneasy. Rose hadn’t been joking in these drawings—there was a certain mockery here. Perhaps of herself, first of all.
The Deirdre llama was recognizable at once, and Rose had not been flattering. She was recognizable in her Deirdre role because she was dressed in lace and furbelows, and her llama hoofs wore open sandals, but she seemed a giddy, distraught creature. Fastened on her forehead like a diadem was a sparkling crystal. Rose had sketched in the rays that represented its shining center. The Herkimer?
Behind the Deirdre figure came a small boy llama, lovingly depicted as Donny—no satire here. Behind him pranced a small creature that was clearly a cat—Sinh pictured as herself.
There were no pages of text to accompany the drawings—perhaps Rose would have done those later. If she ever intended this as a book, which Christy was beginning to doubt.
As she turned the sheets, a male llama came trotting along outside the fence. He wore Hayden’s glowering face, as he seemed to observe what was going on in the llama pen. Oliver appeared to be ordering him away, indignant with his presence, perhaps protecting the females.
The next sketch was of an adoring Eve llama, all her attention focused on Oliver. This seemed a cruel sketch, and Christy wondered about the friendship that was supposed to have existed between the two women, in spite of Oliver.
Christy held the sketch up to Victor. “This was never intended to be developed into a book for children, was it?”
“I’m sure it wasn’t. I don’t think it was intended for any publication. Maybe therapy for Rose. Keep going.”
Christy picked up the next picture, startled. This was of Floris, and she was not portrayed as one of her own llamas but as an elderly witch. She wore a peaked hat, her chin elongated, as was her nose. She held the conventional broomstick in both hands and was waving it aloft. Rose had certainly
not felt affectionate toward Floris when she drew this sketch. But who was the Floris witch threatening? There was no other figure in the picture.
Three more sketches remained. Again Eve appeared, and she was trying to kiss Oliver, though he didn’t look interested. Rose had drawn the Eve llama with bangs and an untidy hairdo and, from under the frowsy hair, wide eyes looked pleadingly at Oliver. This was hardly unexpected, since Rose knew very well that she had taken Oliver away from her best friend, who had expected to marry him. Strangely, Oliver didn’t seem to be interested in either of these two.
The next sketch was of a llama wearing an Indian kachina mask over his head and covering his long neck. He seemed to be an observer, taking no part in the action.
Christy looked at Victor, tapping the drawing. “Apparently Rose didn’t think of you as a participant in whatever was happening?”
“She was right,” Victor said. “Perhaps if I hadn’t stood apart, tried not to get involved—” He shrugged and let the matter go.
The last finished sketch was of Deirdre, again as a llama. But, this was the strangest drawing of all, for this creature seemed frightened and wild-eyed. Her forepaws were trampling her own lacy garments, and the crystal diadem was askew over one ear. Nearby, the small boy llama watched her in terror, and he was crying. Sinh, still a cat, clung to Deirdre’s shoulder with claws dug in, and her look was as wild as that of her mistress.
Only one more sheet with an unfinished sketch remained—just the face of Deirdre as herself, with tears rolling across her cheeks, and her mouth curved down in a mask of tragedy.
Christy stacked the sheets and set them down. “What was Rose up to? What did she mean?”
Victor gestured toward several objects hung in a row along one wall. They were Indian masks he must have collected over the years, and each one wore a different expression—human, yet distorted.
“Yes,” Christy said. “All those masks we wear! But Rose was dipping behind the masks. She saw something ugly she was trying to set down. I wonder why?”
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