“Sorry,” she said between breaths. “Thought I was in better shape.”
“It’s not your body that fails you,” Hawk said. “It’s your mind. Meditate as you walk.”
“Meditate? About rocks?”
“No, about your life’s journey.”
She bent over, hands on knees, sweat cooling her body in the evening air. “Okay, I’ll clear my mind and ignore the rocks, but tell me again, why are we climbing this mountain?”
“To make a sacrifice, to unite all of humanity.”
She stood up, her legs aching. “You’re not throwing me over the edge, are you? Because that would be really cruel and unfair to drag me up here only to throw me off Hinhan Kaga Paha!” she shouted.
Hawk whispered something in Lakota to his grandson.
“What did he say, Jimmy? Tell me right now what Hawk just said or I’m turning around!”
“He said you watch too many movies.”
Angry and frustrated, she reached for a rock and threw it at their feet, where it bounced and skidded off the cliff. The two men walked to the edge, listening to the rock tumbling down the mountain.
“Don’t tell me that was a sacred rock,” she said.
“Everything’s sacred,” Hawk replied.
“Yeah, you better go down and get it.” Jimmy laughed at her.
“Oh God!”
“No, we’re messin’ with you,” Jimmy said. “C’mon, catch up.”
She closed the gap, still trailing behind them. “You guys are terrible at sarcasm, you know that?”
She hiked with them in the twilight that soon bled into darkness, her sense of hearing and smell compensating for the night blindness. In the air, she tasted the dust from the rocks, her lips dry. Overhead, she heard an owl calling out into the night.
“That’s a sign,” Hawk said, pointing in the owl’s direction, toward a pine tree.
“Good or bad?”
“Good.”
“Jimmy, can I have some of your water?” she asked.
He pulled a bottle out of his pack. “Here, keep it.”
It wasn’t cold, but the water soothed her throat as she followed them up the mountain, clearing her mind, going with the rhythm of the hike. She hoped they were near the summit as she fought for each breath in the thinner air.
“What happens when we get to the top?” she asked between breaths.
“We’ll have a ceremony,” Hawk said.
“Like a vision quest?”
Hawk and Jimmy stopped on the trail and turned to her.
“What do you know about vision quests?” Jimmy said.
In the darkness, she couldn’t read their expressions. She decided it was time to stop asking so many questions. “Nothing. Like you said, I watch a lot of movies.”
“There it is,” she said, pointing her flashlight into the darkness at a rock formation. She stood her ground and lit another cigarette as Quin walked toward the rock wall.
“Are agents allowed to smoke on duty?” he asked.
“I’m on a smoke break; been trying to quit for months. The door is right in front of you,” she said, blowing smoke upward. “It’s hard to see in the daylight and even harder at night.”
He searched the crevices and wiped away the red desert clay, feeling cool metal under his fingertips. “Who covered it up?”
“DEA.”
He stepped back and marveled at the door; it must have been ten feet wide and ten feet high. “I want to see it. How do we get in?”
“If you got your passport, there’s no reason to go down there to cross the border,” she said.
“But this might be how they escaped with Autumn,” he said. “I want to see it.”
“It’s a dark tunnel, not much to see. Mules don’t even use it anymore.”
“Homeland Security uses it, right? That’s why they haven’t filled them in,” he suggested. She said nothing and he continued, “Open the door, Agent Lopez.”
She jingled her keys as she approached him, cigarette smoke trailing her. Along the left edge of the door, she searched for and found a handle; below it was a keyhole. She inserted the key and the door rattled from the other side. “Help me pull.”
He stood next to her and gripped the rusted handle. They heaved and the door slid to the side along a track, with a rush of musty wind and dust whipping past them.
“What’s that odor?” Quin asked.
“If you’re an illegal crossing the border? It’s the aroma of freedom.”
“That’s a musty kind of freedom.”
“Mother Earth, she’s like wine. She needs time to breathe,” Lopez said. “And if you’re down there long enough, you get used to it.”
The tunnel sloped downward into the rock and earth. A ramp could easily fit a couple of golf carts, as Lopez had said. Quin walked into the blackness with his flashlight illuminating the floor, walls, and ceiling.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked. “Let’s see how far this goes.”
“It connects to other tunnels,” she said, without moving forward.
“How far is the intersection to the next tunnel?”
“Fifty or a hundred yards,” she said. “If you go, you’re on your own.”
After hours of constant chatter, Lopez was finally quiet. He sensed her fear, her resolve to go no further. He walked without her deeper into the tunnel and reached for his phone to see if he could get a signal as he descended into the earth. His phone lit up like a second flashlight, but he couldn’t access a cell tower this deep underground. The tunnel narrowed as he waved his light across the clay floor in front of him. There were tire tracks and footprints along with garbage, empty water bottles, beer cans, and more batteries. He paced what felt like fifty yards and turned the light to the left and right walls, searching for an opening.
Nothing.
He knelt and felt for a rock and threw it in front of him, listening. It bounced off a wall in front of him, so a turn must be ahead. He walked another thirty yards and felt a change in air pressure, a breeze to his right, and there was the next tunnel.
“Found it!” he shouted, waiting for her response. “Lopez, how long is the next tunnel?”
No answer from her. He wouldn’t proceed further without knowing where it would lead. He satisfied himself that this was worth exploring, but not tonight. He turned and backtracked to the dirt ramp where he’d left Lopez. The air pressure changed again, then he heard a clanking sound.
She’d left him and was closing the door. Quin sprinted up the long ramp, his feet slipping on sand and dirt, his flashlight like a baton in his hand.
“Lopez!”
He reached the metal door and searched for a handle. In the dark he was disoriented; was the handle on the right or left? He searched the right side first, feeling the edge of the metal against the rock. There had to be a handle on the inside; unless, of course, the DEA never intended this to be a two-way passage. With all his weight, he pulled on the edge of the metal, trying to walk it back, and it moved only a couple of inches, but it moved! He pulled again and the door rolled another three inches, grinding over sand caught in its path. He gave it another tug and it opened enough for him to slide through into the cool air outside. There she stood, talking on her phone.
He walked over to her, wiping sweat from his brow. “What the hell are you doing?”
Lopez turned with the phone to her ear. “Shhh,” she said, motioning to the phone. “Talking to my boss.”
This explanation better be good.
She ended the call and stuffed the phone in her back pocket. “Sorry about that,” she said, pointing at the tunnel door. “I closed it because you kept calling my name and I was afraid my boss would overhear.”
“Oh, I thought you—”
“You didn’t think I would leave you in there?”
“It crossed my mind, Lopez.”
“I didn’t lock it. Besides, if I wanted to kill you, I would’ve shot you in the tunnel, then closed the door.”
“That’s very comforting. Thanks for your reassurance.”
“You got trust issues, Quin.”
“Why was your boss calling you so late?” Quin asked.
“He said Agent Kruse has been trying to reach you.”
He checked his phone and he had missed two calls from Kruse in the past hour. “I’ll call him in the morning.”
“I better lock up and make my way into town, find a place to sleep,” she said.
“Can you leave the door to the tunnel unlocked?”
“You’re going back down there?”
“I need to see how far it goes, where it surfaces.”
“The DEA has already mapped it. Those tunnels go for miles.”
“Can you get a copy of the map?”
“I suppose, but even with a map, it’s dangerous down there; walls collapse when we get flash floods.”
“Get me a map.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “Hey, you don’t have to stay at the safe house. It’s a spooky place at night. We can get a hotel room in town.”
“I’d rather stay at the house.”
“I meant separate hotel rooms, of course,” she said.
“It’s important for me to stay there. I hope you understand.”
She nodded and started walking back toward his old house, scanning the ground with her flashlight. “If you go down into those tunnels, you might want to buy yourself a golf cart, but you didn’t hear that from me,” she said.
The view from the top of Hinhan Kaga Paha was worth the two-hour climb. Candace caught the last rays of the setting sun on the horizon to the west. To the east, she saw hills of pine painted black on the dark blue of twilight. She breathed in the clean air as Hawk and Jimmy gathered sticks for a fire. This felt like sacred ground to her and she understood how this isolated place could inspire visions.
“What happens in the ceremony?”
“We drink tea,” Hawk said.
She felt a chill in the air. “A warm cup of tea sounds good right about now.”
“Not for you, Candace. For me and Jimmy.”
“What will I drink?”
“Water,” Jimmy said, using a lighter to ignite a birch log.
“You’re a writer,” Hawk said. “You’ll record our visions. Sit here,” he said, patting a rock by the small fire.
She sat, watching as Hawk stuffed a large tea kettle with leaves and roots that he pulled from his ceremonial bag. He opened a water bottle and poured it on top and then rested the kettle on the fire.
“What kind of tea is that?” she asked.
“Ayahuasca,” Hawk said. “Medicine.”
She’d never heard of it. “Is it like marijuana?”
“Stronger, more like peyote,” Jimmy said.
“You’re getting high?” she said.
“No, we’re seeking truth, as our fathers before us did,” Hawk said.
For an hour she sat across from Hawk and Jimmy as the men stared into the fire, Hawk occasionally stirring the leaves in the tea. They conversed in Lakota, and only once in a while did she pick up on English words like Quin’s or her own name. Hawk eventually poured a cup for Jimmy and one for himself, and they both sipped the hot brew a few times before drinking the entire cup in one swallow. Within a few minutes Jimmy slumped over, his head in his hands, moaning, as Hawk patted his grandson’s back.
“What’s with Jimmy?”
“He’s entering the spirit world. It’s harder for young warriors.”
“Are you there in the spirit world, Hawk?” she asked.
He closed his eyes. “I am.”
“What’s it like? Describe what you see.”
“Jimmy is with me, we are running with wolves.”
“You’re chasing?”
“We’re among them, running with them,” Hawk whispered.
“What are you and the wolves running from?”
“From nothing. We are searching for prey, following ravens in the sky.”
“Ravens?”
“Ravens see the prey and wolves follow the ravens.”
She remembered Quin mentioning ravens before he left town. “Hawk, do you see Quin?”
“He is here.”
“What’s he doing?”
“He’s a raven in flight. Chasing evil spirits.” Hawk’s head bowed into his knees like his grandson’s.
The men were silent, physical forms; she could detect no movements or breathing in them. They were so still their bodies could have been empty cocoons, left behind as their spirits took flight. Was there another world out there she couldn’t see? She felt alone there, and the evening winds at seven thousand feet left her shivering, even next to the fire. She decided she’d pour herself a cup of tea, something warm to hold onto until they awoke. She grabbed Hawk’s cup, stood over the fire, and poured the dark, steaming tea into the ceramic cup. She sat down again, clutching the warmth as the winds increased and the tree branches behind her creaked and moaned.
Hawk raised his head. “This medicine isn’t for you, Candace. Go to sleep.”
Quin knew he could never really go home again, because when he returned, it would be a different place. Or maybe he had changed and was the stranger seated with a cup of Ayahuasca on the floor in the family room, remembering his life here. During the holidays, a Christmas tree filled a corner of the room, a tradition his father had instilled in them. And on many nights his mother would help Quin and Autumn build a Hogan, the Navajo word for house, using wool blankets and cushions from the couch. They had so many happy memories that were swept away, like tumbleweeds scattered across the sands.
Yes, his parents sometimes argued, but his father never raised a hand to his mother, never threatened to harm her or his children. Quin always felt there was a rift between his parents that always boiled over into an argument that they took to the bedroom. He and Autumn would listen to their parents’ muffled conversations down the hall and the next day, they would be happy again. The family would ride in his father’s big-rig truck into Nogales for ice cream and a fresh supply of water and beer. And after two or three days, his father would drive off in his rig and not return for a week or more. He was gone for longer stretches of time than he was home.
Quin drank more tea, his head lighter, and he rocked back and forth to the rhythm of the wind that tossed a rusty swing into the night. He used to push Autumn on that very swing as she pumped her legs in squeals of excitement.
“I want to fly, Quin!” she’d shout. “Push me higher!”
And with one more running shove he’d push Autumn with all of his strength and she’d soar off the swing, her arms outstretched.
She caught an updraft, lifting her into the sky, and he chased her, afraid he’d lose her forever.
“Autumn! Come back!”
“Fly with me!” she shouted, her voice small and distant.
He ran, stumbling on the sand, gasping the dry air as he followed Autumn, flapping her wings. What would his mother and father think of him? How could he have pushed her so hard that the winds would carry her away? He ran faster, sprinting, pumping his arms, and he lifted off the ground, too. It was only a few feet, but, elated, he sprinted again and he flew farther this time. Then with one final kick of his feet, he was aloft! His arms stretched out like wings, the wind whipping through his hair like the tail of a great kite. He circled higher with each updraft of heat but he couldn’t find her. Autumn was gone. His house below grew smaller as he rode the winds, and he feared he would never find his way home again.
“Caw! Caw!” Above him were two ravens gliding across the sky, and he followed them with no effort at all. He thought of it and it happened. They led him across the desert, gliding along the currents when they slowed and landed on the desert’s floor on the edge of a small bubbling arroyo. Quin joined them as the ravens hopped along the edge.
“Caw…drink,” one of the ravens said to him.
Kneeling onto the sand, he cupped the tepid water with his h
ands and sipped. It was as bittersweet as his tea.
The birds drank it, too, dipping their silky black heads and raising their beaks to swallow. They fluttered before resting on each of his shoulders. He felt comforted until he saw two shadows emerge from the desert heat. He blinked but they were still there as he focused on them, the spirits of a woman and a man standing before him.
“Am I in danger?” Quin asked the ravens.
“Fear nothing,” the raven on his left said.
“Love,” the raven on his right whispered.
“Mother? Father?”
The shadows remained on the other side of the water, lurking, as if they were afraid to approach him. Quin stood up as the ravens remained on his shoulders, balancing themselves, and the shadows stepped back. He sensed the shadows’ curiosity; they wanted to know why he’d returned after so long.
“Is there another among you?” he asked.
They remained still.
“I don’t see Autumn,” he said, stepping forward, one foot landing in the bubbling brook.
The shadows stepped back even further.
“Where is she?” he said, wading through the water toward them.
They moved back again.
“If you won’t answer me, then go away!”
With that, the ravens took flight in pursuit of the spirits across the sand until the chindi (the Navajo word for ghost) vanished into a dust devil shooting up into the sky. Quin remained there, feeling the presence of somebody or something still watching him.
He stepped out of the water and spotted a lobo, a Mexican gray wolf, peeking at him from behind a thick cactus. Mexican grays once ranged from central Mexico up through the southeastern United States until they were over-hunted and pushed into the borderlands between Arizona and Mexico. The wolf was smaller than its ancestors to the north, and appeared scrawny to Quin. His mother had taught him and Autumn that to see El Lobo was good luck, but to never approach it or your luck would suddenly change. Quin knew in this moment that he had no choice; he had to approach the wolf, to move toward danger, if he wanted to find Autumn.
Quin awoke to his phone vibrating next to him on the floor. What time is it? He had no idea, but his wake-up call was from Agent Kruse, who no doubt wanted to know what he was up to. He picked up the phone and teapot and brought them to the kitchen.
In The Company of Wolves_Follow The Raven Page 11