by Siena West
Madre de Dios! ¿Qué chingados es eso? Elena crossed herself—the automatic gesture the product of her Catholic upbringing—and mumbled one of her abuela’s charms. Her gorge rose just as clouds of black flies few above the bloated bodies of the cattle.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Elena whipped around to find Otis Greenlaw standing in the breezeway, a shotgun in his hands. He must have come home while she was in the barn, saw her truck, and came to find her. Her sickness had clouded her senses, and she hadn’t realized he was there. An aura of danger seemed to rise from the man like the odor from the cattle. She had no good reason to be at his place; she should have prepared an excuse ahead of time.
She stumbled over the same excuse she had given Madge, fighting down nausea and fear. “Mr. Greenlaw, since I was in town doing errands, I chanced to stop by. I didn’t know if Maggie had your phone number, and she’ll finish her survey soon. How do we get the horses back to you?” She knew she was talking too much, but her nerves and fear kept her going. “You didn’t answer when I knocked at the house, so I was looking around the barn for you.” Elena shivered despite the strong afternoon sun. Her excuse sounded lame.
Greenlaw stared at her quizzically as if he sensed her extreme discomfort. “You’re trespassing.”
“I’m sorry—I’ll be on my way.”
Greenlaw marched her out of the barn and down the track to the house, carrying the shotgun at half-mast. When they left the barn, Elena felt less nauseous and chattered like a schoolgirl, although Greenlaw answered in grunts. She had to ask about the cattle.
“Mr. Greenlaw, what happened to those dead cows?”
The man gave her what Maggie would call the stink eye, glaring and ruffling up like a randy rooster.
“Ain’t none of your business, Ma’am. But I can tell you it’s a sickness. Lots of it going around. Started on the rez, spread out to the ranchers like me.” Bradfield’s stories about dead cattle and witchcraft drifted into her memory.
“That’s terrible. Is there a cure?”
Greenlaw glared at her. “Not too smart for a college lady, are ya? If there was a cure, them cows wouldn’t be dead.”
At her vehicle, Greenlaw thawed enough to scribble his phone number on a card he pulled out of his shirt pocket. “Pretty sure I already gave this to the redhead, but here it is again. Don’t lose it this time. And don’t come back to my property, neither.”
On the drive home, Elena shook from the encounter. The smell of death rankled in her nostrils and permeated her clothes, and she still heard the frantic buzzing of black flies. Mrs. Rhinestones had said Otis was a little off, echoing Madge. But leaving those dead cattle to rot in the sun—it spoke of something more shocking.
The trip hadn’t been worthless. Greenlaw’s cattle had succumbed to the disease Bradfield had told her about, although she refused to believe witchcraft was the cause. Elena learned that at least two people in town were unsure about Greenlaw’s mental health. She had seen it for herself. The old rancher was unhinged—and dangerous.
She never had seen the dog.
* * *
Elena joined Norm and the kitchen crew as they cleaned up after dinner. She grabbed a dish towel to make herself useful and asked him about the mysterious cattle disease.
Norm handed her a big pot to dry. “When did you get so interested in ranching, Doc?”
“Just curious. Somebody in Show Low told me about it.”
“Well, it’s something the cattlemen’s association has been warning about. It’s a variant of blackleg.”
“What’s that?” Elena put the pot aside and picked up another.
“It’s caused by bacteria that live in the soil—same genus that causes botulism. Cows pick it up when they graze. Changes in the weather may have caused a mutation or something, according to the smart college guys, making it more deadly. It’s a real nasty thing—the legs and other parts of the cow swell and turn black. Poor critters really suffer.
“But folks who vaccinate—including me—don’t have to worry.”
“And if a rancher didn’t vaccinate his cows?”
“He’d lose a lot of cattle. Even the regular strain is almost always fatal.”
Interesting. If he was in financial trouble, Greenlaw may not have been able to afford to vaccinate his cattle.
“What happens when cattle die, Norm?”
“Vet comes by and takes samples to confirm if the cows died from disease or something else. Then the rancher digs a pit with a backhoe, pushes the dead cattle in it, and burns the carcasses before covering ‘em up. Destroys the bacteria if they died from blackleg.”
Dios mio. Elena’s sickness returned. It sounded too much like what they had found in the bone bed.
* * *
The altercation began just before bedtime when the camp had quieted. Elena was catching up on work in her office while the generator was on and heard loud, angry voices coming from the living room. She rushed downstairs to find Cole and Mel facing each other in what looked like a fighting stance. The aroma of beer surrounded them, and both were red faced and sweating.
“Maggie told me what you did,” Cole spat at Mel. “You stupid bitch, she’s my girl. Keep your fucking hands off her!”
A crowd had collected around the combatants, watching with fascination as the assistant director and the crew chief argued. No one moved to intervene.
“Hey!” Elena wormed her way between them. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Caught up in their own world of animosity, neither paid any attention to the director, although the onlookers gasped. They had never heard her drop an F-bomb. Cole pushed his way around Elena to face Mel again.
“Don’t be a fucking pig,” Mel said. “Maggie has the right to make her own choices. You’re just afraid she’ll like me better than she likes you.”
Cole’s angry gaze fixed on Mel. “Maggie has made her own choice. The more you say, the dumber you sound,” he said. Then he called her an ugly name.
Mel punched Cole in the face. Maggie burst into the room just in time to see it.
* * *
“Show’s over, everyone. Go to bed,” Elena commanded the onlookers. “And you two pinche idiotas, sit down and behave. I’ll get ice.” Elena had lapsed into gutter Spanish with her anger.
Norm appeared without a sound, carrying his shotgun as he always did when there was trouble. “You sit,” he told Elena. “I’ll get the ice.”
When the ice pack was in place, Cole looked like an injured, unhappy little boy.
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t send all three of you home,” Elena ordered. “Tonight.”
Maggie spoke into the ensuing silence. “It’s my fault. Mel made a move on me the night Cole was in the hospital. I didn’t want to tell him—figured it wasn’t any of his business, and I’d promised Mel—but he wormed it out of me tonight. He’d noticed I’ve been down.
“When I confessed, Cole ran out of the tent looking for Mel. He found her here, reading.”
“And Cole picked a fight,” Elena said, staring at him. He nodded, miserable.
“You could have resolved this without fighting.” Elena asked. “You are adults, and you’re supposed to act like adults—role models for the students. And you, Melissa”—using the formal first name instead of the familiar Mel—“I can’t believe you threw a punch at Cole.”
“It was a natural reaction. I told you I’m a kick boxer.”
Bruised and swelling, Cole’s face showed the early stages of a black eye. “I think I had a beer or two too many tonight, Dr. Vargas.” His use of her formal name, as Elena had done, showed he was upset and contrite.
“I’m not sure that’s a valid excuse. We party hard here, but I do not condone public drunkenness. And I cannot allow physical fighting, for God’s sake. Everyone in the room heard what the fight was about, and everyone who wasn’t in the room also knows it by now. You�
�ve embarrassed yourselves, and you’ve embarrassed the field school. Word will get out, have no doubt of that.”
Now that the fight was over and everyone was safe, other than bruised faces and egos, Norm slipped away. Cole and Mel sat in angry silence, heads down, unwilling to meet each other’s eyes. Maggie had the good sense to keep quiet.
The first rush of Elena’s anger had passed.
“You’re a couple of idiots, but there are no laws against stupidity. Apologize to each other, and we’ll call this thing over.
“But believe me, if this ever happens again, all three of you will be out of here. I don’t care if I have to finish the excavation and survey myself.”
Cole’s and Mel’s apologies were barely audible, and Maggie’s apology was the only heartfelt one. She was the guilty one; she had broken her promise to Mel and precipitated the altercation. Mel stomped off to her room, and then Maggie and Cole left, too, without the usual affectionate good nights.
With real troubles facing the field school, Elena was astonished that jealousy had sparked a physical confrontation between two of her staff. But she should have known. As she’d told Jorgensen on the Fourth of July, a field school is one hell of a romantic environment.
* * *
Elena’s thoughts churned as she undressed and got ready for bed. In part, she blamed the adrenaline still zipping along in her veins, not yet dissipated from the fight between Cole and Melissa. In part, she attributed it to the awful scene she had witnessed at Greenlaw’s ranch and the mystery of his rude behavior. The largest part she charged to the sense that something still wasn’t right. The archaeologists had removed the human remains from the pasture and tucked them away in the annex. With that accomplished, she had thought her fears, nausea, and the pervasive feeling of dread would abate. They had not. She still suspected something terrible awaited them.
It created such an uncomfortable stew of unease and morbid thoughts she could not sleep. She tossed and turned, ears attuned to the slightest noise from inside the cabin or out. At last, she gave up and crept into the ranch house. Norm hid his stock of hard liquor in an unlocked cabinet in the living room, and she found a bottle of bourbon. Unrepentant, she took it back to her cabin. She’d return it tomorrow. Tonight, she needed the two stiff drinks she poured for herself. As the whiskey warmed her blood and relaxed her limbs, she thought she would sleep at last.
She did. But she was not wrong about the wickedness that faced them, lurking just ahead but unseen.
December, a.d. 1376, East-Central Arizona
At the Witches’ Kiva
Gray Dawn woke from a troubled sleep. For a moment, he lay under the blankets, listening. It was a few weeks before the Soyal ceremony, and the first heavy snow had fallen. The fire was out, and the room was cold. Fully awake and feeling uneasy, he pulled on his moccasins and wrapped up in a fur blanket and a buckskin. He collected his walking stick from its place beside the doorway.
Outside his house, Gray Dawn listened for unusual sounds and looked for anything out of place. What had awakened him? In the dark of the moon, the only light came from the stars. He thought he could see a faint, red glow in the distance, as if a bonfire was burning far away. There were no villages in that direction and no hunting parties camping there. The men were far too busy preparing for the Soyal to hunt.
On impulse, Gray Dawn decided to chase the fire. He crept through the village, shushing the dogs that woke to greet him. He felt the need for secrecy although he was not sure why.
The night was silent and still. Snow glistening in the starlight topped boulders along the trail. Snow melted during the day had refrozen on the ground, and the trail was slippery. It forced Gray Dawn to creep along, avoiding patches of ice and keeping the fire in sight. His feet grew cold on the icy ground as his moccasins became wet. As he drew closer to the fire, the chill spread throughout his body, because Gray Dawn had realized where he was heading.
Soon, he perceived the flames of a bonfire burning in a cave-like, rocky alcove. His breath caught in his throat. When he was a child, his family had warned Gray Dawn to stay away from the sloping, black-rock outcrop north of the village. It was where the Two Hearts—popwaqt—conducted their repugnant ceremonies—twisted parodies of the beneficent rituals his people carried out in their kivas.
Suddenly, a peculiar whistling filled the air. Gray Dawn dropped behind a boulder to hide. As he looked up, he saw balls of yellow and red fire skipping across the land. First rising in the air and then rushing forward, they bounced from boulder to treetop and down again. All the while, the whistling continued. The balls of fire were converging on the witches’ kiva.
The spectacle terrified Gray Dawn. His aunties had told him stories of what happened in the witches’ kiva. Although as an adult, he believed those stories were made up to keep children from misbehaving, the events of the past year told a different story. Sorcerers were doing their utmost to harm his family and the village. Gray Dawn must damp down his fear and come closer. Perhaps he could identify the Two Hearts.
With caution, he left his hiding place and drew closer, darting from boulder to tree trunk, seeking any shelter. At last, he reached a cluster of boulders that offered a good hiding place and a view of the kiva. There was little snow on the south side of the boulders where the sun had shone. But what snow was there had melted and refrozen and was icy now. Gray Dawn spread his buckskin over the stones and waited.
The witches’ kiva was a bowl-shaped enclosure made of sloping, black rocks with one open side. In the middle was the bonfire, and in the front, a ladder rose from the ground, marking an underground kiva. Another, smaller fire burned to the side.
The fireballs had reached the kiva. Gray Dawn watched in astonishment as one by one, wicked magic transformed them. As each fireball touched the ground inside the enclosure, it became an animal. There were deer, rabbits, elk, badgers, owls, and more. The animals danced wildly about the bonfire. The flickering flames distorted their figures, and their shadows loomed monstrous on the stone walls.
Gray Dawn crouched in the shadow cast by the sheltering boulders and watched for what seemed like hours. He grew ever colder as the creatures cavorted, and his legs stiffened. Despite the buckskin, the rock was freezing cold.
Abruptly, the dancing stopped. An enormous bighorn sheep stepped from the shadows and shed its hide. It became a half-man, half-beast creature with horns curling from its skull and hoofs where the feet should have been. As it transformed, it stood on two feet instead of four. Gray Dawn thought there was something familiar about the creature’s face, although in his terror, he could not be sure.
The man-sheep called for silence. “We are here to celebrate the witches’ Soyal,” he intoned in a plangent voice. “We will feast, and then we will go down into our kiva to complete our rituals. Bring forth the cook pot!”
This was backwards, Gray Dawn thought. At the peoples’ ceremonials, the men would fast and abstain from lying with their wives to purify themselves. It would be unthinkable to gorge on food or have intercourse before a ritual.
Two man-foxes struggled to carry a big cooking pot forward and place it on the smaller fire, water sloshing out and sizzling in the flames. What happened next was almost too gruesome to bear. When the water was boiling, steam rising to join the smoke swirling from the fire, the man-sheep called out again, and the man-foxes reappeared, carrying two small children. They were perhaps two or three years old, and ropes bound them. Their high screams stopped abruptly as the man-sheep threw them into the boiling pot.
The man-sheep screamed in triumph. “We will eat well tonight, my friends! Eat tender meat, rich and juicy.” The surrounding creatures leaped and cavorted.
“Bring the rest of the feast!” the man-sheep commanded.
Other half-human, half-animal creatures brought forth bundles that looked like old, gray logs, laying them with proud flourishes before the man-sheep. In disbelief, Gray Dawn recognized the tattered remnants of b
urial garments, and here and there, a bony hand or arm covered in decaying flesh slid from the bundles. These were humans, and they were destined to form a meal for the Two Hearts. The sorcerers had stolen the burials of Gray Dawn’s people from the graveyard south of the village.
“Come, my friends, eat! We will have the sweet young flesh of the children soon enough.” The animals rushed to the bundles. They tore strips of skin and meat off the corpses and stuffed it in their mouths. Saliva and bits of flesh dripped from their jaws.
Gray Dawn was certain he would vomit. Even from his vantage point behind the boulders, he smelled the stench of decay. As he watched the grim spectacle, he recognized faces illuminated by the firelight. People of his village, men and women he had known his entire life, relatives he had trusted and worked alongside. Then he realized why the man-sheep looked familiar: he was one of Gray Dawn’s uncles, Night Badger. He also recognized a woman-pronghorn as his aunt, Maize Sprouts.
Even as they ripped and tore at the flesh, the male animals became erect and jumped upon the females. Like everything else at this horrific place, this was terribly wrong. Birds leaped upon rodents, deer upon rabbits. Rushes of blood accompanied the rapid pumping of their bodies as the mismatched creatures tore themselves apart in their lust.
Gray Dawn vomited, steam from the mess rising in the cold air. His heart turned to stone; he could watch no longer. He tucked the cold buckskin around his shoulders. Praying the witches would not catch him, he crept away, trying to stay hidden. He hoped the Two Hearts were too busy with their horrifying feast and unnatural license to notice him. Gray Dawn would hurry back to the village and go straight way to his father’s house. Green Spring would assemble the village leadership.
Gray Dawn had witnessed the indisputable evidence of sorcery against the village. He felt sick again, thinking of the two children who must have been sleeping on their pallets when the witches took them. Because he had recognized the faces of a few of the Two Hearts and knew their names, the village leaders and priests would punish them.