Coffin Man

by James D. Doss

  After restoring the other objects to the shoe box and returning it to the closet shelf, Sarah donned her coat and wide-brimmed hat. Entering the parlor, she gazed at the old woman who slept in the rocking chair. It seems like a shame to wake her up. She twirled the feather between finger and thumb. But we can’t just leave her here all alone and asleep without saying goodbye. Not wanting to awaken the sleeper too abruptly, she whispered, “Aunt Daisy?”

  No response.

  Feeling more than a little whimsical—very nearly mischievous—Sarah thought: I ought to use the feather to tickle her nose. But for whatever reason, that was not precisely what she did. The girl stroked the feather ever so lightly over the old woman’s left eyelid, the bridge of her nose, and across the other closed eye.

  The sleeper shuddered; both eyes popped open to glare at Sarah. “What’d you do?”

  Startled by the suddenness of the awakening, Sarah stuttered. “I … tick-tickled your…” By way of explanation, she showed the old woman the feather.

  “Silly girl.” Daisy snorted. “If you want to wake me up, just let out a big war whoop and tell me the ’Paches are riding in to massacre us all—or shoot off a big pistol by my ear!”

  Relieved, the nervous youth giggled. “I’m sorry. It’s just that we’re about to leave, and—”

  “We’re about to leave?” Disoriented by her awakening, the old woman blinked. “Where’re we going?”

  Sarah Frank was saved from the pain of explaining when Charlie Moon and Scott Parris stomped into the parlor to announce their imminent departure.

  Sarah offered the face tickler to Daisy, who waved it aside. “What would I want with that!”

  Not knowing what else to do with the offending feather, Sarah stuck it into her hatband. “When do you want me to come back?”

  The old woman frowned. “Come back for what?”

  “To take you back to the Columbine.”

  “Oh … sometime next week, I guess.” Rubbing the residue of sleep from her eyes, Daisy got a grip on her oak staff and pushed herself up from the rocking chair. “I’ll call you when I’m ready.” She followed Sarah and the men outside, where her small family commenced with the standard rituals of departure.

  The old woman received a big hug from Charlie Moon and the usual suggestion that she should stay close to her house until Sarah returned. Which was Moon’s way of advising his reckless relative to resist any temptation to stray alone into Cañón del Espíritu. A lot of good such advice from her nephew would do.

  Scott Parris bear-hugged Daisy, too, and warned, “There’s always black bears and hungry cougars and a few two-legged varmints roaming about, so you’d best be on the lookout.” Breathless from these manly embraces, Daisy was unable to respond with her usual tart remark that if any furry varmints or wild-eyed outlaws came skulking around her place, it’d be them that’d need to be on the lookout because she had a double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun in the closet that was loaded with buckshot and she knew how to use it. But the white cop knew what Daisy was thinking and she knew that he knew and that Charlie Moon did too.

  The final hug, a light embrace such as might be made by a fairy queen in a little girl’s dream, was administered by Sarah Frank. This expression of affection was accompanied by a pair of surprises that quite took the old woman’s breath away—two tender expressions that Charlie Moon’s aunt had not experienced in decades.

  The sweet girl whispered in Daisy’s ear, “You’re like a grandmother to me.”

  This was more than sufficient to strike the old woman dumb.

  Sarah whispered again, “I love you.” And kissed Daisy’s wrinkled cheek.

  Overkill.

  If Daisy Perika was not literally bowled over by these tender endearments, they created a peculiar sense of disorientation. The woman with the barbed tongue and quick wit had not even the urge to make a sarcastic reply. Indeed, a salty tear appeared in the corner of her left eye. Daisy promptly blinked it away. Now what did Sarah do that for?

  To those tender souls who appreciate occasional displays of fondness, Daisy’s querulous query might seem peculiar. But the woman who had suffered multiple huggings—and even being kissed—felt like one who has been deprived of some essential strength. And not the mere weakening of muscle or intellect; it was as if the tribal elder had been robbed of some precious inner possession … an essential secret weapon.

  Daisy Perika scowled at her departing friends as if one of them were a thief. Or maybe it’s all three.

  Any fair-minded person who is acquainted with Charlie Moon, Scott Parris, and Sarah Frank will be appalled and insist that Daisy’s unspoken accusation is without the slightest justification. The old woman—always prone to unseemly excesses—has finally become completely unhinged.

  That possibility cannot be ruled out.

  But bizarre as Daisy Perika’s conviction may seem, this much may be stated with absolute certainty—a vital arrow was suddenly missing from the shaman’s quiver.

  Even so, did someone really purloin the pointed projectile?

  Despite Daisy’s dark suspicions, a deliberate theft seems unlikely.

  But it is equally improbable that the tribal elder has mislaid her treasured weapon—or that the missing arrow has bent a metaphoric bow and set itself aflight.

  So what the dickens is going on here?

  Those intrepid souls who raise such questions might be well advised to exercise a degree of caution. Ignorance, if not always bliss, is occasionally preferable to knowing what’s going on.

  CHAPTER THREE

  CONCERNING THE VISUALIZATION OF DEAD PEOPLE AND THE PERCEPTION OF THEIR VOICES

  As Scott Parris drove away in his aged red Volvo, Charlie Moon’s Expedition was close behind. Sarah Frank waited in her freshly washed and waxed red F-150 pickup until the dust had settled, then waved at Daisy Perika as she left.

  The very instant when the departing vehicles were out of sight, Charlie Moon’s aunt locked the front door of her house, got a firm grip on her walking stick, and set her wrinkled face resolutely toward her intended destination. Within the minute, the canyon’s gaping mouth had swallowed her whole.

  As she trod along slowly, the tribal elder wondered how many times she had followed this sinuous deer path into the solitude of Cañón del Espíritu. A thousand? No. More than I could count on the fingers of a thousand hands—and here I go again. And she entered therein with the comfortable certainty that today’s journey into this inner sanctum of her soul would be witnessed by a multitude of curious characters. Daisy could already feel the cunning animal eyes watching her from their various concealments. (Her observers included a pair of prairie rattlesnakes, several cottontail rabbits, a gray squirrel, and a harem of shy mule deer.) Daisy was confident that the gossipy raven would show her face, and that Delilah Darkwing would to bring her up-to-date on the latest gossip concerning the occupants of Spirit Canyon. Thus far, her feathered friend was nowhere to be seen. The feisty old woman particularly looked forward to a contentious conversation with the venerable pitukupf. She supposed that after a light breakfast of wild honey and piñon nuts, the dwarf was probably napping in his snug underground home. (He may have been; we have no reliable information on the Little Man’s current whereabouts.)

  But even if Daisy encountered neither her diminutive neighbor nor Delilah Darkwing, there was one constant in the Ute elder’s pilgrimages into these shadowy spaces between the canyon’s sandstone walls—the dead people who dwelled there. Like flitting bats who appeared with soft twilight and fuzzy moths drawn to flickering candlelight, the haunts were bound to show their faces—and several of these disembodied souls would bend Daisy’s ear with pleas for one thing and another. Among the recently deceased, the most common request was for information about friends and relatives who remained among the living. Once in a while, a vindictive apparition would (with considerable relish) inquire whether old So-and-So had finally died yet, and express the hope that his death had been painful. Some long-
dead phantoms would announce their presence with sinister grunts and horrible groanings, and one of these ancients might utter unintelligible mutterings in a language that had died ages ago with his long-forgotten tribe. Most of these dead folk were unpleasant to behold, but Daisy had grown accustomed to empty eye sockets, withered limbs showing gristle and bone, and skin that hung in tattered shreds. Unique among the residents of Cañón del Espíritu was an Apache skin-walker whom Daisy had (with malice aforethought) personally dispatched to his present condition. Evidently chagrined, her victim delighted in making dire threats against the Ute elder’s person, to which the shaman would reply in like kind. The irascible old woman enjoyed such interactions, and most of her encounters with the ghosts of Spirit Canyon were stimulating social events. Though she would not have admitted it, the old woman looked forward to the hideous apparitions’ predictable appearances.

  To her dismay, on this day they did not.

  Appear, that is.

  Oh, the haunts were there, all right.

  Daisy could hear the voices of several wandering souls. A recently dead quilt maker from Ignacio asked how her unmarried daughter was getting along. An Anasazi sorcerer who evidently considered the shaman a kindred spirit whispered urgently into Daisy’s ear. She could not understand a single syllable of what the dead magician said. A lonely old prospector who’d panned the stream almost two centuries ago inquired about the current price of gold. An 1870s Fort Garland soldier who’d died within sight of Three Sisters Mesa pleaded with the old woman to find his resting place and see that he got a decent Christian burial.

  Though she usually enjoyed conversing with the dead, the Ute elder did not utter one word in response.

  Her Apache victim (presumably waiting at the end of the queue) muttered several obscenities. He also threatened to sneak into her bedroom some dark night, suck all the blood from her veins, and vomit it into her water well. This aggravation was sufficient to loosen her tongue. “Come right ahead,” the feisty old woman said. “Try to put the bite on me and I’ll sew your nasty lips shut so tight that you won’t be able to say a four-letter word or suck sour stump water through a straw!” Under ordinary circumstances, this threat-counterthreat entertainment would have brightened up her morning. But not on this occasion.

  Daisy was distracted by a totally unforeseen development. For the first time ever, the shaman could not see a single one of those dead people who hovered so closely about her.

  It was unnerving.

  So much so, that without a thought to the friendly raven who was gliding down to land on a nearby juniper, or the cantankerous pitukupf whom she assumed was napping in his underground den, Daisy Perika turned as abruptly as one of her advanced age can and set her haggard face toward the open end of Cañón del Espíritu. As she pegged her way back along the deer path with her sturdy oak walking stick, a dismal thought hovered about her like a noxious vapor rising from a fetid swamp: I’m losing my powers. From Daisy’s unique perspective, this was equivalent to admitting that her vital life forces were ebbing. Sure as snow melts in May and cottonwood leaves fall to the ground in November and rot right on the spot—I’m dying.

  Are Dr. Daisy’s self-diagnosis and bleak prognosis accurate? Perhaps. The truth of the matter remains to be discerned.

  But of this much we can be certain: even as the old soul trodeth steadfastly toward hearth and home, Charlie Moon’s despondent aunty is not alone in this world of troubles. Other problems are always brewing in other pots, and one in particular is about to boil over that will—in one way or another—scald every member of the tribal elder’s inner circle.

  When and where?

  Tomorrow morning in Granite Creek.

  For those who hanker for a higher degree of specificity, the epicenter of this localized eruption will be—the Wanda Naranjo residence and its environs.

  You’ve never heard of the place?

  That lack of familiarity shall be immediately remedied.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE SHAKEDOWN

  GRANITE CREEK, FRIDAY MORNING

  Bleak bouquets of black clouds were blossoming over the mountains like sooty roses when Michael Kauffmann arrived in his Jeep Wagoneer. Oblivious to the looming storm, he braked to a stop in Wanda Naranjo’s cluttered yard, set the gearshift to Park, and cut the ignition. The long, thin face under his mop of red hair wore a wary expression—suggesting a famished coyote who’d spent the entire night on the prowl without making a kill. His ranging gaze took in an unpainted house with a rickety front porch. The dwelling was hatted with a rusted metal roof; at one end towered a mossy brick chimney where a hint of gray smoke curled up. On the porch were a pair of windows with paper shades lowered halfway; these lidded eyes looked back at him. Evading the disinterested gaze, Kauffmann glanced at the dilapidated one-window shack out back that leaned confidently against a rotting cottonwood. On the far side of a pathway through a weedy garden, a gnarly grape arbor made a tunnel to a weatherworn outhouse that served as a rustic backup when Wanda’s septic tank got backed up. Kauffmann found the normalcy of the familiar setting reassuring, but his bloodshot eyes had also noticed what wasn’t there—his lady friend’s Toyota Tercel. Wanda must be working overtime again. Which reminded him that his main squeeze had nagged him yesterday about repairing something or other at the house before she returned home from her graveyard shift at Snyder Memorial Hospital. But what was I supposed to fix? Kauffmann’s brow furrowed into a painfully strained frown. I think it had something to do with water dripping. A leaky roof? No, that wasn’t it. The showerhead in the bathroom? I don’t think so. He shrugged his scrawny shoulders. Well, whatever it was, it can wait till after some breakfast. Kauffmann’s ’possum grin bared a set of yellowed teeth. Wanda has a good memory and she won’t forget to remind me. As the part-time carpenter emerged from his old motor vehicle to amble across the yard, it occurred to him that she might not show up for a while. I might have to wait for some eats. His empty stomach growled in protest, reminding him that the absent woman had a teenage daughter. If Betty ain’t suffering from the morning sickness or some such thing, maybe I can talk her into breaking some eggs and perking a pot of coffee. In Mr. Kauffmann’s expert opinion, the daughter was every bit as good a cook as her mother. One of ’em can boil water about as well as the other.

  * * *

  Garbed in a tattered cotton bathrobe, her hands clasped around her protruding abdomen, Betty Naranjo watched her mother’s boyfriend from a dirty window. When Michael Kauffmann began making his way to the porch, the impressively pregnant sixteen-year-old waddled across the shoddy parlor toward the door. The pine floor squeaked under her weight, which was now in excess of 140 pounds. She opened the door without a word of greeting and received the same in return.

  Kauffmann hung his Wally Wordsworth’s Woodworks billed cap on a cedar peg, tossed his denim jacket onto the floor, then ambled indolently over to the couch, where he plopped down and stretched out flat on his back. “I could eat a half-dozen fried eggs, a pound of greasy bacon, and chugalug a whole gallon of coffee.” He closed his eyes. “Wake me up when breakfast is ready.”

  Betty’s lip curled in an ugly sneer. “I wouldn’t wake you up if the house was on fire!”

  “Don’t try sweet-talking me, youngster—I know you’re just angling for a favor.” Kauffmann cracked a wry eye long enough to wink it at his antagonist. “Besides, I like you better when you’re downright mean—so see if you can think of something really nasty to say.”

  Searching vainly for another poisonous barb, Betty found her supply depleted. Defeated by the thick-skinned scoundrel, she withdrew into her bedroom. Seating herself before a dresser, she picked up a purple plastic comb and listlessly began to pull it through strands of straggly black hair. Pausing, the teenager stared in the mirror at a bloated face floating over a big belly. Just a few months ago, I had a nice figure and was almost as pretty as some of those hotshot movie stars. As if to remind her of its presence, the new life shifted
behind her naval. It was depressing to have a baby that was going to come into the world in a couple of weeks without a daddy who’d admit to being the father. But I guess I brought this on myself. The young woman scowled at her homely behind-the-looking-glass counterpart, who faithfully returned the favor. So it’s up to me to take care of things. She put the purple plastic comb into a white leatherette jewelry box that was filled with gaudy baubles and waddled back into the parlor. While considering her options, she stood by the sofa where her mother’s boyfriend was pretending to nap. Betty fixed her myopic gaze on Mike Kauffmann’s tightly closed eyelids. What a faker. She toyed with the notion of kicking his left foot, which was dangling off the couch, but decided that … It’ll be more fun to stare at him till he can’t stand it anymore and opens his eyes. And so she did.

  The weasel-faced man with the unruly shock of red hair did his level best to reinforce the pretense that he was dozing. To that end, Kauffmann allowed his mouth to fall open. He also emitted a snorting snore. And frowned like a sleeper having a bad dream.

  Betty waited, patient as a frozen figure in a photograph.

  Having no other option, Kauffmann gamely continued the contest.

  Another unconvincing snore. A shudder, as if a monster in his nightmare was about to put the grab on him. A pitiful moan.

  The top-heavy girl smiled as the second hand on the wall clock touched the 12. He won’t hold out another minute.