Double Blind

by Hannah Alexander

  “Canaan says Christians don’t have to be afraid of death, because they’re going to heaven.”

  “That’s true, and I’m not saying it’s right for us to fear. I don’t know of very many people who are perfect Christians, though. Not very many people want to die.”

  Tanya nodded. “I’m not a Christian. My father says to do that I’ll have to let somebody else take over my spirit, and he doesn’t want me to let the God of the biligaana—” She caught herself and looked at Sheila.

  “That’s scary, too, isn’t it?” Sheila said. “Letting someone else, even God, take over your spirit.”

  “Nobody has the right to control me.”

  “Some might say that the Creator has every right to control His creation. When we allow Him to guide us, we’re wise in acknowledging His role in the universe.”

  Tanya shrugged. “What else are you afraid of? You weren’t afraid to drive out here all by yourself alone.”

  “I’m not afraid of driving.”

  “Were you afraid to leave your family?”

  “No. I was sad to leave my father and my friends back home in Missouri, but I knew I’d be going back soon.”

  “Don’t you have kids?”

  “No. If I had children, I wouldn’t have come—” She stopped herself, wishing she could take back those words. Tanya’s parents left her at home when they traveled.

  “Oh.” Tanya walked a few paces in silence, then said, “I have friends whose parents died. Jamey and April Hunt’s parents died this spring when their house burned down, and my best friend, over in Ganado, lost her mother when she was only five.”

  Sheila slowed her steps and raised her hands to shield her eyes from the sun. “What’s your best friend’s name?”

  “Donna. She’s a lot older than me, but she’s still my best friend now, and she’s my cousin. She’s going to have a baby in a couple of months.”

  “How old is Donna?”

  “Eighteen. She and her dad lived next door to us until she got married and moved. Now she weaves rugs at Hubbell Trading Post.”

  “She’s going to have a baby?”

  “Yes, but it’s not what everybody thinks. She got pregnant right after she got married, not before.”

  “You said you were friends with April and Jamey Hunt.”

  “Yes, April used to be a friend of mine,” Tanya said, then she fell silent.

  Sheila glanced at the child again, and finally recognized the expression she had noted earlier in Tanya’s eyes. Loneliness. It explained why she had so readily agreed to this walk, and to talk about things one wouldn’t expect her to talk about with a strange biligaana.

  Loneliness was an emotion Sheila understood well. She had wondered several times whether that loneliness might have motivated her to continue her relationship with Preston.

  Yet, she knew better. She simply liked Preston. Yes, she loved him, but having given herself hours and hours on the road on her drive here to brood about it, she realized that she and Preston were compatible. They liked the same things, they spoke the same language and even though he did not claim to be a believer, he had been raised by believers, he had grown up knowing the Bible. If not for that one big problem between them, she knew a marriage with him could be very good.

  She glanced back toward the school and thought about Canaan. At one time, they, too, had been very compatible.

  “April’s been different lately,” Tanya said.

  “You’re not friends with April anymore?” Sheila asked.

  A shrug. “I like her brother better. Jamey’s not bossy and doesn’t say mean things.”

  “She’s probably been hurting quite a bit since her parents died.”

  A nod.

  “Does she ever talk about her parents’ deaths?”

  A shake of the head. “But lately she’s been acting weird.”

  “How?”

  “Mean. She picks even more on her younger brother, Jamey.”

  “It’s hard to lose your parents.”

  Tanya looked up at her. “Jamey lost his parents, too. I lose mine all the time when they go on trips to their craft shows.”

  Sheila nodded.

  “I miss them so much. I don’t even want to think about how I’d feel if they didn’t come back.”

  “It’s hard,” Sheila said. “My mother died when I was ten.”

  “When you were here?”

  Sheila nodded.

  “How did she die?”

  Sheila caught a whiff of an old, familiar scent that drifted to her on an air current, but she couldn’t quite place it. “I never found out.”

  Tanya stopped walking. “Your mother was the school nurse. I’ve heard Jane talking about it.”

  “That’s right.” Sheila glanced over the horizon to find a thin plume of smoke rising into the clear sky. That scent…

  “April and Jamey’s mother worked in the clinic,” Tanya said.

  Sheila glanced at her, drawn by the suddenly hushed voice. “Yes.”

  “And now you’re here.” Dark eyes widened.

  Sheila could tell Tanya had connected the incidents with her mother and Wendy. “Nothing’s happened to me.”

  “But it might.”

  “Things are always happening to people, but just because something happened to my mother when we lived here doesn’t mean it’ll be the same in my case. Canaan runs the clinic now, and nothing’s happened to him. There have been countless health professionals at the clinic in the days since my mother’s death, and I’ve heard nothing about their fate.”

  Tanya frowned. Her footsteps slowed as she glanced toward the horizon. “You smell that?”

  Sheila nodded, slowing with her. “Some kind of wood smoke.”

  “Cedar.” The word was whispered, and Tanya stopped walking.

  “What does that signify?”

  Tanya glanced back toward the school. “I’ve got to get to the dorm. I…I want to put some things away in my chest.” She pivoted, and her steps quickened as she followed the trail back. She didn’t wait for Sheila to follow.

  Chapter Sixteen

  T he duffel bag hit the backseat of Preston’s Jeep at the same time a whoop of joy reverberated through the cab.

  “Free!” Blaze hopped into the passenger seat. Denim short pants, inexpertly hemmed, revealed black legs that bulged with muscles. A pale blue T-shirt emphasized his strong arms and broad chest.

  Reportedly, the young man’s most striking physical characteristic was his eyes. Preston had overheard, often enough, the women of Hideaway remark on the beauty of those eyes. But then women tended to romanticize, and Preston did not. He knew from experience that kindness lay behind those dark eyes and friendly features. Blaze Farmer had a mature grasp of human nature despite his age.

  “I’m gonna miss that place,” Blaze said.

  Preston slid into the driver’s seat and closed the door. “What place?”

  Blaze gestured across the lake toward the boys’ ranch that had been his home since a little before his sixteenth birthday. Now, at nineteen, he had just completed the equivalent of six semesters at College of the Ozarks. The kid was smart, and he was a hard worker.

  “We’ll be back soon,” Preston assured him.

  “With Sheila, right?”

  “That remains to be seen. At any rate, I want to see that she’s okay.”

  “We’ll need to stop somewhere on the way and take some chocolate as a peace offering.”

  Preston scowled at him as he pulled out into the street in front of the general store. “I’m not fighting with her. Why would I need to make peace?”

  “You’ll be fighting when we get there, trust me. Are you going to drive back out to the farm and say goodbye to the girls?”

  “I already said goodbye. Their parents are happily home, and all is well in their world. Why would I be fighting with Sheila?”

  Blaze gave him a look that said, I can’t believe you’re that dense.

  Preston relented. “
I know she says she doesn’t want me there, but remember you’re the one who talked me into this in the first place.”

  “Still don’t hurt to have a peace offering. Even if you’re not fighting, peace offerings are good insurance.”

  “Fine. I’m sure we’ll find a good place for chocolate on the way.”

  “And flowers.”

  “Don’t get carried away.”

  “Purple daisies and dark chocolate, the darker the better.”

  Preston grimaced at the winding road ahead. He’d thought he knew Sheila pretty well. After all, they’d met more than a year ago. Blaze had worked with her only a few times at the hospital. “How do you know so much about her?”

  “I listen,” Blaze said. “Women talk all the time when they’re working. Any man who listens is a wise man.”

  As they left the town of Hideaway far behind, Preston decided he might just swallow some pride and discover what else this cocky nineteen-year-old could tell him about romance.

  Sheila stood on the desert trail long after Tanya had run between the buildings and out of sight. The school didn’t resemble anything in her memories, except for the tailing of small shacks that stretched out from the main campus—the only remnant of the old school. Even so, she felt a strange sense that she had stood in this place before.

  The scent of smoke reached her again, and she closed her eyes. It was such a familiar aroma, one that threaded through many of her early memories. As a child, she had often caught that scent on the wind during track practice after school. She had known about local superstitions, how the fragrance of a certain incense indicated the presence of a skinwalker in the area—a Navajo witch who dressed in the skins of a particular animal.

  The kids had told scary skinwalker stories late at night, and she remembered countless nightmares about the Navajo werewolf—the most frightening of skinwalkers—a witch covered in wolf skin. She wondered if those stories had been the basis for her fear of dogs. It didn’t seem quite reasonable, but her fears weren’t reasonable, either.

  There was a significance about that particular scent….

  Tingles of one hidden memory snaked through her mind. That smoke…incense…a hazy, smoke-filled hogan with log beams above her…and sharp pain.

  “No,” Sheila whispered, willing away that memory even as it developed. She wasn’t ready to remember yet.

  Take this slowly. She glanced again toward the school and caught sight of Canaan’s lanky frame walking between buildings. He had obviously completed his errand. The orientation could begin.

  Without looking back, she returned to campus.

  Preston filled the Jeep with gasoline in Aurora, Missouri, where Blaze insisted on taking the helm. Though Preston protested, he was glad the kid had the driving skills and sense of direction to get them safely to Sheila. It meant Preston didn’t have to carry the burden of the trip while worrying about Sheila’s circumstances.

  “I’m not sure where a person would be able to find purple daisies in Arizona,” Preston said as Blaze settled behind the wheel.

  “Yellow Pages would work,” Blaze said, glancing at him. “They even have those in Indian country, you know.”

  “Native American. Maybe we could find a florist in Albuquerque.”

  “Native American?” Blaze snorted. “That would make me African-American. Excuse me, I’m American and I’m me. The long descriptive stuff just don’t work for me.”

  “Well, would you mind not even introducing the subject when we get there? Don’t start pushing hot buttons at this school,” Preston warned. “We’re trying to get on Sheila’s good side, not alienate her or the powers that be at this place.”

  Blaze looked at his watch. “How long before we’re there?”

  “With any luck,” Preston said, “we should be pulling into the school by tomorrow evening.”

  “Then be prepared for worship service tomorrow evening. I know you don’t like it, but you’ll be expected to do it.”

  “I know how to go through the motions,” Preston said.

  Blaze gave him a glare.

  “Watch the road.”

  Blaze returned his attention to Highway 39. “Sheila deserves more than just the motions.”

  “I can’t help that.”

  “Neither can she. You can have all the right motions and all the right words, but if the most important thing doesn’t come from your heart, it won’t work.” He braked gently for a curve.

  “She knows how I feel. I’m not trying to fool her. I wouldn’t dare try. She’s too smart, and she has a lot of insight.”

  Blaze gradually increased the speed, though Preston noticed that he stayed a bit below the limit along this lush, curving stretch of road. “So you think she’s smart and has a lot of insight, but that she’s just duped?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t believe in God, and you know she does. I might not know much, but it seems to me that’s a big thing to disagree on. If you don’t believe, then you’ve gotta think she’s a dupe for believing.”

  “I’ve never said I didn’t believe.”

  “In Christ?”

  “In God.”

  “So you don’t believe in the Son of God, but you believe in God.”

  Preston opened the atlas to the state of Arizona. “I know Him, all right. I’m just not on speaking terms with Him.”

  “So you believe that Jesus—”

  “Could we drop the subject? I know the drill, Blaze. I’ve been over and over this with Sheila, and we’re at an impasse. I don’t believe God is there for me. He might be there for every superpious Christian who has never suffered or lost anything in life, but He hasn’t been there for me or my family. Judging by what Sheila’s gone through for the past couple of years—except, of course, for the good fortune of meeting and falling in love with me—I can’t see that Christianity offers much.”

  “So the bit about everlasting life and heaven and all that soared right over your head in Sunday school, right?”

  “If I want to argue about God, I’ll have every opportunity for that as soon as I see Sheila again. Mind if I take a break from it until then?”

  “You could practice on me. Meanwhile, you might want to think about that guy she’s with in Arizona. I heard he’s some kind of missionary or something. You’ve got some major competition, if you ask—”

  “Just watch the road, would you?” Preston leaned his seat back and placed the open atlas over his face. “Wake me when we get there.”

  “Amarillo tonight?”

  “Tucumcari. I want to get there tomorrow, not sometime next week. Now drive, and leave me in peace.”

  He heard Blaze chuckle softly to himself. This was going to be a long road trip if the kid thought he was going to get Preston Black saved before they reached Twin Mesas.

  Canaan completed Sheila’s orientation of the huge clinic at the bank of filing cabinets lined up against the wall. The snarl of misfiled and often incomplete medical records was his biggest challenge, yet also his best hope in figuring out what might be going on with the kids.

  She gave a soft whistle. “Your grandfather sure didn’t spare any expense on this place.”

  Canaan pulled an office chair from the desk and gestured for her to sit down, then pulled a handful of manila folders from the top drawer. “I saw you talking with Tanya. Has she come down from her high horse with you?”

  With a smile, Sheila took the folders from him. “I had forgotten that phrase. Yes, I think Tanya’s fine with me. What are these?”

  “They’re medical records on the Hunts and Bob Jaffrey. Also on Teddy Whitehorse and Jim Begay.”

  “Begay? A relative of Kai’s?”

  Canaan shrugged. “The name Begay is as common here as Smith or Jones in the rest of the country. Teddy and Jim were the students I mentioned to you last night. They died in separate incidents before they started college.”

  “You still think there’s some kind of significance to all these dea
ths?”

  Canaan nodded as he pulled another chair over. He sat down, then leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You came out here to find out what happened to your mother. I’ll help you in any way I can, Sheila. I want to know, too. I also want to find out what happened to all these people, and what’s disturbing the children now.”

  Sheila’s clear, straightforward gaze met his. He thought he saw apprehension in her eyes, but she had never been one to avoid what she feared. Her tendency was to face down her fears, no matter what it might cost her—and that tendency had earned her a few bruises when she lived here.

  “You were there for me when we were children,” he said softly. “I’m here for you now.”

  “You didn’t want me here.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t. Still don’t feel completely comfortable with you here.”

  “Why not?”

  He wasn’t sure how to answer that question.

  “Because you think I could be in danger,” she said.

  He grimaced. “There are some things we have to take seriously in our lives. Not often, and I don’t mean we should live as if we’re afraid of the world, but sometimes there really is danger.”

  She leaned forward, and he found himself withdrawing from her nearness. Her presence affected him at a deeper level than it ever had before, and he was not comfortable with his response to her.

  “You don’t think the fire was an accident?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure what to think, but I can’t let it go. I’d like for you to read through these files today, and then if you would get started on some others I’ve flagged as soon as possible—”

  “Show me which ones and I’ll do it today. I’m just glad to have the chance to do something proactive for once.”

  He got up and pulled out the file drawer where he had earmarked some other records that had concerned him. Part of him was uncomfortable that he once more required her assistance—Sheila to the rescue. But another part felt a powerful rush of relief that she was working beside him. He didn’t want to try to analyze the myriad reasons for these feelings. Right now, he didn’t care. Whether by divine intervention or a malevolent hand, she was here. He would do all he could to see to her safety, and he would also utilize her skills, knowledge and memories to help him unravel the elusive mystery that hung over this school.