“Preston?”
“I’m here.”
“How far are you from the school?”
“About forty-five minutes now. You?”
“The same,” Canaan said.
“I’ll race you,” Preston told him and disconnected.
Preston tried Sheila’s cell again, and was startled when a deep male voice answered. A disgruntled, familiar male voice.
“You aren’t Sheila,” Preston said.
“Sure ain’t,” Blaze said. “Where are you, man? Everything’s coming down hard, the CDC and FBI are on the way and the Navajo Tribal Police are already here, directing traffic. They think we really have the Marburg virus. What’s up? Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I did warn you it was a possibility. After Dr. Sheridan’s last call, I had to reach Canaan first.”
“And he ain’t here, either. Where is he?”
“We’re both on our way, Blaze. You need to sit tight. Just cooperate with everybody and help as much as you can. You know where the medical files are.”
“I’ve got chaos here. The staff who are still here have been ordered to keep everyone else at the school and to call the others back as fast as possible. No one’s allowed to leave, and we’ve got two sick people already—not sure if they’re really sick, or if they’re just scared.”
“Where’s Sheila?”
“She took off across campus before the whole ruckus started, and, of course, she left her cell phone behind in her purse. She never carries this thing on her. I’m gonna get her a special hook—”
“Why did she take off across campus?”
“Worried about a patient, why else?”
“Last time I spoke with her, she told me there weren’t any patients.”
“It was Betsy, in for her monthly shot. Sheila sent her home.”
“What was wrong with her?”
“Just pain. I guess she’s used to it, though. She’s got rheumatoid arthritis, and she had a bad flare-up this week.”
“A bad flare-up of pain? Blaze, that’s one of the first symptoms of the Marburg virus.”
“Well, I know that. I’ve done as much reading up on this thing as I could since I heard about it. But pain is also one of the first symptoms of arthritis and probably a thousand other diseases. That doesn’t narrow it down much, and Betsy is arthritic.”
“But Marburg has been confirmed.”
“I hear you, so what should we do?”
“Sheila didn’t take protective gear with her, did she?”
“She had that medical case with her. It’s loaded with protective gear. Remember, this is plague country.”
“But she doesn’t know to use—”
“Even though she doesn’t know yet that Marburg is confirmed, she’s been alerted, and she’s smart enough to use the gear. Have some faith in her, Preston.”
“Isn’t there anyone you could send after her?”
“Are you kidding? With the panic going on here? But you just reminded me of something else I need to worry about. This shot Betsy gets? It could make her especially vulnerable to the virus. The drug weakens the immune system.”
“Did Sheila take Betsy’s temperature when she was at the clinic?”
“Betsy wouldn’t let her. Didn’t want anything but her shot, so she could go lie down.”
“I’m less than an hour away, and Canaan’s on his way there. Hold things together until someone gets there to relieve you.”
“I don’t have much choice.”
“Remember this is why you wanted to come to Arizona. You wanted the experience.”
“I’m getting it. I don’t think I want to take any more road trips with you. I’ve got to go. There’s another patient coming in the door. She looks awful. You just hurry back.”
Reluctantly, Preston disconnected. A couple of cars passed him, exceeding eighty miles per hour. He knew, because he was doing eighty-two. He upped the cruise control to eighty-five, and found himself praying again.
It was getting to be a habit.
Chapter Forty-Two
S heila turned away from the dark windows of Betsy’s apartment and walked past two buildings to the cafeteria. She’d have expected to smell something cooking, but no aromas hung in the air.
She found one of the cook’s helpers, a young woman named Carla, rushing through the kitchen, slapping sandwiches together on the long worktable, shoving chips into bowls, chopping fruit. She barely acknowledged Sheila.
“Have you seen Betsy?” Sheila asked.
“No, and I haven’t seen Steve, either. He said he’d cover for Betsy, but he’s probably forgotten.”
Sheila thanked her and turned to leave when Tanya Swift burst through the front door, followed by Jamey Hunt.
“April’s run off, Sheila!” Tanya said. “I saw her running out into the desert this afternoon right after school, and Jamey says she hasn’t come back.”
“I think she’s mad,” Jamey said. “She got in trouble for playing those tricks on you, and she’s been pouting all day.”
“Well, she’s a big girl, and she’ll probably come back on her own,” Sheila said.
“But she was running after somebody,” Tanya said. “The person walked all bent over, too far away for me to recognize.”
“Betsy walks all hunched over when she’s hurting,” Jamey said.
“But why would Betsy go walking into the desert when she’s in that much pain?” Sheila asked. It didn’t make sense.
Tanya nudged Jamey with her elbow. “You’d better tell her everything.”
The boy shoved his hands into his pockets and looked down, his glossy black hair hanging into his dark brown eyes. “The wolf tried to get me last night, but I didn’t let him.”
Sheila stared at him in astonishment.
He squinted up at her. “He gave me something horrible to eat that made me sick, and he talked about serving some spirit that wasn’t God. I showed him this necklace.” He held up the gold-and-turquoise cross. “I think it scared him. I don’t remember much after that, just being sick, and running as fast as I could back home.”
“Who is the wolf?” Sheila asked. “Where did you meet with him?”
Jamey shrugged. “He’s the wolf. He’s himself. He came to me when I was sleeping.”
“Like in a dream?” Sheila asked.
“Like for real. He was standing beside my bed and he woke me up. He talked with a growl, but he kept it quiet, and he had a wolf’s head and fur and everything. He told me I was selected for the power ritual the next night. He told me to walk out into the desert, to follow the smoke. There was this tent, and the smoke came out the middle top, like a smoke hole in a hogan, only it wasn’t a hogan.”
“What did he try to do to you?” Sheila asked.
Jamey shrugged, grimacing. “Some kind of weird ritual to make me strong.”
“So he was trying to drug you so you wouldn’t remember,” Sheila said.
“But I did remember…some of it, anyway. I told my brother about it. Steve was mad, and I think he was going to tell Betsy about it so he could get out of kitchen duty and go after the wolf himself.”
Sheila swallowed hard. “If Steve told Betsy, then she would have gone after that wolf herself.” The thought of hiking into the desert, where the object of Sheila’s nightmares loomed, sent cold sweat sliding down her spine. Witchcraft, Betsy had said.
But Betsy shouldn’t be out walking in the desert alone in her condition. What could she possibly have been thinking?
“So that’s why Betsy didn’t answer her phone or come to the door when I knocked,” she told the kids. “Well, I know she’s in pain, and I have pain meds in my pack, so there’s no reason to return to the clinic.”
“You’re going with us to find them?” Tanya asked.
“No.” Sheila led the way back out of the cafeteria. “You two go to the clinic and tell Blaze where I’ve gone. If he’s free, tell him to come join me, but I want both of you to stay on campus. Just s
how me the way April went.”
“It doesn’t take two people to carry a message,” Tanya said. “I’m going with you.”
Jamey protested, and was overridden. His mission was to take the message to Blaze, and send Blaze into the desert when he could get away.
Jamey took off at a run toward the clinic. For a moment, Sheila considered trying to drive her Jeep across the desert, but the trails were too narrow for a vehicle, and in spite of the four-wheel capabilities of the Jeep, she didn’t like the prospect of soft sand. When she was a child, she remembered her father’s car getting stuck all the way up to the fenders.
Tanya broke into a jog beside Sheila. “What if we find the wolf?”
“Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.”
Sheila started to pray.
The cedar chips flare into flames quickly when I light them. I watch them burn as I chew another peyote button. It will draw the spirit closer, past the pain, past the fever that burns with increasing ferocity.
I pull on my skin, mold my face, streaking the colors so familiar in the ritual. I pull on the necklaces and bracelets of turquoise, coral, agate and silver. In spite of the pain, I leave nothing out.
As smoke spirals through the hole in the center of the hogan—the real hogan, where I keep all my supplies—I pull on the head, glad of the larger eye slits at the top of the snout. I become the wolf, sinking my thoughts, my whole being, into this spirit. I become the spirit as the power surges through me. I will be all powerful once again and I will be healed.
Though I have lost much blood, the wound is not my utmost worry, but the fever that has spiked in the past few hours. I’ve always been so careful with the vials, yet the fever, the fatigue…it is time to move from denial. I need the immunoglobulin.
A slight sound from outside—a whisper of a footstep—makes me jerk in surprise, and the wound burns in my gut. I feel the warm blood spilling again.
I pull the wolf skin more tightly around my shoulders and turn to watch the doorway.
A thin shadow darkens the ground outside. “H-hello?”
My breath catches. It’s that brat, April. “What do you want?” My voice is the wolf’s voice, low and harsh as a growl of anger. The spirit of the wolf is in me, and I am no longer myself.
Silence. As well she might be silent in the face of the wolf’s anger. What right does she have to stalk me to my private hogan, my headquarters? She has no idea what this means.
I step from the shadows into the entryway, the wolf in full regalia. Her small, dark eyes widen at the sight of me. She tenses, like a startled rabbit. She looks down at my jewelry, then back up at my head, obviously terrified. Good.
“Did you follow me?” I demand.
Slowly she nods.
I raise my arm and allow her to study the jewels as they catch the dim light of the fire, then I step forward with the graceful glide of the wolf and lay my hand on her skinny shoulder. I could snap her neck with one quick jerk.
Her body shudders beneath my touch. She takes a deep breath and straightens her spine. “D-did you see my brother?”
I feel my whole body stiffen. “What do you mean?”
“He was looking for you.”
“I am not your brother’s babysitter.”
“But he was going to talk to you.”
My hand tightens on the small, bony shoulder until April winces and tries to jerk free.
I release her, my mind frozen with the effort to control a surge of panic. “Did he say why?”
“He said it was none of my business.”
I stare down into the young, petulant face. I must be careful now, or this little one may have to be sacrificed, as well. But I am a master of mind control. I will make no more mistakes. I can make this child forget.
Chapter Forty-Three
S heila recognized the lay of the land in the deepening dusk. The path grew more familiar with each step she took. Had she walked here in the daytime, she may not have recognized it, but in the dim light, much like the light of a full moon, she did. She recalled walking this trail to a hogan. How many times?
It seemed that when she experienced anew the things she had experienced as a child, the memory returned with sharp clarity. Where before the pain had been blunted by time, her mother’s death now stung with a vivid, cutting edge.
She couldn’t recall feeling fear as she walked along this path. All she remembered was a sense of eagerness, though she didn’t know why. Not yet. How had she been made to forget the past so completely for so long?
Undiscovered truths continued to lurk in her subconscious. Knowledge was one thing, but authentic, experiential memory remained frustratingly elusive.
“Tanya,” she said softly, “do you remember walking this path?”
“Steve used to take Jamey and April and me out here a long time ago, when he was on the track team. We don’t come this way anymore.” Tanya sniffed. “Smell that?”
Sheila stopped and sniffed the air. “Cedar smoke.”
Tanya’s steps slowed. “Sheila?” Her voice suddenly trembled.
“It’s okay. I’m here.” Sheila had seen Twin Mesas from this spot before. She glanced to the right of the trail, where footsteps led through a stand of piñon trees.
“They must have gone into Piñon Valley,” Sheila said, pointing to the ground.
Tanya hesitated, then said softly, “It’s haunted.”
Sheila remembered it had always been considered so. Jamey had said nothing about coming here the night he met with the wolf. He was supposed to walk in the desert and follow the smoke.
“Tanya, I wish I’d brought my cell phone. If Blaze was coming, he’d be here by now. Will you go back and get it for me?”
Tanya crossed her arms in front of her. “It won’t work here, anyway. No reception.”
“Then I need you to find a place where you can get reception and make a call for me.”
“This is the haunted valley, Sheila. This is where the wolf lives. You can’t go down there alone!”
“Nobody knows for sure where the wolf lives, and no matter who’s down in the valley, I’m following these tracks. If the wolf is down there, do you want to leave April and Betsy to its mercy? I need you to call for help. I’d feel a whole lot safer if I knew Preston or Canaan was coming to back me up.”
Tanya hesitated. Sheila took that as acquiescence.
“Jamey’s probably following us, knowing him,” Tanya said at last. “I guess I could go back and see if—”
“Good girl. Get my cell phone, try to call Preston. His speed dial number is on my menu. Do you know how to find that?”
“Sure I do, but—”
“I need him here. I never dreamed Betsy would come this far, especially not with her arthritis, and I may need help getting her back to the school.”
Tanya studied Sheila’s expression closely, then glanced down into the hollow, where Sheila could see that flash flood waters from years past had carved sharp grooves and ditches, steep drops and overhangs into the sandy soil.
The more Sheila thought about Jamey’s confession in the cafeteria, the more convinced she was that someone was using some form of mind control. Since the discovery of GHB in Tanya’s blood, Sheila had begun to wonder if she, too, had been administered a drug to keep her from remembering all those years ago.
Tanya’s eyes grew huge in the dusky light. “Sheila? What if…Did you think maybe…” She sighed, shaking her head.
“What, honey?”
“Well, you know the wolf could be anybody. Maybe someone from the school, maybe not. It might not even be a…man.” She held Sheila’s gaze, nibbling at her lower lip.
“You mean human?”
“I mean man.”
Sheila felt anew the chill that had not left her since stepping foot onto the desert tonight. “You mean you think it could be Betsy.”
Tanya’s eyes filled with tears. Her chin wobbled, and she nodded.
Sheila wanted to cry,
too. She wanted to escape this place and never return. But she couldn’t escape the imprint the wolf had placed on her all those years ago. It was time to break that connection forever, and to make sure the wolf was stopped.
The bitterness of the peyote in my mouth is not nearly as bad as the agonizing throb in my gut, which has increased without mercy. It’s so hard to will away the pain as I administer the injections to my young charge, and the injection of immunoglobulin into my own arm.
I reach for another syringe and brush aside some pots of paint—these paints have been so useful to me these past years. I can cease to be just an ordinary person when I wear my careful covering. I become the wolf to all who enter my tent…and now, once more, my hogan. I become the wolf to myself.
April looks toward the entrance. “I hear someone coming.”
I turn sharply, then double over in pain. It is excruciating, and for a few seconds it is all I can do not to cry out, attacked on two sides, with injury and illness. Moving slowly, I creep to the hogan door and peer out. The breeze, more gentle in this hollow of the desert, rains soft kisses on my burning skin. As my eyes grow accustomed to the darkening of the sky, I catch a movement in the piñons.
I retreat into the shadows, drawing the skin cape more securely over my shoulders as I watch the approaching figure. It’s Sheila. I see the paleness of her skin, the dark hair, that stance she always takes when she’s considering something—arms crossed, legs braced.
Why didn’t I hear her coming? How did this little drugged brat realize Sheila’s presence before I did? How much power must Sheila command, when even the energy I received from Steve’s dying blood did not prepare me for her arrival? His attack must have drained more from me than I realized.
I consider the sand painting, the curse I sent to Sheila. Did she manage to deflect it and turn it back on me?
Sheila stood in the shadows, ashamed of her sudden timidity. This was where it had all happened. She smelled the smoke drifting from the center of the hogan roof, thick enough to choke her. She saw the rectangle of firelight through the doorway—a west-facing doorway that was considered evil by the Navajo.
Double Blind Page 29