sedona files - books one to three

by Christine Pope

  I wasn’t about to explain that I only intended to drive to Taos, not wander around in the desert hopped up on peyote and hoping that my spirit animal would come visit me. The important thing was that he had said yes. “Great. We don’t open until noon today, so you have plenty of time.”

  Another one of those pauses. “One thing, Kirsten.”

  “Yes?” I asked, stopping at a red light. Sunrise Jeep Tours was only a few blocks away now, and I hoped my worry and impatience hadn’t seeped into my voice.

  “When the truth comes to you, don’t turn away from it.”

  “Um…okay.”

  He chuckled. “You’re dubious. That’s all right. Just be open to it when the time comes.”

  “Okay, Michael, I will.” I saw Sunrise Jeep coming up on my left and said, “I have to go, but thanks again.”

  He didn’t say “you’re welcome,” only, “Be mindful,” before he hung up.

  Damn straight I’d be mindful. I was about to drive almost five hundred miles in the winter in an unfamiliar vehicle, just because an agent from a clandestine government organization had told me to.

  Sigh.

  * * *

  Henry dug his thumbs into his belt loops and rocked back on the heels of his hiking boots as he watched me with too-bright blue eyes. I tried not to shift my weight from one foot to the other like a grade-school student caught wandering the halls when she should have been in class.

  “Borrow a Jeep,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “So you can drive to Taos, New Mexico, in December.”

  “Yes.”

  The wrinkles around those keen eyes deepened a little. “Flagstaff’s a lot closer if you’re planning on skiing.”

  “No, it’s not that.” I blinked, not wanting to say any more than I had to. Henry was certainly no blabbermouth, but word did tend to get around in Sedona. “Just some…personal business. I’ll be back Tuesday afternoon. Promise.”

  He didn’t reply at once, but just looked me up and down. I’d made sure before I left the house that my multicolored wool scarf was tucked securely into the collar of my coat, and although I usually didn’t wear that much makeup, I’d dotted some concealer under my eyes, since the shadows there betrayed my rough night.

  Then he let out a little sigh, unhooked his thumbs from his belt, and said, “Well, yeah, all right. S’pretty slow right now. Not like I don’t have vehicles to spare.” His eyes narrowed. “You know how to operate a four-wheel drive?”

  “Sure,” I responded at once. “One of my boyfriends taught me.” I didn’t bother to add that the aforementioned boyfriend had been the one from my senior year of high school, and that I hadn’t driven a vehicle with four-wheel drive since then. My memory was a little fuzzy, but I thought I could handle it. Probably just like riding a bicycle.

  “Uh-huh.” He gestured me over to the counter. “Go ahead and fill out the paperwork, since I’ll still need your driver’s license and insurance information. Just don’t worry about the payment info.”

  “Thanks, Henry — ” I began, but he waved me off.

  “Go on, fill out the paperwork. I’ll go over your Jeep to make sure everything’s okay with it.” He shook his head and added, “You can park your van in the back. I figure you’ll need someplace to leave it.”

  I opened my mouth to say thank you again, but he was already out the door. Besides, he was doing me an enormous favor. A couple of meager “thanks” weren’t really adequate compensation, but they’d have to do for now until I could think of an appropriate way to show my gratitude.

  * * *

  A half-hour later I was on the road, heading up 89A to pick up Interstate 40 so I could head due east into New Mexico. That route could be a little dicey, since the ADOT (Arizona Department of Transportation) folks tended to close 89A at the drop of a hat during the winter. But it hadn’t snowed overnight after all, and today the sky was simply stunning, huge white clouds and blue sky competing for space as the sun slipped in and out, creating fast-moving shadows along the ground.

  I didn’t have a lot of company on the road. It was still fairly early — not even ten yet — and the tourists tended to get scared off when they saw the huge blinking signs on the interstate warning of possible closures on the winding canyon route. It was safer to just go down Interstate 17, even if it did send you out of your way.

  And that Jeep — well, let’s just say I was seriously reconsidering my “no new cars” policy, because driving that new Rubicon was like piloting a Lear jet after spending years at the controls of a Cessna. Frankly, I was afraid to touch half the stuff because I didn’t know exactly what it could do, but at least the jack for my iPod was easy enough to locate. Henry had given me a quickie demo of the four-wheel-drive system.

  “Probably won’t need anything more than the high range, if all you’re worried about is snowy roads,” he’d told me, and I’d assured him that I didn’t plan to go off-road with it.

  He’d seemed satisfied by that, and I’d driven off the Sunrise Jeep lot going about five miles an hour under the speed limit, just because I was still trying to figure out how everything worked. As I went through town I gradually gained some confidence, but I was still a little over-awed by the vehicle, and humbled.

  Henry hadn’t just loaned me a Jeep — he’d loaned me the best vehicle on his lot. I’d known better than to protest, though, because he probably would have said something like, “Better you than some damn-fool tourist who’s going to get it stuck in a riverbed because he doesn’t know what he’s doing.” The guy had a unique viewpoint toward tourists, considering they provided his livelihood.

  Now, though, I followed the switchbacks on 89A as they led me up out of the canyon. Then I was on I40, heading steadily eastward, listening to my mega Foo Fighters playlist and watching the shifting light and shadow on the ground. There were patches of snow off to either side of the highway, but they gradually disappeared as the road sloped downward and the temperature warmed into the upper forties. Traffic was still fairly light, even on the interstate.

  And that was the problem, because with this flawless vehicle taking me east, and not much else to concentrate on, I couldn’t help circling around to where I was going. Who I was going to see.

  Marybeth Swenson.

  In my mind, she was never “Mom.” Every once in a while Kara would slip up and refer to her that way, but I always thought of her as “my mother”…when I thought of her at all. I’d tried pretty hard to excise her from my life. After all, she’d done the same thing to me.

  I didn’t even remember what she really looked like in person, although Grandpa had kept a picture of her in his dresser drawer until the day he died. When I was little, I’d sneak in and pull it out every once in a while, take a look at it. Marybeth was very beautiful, or at least she had been back then. Actually, the person she really reminded me of was that actress who was murdered by the Manson Family back in the ’60s. Sharon Tate, that was her name. No wonder my mother seemed to have no problem finding male companionship.

  Grandpa had never made excuses for her, although I’d heard him arguing with Grandma a few times about her. I guess ol’ Marybeth really went off the rails when her older brother, the uncle I’d never met, died in the last year of fighting in Vietnam. She’d apparently settled down enough to get married for a few years and have Kara, but that marriage broke up long before I was born. After that came more wild years, and then somehow in the midst of her partying she’d gotten knocked up with me and decided to continue with the pregnancy — probably because she was so out of it that she couldn’t even get it together long enough to go get an abortion.

  Really, she probably did Kara and me a favor by taking off that one night and never coming back, although at the time it had been pretty terrifying. Most of the details were mercifully hazy, since I was barely three years old at the time, but I did remember Kara acting all worried and trying to hide it, feeding me mac and cheese and frozen pizza, then finally refrie
d beans on tortillas she baked in the toaster oven because we didn’t have anything else. After the first night alone, she started rummaging around our dingy apartment, obviously looking for something, but it wasn’t until our grandparents showed up on the third day and gathered up the two of us and all our belongings that I realized Kara had been looking for a phone number where she could reach them, call them to let them know Marybeth had finally taken off for good.

  There wasn’t a formal adoption, but our mother never came looking for us. I got the impression that Grandma sent her news from time to time, but once she passed away, I had the feeling that pipeline was cut off. Grandpa had never forgiven his daughter for what she’d done to us.

  I liked to pretend that it was no big deal, that Kara had fared the worst because she was so much older and remembered so much more, but of course there were scars. We went to counseling, but I didn’t see the point. It was like picking at a scab that should have been left alone to heal. And yeah, maybe I had trust issues, but I’d turned into a more or less functional adult, so I refused to worry about it. I’d relegated my mother to oblivion, and sincerely hoped she’d stay there.

  No such luck.

  No, I was heading toward her at roughly eighty miles an hour, and I had absolutely no idea what to say when I got there. What, “Hi, Mom, it’s been a few decades. I’m here because a Man in Black said you had some super-secret information you needed to pass on to me so I can save the world. How’ve you been?”

  Right.

  The drive was pretty straightforward until I got to Santa Fe. I’d stopped once for gas and to use the restroom, and also to get a long-delayed hot dog. The dog didn’t sit so well in my stomach afterward, but I didn’t know if that was because it had been sitting in its little warming case for too long, or because the closer I got to Taos, the more I seemed to clench up.

  But then I had to take some kind of bypass road intended to keep travelers from being bogged down in Santa Fe proper, although it didn’t seem like that great of a bypass, since the speed limit kept varying widely, going from 65 to 55 and even 45 in a few places. And even when I got past that, the highway itself seemed just as capricious, spitting me out in a lovely armpit of a town called Española where I had to drop to 35 miles an hour and missed just about every goddamn traffic light.

  By that point it was past four-thirty, and the sun was dipping down behind the hills to my left. I knew there was no way I’d make it to Taos before full dark, and set my teeth as I passed yet another Native American casino. As far as I could tell, the main sources of income in New Mexico were casinos or working for the state government, judging by the casinos I’d seen off the highway or the numerous “official” vehicles that had passed me once I crossed the state line.

  Then, of course, snow began to fall. Clouds had been lowering all afternoon, but I’d sort of hoped they’d hold off until I reached my destination. No such luck. By that point I was traveling north on Highway 68, twisting and turning as the road paralleled the path of a river I guessed must be the Rio Grande, although there weren’t any signs indicating it as such. Totally unlike Arizona, where they’ll practically label a ditch if it floods during the wet season.

  I felt the first slip of my tires and pushed the gear into the high range of the four-wheel drive. There were chains in the back, but Henry had told me I probably wouldn’t need them. “Keep her steady, and the gears will do the job,” he’d said, and so far he seemed to be right.

  The Jeep would most likely get me where I was going, but I knew there was no way I’d make it there before six. More like six-thirty, I revised mentally, as I dropped down to thirty miles an hour. Good thing there wasn’t anyone behind me, probably because people had read the weather reports.

  I didn’t have the luxury of waiting for the storm to pass. This trip was already costing me enough time.

  Finally, after what felt like hours but was only another forty-five minutes, the road dropped down into civilization, or at least what passed for it in this part of the world. In my mind I had been expecting something like Sedona, another high-desert resort town, but Taos looked pretty sparse as I headed through a section that trumpeted itself as being Cristobal Somebody-or-other’s land grant, and then past the inevitable Wal-Mart and Walgreens and Autozone before I entered what was obviously the older, more touristy part of town.

  Here there was more traffic, mostly because there seemed to be only one main street. I’d double-checked the Taos Inn’s location and knew it was right on the main drag, and sure enough, there was the neon sign guiding me in. I had to go around the block to find the entrance to the parking lot, but that was okay. I was here. I had made it.

  The parking lot was about three-quarters full. I found an empty parking space, pulled my one suitcase out of the back of the Jeep, then headed off in search of the lobby. Since I’d guaranteed the reservation with a credit card, there wasn’t any problem with my late check-in.

  “And you can get dinner right here at Doc Martin’s if you’re tired from your drive and don’t feel like going back out,” the clerk at the front desk told me as she handed me my room key.

  Not going back out sounded like a great idea. I thanked her, found my room (which, thank God, was located not too far from the lobby), and dumped my suitcase on the little stand in the closet. After that, I stood for a moment, staring at myself in the mirror. I looked like hell — shadows under my eyes, hair messy, lip gloss long gone. Maybe the hotel had room service.

  No such luck. I ran a brush through my hair, went back downstairs, and sort of hovered at the hostess desk in the restaurant. I hated the idea of eating alone, and the hostess apparently took pity on me, because she told me I could sit at the bar and order dinner there if I didn’t want to occupy a table by myself.

  That seemed like a great idea, so I cozied up to the bar, ordered a glass of New Mexico wine just to be different, and got myself a huge plate of portobello ravioli. It was absolutely divine, and just what I needed. And maybe it was because I looked like hell, but no one bothered me or tried to sit down next to me at the bar and chat. I ate quietly, and alone, and tried not to think about what was coming the next day.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Since I guessed that “Skyheart Designs” didn’t open until at least ten, I took my time the next morning with showering and getting ready, tying my favorite blue and purple scarf around my neck, taking more care with my makeup than I normally would. I’d brought my laptop, but I’d been so tired the evening before that I hadn’t even opened it up before falling into bed.

  Now, though (after I’d signed on to the hotel’s wireless, since Taos appeared to be even more of a digital sinkhole than Sedona), I found about fifty unread messages in my inbox: some spam, some from potential clients, a petulant one from Jeff asking why I hadn’t accepted his Facetime request, since he had some important information he needed to share with me. Maybe he’d had some luck with that gizmo he’d designed to pick up alien transmissions. I didn’t know, and now was not the time to get into it. So I wrote back quickly, saying I’d had to go out of town but would be back tomorrow, and I’d call him when I was available. I had a feeling that would just piss him off more than ever, but it couldn’t be helped.

  By the time I’d gotten breakfast and then went back up to my room to brush my teeth and repair my lip gloss, it was just a hair before ten. No more reason to delay — by the time I walked over to Bent Street, Skyheart Designs should be open for business.

  For some reason, my hands were shaking as I closed the door behind me and shouldered my purse. It was only a few blocks from the hotel to Bent Street, so I wouldn’t have to drive. And the day was beautiful — fresh snow everywhere but blue sky overhead, with just a few clouds still crowning the mountains to the east of town.

  My breath puffed out in front of me as I made my way to my mother’s — well, whatever it was. “Skyheart Designs” sounded fairly artsy-fartsy. So was she an artist of some kind? Painter? Sculptor? I had no idea. My grandpa
rents had never mentioned her being particularly artistic, but then again, they really hadn’t talked about her much at all. I was definitely going in blind here.

  Someone had shoveled the sidewalks, since tourists slipping and falling was probably bad for business. I kept my hands stuffed in my pockets as I walked, and was glad of the bright cotton scarf swathed around my throat. It was a good deal colder here than in Sedona, which made sense, I supposed. Taos was thousands of feet higher than my hometown, so the climate must be closer to that of Flagstaff. Not a lot of trees, though. Up in Flag you can drive through mile after mile of Ponderosa pines. Here were the usual bare, leafless sycamores and cottonwoods and manzanita, and a few others I didn’t recognize, but I had the feeling these had all been planted on purpose. It wasn’t like Taos was surrounded by a forest or anything.

  And there it was — Skyheart Designs, a small storefront set between a chocolate shop and what appeared to be a real estate office. Through the display windows I could see a young woman probably around my age setting out intricate pieces of jewelry gleaming in silver and gold, and glittering with semiprecious stones in shades of purple and red and blue and green.

  My heart rose somewhere to the vicinity of my windpipe. I choked it back and forced myself to take one step, then another.

  You can do this, Keeks.

  A string of bells hanging from the door handle jingled as I entered, and for some reason I had to fight back a wave of treacherous tears at the familiarity of the sound. I didn’t want anything here to be familiar. I wanted it to be alien and different, so I could feel comfortable rejecting it.

  The girl at the window paused in setting up the display and asked, “Can I help you?”

  She was dark and very pretty, clearly Native American. Probably not a long-lost half-sister, then.

  I forced the words out. “Is Marybeth Swenson here?”

  “She’s in back. Let me go get her.”

  “Thanks.” And somehow I managed to make myself stay there and wait as the young woman closed the display window and locked it, then went past the counter and through a door into what was obviously the back room.