I meandered down 16th Street Mall, which was mobbed with post-Christmas bargain hunters; Walgreens was doing a land-office business in leftover wrapping paper and bows. Seeking a smaller crowd, I cut over a couple of blocks to the Denver Center for the Performing Arts and perused the “coming attractions” posters without any of the show titles registering in my brain.
All I could think about was the number of bullets I had dodged over the past week. I’d wormed a major secret out of my mother without wrecking our relationship; I’d gotten out of marrying a guy who, if he wasn’t Evil Personified, was at least incredibly self-absorbed; and I’d managed to quit my job before they had a chance to fire me. I realized that far from being devastated from the number of crises I’d handled this week, I felt exhilarated – as if I was finally putting my feet on the road I’d been heading for, all along. As if I was coming home.
Nearing Civic Center Park, I noted by the clock atop city hall that it was almost four. The last rays of the winter sun set the golden dome of the state capitol agleam across Broadway. I wound my way through the stately columns of the Voorhees Memorial and crossed the broad central plaza to the Greek Theater on the south side of the park, near the library. It had been growing steadily colder all day, and although parts of the park were brightly lit, most of the skateboarders and others who frequent the area had moved on.
As I neared the top of the Greek Theater steps, an owl hooted right behind me. I flinched as the giant bird flew past, its wingspan nearly as wide as I was tall. It flew into a niche to the left side of the stage. I stopped just below the top step, poised to crouch in the stairwell in case the bird came at me again. But no owl emerged from the niche; instead, a coyote trotted out. It stopped about three feet away from where I stood, frozen and disbelieving. Its amber eyes regarded me with intelligence. I could have sworn it not only recognized me, but was smiling.
Suddenly I was back in the sweat lodge, and White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman was resting her hand atop the head of an amber-eyed, laughing coyote. A coyote who had turned into an amber-eyed drummer.
“Joseph?” I said, incredulous.
The beast whined and trotted toward me. He nosed my gloved hand, and almost in reflex, I placed it tentatively on his head, between his ears, and patted him twice. Then he turned around and trotted back into the niche.
I stayed where I was for a few indecisive moments. Then, like one of those crazy women in the movies who opens the door to the ax murderer, I began to follow him. But I had not gone three steps before Joseph stepped unsteadily out of the niche. He leaned against the wall, breathing hard.
“Too many changes in a row,” he panted. “Takes it out of you.”
“That was you, then.” I made it a statement. “You were the owl and the coyote both.”
He nodded. “I can change into just about any shape.” He took several more breaths before replying. “It’s called skinwalking. Most tribes frown on it. They consider us demons. It wasn’t just Grandfather’s” – he paused for another breath and sank down to the ground, his back against the wall – “fixation with White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman that got us kicked off the rez. I’d begun to change at about the same time.”
“I thought you left the reservation voluntarily.”
He grinned crookedly. “Yeah. Well. Depends how you look at it.”
The sun had set in the interim, and it was getting much colder. Now I heard shouts coming from the direction of city hall, where the outdoor light display was beginning to attract its usual crowd. “Let’s get some coffee,” I suggested. “It’s freezing out here. Can you walk?”
“Sure. I’m fine now.” As if to prove it, he rose in a single, fluid movement and preceded me down the staircase.
We headed back the way I’d come, through the Voorhees Memorial and across Colfax, to a coffee shop named for the Slavic god of abundance. I wondered idly whether He was in league with White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman, too.
“So tell me,” I asked when we were settled in with our drinks. “Every time I’ve heard an owl over the past few days – that was you, wasn’t it? And it was you I saw at Sakura Square, too.”
He nodded. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time. Finally found you a couple of weeks ago. Once I did, I couldn’t let you out of my sight again.” He sipped his coffee. “Sorry if I scared you.”
“It’s okay.” The words came out automatically. I wasn’t sure if I meant them or not.
“And I wasn’t lying when I said I saw the whole exchange at Grandfather’s on Sunday.”
I nodded. “I get that now.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes. Then I asked, “Did you follow me to Indiana, too?”
He gave a short laugh. “Yeah. Dunno what I was thinking. It was a hell of a long trip for nothing – you were fine, and I missed your call.”
“‘I was in transit.’ Yeah, no kidding.” We both chuckled. Then I asked, “But why did you go?”
He stared at me. “Same reason I’ve been following you, of course. I’m the Guardian.” I must have looked mystified, because he gave me a rueful smile. “Sorry. I’ve been living with this prophecy of Grandfather’s for so long that I forget how little you know of it.” He folded his hands around his paper cup and leaned his forearms on the table separating us. “When Grandfather was first contacted by White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman, She told him how he would know when the next part of Her plan was going to begin.
“First there would be a Gatekeeper, whose role would be to bring the major players to the game. We figure that was the guy who owned the farm where the white buffalo calf bowed to you.”
“But he was a huckster,” I pointed out.
Joseph shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. All he has to do is open the gate.”
I was dubious, but I was willing to run with it for now. “All right. Go on.”
“Next would be the Chosen,” he said. “That’s you.”
That made me shiver. “That’s what She called me. In my vision in the sweat lodge. She said I’d been chosen.”
He nodded as if it were self-evident. “I’m the Guardian of the Chosen. My job is to keep you safe.
“We think Shannon is the Counselor. She’s your sounding board. She’s supposed to help you make the right choices.”
“I’m the chooser as well as the Chosen,” I mused. “Is that the whole cast of characters?”
“There’s supposed to be one other person – an Investigator. We haven’t pegged him or her yet.”
It dawned on me that Joseph kept saying “we.” And yet – “What’s Looks Far’s job?”
He smiled sadly. “His job, like the Gatekeeper’s, is pretty much over. He’s the Prophet. His job was the same as the Indian hunter in the legend – he was supposed to warn everyone that White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman was coming back. But nobody would believe him.”
“He didn’t fail,” I insisted, putting one hand on his wrist. “Not yet. It’s not over yet.” What am I saying? Am I buying into all of this craziness?
Joseph grinned and sat back, pulling away from me. “Of course not. It’s just getting started.”
Another thought occurred to me. “I had a different kind of dream the other night,” I said, feeling oddly shy about mentioning it. “I seemed to be looking through someone else’s eyes. First I was a coyote, running on the prairie north of Denver. Then I was an owl, flying into the city. And then I woke up.” I looked into his eyes then, as if challenging him.
“I thought someone was with me,” was all he said.
I guessed some mysteries would take a little while longer to unravel. I had a lot to chew over already.
“How did the resignation go?” he asked after a moment.
I filled him in on how I’d quit just a few days before they were going to fire me. “I really dodged a bullet there,” I finished. “And another one by breaking up with Brock. I owe so much to you and Looks Far.”
“It was meant to be, Naomi,” he said. “She’s arranging
things to suit Her, that’s all.”
“Oh,” I said, “Brock’s leaving the firm, too. He’s going to work for Durant. He expects a swift ascension to a lofty position in the home office.”
Joseph’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“He says Durant Development is a subsidiary of a multinational conglomerate. Lots of different businesses.”
“I’d like to know more about this company,” he said.
“Good idea,” I said. “I’ll do a little research tomorrow. And I’ll need to know more about this lease your grandfather has with the guy on the Western Slope. I still don’t feel comfortable mediating the dispute, but I would be happy to advise your grandfather informally.”
He nodded. “I’ll see what I can find.”
Chapter 8
I left Joseph at the door of the coffee shop – he turned right to go to the bus station, and I turned left to walk home. He very nearly insisted on walking with me, but I strong-armed him. I told him the worst thing I was likely to run across on the 16th Street Mall was a purse snatcher, which I was pretty sure I could handle myself.
Again, I was tempted to push him, and again I resisted the impulse. This new power of mine was a heady thing, but I mistrusted it. For starters, I was still ambivalent about White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman recruiting me, and I wasn’t yet sure I wanted to be on Her team at all. I knew for sure that I wouldn’t have joined if She’d given me a choice. Using the power She had given me seemed tantamount to agreeing to help Her.
I was also ambivalent about having power at all. I knew there was a kink in my personality where most people kept their ambition. Brock wasn’t the only law school classmate of mine who had been mystified at my decision to work summers for Legal Aid; most of them, ultimately, wanted to practice law in order to make as much money and gain as much power as possible. I’ve never known why I didn’t want to be like everyone else in that regard – whether I didn’t trust myself with it, or didn’t feel as if I deserved it, or what. This persuasive power the goddess had given me felt like another temptation to join the world of Money/Power/Fame that I had already, instinctively, rejected. On one hand, I wondered if I could use it to have anything in the world that I desired. On the other hand, it felt deceitful – but in a weird kind of backward way, as if I would be pushing the other person into lying to himself or herself about how much he or she wanted to give me what I desired.
Too, I didn’t really understand how it worked and I felt uncomfortable about testing it. I wondered if Shannon would be willing to be a guinea pig, and then I wondered whether it would work on her if she knew I was trying to push her.
I also realized that some of the tension I’d felt over the past few days was overcompensation. I was being very careful not to utter anything that could be construed as a command, just in case the push took over. And I didn’t know the reach of my ability, either. It had worked on the driver ahead of me who couldn’t even hear me. Would it work over the phone? Over a distance – and if so, how far? Would it work only on humans, or on animals as well?
Would it work on gods?
Was that what I was supposed to do? White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman wanted to bring Jehovah to heel – but what if my real role was to broker a peace agreement among the gods?
By this point, I was standing in front of my door. I started trembling so hard that I couldn’t get the key in the lock. I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths, then tried again. Mercifully, the key slid home.
Inside, without even turning on the lights, I unbuttoned my coat with unsteady fingers and tossed it over a chair. Then I collapsed, sprawling, onto the sofa. The exhilaration I’d felt earlier in the afternoon was gone; I was back to being the quivering heap of flesh I’d been after ushering Brock out of my office.
Brock, the alleged Unmitigated Evil. Now there was another thing I didn’t understand. How could I have been so wrong about him all these years?
I mentioned a while back that we’d met in law school. It was first year, and we were all feeling pretty punch-drunk over the workload, and over the amount of information we were being expected to absorb and retain. One weekend in early November, my roommates dragged me away from my books to go to a party some classmates were throwing in their apartment just south of campus. I remember I had two papers due Monday, neither of which I’d begun drafting yet, and I complained that I could not afford even a couple of hours away. But they dressed me up and took me with them anyway.
Brock was one of the hosts. All the girls in the class had been oohing and aahing over him since the start of classes. He had that clean-cut, all-American look – steely blue eyes, short blond hair, and the body of a guy who spends hours at the gym when he isn’t out on the slopes. He also had, even then, an ego the size of Pikes Peak; he was sure he was going to get a summer associate position at one of the 100 top AmLaw firms, where he would knock the socks off the partnership, thereby assuring him of a six-figure starting salary at said firm upon graduation. Then would follow the meteoric rise and the early invitation to the partnership, followed swiftly by the condo in Vail and the beach house on Maui, all thanks to his fine legal mind and his political acumen. And speaking of politics, he wouldn’t have been averse to a run for office eventually – Congressman, maybe. Or President.
But I didn’t learn all that until later. That night, at the party, he was still the guy whom all our female classmates drooled over, and I was the chubby Midwestern girl who hadn’t had a date in two years. But for some reason, he shed all the other girls that night and asked me to dance.
Honestly, I never did figure out what I had that the other girls didn’t. It wasn’t that I wasn’t impressed by his looks; I was drooling right along with everybody else. It wasn’t that I played hard to get, or any of the other annoying games some women play to attract a man; the only thing I did differently, really, was to hold myself apart from his seraglio, and the only reason I did that was because I was sure there was no point in trying for him. As I’ve said before, my mother didn’t raise any self-confident children. I took one look at the uber-chic girls who were throwing themselves at him, and resigned myself to watching the action from afar.
Then he asked me to dance. Then I spent the night. Then we were friends with benefits for a couple of years.
His grades were not good – he kept trying to get by on charm, which had apparently worked for him as an undergrad, but our law school professors weren’t as easy to charm – so all the AmLaw firms passed him by. While I spent my summers helping the poor and downtrodden at the Colorado Legal Services clinic on Sherman Street, he schmoozed his way into a summer position at Perry’s firm, which was (and still is) one of the most prestigious firms in the Rocky Mountain West. His Plan B was to spend a few years there and make a name for himself, and then try again to get hired by a nationally-rated “Biglaw” firm.
Perry did hire him after law school – and he hired me, too. (I had applied because Legal Aid didn’t have the money to bring me on full-time, and Perry’s firm had a good reputation for pro bono work.) At that point, Brock and I became more serious friends with benefits. And as those first painful years as associates wore on, I think we kept seeing each other out of exhaustion-fueled inertia. For me, at least, it was easier to date someone I knew well, and who knew exactly what I was going through, than to try to find somebody new.
But was Brock, in fact, someone I knew well? I kicked off my shoes, then stretched out on the sofa and tucked my hands under my head. We had certainly had plenty of conversations over the years, and I thought I had him pegged: a ski bum from a small mountain town whose parents worked for a resort, and who wanted the glitzy life he imagined all those vacationers had.
I could understand if he were bitter now – his Plan A hadn’t panned out, and clearly Plan B hadn’t, either, given that he was on the verge of partnership while still in Denver. Maybe that’s what was fueling his passion to jump ship to the corporate world. God knows he had little interest in being
a more well-rounded lawyer; Brock had only ever been in it for the money.
Over and over, I examined the conundrums that newly defined my life, and found myself more and more confused.
Sighing, I got up and lit some candles, then went to the kitchen and got a glass of wine. I moved then to the balcony doors and gazed out into the cold, crisp night. City lights spread out below me for miles and trailed up the foothills. I couldn’t see the mountains, but their looming presence blocked the stars, and the rising moon limned the snow on their peaks in a ghostly blue.
I wandered back to the sofa, leaving the blinds open to the night. I found myself staring at the flame of the pillar candle on the coffee table before me, noticing as it seemed to split into multiple tips – now two, now three, now one again. My mind was blank, my wine forgotten. Then a thought of Brock flashed across my mind, and suddenly I felt as if I were diving into, or being sucked into, the candle’s flame.
I emerged, unscathed, in daylight, just off a snowy mountain trail above the timberline. I recognized the view: it was very near Brock’s childhood home. We had camped here with friends during the summer after law school. I should have been freezing now, clad as I was in a silk top, dress slacks and stocking feet, but I wasn’t.
I heard a swishing noise and turned to find the source. Here Brock came, up the trail, in his Alpine sweater and his cross-country skis. I wanted to kick his ass, of course. But I held the urge at bay, baffled by the sweater; I knew for a fact that he had thrown the threadbare thing away several years ago, yet here it was, looking brand-new. Then I noticed he was using the skis he’d had in college. Then I got a good look at his face, and blinked in disbelief. Intense with effort as it was, still it was unmarred by ten years of long nights as a lawyer.
He skied past me as if I weren’t there and stopped a short distance away, farther up the trail. He side-stepped up the slight rise to the rim of the ridge, where he stopped. He sighed, pulled a silver flask I recognized from a pocket, and took a long guzzle. I fancied I could smell the alcohol on his breath from here. I wanted to shout at him, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Drinking while back-country skiing is a good way to get yourself killed!” But try as I might, I could not open my mouth to form the words.
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