Kachina

by Rada, J. R.

  Kachina

  by

  James Rada, Jr.

  AIM

  Publishing

  A division of AIM Publishing Group

  Get Another Free eBook!

  Sign up for the author’s New Releases Mailing List and get a free copy of the Welcome to Peaceful Journey.

  Welcome to Peaceful Journey Funeral Home where the journey from life to death can be anything but peaceful. The viewing rooms bear the names of heavenly glory as found in the different religions of the world, but it is a long-forgotten religion that controls Peaceful Journey.

  Click here to get started: jamesrada.com.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Part II

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Part III

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Part I

  Tu´waqachi

  “The name of this Fourth World is Tu´waqachi, World Complete. You will find out why. It is not all beautiful and easy like the previous ones. It has height and depth, heat and cold, beauty and barrenness; it has everything for you to choose from. What you choose will determine if this time you can carry out the plan of Creation on it or whether it must in time be destroyed too.”

  So´tuknang to the Hopi

  from Book of the Hopi

  “(Of whom the world was not worthy :) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”

  Hebrews 11:38

  CHAPTER 1

  David Purcell raced south in his Camaro along Highway 191. He figured that if he ignored the angry rumblings from his car now, he would be able to avoid the angry rumblings from Terrie later. She would be fuming if he wasn’t standing on her doorstep at seven o’clock to take her to dinner.

  Light gray smoke seeped around the hood of the Camaro and blew back against the sides of the car. Water drops splattered against the windshield. David glanced at the sky. It wasn’t raining. As usual, there wasn’t a cloud anywhere in sight. His eyes were drawn next to the temperature gauge. The needle was in the red zone and quickly climbing.

  David slapped his hands against the top of the steering wheel. “No, not now,” he whined as he shook his head.

  It wasn’t smoke he was seeing; it was steam. He hoped the problem was only a busted hose and not something major like his radiator or water pump. However, with his history with the car, he doubted it.

  “Come on, just a little bit longer. Please,” he said.

  David had bought his red dream car in St. George a year ago. It had cost him less than ten-thousand dollars, and he thought it had been a bargain at the time. Most used-car dealers were selling the same car for a thousand to fifteen-hundred dollars more than the man from whom he bought this car. Now David knew why he had gotten such a good deal. Since last year, it had cost him another five-thousand dollars to keep the car running. A month after he bought the car, the carburetor had blown up on him. Five months after that, he had two flat tires. Two months ago, it had been the shocks and the brakes. Last month had been the crowning glory. He had cracked the engine block while sitting at a traffic light in Salt Lake City.

  And now this.

  He wasn’t sure what was left under the hood for him to replace.

  David wondered if he could make it to Blanding and the Shell station there. Stuart, the mechanic, and David were becoming food friends. Any why not? With all his work David was bring him, Stuart and wife could take a nice long cruise or send one of their kids to college.

  The temperature gauge needle edged up another sixteenth of an inch, which meant the temperature of the engine probably jumped another twenty to thirty degrees.

  David pressed the brake pedal and pulled the Camaro over onto the shoulder of the highway. He heard the sharp pings of gravel flying off the tires and hitting the car, and he groaned. The only thing that hadn’t needed repairs so far was the body of the car. He hoped the gravel wasn’t putting dings in his doors. If the car looked good, he had a better chance of selling the car to some young guy like himself who fell so in love with how the Camaro looked that he wouldn’t take it for a long test drive.

  He turned off the engine and jumped out of the car, slamming the door behind him. Wrapping his hand in his handkerchief so that he wouldn’t burn his hand, he popped the hood. David backed away as a large cloud of steam billowed up from under the hood. If any Navajos were watching the sky in his direction, they probably thought David was sending up smoke signals. The smoke probably said something like: White idiot bought hunk of junk from man who speaks with forked tongue.

  While David waited for the steam to clear so he could see the engine, he checked the sides of the car by running his hands over the doors and fenders. The fenders and doors felt smooth. No dings. And no paint chips missing either. David smiled. Good, at least something was going right for him tonight.

  Once the steam cleared from under the hood, he moved closer to the car to look at the engine. It only took him a moment to spot the trouble. The top radiator hose had a three-inch split on the side that steadily dribbled water onto the engine block. The new engine block. The heat from the engine vaporized the water into steam. David considered cutting off the rotten end of the hose and reconnecting it, but the cut hose would have been about two inches too short to reconnect. The split was near the middle along the length of the hose. He didn’t even have any duct tape in his tool box to make a temporary patch. It looked like he was going to have to hitch a ride into Blanding and buy a new hose. Stuart could bring him back here with a new hose.

  David pulled his cell phone out to call Terrie and let her know that he would be late, but he wasn’t getting a signal out here in the middle of nowhere.

  He slammed the hood shut. This was the last straw! He would sell the heap of scrap metal as soon as it was fixed. Of course, he had said the same thing when he replaced the carburetor, and again, when he saw the bill for the new engine block. He hadn’t. If he had, he wouldn’t be standing on the side of Highway 191 wondering how he was going to get into town. David kicked the side of the car, and his hard-soled shoe not only left a scuff on the fender, but it left a small
dent.

  David threw his hands up in the air. He couldn’t win.

  I might as well lie down in the middle of the road and let an eighteen wheeler run over me. It would be less painful.

  He looked at his watch. When he saw what time it was, he rolled his eyes. At this rate, he wouldn’t even make it to Terrie’s today. At least she would really have something to complain about. She was already mad at him because he had been out of town for her birthday last week. Not that he could blame her. He had gotten tied up with a purchasing agent at the University of Arizona and hadn’t gotten back to Blanding until eleven o’clock. He had gone to Terrie’s trailer with flowers and her birthday present. She had opened the door wearing a red bathrobe and a film of cold cream on her face. When she saw him, she slammed the door in his face.

  Their dinner tonight at Stromsted’s Inn was supposed to be his late birthday present to her. David actually hoped it would be a new beginning for them.

  Supposed to.

  He was beginning to think that his relationship with Terrie was a lot like the one he had with his car. Both had enchanted him with their looks, but were a lot different under the hood.

  Terrie was beautiful, no doubt about that. David had flipped for her the first time he saw her waiting tables at the diner. She had smiled at him in such a way that he thought about all the way through his meal. He had barely even tasted it. He had asked her for her phone number when he paid his bill.

  He looked up and down the highway, praying he would see a car coming toward him from one direction or the other, but the road was empty. He couldn’t be lucky enough to have a ride stop for him right after he’d broken down. It was six-thirty now, and he was still twenty miles outside of Blanding and even further away from Monticello where he lived. If someone didn’t drive by and pick him up soon, he wouldn’t be in time to get to the Shell station before it closed.

  What’s worse, he would be alone in the dark. The skin on the back of David’s neck tingled and he rubbed it with his hand.

  “It won’t be completely dark,” he told himself out loud. “The stars will be out, and you have a flashlight under the driver’s seat. You’ve got nothing to worry about so stop being a sissy.”

  Easy for you to say, David thought.

  He reached inside the car behind the driver’s seat and pulled out his olive-drab army cap he wore when he was doing his weekend duty for the Army Reserves. He knew he looked foolish wearing a navy-blue suit and a green camouflage cap, but he didn’t want the sun beating down on his head for the next hour or two until it set. He pulled the cap on over his dirty-blond hair and scanned the highway again. Still nothing.

  No choice now but to start hoofing it.

  An hour later, he was still walking. He had seen only one car in all that time, and it had passed him by without even slowing. He didn’t blame the driver, though. People just didn’t pick up hitchhikers in this day and age; not if they wanted to live. It was just too dangerous. You never knew when a hitchhiker might be someone like Rutger Hauer in The Hitcher.

  There wasn’t much to look at along the highway, either. No buildings. No animals. The brown landscape was broken only occasionally by some color from desert flowers.

  Seven-thirty. Boy, would Terrie be fuming! At this rate, he wouldn’t reach Blanding until eleven o’clock and that was if he didn’t stop walking. If only there was an emergency phone along the highway so that he could call for help.

  He took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Forget the phone. What he wanted right now was a large, shady oak tree to sit under and cool off. He wished the shimmering mirages of water he saw in the distance on the highway were real. A splash of cold water on his face would take some of the gritty, dried sweat off his face.

  David moved off the edge of the road and walked in the short desert grass. The ground, although it was hard, was gentler on his feet than the unyielding asphalt, and the dirt and grass didn’t reflect back the day’s heat like the road did.

  Glancing to the right, he saw the bottom of the sun had just touched the top of the mountains. Once it went down completely, the ninety-degree temperatures of the day would drop quickly into the seventies. He had already noticed a difference for the better in the last hour. If only it would cool off without getting any darker, he would be happy. He didn’t relish the thought of walking along Highway 191 in the dark. There were no streetlights, no town lights, and only a very small amount of starlight to see by. With his luck, he’d probably wind up getting lost as well as stranded in the middle of nowhere.

  The thought sent a chill down his back.

  In the distance, David saw a small speck racing toward him along the highway. It shimmered as it passed through the heat radiating off the road. David stopped walking and watched the speck as it drew closer. He moved back onto the edge of the highway and raised his thumb. For a moment, he considered jumping out into the middle of the lane so that the pickup truck would have to stop. The ways things were going today, the truck would run him over without even slowing down. He took off his baseball cap with an Army Reserves logo on it and held it behind his back so that he wouldn’t look too odd.

  David smiled at how stupid it was to think whether or not he was wearing a hat would make a difference. He could see a pair of people in the truck and imagined what they might be saying to each other:

  “Look, Horace, there’s a hitchhiker on the side of the road, and he’s wearing a suit.”

  “He sure stands out wearing that dark suit.”

  “Are you going to pick him up?”

  “Well, I suppose so. A fella wearin’ a suit can’t be too bad, but if he’d been wearin’ an Army cap too, I would have locked my doors. Them type’s crazy.”

  The pickup truck passed David. He dropped his arm. Another driver afraid of the big, bad hitcher. Maybe he should have worn his cap. As David watched the truck pass him, he saw brake lights go on.

  Yes! Now he could get into town by eight o’clock.

  He jogged toward the truck with renewed energy. Three feet from the rear of the truck, the brake lights disappeared. David thought the driver had turned off the motor. The rear wheels started spinning, spraying gravel into David’s face. He felt like he had been caught in a hail storm.

  “Hey! Watch it!” David yelled as he raised his arms to protect his face.

  He dove to the side of the road away from the gravel spray, and he grabbed for the nearest rock. The driver of the pickup popped the clutch, and the truck jumped forward with a loud squeal and smoke from the tires. David rose up on his knees and heaved the rock at the truck hoping it would go through the rear window.

  It missed and landed harmlessly on the highway. Could he expect any less on a day like today?

  He threw his cap to the ground. His suit was filthy, but he tried to dust it off anyway. It was too expensive not to try and salvage. David noticed his hands were shaking as if he had a severe nervous tic. He did the best he could and picked up his cap, slapping it back on his head. He slung his suit jacket over his shoulder. It would come in handy when the sun set and the temperature dropped, but it was still too hot to wear it now. He was already sweating as if it was midday. At least the Camaro’s air conditioner had worked. Not that it did him any good now. He took a deep breath to calm himself as he looked down the highway.

  David still had sixteen miles to go.

  He moved back into the grass to avoid anyone else who might want to drive by and spray him with gravel. He walked about twenty feet away from the edge of the road. He figured that would be far enough away to avoid gravel sprays, but close enough to get to the road if somebody stopped.

  Each time one of his feet touched the ground, the blisters forming on his heels warned him that if he walked all the way to Blanding, he would regret it. He was wearing his brown-leather dress shoes. Unfortunately, they were not designed for hiking. His shins already ached, but he ignored the pain and continued tromping through the foot-high grass.

&nbs
p; David wished he had thought to read the practical joker’s license-plate number. It was probably 666, the number of the beast.

  He slammed his foot down again, but this time it hit the ground and kept going. The ground beneath his foot collapsed into a hole and David’s leg swung in the open air. Pinwheeling his arms, David tried to keep himself from falling into the new hole below his foot. He shifted his weight quickly to his rear leg, but it was too late. He saw the black pit under his feet come closer as he fell into it.

  Screaming, he tried to avoid the pit. The small hole was only about three feet in diameter, but at the moment, it looked like it was as wide as the Grand Canyon. If he fell into it, he had no doubt with the way his luck had been running today he’d break his legs. And it would be hard for a salesman to drive from state to state with one or both of his legs in casts.

  David’s suit jacket flew out of his hand as he spun his arms around throwing him even more off balance. The jacket landed somewhere behind him, but he wasn’t too concerned where at the moment.

  He fell forward on his chest and hit the ground in front of the hole. All his breath went out of him in a loud “whoosh.” He expected to feel the pain in his legs as bones snapped, but he lay still.

  He was safe! Only his legs were hanging inside of the hole. He had managed to keep the number of bones in his body to two-hundred and six. No more. No less.

  David rolled onto his side so that he would be able to pull his legs out of the hole. As his weight shifted slightly, he started sliding into the hole.

  “No!”

  He grabbed for something, anything, to stop his slide. There was nothing. He caught a handful of grass, and he stopped.

  It lasted long enough for him to take a breath. The blades of grass broke off just below his clenched fist. He tried to dig his fingers into the dirt, but it was too hard. One of his fingernails snagged on a small rock and tore in half. The sharp pain caused him to yell again. His finger started bleeding leaving a thin trail of blood toward the hole.