Kachina

by Rada, J. R.

  David’s brief vision that told him he would not make it back to Blanding in time to help Terrie. The Bow Clan was already in Terrie’s trailer. David saw her face in front of him. She did not look beautiful any longer. Her eyes were red from crying and a thin, white hand was clamped over her mouth.

  David blinked and pulled out his cell phone and dialed 9-1-1. When the dispatcher came on the line, he yelled, “There’s a woman in trouble in Blanding. Her name’s Terrie McNee and she lives on County Road 323, Box 2. You’ve got to send someone out there quick. She’s in terrible danger.”

  The operator started to ask him something, but David hung up the phone before she could even finish her question. He wouldn’t have been able to answer any of the woman’s questions. He only hoped she relayed the message to the Sheriff Harding or one of his deputies. Maybe someone was close enough to get to Terrie’s in time to help her before the Bow Clan killed her.

  The younger pale-skinned man spun Randy Houser around on his knees so that he was facing in the direction of Kel´hoya and Terrie. Randy’s head drooped, and To´chi grabbed another handful of hair and pulled Randy’s head back. To´chi whispered something in Randy’s ear. Even though Randy did not understand the Bow Clan’s language, he understood the tone. He started to cry, but he kept his eyes closed.

  The younger Bow Clansman touched one of Randy’s eyes with his long finger, and Randy clenched his eyes shut even tighter. Finally, To´chi hit him across the side of the head. Randy opened his eyes.

  Kel´hoya held Terrie only a few inches from Randy’s face so that her boyfriend could see her tears. She tried to yell something to him, but it sounded muffled through Kel´hoya’s hand.

  “It is hard to believe Pahana would consider you two his protectors. You are weak and afraid,” Kel´hoya said.

  He doubted whether the Outlanders could understand his words, but he wanted them to understand his anger. He did not like being cheated out of his prize.

  With the hand that covered Terrie’s mouth, Kel´hoya pressed her head against his body. His free hand moved up from her shoulder and traced an invisible line up the side of her mouth, across her cheekbone, and next to her eye. Terrie tried to pull away, but Kel´hoya’s other hand kept her head steady. She cried instead.

  David pushed the Corolla up to ninety-five miles per hour. It shimmied a little, but it held constant at its top speed. He pressed his foot down even harder hoping that he might somehow get a few more miles per hour out of the car. He kept his eyes on the road ahead hoping to spot any police waiting in hiding before they saw him. The last thing he needed now was to be pulled over by a state trooper and have to wait twenty minutes while the cop wrote him out a speeding ticket. David kept his hands clenched tightly around the steering wheel so that he wouldn’t shake or lean over in his seat and throw up.

  An image of Terrie leaped into his mind. She was dressed in the same clothes she had been wearing tonight. However, in this image, she was dying as a long, white, skeletal finger dug into her eye socket. Her right eye silently popped from the socket. He was glad he couldn’t hear it or else he might have thrown up right then. Her eye hung against her cheek by a few strands of red flesh.

  The horrifying image surprised David so much he lost control of his car for a moment. The car passed over the center line, and he pulled it back into his lane just as a car coming from the opposite direction beeped its horn at him.

  Stomach churning violently, he knew he wouldn’t be able to control himself much longer. He rolled down his window as he pulled the car over onto the side of the road. He had barely put the car in park when he felt a massive constricting in his stomach. He leaned out his window and coughed. Only a thin line of spittle dripped from his mouth, but his empty stomach still continued to constrict violently.

  When his stomach finally stilled, David wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Although he hadn’t vomited, he still had a bad taste in his mouth from the bile that had come up. He sat back in the car and leaned his head against the headrest.

  What was happening to him? His world was coming apart at the seams.

  David shook his head in frustration. If he could only remember what had happened in the cave. Why couldn’t he remember? Had something so terrible happened that he wouldn’t let himself remember it like Officer Peterson had suggested? Why did he suddenly have a psychic connection with the Bow Clan?

  David leaned his head against the steering wheel and cried.

  Randy fainted when he saw Terrie die. To´chi released his grip on the man and let him fall back to the floor.

  “You failed to bring us to Pahana,” To´chi said.

  “He was here. I saw him,” Kel´hoya defended himself.

  Why had the dark kachinas given him the vision is he wasn’t going to be able to reach Pahana in time?

  “You what?”

  “I saw him. The dark kachinas have given me visions since we have arrived on the surface. I have seen through Pahana’s eyes. That is why we have been able to follow him.”

  “Your vision was wrong this time.”

  “No. He was here. We have his protectors. We were just too long getting here. Tu´waqachi is too large to travel as quickly as we do in Kuskurza,” Kel´hoya said.

  “We have been too long on the surface. The dark kachinas warned us our senses would be dulled. We should return to Kuskurza and admit defeat. The dark kachinas can send others more capable than us to kill the hero of the Sun Clan.”

  As Kel´hoya approached his companion, he kicked the unconscious body on the floor. “Are you that anxious to die, To´chi? The dark kachinas said we would never live to see Kuskurza again. Do you want to die a failure? Because if we start back to Kuskurza without having killed Pahana, we will never have a chance to redeem ourselves.”

  To´chi looked a Randy’s body. “You are right. We must not fail the dark kachinas.”

  Kel´hoya nodded. To´chi squatted down beside Randy as his companion watched. It was time to leave Pahana the second half of his message.

  CHAPTER 27

  David wasn’t sure how he made it back to Blanding without wrecking his car. He kept catching flashes of what the Bow Clansman was seeing. Terrie’s dead body laying sprawled on the floor of her trailer. Luckily, she lay face down. All David could see was a pool of blood beneath her head. During another vision, he saw Randy strangled by the Bow Clansman whose face he could see. Though David had not liked Randy because Terrie had chosen Randy over him, seeing him strangled wrenched David’s stomach. It reminded him too much of how close the Bow Clansman had come to strangling him in the hospital.

  David cruised slowly down the road that led past Terrie’s house. Three police cars sat in the driveway with their lights flashing. A state police car and a county police car were parked next to the trailer. The third car was parked at the end of the driveway to keep unwanted cars from driving up to the trailer. A deputy was standing on the side of the road signaling the slow-moving cars to keep moving.

  A crowd of people had already formed along the opposite side of the street where the deputy herded them. It looked like everyone who lived within a mile of Terrie’s trailer was standing along the road looking across the road at the police cars. It wasn’t often a murder happened in San Juan County, let alone a double murder. How had everyone found out so fast? And why would they want to be here to see two dead bodies being rolled into a morgue wagon? This wasn’t a movie. Terrie and Randy weren’t being wheeled into make-up where their fake blood and putty wounds would be removed. They were dead. Cut. Print it.

  How long would it be before David wound up the same way?

  He was tempted to yell at the deputy who was keeping the crowd back. Why hadn’t the police gotten here faster? It was their fault. They knew Terrie was in danger, and they had failed. They might as well go back into town now. The killers were far away and Terrie and her boyfriend were dead. They couldn’t do any good now.

  David kept his control, because he knew he shared the b
lame with the police. He had been careful not to let his parents stay around his apartment after dark. Why hadn’t he taken the same care with Terrie? He had led the Bow Clan right to Terrie’s front door.

  As he passed by the driveway, David saw two paramedics wheel a covered body out of the trailer on a gurney. He couldn’t tell whether it was Terrie or Randy. That gave him little comfort since he knew both of them were dead. His stomach was already beginning to feel queasy again.

  When would all this end?

  He drove home slowly. He went through the motions of driving without really seeing the road. In fact, he was surprised when he realized he was sitting in his driveway.

  He thought he wouldn’t be able to sleep, but as soon as he fell into his bed, he was asleep within moments.

  David woke up the next morning with a fog of uncertainty surrounding his brain. He raked his fingers through his hair and tried to push the vision of Terrie being killed out of his mind, but it seemed to be permanently etched in his mind. He could remember waking up in the middle of the night, but just barely. Somehow, he was sure his mind had been replaying his visions in his head throughout the night. Terrie. Randy. How many more people would die?

  David wiped the tears away from his eyes as he started crying. Helpless. He was helpless. If only he knew how to find the Bow Clan. Even if he could, what could he do? He didn’t seem to be able to influence the Bow Clansman’s actions when their thoughts were connected. He had tried to when he realized the man was going to kill Terrie. Although he had kept sending the thought to run away, the man had killed Terrie and then Randy anyway.

  David had to know what had happened to him in the caverns. That was the key to ending the madness. When he knew all that had happened to him, then he would know how to defend himself.

  He finally got control of his crying and took a hot shower. Climbing out of the shower, he went to the sink to shave. He wiped his hand over the glass in the mirror to clear it of the steam fog.

  Seeing his reflection in the mirror, David asked himself, “Would she have died if I had been there to help her? Could I have stopped the Bow Clan by myself?”

  His reflection had no answer. It just disappeared behind the glass as the mirror clouded over again.

  David skipped breakfast because his stomach was so tied up in knots there was no room left for any food. Besides, he still had a bad taste in his mouth from the night before.

  It was time to find some answers, but where could he start?

  CHAPTER 28

  Gary, Jared, Christine, and Billy Joe squatted in a tight circle in the center of chamber six about half a mile from where David had fallen into the cave system. Their head lamps created a bubble of light around them as they stared at their map of the San Juan Caverns.

  San Juan Caverns was the name the group had given this particular cave system. They had voted on it the night before. Anasazi Caves, Utah Caverns, and the Big Hole had all been running mates with San Juan Caverns. The name had been chosen because it seemed fitting to name a child after its father. These caves had been formed by the either the San Juan River or a dried-up tributary. Gary had also speculated that the ocean, when it made its way inland to form the Great Salt Lake, might have contributed to forming the caves.

  Jared laid the map out so that everyone was able to study it. It was a plan-view map that showed the width and length of the passages and chambers in the cavern. Of the fifteen explored chambers, eleven had been mapped. The outlines of the passages and chambers had been drawn to scale on the art pad. With a scale of one inch equal to one-thousand feet, the map was four-pages long and two-pages wide so far. The open lines at various points on the map showed where there were still passages to be explored. The heights of the different chambers and the depth underground had been noted on the maps. Within the open areas, designating passages and chambers were rough drawings of the various features. If the feature had been given a name, it was written beside the drawing. Of the eleven mapped chambers, ten roughly lined up on a northeast to southwest axis. The eleventh chamber was not along the main axis but off a passageway beginning in chamber four.

  “So any guesses as to what we have here, guys and gal?” Gary asked pointing to the rogue chamber on the map.

  Jared tapped his finger on the lone chamber. “I still think this is a fluke chamber on an otherwise typical chamber system. A small tributary probably ran off and swirled around until there until found its way back to the main route.”

  “But the open routes from the rogue run away from the main route,” Christine said.

  “But these caves are not made of siliceous limestone. It can’t be a catacomb system,” Jared argued. Of the known catacomb caves, all were made of a water-soluble stone called siliceous limestone.

  A white millipede, one of the few types of creatures that had adapted itself to living its life in a cave, walked across the map. Gary picked up the page it was on, held the page off to the side, and gently brushed the millipede off. Cave creatures were too unique to squash like common bugs. They resembled their surface cousins, but also had striking differences. All white because no pigmentation is needed below the surface, skin color was their most-obvious difference. There were other differences, too. For instance, a cave fish has no eyes and the cave cricket has extra-long antennae.

  “What if it’s some sort of hybrid?” Gary asked excitedly looking away from the millipede. “We could be exploring an entirely new type of cave system. Part chamber-style and part catacomb-style.”

  Jared shook his head. “That would be great, but I think you are letting your imagination get away with you. There’s just too much information that has been gathered about caves all over the world, and the idea of a hybrid cave has never been seen or suggested.”

  “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Gary could be right,” Billy Joe said in defense of the idea.

  “He could be, but the odds are against it.”

  “Besides, a cave isn’t an animal. It can’t crossbreed to form a hybrid,” Christine pointed out.

  “I know that,” Gary said defensively. “A cave is living, though. As long as water runs through it, it is changing. Maybe two different water sources formed this cave. The Great Salt Lake could have formed the original chamber line, then the San Juan River came through and formed the cross line.” Gary ran his fingers over the map to visually demonstrate his point. “This cave is the child of an ocean and a river. That is what I would call a hybrid.”

  Christine stood up and stretched. “Why don’t we see what the rest of this place looks like before we start guessing at what type of cave system it is? After all, we’ve only explored about six-and-a-half miles worth of passages. Now, I’m guessing we’ll get at least fifty miles before we’ve finished.”

  The three men nodded their agreement.

  “I bet there’s even more than fifty,” Gary mumbled.

  “Any preferences on which way to go?” Billy Joe asked Christine.

  She stared at the map for a moment, and said, “Let’s explore the two passages off the rogue since that’s what we’re all curious about. We may dead end or wind up back on the main line. Then all our questions would be answered.”

  When she finished speaking, she looked up and smiled at Gary. Even with half an inch of dirt covering her, Gary thought she was beautiful.

  “Or we may find something entirely new,” Billy Joe added.

  Christine turned from Gary and gave Billy Joe a quick nod as if the say, “Maybe.”

  Jared stacked the numbered map pages and tucked them into his knapsack. They would use small note pads to draw rough sketches and make notes about the passages they explored today. Tonight, they would incorporate the notes into the main map.

  The passageway between chamber four and chamber eleven started out at six-feet high, but within minutes the ceiling had dropped two feet and the group was forced to bear walk. Gary paused occasionally to take height and width measurements. He also readjusted his pedometer to account
for the shorter steps he took when he walked bent over.

  As he moved through the passage behind Christine, he watched her hips sway enticingly in front of his face. He wondered if anything would ever come of his feelings for Christine. He doubted it. If something was going to happen, she would have to set them in motion. He was too afraid. There were too many failed marriages in the country. Gary was happy exploring caves and having an occasional non-committal date with Christine. Safety first whether in a cave or in a relationship.

  Gary taught a geology course at the University of Tennessee and lived up to the stuffy professor image. He had explored the many Tennessee and Kentucky caves on weekends during the semesters. Bigger caves like this one, he spent his vacations exploring.

  When the group reached chamber eleven, they headed toward the passageway on the left. The passage was only about two-and-a-half feet wide. Everyone, even Christine with her small body, had to walk sideways for the first one-hundred yards. After the first narrow section, the passage widened and everyone was able to walk normally.

  Gary stopped when the passage widened and drew the length and width into his note pad. When he had mapped out the new section of passage, he took a reading on the compass and started walking behind Christine again.

  Billy Joe led the way to chamber eleven. The light from his lamp penetrated only about fifteen feet into the darkness. Gary didn’t bother trying to look over Billy Joe’s shoulder to see ahead of him. He knew that all he would see beyond the light of the lamp was blackness.

  The four cavers fell into a silent shuffle through the passage. It was one of the few times that no one felt like talking. Instead, they preferred to listen to the stillness of the cavern. There were no sounds in the tunnel other than those they made themselves, and on level ground that was very little. Within the cave, no crickets chirped, no traffic roared down nearby roads, no electricity buzzed through power lines, no wind rustled through the leaves in the trees. This was a world where the blind and the sighted and the deaf and the hearing could be nearly equal.