Hounding The Moon: A Tess Noncoire Adventure

by P. R. Frost

  “Let me send an e-mail.” I returned the hat and slid out of the booth. Scrap clung to my back, making me look a lot broader and taller than I truly was.

  No gossip about a big ugly dog in town. But he’d be here. And I’d be waiting for him when he arrived. Then I’d let these guys blow up the whole town if they wanted.

  If they blow up all the caves, Dog will have nowhere to put the blanket and the new weaver. He’ll go after Cynthia again.

  “Oh, shut up, I didn’t want to hear that.”

  Chapter 23

  Bats use echolocation to find food and avoid obstacles.

  MY FEET TOOK ME north to the end of town and a little east to the dregs of the housing.

  About half the dwellings here were tiny abandoned structures—sanitariums left over from the heyday of the lake as a healing place, before modern medicine. I found the Wild Horse Bar in a ramshackle building with a stone foundation made from rocks rounded and smoothed by water action, and wooden additions that took off at weird angles.

  The Indians hung out here.

  Scrap, can you darken my hair and skin a bit? Few of the locals appeared to be full-blooded Indian. I could get away with Caucasian features but not my New England fairness.

  A slithering like gel flowing over my head made me shiver in revulsion.

  Done, dahling.

  I stepped into the bar and ordered another beer, fully intending to let Scrap drink it. I’d had enough fuzziness for one night.

  The jukebox played the same country western music as at the other bar, the linoleum floor looked just as ancient.

  It smelled of spilled beer and crushed peanuts and the ever present fishy smell of the lake. Other than the fairly universal dark hair and dark eyes, this could be the same bar I had just left.

  Except the patrons were not quite as drunk. I knew alcoholism was a big problem on the reservations. I watched the bartender—who might have been a Leonard Stalking Moon clone including the harelip—cut off a sullen young man. He had three beer bottles in front of him.

  The well-groomed middle-aged man I’d noticed in the crowd the other day pushed a cup of coffee at the man.

  The waitress pulled the drunk’s keys out of the pocket of his tight jeans and handed them to the coffee pusher.

  These people took care of their own.

  I took a table in a corner and ordered a beer.

  “Estevez had no right to fire me from the construction crew!” the drunk slammed his fist on the bar.

  “He had every right if you showed up drunk, Billy,” Good Dresser said, plying another sip of coffee on the man.

  “But I wasn’t drunk. I swear it, Joe. I didn’t start drinking until after he fired me.” Drunk Billy looked sullen.

  “Then why were you late? Two and a half hours late by my reckoning,” Joe prodded.

  “Mellie has morning sickness. I didn’t want to leave her until her stomach settled.”

  “Let me talk to Donovan in the morning,” Joe said.

  “You need to go home to Mellie. Sam will take you.” Joe snapped his fingers at a youngish man hovering behind Billy. “You can come back in the morning to get your pickup.”

  Sam led a still grumbling Billy out the door.

  A collective sigh of relief went around the room.

  “Anyone else got a beef against Estevez?” Joe asked.

  He didn’t look happy.

  “The bastard promised me long-term carpenter work,” the man next to Joe said. “Replaced me with one of his own cronies who doesn’t know a finishing nail from a sander. Demoted me to unskilled labor at half the wages.”

  “Who’s he?” I whispered to the waitress when she brought my foaming glass. I jerked my head in Joe’s direction as he handled more complaints.

  “Joseph Long Talker. He’s the only lawyer in town,” she replied on a chuckle. “Even the whites have to go to him or drive into Ephrata for a more expensive guy.”

  Within a few minutes I understood that Donovan hadn’t made himself popular with either side in this town. Arrogant and self-serving with the whites; not living up to his promises of good employment and overbearing with the Indians. My distrust of the man rose, and I vowed never to be caught in the net of his smile again.

  Remember that the next time he tries to charm you.

  Donovan did seem to have the ability to make me forget my resolve. All he had to do was smile…

  Just like Dill had.

  I jerked into new awareness. Dill had charmed and manipulated me much as Donovan did.

  Anger at both of them seethed within me.

  “What kind of magic does he have?” I whispered to Scrap, who still had not appeared.

  I wish I knew.

  If Scrap didn’t know, then we were both in trouble.

  After breakfast the next day, I sent e-mails to friends in Seattle who might get an impartial and unbribable inspector out here. I called Leonard. He sounded anxious, and weary. Still no sign of Cynthia.

  “Donovan Estevez has the blanket in his office,” I said.

  He replied with a string of invective I didn’t want to translate even if I could.

  “Watch him, Warrior. Watch him close. Cynthia will come there soon. The blanket is a lodestone. The forces of good and evil will circle around it in a never ending dance. You must keep it that way. No one side can dominate. I charge you, Warrior, with Cynthia’s safety until a balance is achieved.”

  He hung up abruptly, leaving me with more questions than when I started.

  Then I decided to walk along the lake edge on the far side, beneath the casino. It was early yet, and Donovan’s posted office hours were ten to two. Bankers’ hours. I wondered what he did there. Maybe he spent the rest of his day at the construction site. I’d have to take a look up there eventually. Not today.

  The Mowath Lodge sat at the southern tip of the lake.

  The golf course spread out south and east of the lodge.

  A dozen sprinklers watered the manicured greens. The town hugged the inside or eastern curve with its sandy beaches and easy approaches. I followed the shoreline as far as I could to the west and the outside curve of the water until the beaches became cliffs.

  Houses with irrigated lawns fell away to shacks hidden behind tumbles of reddish-brown rock. A few scrawny goats and cats seemed to be the only inhabitants of these dwellings. Occasionally, I spotted a bit of laundry on a line behind the house, a diaper, dish towels, socks, not much else.

  I needed to stretch my body, push it to more vigorous activity than sitting in cars on endless drives through boring country or sitting and eavesdropping. Long strides took me quickly beyond the developed lakeside into rough and rocky terrain. The salty sands became shallower. The cliffs came closer and closer to the water’s edge. I looked up and up and up along waterscoured rock with deep crevices and ravines. This land was planned on the vertical.

  I tried to imagine what the area would look like if the Columbia River had not changed course twelve thousand years ago. Deep water everywhere, I guessed. The river had dug channels four- and five-hundred-feet deep in places when the glacial floods happened. The amount of water needed to fill the coulee boggled my mind. I concentrated on finding some of the caves the river had carved out of the rock.

  “Not much here, Scrap,” I said, poking my nose into a shallow ravine. “Might as well turn around.”

  Not so fast, Blondie. Look up and to your right fifteen degrees.

  I did and saw a shadow that was probably more interesting than the narrow crevice at beach level.

  “I’ll have to climb up onto rocks to avoid the water,” I complained.

  The old woman wouldn’t live in a place accessible to just any tourist out for a stroll.

  “What if there are bats living in there?”

  You’ll survive. They’ll be sleeping now. It’s broad daylight.

  “Still…”

  Climb, babe.

  Scrap pulled my hair harder than any bat could. At least, he
didn’t tangle his talons in it.

  As I pulled myself onto the first boulder, a good twentyfive feet high with convenient hand- and footholds in the rough surface, I spotted the dark shadow that had no business being on that cliff face. The sun shone directly onto that area with nothing between the light and the rock to cast a shadow. I climbed with more enthusiasm.

  I’d look inside and hope this was the one. Then I wouldn’t have to chance any more exposure to bats.

  Sure enough, the tall, narrow shadow proved to be an opening into the rocks. Scrap scampered in ahead of me.

  I shifted my daypack from my back to my hand and turned sideways to slither in.

  With a high-pitched screech, Scrap came tearing back out, claws extended. Bats! he yelled.

  I screamed louder than he did and backpedaled to the edge of the rocks and almost took a dive into the water.

  Just kidding! Scrap laughed. He lay on the boulder rolling around in uncontrollable laughter.

  “Very funny,” I snarled. My heart was in my throat and beating double time. I could barely breathe.

  But I had to admit the sight of Scrap making an ass of himself was funny. I began to chuckle. And soon I had to sit while I let the laughter take control.

  Eventually we calmed down.

  Still friends?

  “Maybe.”

  We trudged on, climbing three more boulders in search of the next cave.

  Found one.

  I pulled myself up to the next level, arms shaking to support my weight as I heaved upward, and scanned the cliff. Sure enough, Scrap had found another shadow that didn’t belong on the flat surface in full sun.

  I entered cautiously, wary of Scrap’s tricks. He behaved himself.

  A low cave spread out just beyond the opening. I had to crouch down to avoid hitting my head while I allowed my eyes to adjust to the new darkness.

  My bare arms chilled, and a frisson of… something crawled across my nape. The interior darkness seemed artificially deep and oppressive. A perfect home for bats.

  A sense of someone—or something—else filling the cave pressed me against the wall.

  I wasn’t wanted here. I intruded upon someone’s privacy, someone’s sacred place. A sanctuary.

  This place was old beyond ancient. I didn’t belong here.

  Take off your sunglasses and hat, babe. You’ll see better, Scrap chided me. He snapped insubstantial fingers and produced a morsel of flame on a chubby pawtip.

  This he applied to the end of a cigar. He began puffing away, producing clouds of aromatic smoke.

  That otherworldly sense of another presence vanished.

  I choked and coughed. When my lungs and eyes cleared, I saw evidence of rockfall along one side and the remains of an old campfire up against the back of the cave. I touched the bits of charcoal. They crumbled to dust without the least scent of burned wood.

  A very old fire.

  Rock chips littered the ground around the site. They might have been detritus from arrowhead knapping.

  They might have been just bits of rock. I didn’t have the training to know the difference.

  I don’t like this place, Tess. It’s old. There are ghosts here, Scrap said. He radiated waves of defensive red, ready to transform if needed. He levitated himself into the cave opening, as if he intended to flee.

  “Ghosts, I can deal with. It’s bats that scare me.”

  These ghosts should scare you. They scare me.

  “Any ghosts that haunt this place can’t be any worse than the ghosts that terrorize my dreams,” I replied. But I, too, crawled out into the sunshine. Immediately, I felt a weight lift from my chest, and I breathed deeply of the crisp autumnal air.

  “I’m missing something, Scrap.” I gulped greedily at one of my water bottles from the daypack.

  My imp perched upon my shoulder without saying anything. But he took on shades of pink as he watched and thought.

  I sat on the long bench of rock with my back against the cliff and stared into nothing. Quiet times like this were part of the everyday life within the Citadel.

  Part of me longed to go back to those simple days of training and meditation, of companionship and learning.

  Sure I’d had my problems with the powers that be. But there were good times, too. I’d made a few friends. Serena, the doctor. Gayla, the woman I’d rescued and nursed through the imp flu. Paige, my trainer in the use of the Celestial Blade. If I sat here long enough, absorbing sunshine and quiet, maybe my mind would open up and give me some answers.

  Answers to questions like: Where were Dog and Cynthia?

  How could I get the girl away from the monster dog when I found them?

  I look three long breaths, making certain I exhaled as deeply as I inhaled. With my eyes closed and my mind open, I sent my thoughts searching for an equally open mind.

  Images of the lake and shore reversed on the inside of my eyelids, light and dark swapped places, as did red and green. I let the scenes develop and dissolve, not concentrating or dwelling on any one of them.

  My muscles twitched, demanding action. I let them twitch but ignored the need to stand up and move.

  This was the hard part. Sister Serena had tried very hard, but in vain, to instill good meditation habits in me during my training.

  You have questions, daughter. A voice came into my mind: gentle, calm, serene.

  I nearly jumped out of my quiet in surprise. I didn’t often manage to contact anyone at the Citadel.

  Many questions. No clear path to find answers, I replied. Not so much words as symbolic images of a path broken by boulders, booby traps, and diverging trails, all marked with question marks.

  Trust in dreams, my child.

  My dreams are troubling, filled with demons.

  As are mine. We live in troubled times. We are challenged often. Besieged. Many of us are wounded or dead.

  Dreams are our only truth. The sense of another mind in my head vanished abruptly.

  I opened my eyes, startled by the brightness of the sun on the water. I felt as if I’d just awakened from a long sleep.

  “Trust my dreams? What does that mean?” I’d had a lot of disturbing dreams of late. Did the message mean that Dill truly was a ghost who haunted me? Should I trust him?

  Or should I be wary of the demons that stalked me in my dreams and in real life?

  Scrap shifted uneasily on my shoulder. His movement made me lift my gaze from the depths of the lake and the whirlpool of my thoughts to the buildings across the water from me. About half a mile away, on the inside curve of the lakeshore, I watched children playing on the swing set of the public park while adults in bathing suits caked their bodies in the salt-encrusted sand or waded in the oily water.

  The salts caked the dry sands for about twenty feet above the waterline. Another thirty feet of dry sand stretched above that. Evidence that the water level receded?

  Was this a seasonal retreat after a long, dry summer, or did the construction of the casino divert enough water from springs and creeks to deplete the lake?

  That was a lot of water.The lake was two miles long and one across.

  And the casino and hotel were still under construction.

  What would happen to the water level when six hundred toilets and showers started operating?

  To my right, my own room at the Mowath Lodge sat back from the beach. My balcony looked out over the water, as did the room next to mine. Each of the eight log lodges contained four suites, two up and two down.

  All of the rooms had lakeside views.

  The old motel, where Dill and I had stayed, the building that had burned, had been designed just like a normal motel, a single long building, two stories, doors on the street, windows and balconies facing the lake. Just because it was built with a log facing didn’t make it anything other than what it was, a motel.

  I liked the new design better. It must have cost the earth to rebuild with the massive logs and unique wooden interiors.

  Did the
insurance money cover all the costs?

  Maybe someone had made a lot of money off the insurance when the old building burned. Who?

  If I knew that, I might have a clue as to why my husband died.

  Donovan seemed to be in charge of an office. Not the hotel reception office, though. That was in a small single room cabin at the edge of the grounds. Did he own the building and delegate hotel management? Or did he just rent office space?

  Before I could follow that thought any further, a flicker of movement inside my suite caught my attention.

  Maybe it was just a reflection off the glass doors and massive windows. Maybe not.

  I stood up and cupped my hands around my eyes to reduce the glare off the water.

  Movement definitely. Reflection or inside, I could not tell.

  “Time to go home, Scrap.”

  Home to Mom’s burned cookies? he asked hopefully, glowing green.

  “No, the lodge. I need to check some things out. Good thing every room has a data port and wireless Internet.”

  Along with microwave, mini refrigerator, and coffee maker. You need more coffee.

  “You mean, you want to drink my leftovers when they get moldy.”

  Who, me? Scrap turned a cute and innocent lavender.

  I began searching for the safest way off this rock. If I turned around and backed down…

  A shot rang out from above me. A bullet pinged against the place I had sat seconds before.

  Rock shards sprayed and ricocheted.

  I ducked. Not fast enough.

  Burning pain seared my upper right arm. A sharp sliver of rock penetrated my sleeve.

  Blood dripped and stained my blouse.

  Darkness encroached from the sides of my vision. I grew hot and chilled at the same time. Up and down reversed.

  A second shot landed beside my left boot.

  I barely clung to consciousness as I crawled into the cave full of hostile ghosts.

  Chapter 24

  I SANK TO THE ground inside the cave, clutching the puncture on my upper arm, careful not to wiggle the shard of rock. It burned all the way to my fingertips and up across my shoulder into my neck.