The Wind in His Heart

by Charles de Lint

  She moved soundlessly on bare feet except for a strange clicking sound that arose with every step. It wasn’t until she came closer that Thomas realized it came from the hundreds of small bones woven into her braids and hanging by threads from a dress that hung in rags and tatters from her shoulders to just above her ankles.

  The cousins all moved out of her way as she passed by—not from fear, he saw, but from respect. Still, while they might not be afraid, something about her made Thomas shiver down to the very marrow of his bones and woke goose bumps on his arms.

  “Who—” Thomas had to clear his throat. He turned to Calico, who now stood at his side. “Who is she?”

  “It has to be Night Woman,” Calico said in a voice as quiet as his own.

  Thomas might have said, I thought she was only a story to frighten children, but after today, he knew better. In a night crowded with spirits and cousins, why shouldn’t the spirit of death be abroad as well?

  “What’s she doing here?” Thomas asked.

  Like everybody else, he couldn’t take his gaze from the approaching woman and her giant dog.

  “What do you think?” Calico replied. “She’s come for Derek. And maybe for whoever killed him.”

  She never came for Auntie, Thomas thought. Seeing her now, he was just as glad. But still it made him wonder why that was. Before he could ask Calico what the difference was, the tall woman’s gaze found his, caught and held him so that he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, could hardly breathe. The night lay in her eyes, dark and unfathomable, and there was something older still that intensified the shiver in his bones. His testicles rose up toward his body and his throat went as dry as the desert around them.

  And the longer she held his gaze, the more sure he was that they had met before. When or where, he had no idea. He wasn’t even sure she’d looked the same. But he knew those dark eyes.

  24

  Sadie

  Sadie was gasping for air by the time she got back to her bedroom. She shut the door, dropped the blanket and leapt onto the bed, balling up in a tight fetal position to try to keep from shivering. It didn’t help. The tremors ran up and down her limbs and her teeth chattered until she stuck the edge of her left hand in her mouth. Biting down on it brought her a small measure of control.

  It took a few minutes before she could finally sit up. She leaned over and picked up the fallen blanket, then wrapped it around her shoulders and stared at the door, expecting the worst. Her fingers were still closed on the handle of her utility knife. She wasn’t sure if she still wanted to cut herself or use it as protection against the monsters she’d seen outside.

  She tried to convince herself they were just people in disguise, weirdos like Steve and his girlfriend with her fox ears and antlers, which couldn’t be real either. They were probably some cult of freaks who had to dress up like animals to get it on.

  Except…except…

  When that bird-headed man had turned from the fire to look at her, his eyes, feathers and movement had all been too bird-like to be a mask. They could get away with fooling you in a movie, but CGI didn’t work in real life.

  Were the freaks going to come after her now that she’d seen them?

  Her grip tightened on the knife.

  There was no chair in the room or she would have jammed it under the doorknob—though did that actually work, or was it one more bullshit thing from the movies? And what about the window behind its curtains? What was to stop them from smashing it in?

  She forced herself to get off the bed and tiptoe over to it. Hand trembling, she moved the curtains aside barely enough to peer outside. There was nothing to see, only the dark bulk of the mountains.

  Her heart leapt into overdrive as an ominous clicking sound entered the hall outside her room.

  Sadie’d always thought she was a little tougher than other kids. I mean, she’d dealt with Reggie’s crap for all these years, hadn’t she? Listening to some of the worst stories the foster kids told, she knew she’d never let anyone pull that shit on her, didn’t matter who they were or where they sent her. Maybe cutting and dope wasn’t the best way to deal, but it worked for her. She always found something that worked. There was always an angle, a way you could play people.

  But monsters were different. The ones out there were real, and they weren’t people. Her fear shattered her ability to think rationally.

  The weird sound came closer and she imagined huge bird feet clawing at her door, a massive beak pecking out her eyes. Sadie stood ramrod stiff, staring at the wood panels. She thumbed the blade of her knife out from its handle, but when the door popped open the knife fell from her hand and she let out a scream.

  And felt like a fool.

  It was only Ruby—her nails clicking on the floor outside before she’d pushed the door open with her snout. Now the dog sat and looked at Sadie, head cocked as if to ask, what is your problem?

  Sadie slid down until she was sitting on her heels. She picked up her knife, palming it from sight when Aggie appeared in the doorway. Her gaze went from Sadie on the floor with a blanket wrapped around her, to Ruby sitting in front of her.

  “Is everything all right?” the old woman asked.

  Sadie waved the hand that wasn’t hiding the knife. “Yeah, yeah. No need to panic. I just had a bad dream.”

  Aggie’s eyes narrowed.

  “Seriously,” Sadie said. “That’s all it was. Freaked me out but then I woke up and it’s all better now.”

  But she could see as the words left her mouth that it wasn’t going to fly. The old woman knew there was more to it than some nightmare.

  “What did you see?” Aggie asked.

  “It was just a dream. Who remembers anything from a dream?”

  Aggie sighed. “It’s important.”

  “Why?”

  “Because dreams can be messages and this house is a potent place for dreamers. You wouldn’t be the first the spirits have contacted within these walls.”

  “Yeah, except I’m not an Indian.”

  Aggie’s steady gaze remained fixed on her. “The soul has no colour.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Sadie said. “I’m not sure I even believe in souls and that kind of stuff.”

  Ruby made a throaty sound, somewhere between a grunt and an almost inaudible woof.

  Aggie nodded. “I agree,” she said to the dog. “I don’t believe her either.”

  Really? Sadie thought. Pretending that the dog could actually understand their conversation. Creepy much? But then she remembered the animal people around the campfire outside. She studied the dog, but all Ruby did was fix her with a mild gaze.

  “Can she talk?” Sadie asked, looking up to Aggie.

  “Everything can talk,” the old woman replied. “The trick is, not everybody knows how to listen. Now, what did you see in your dream?”

  “I…”

  Never had a dream, she almost said. But that wasn’t what Aggie wanted to hear. So Sadie told her about dreaming she woke up and went outside, seeing the people around the fire. How when they turned to look at her, they were all like the things in Aggie’s paintings—not really people, but not completely animals, either.

  “I freaked out and ran back to the house,” she finished, “and that’s when I woke up. Then I heard Ruby at the door and I thought my dream was coming true. That these monsters were really coming to get me and I hadn’t been dreaming. When Ruby pushed the door open I pretty much lost it.”

  Under the blanket still wrapped around her, she clenched and tightened her fingers around the knife. She imagined drawing the sharp blade against her skin and how all the crap building up inside her would flow out like air from a balloon. Maybe one day so much would come out that the only thing left of her would be a heap of skin on the floor.

  “Hmm,” Aggie said. She studied Sadie for another long moment, then nodded and turned away from the door.

  “Hmm?” Sadie repeated. “That’s all you’ve got to say? What about dreams having meani
ng? What message are those monsters supposed to be?”

  Aggie looked at her over her shoulder. “They aren’t monsters,” she said, “and you weren’t dreaming.” Then she stepped away down the hall.

  Sadie scrambled to her feet and brushed past the dog.

  “If they’re not monsters,” she shouted at Aggie’s back, “then what would you call them?”

  “Friends,” Aggie replied without turning.

  She paused at the doorway of her own bedroom to face Sadie.

  “Don’t make me regret having invited you into my home,” she said.

  Then she shut the door quietly, but with a finality that left no doubt that this conversation was done.

  “Well, fuck,” Sadie said.

  She went back to her own room. Ruby lay on the floor, her gaze following Sadie as she walked from the door to the bed.

  “What are you looking at?” Sadie asked.

  She heard Aggie’s words in her head—everything can talk—but the dog hadn’t gotten the memo and didn’t answer.

  “Here,” Sadie said. “Take a picture of this.”

  She pushed open the blade of the utility knife and drew it quickly across the flesh of her forearm. Not too deep. Just enough to let the new pain swallow some of the old.

  She sucked in a breath of air through her teeth and slid down the side of the bed until she was sitting on the floor beside the dog, her arm propped up on her knees. She watched the blood well up, and for the first time today, she felt relaxed. In control.

  The dog whined, but didn’t look away.

  25

  Steve

  I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but I can’t be the only person that’s completely weirded out by the woman and her dog. The dog’s huge, sure, and maybe that’s not so strange in and of itself, but the woman has a goddamned bird skull on her skinny-ass shoulders. I don’t mean she’s wearing it like a hat or some gruesome headdress—it seems to really be her head.

  Impossible, yeah, I know, because where are you going to find yourself a raven almost as big as that giant dog?

  The rest of the crowd in the canyon looks like they escaped from some carnie freak show, but the skull-headed woman is the one that’s really giving me the creeps. It’s the long distinctive beak where there should be a face, and the darkness inside her eye sockets. I can’t see anything in there, but I still know there’s something looking out at me. And if that’s not enough, sometimes it seems as though she has the ghost of a raven sitting on her shoulder. When it’s there, a second serious gaze is fixed on me. Then it changes its focus and regards Thomas with equal, if not more intensity.

  Calico’s in front of me, standing beside Thomas. She’s still holding Derek’s head by one of its horns. I overhear what she tells Thomas—that this is Night Woman. I’ve heard the stories. According to them, Night Woman’s the spirit of death. I’ve seen more than my fair share of crap today, but this makes no logical sense. Death doesn’t go walking around except in spooky stories to scare kids. Death is a state, not a person.

  The problem is, my gut tells me different. I haven’t been this spooked in a long time, not since I fell off that cliff all those years ago and broke my leg. Those few airborne moments were pure terror, from when my foot slipped on some loose stones, to my plummet to the ground below.

  I guess I was lucky it was Possum who found me, not this woman. He said the mesquite I hit on the way down saved my life because it broke my fall. I didn’t know that at the time. I just remember lying there for what seemed like forever, a green stupid kid who thought he could tame the mountains and had just run smack into a big voice of dissent.

  I was filled with dread, lying there all on my own, miles from anywhere, but it was nothing like the terror of the fall. I’ve never wanted to feel that again, but looking at this skull-headed woman, that same sense of foreboding fills the pit of my stomach.

  I start when a hand clasps my shoulder, but it’s only Reuben.

  “What the hell is going on here?” I ask him.

  He shrugs. “Damned if I know.”

  I look at Morago. As the shaman, he might be able to answer that question. He’s been standing close enough to hear us, but now he just pushes by to join Calico and Thomas. William stays behind us by the truck, as though he’s riveted to the ground. Either his fear or his sorrow is paralyzing him. Probably a bit of both.

  I can hear vehicles in the distance, but they seem to belong to another world. My throat’s dry. The air tastes of dust.

  The big dog moves aside when it reaches Calico and Thomas, making room for his mistress. The air seems to shift around her shoulders and the raven skull transforms into a woman with long black hair and eyes like midnight. A vague memory of the skull hangs like an aura around her shoulders. The ghost bird that was on her shoulder isn’t there anymore either, but I still feel the weight of its gaze watching from somewhere.

  I don’t like the way the woman is looking at Thomas. Then she turns her attention to Calico, and I like it even less.

  “Is she really Night Woman?” I ask Reuben.

  Reuben grimaces. “Oh yeah. Unless there’s another raven woman running around looking that spooky.”

  I don’t even know how to begin to get my head around that.

  “So what’s she doing here?” I ask. “Does she show up to give every cousin a big send-off?”

  “I don’t know that it’s got a lot to do with our brother, except it makes a good excuse for her to be here.”

  “But—”

  “Ma’inawo like her don’t show up unless something big’s going down—not that they’d ever let us in on it. But they’ve always got an agenda.”

  “What’s hers?”

  He shrugs. “No clue. But it’s sure to screw up our lives.

  “Hang on,” he adds as the woman starts to speak.

  “You have done well, little cousin,” the raven woman tells Calico. “Our brother would have had a long journey to find his way home, had you not intervened. His ancestors would not have been present to welcome him. His kin would not have been able to celebrate his time on the wheel and send him home.”

  Okay, that doesn’t sound so bad, I think, as Calico makes some innocuous response.

  But then the woman seems to stand a little taller and says, “And you have dealt appropriately with the five-fingered being that killed him.”

  She says it pointedly, like a statement, not a question.

  “No, señora,” Calico says. I’ve never seen her so hesitant. “It was not my place to speak for the Bighorn Clan.”

  The woman lifts her gaze, looking around until she settles on William, who’s still by Reuben’s truck. Other vehicles are pulling in behind it now, the sound of their engines muttering in the early morning light, but the woman has no trouble making herself heard above them.

  “And how has the Bighorn Clan dealt with the killer?” she asks him.

  William gazes at his feet. “We…that is…”

  The woman frowns as William’s voice trails off. I’m not a hundred percent certain what’s going on here, and I sure don’t want to get involved, but I’m guessing that whatever hierarchy she represents, this is a cousin thing. From Calico’s uncharacteristic politeness, to the way everybody is being cautiously respectful around the woman, this Night Woman is close to the top of the ma’inawo food chain.

  But she’s not my boss.

  With that simple realization, the raw feeling in the pit of my stomach goes away and takes the unreasoning fear with it.

  She’s not my boss, and her superiority annoys me.

  I’m an American. Her presence here is like the Queen of England showing up at my Airstream. I’d give her the respect you’d give anybody of her station, but it’s not like the Queen of England’s got any hold over me—not the way the skull-headed woman obviously has over the cousins here. So I can stand up to her where they can’t.

  “Not killing anybody in retaliation,” I say. “That was my call
.”

  Morago turns to look at me and shakes his head, plainly telling me to back off. But in for a dollar…

  “I warned them what they could expect if it happened again,” I add.

  The woman cocks her head to look at me, the ghost bird back on her shoulder for a moment, mimicking the motion. Night Woman’s eyes are as dark now as the eyeholes of her skull were when she first arrived.

  “Did you now,” she says.

  Calico is shaking her head along with Morago, but I plunge on. “It was the right thing to do,” I say. “The tensions between the traditionalists and the casino crowd are always running high. Something like this could have been a tipping point.”

  “Why should I care about that?”

  “No reason you should. You don’t have to live here like the rest of us do.”

  She doesn’t respond right away. Instead, she studies me for a long moment. There’s no sound except for the wind. It’s as though everyone is holding their breath.

  “And my dead cousin?” she asks finally, nodding at Derek’s head. “Who speaks for him?”

  “Well, no offence, ma’am, but you don’t look like Bighorn Clan to me. His kin have already had their say.”

  She draws her head back in disbelief. “And left it to a five-fingered being to handle?”

  I shrug. “Not entirely, but they wanted a message delivered, and then to have their brother brought here for proper burial.”

  The woman lays a hand on the head of her dog and it turns its enormous face to look at her.

  “I think I like this human,” she says. “What about you, Gordo?”

  A loud rumble comes from the dog’s massive chest. The woman gives me a thin smile that never quite reaches her eyes.

  “Thank you for your help in this trying time,” she says.

  “Anything to help, ma’am.”

  Calico and Morago are shaking their heads again, but my words are already spoken.