The last thing Thomas wanted was to watch a pair of ma’inawo have a go at each other. But Calico was pissed and Consuela didn’t seem like the kind of woman who backed down from much of anything.
As Calico stomped over to where the raven woman stood, he shot a glance in Gordo’s direction, but the big black dog didn’t seem concerned. He lay with his head on his paws, gaze fixed on Sammy who crouched a few feet away from him.
Reuben called her name but Calico flipped him off without turning.
“We’ve got to stop them,” he told Thomas.
Good luck with that, Thomas thought.
He was about to say as much when Steve suddenly started shouting, “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
He sat up in an abrupt motion, eyes wide open. The movement was so forceful that both Thomas and Reuben took a step back.
Calico stopped in her tracks.
Steve got to his feet, swaying unsteadily. He probably would have fallen if Reuben hadn’t stepped forward and caught his arm. Steve took a moment to steady himself, then pulled free and staggered to the edge of the plateau like a drunk about to step right off. He stopped where the stone met the sky and stared down, still swaying slightly.
“Steve!” Calico cried. She ran and grabbed him by the waist. He put his arm around her, but his gaze stayed on whatever he was seeing below.
“Was Aggie there?” he asked, pointing downward. “Just floating and turning in slow circles?”
“No.” Calico stared at him, her features worried as though she thought he might have sustained some brain damage from whatever had happened to him. And if she wasn’t thinking it, Thomas certainly was.
“So maybe Leah’s all right,” Steve said.
“What are you talking about?” Calico asked. “What happened to you?”
Steve pointed to Consuela. “Her ghost sister worked some mojo on me so that we ended up inside my head.”
“You’re not making any sense. First you were talking about Aggie, then Leah, and now you’re talking about a ghost.”
Thomas nodded in agreement. “But after what I’ve been through today,” he said, “it’s hard to make sense of anything. But Si’tala,” he pointed at Consuela, “did fly into him.”
Calico looked at Thomas, then glared at Consuela before returning her attention to Steve. “Okay,” she said. “So why would she do that?”
“She was being kind, warning me about things to come,” Steve said.
“Like a fortune-teller?” Reuben asked.
Steve shook his head. “No, it’s this thing where she experiences everything—past, present and future—all at the same time. It’s supposed to be a ma’inawo thing.”
“Our elders talk about that as well,” Reuben said.
“Except nobody actually lives that way,” Calico said. “Or if they do, the stories say it drives them insane.”
Now everyone turned to Consuela.
“Why are you all looking at me?” she asked. “I did the smart thing. I put all those thousands of years of memory into a shadow of myself. If anyone’s crazy, it’s Si’tala.”
“And where is she now?” Thomas asked.
The dark woman bristled. “I don’t know. She has a mind of her own.” Consuela was feigning indifference, but Thomas could tell that she was perturbed by the ghost raven’s absence.
“On our way here,” Thomas went on, “you talked about this time business as though you live the same way as she does.”
“As I told you, my lines of communication with Si’tala have always focused on what I pass along to her. I live in the present, while she holds the memories. I’ll admit that she’s acted strangely these past few days. Perhaps some madness has crept in.”
“What was she warning you about?” Reuben asked Steve.
“She said we’re going to need Sammy in the days to come.”
“The betrayer?” Consuela said. “What use could anybody possibly have for him?”
Thomas glanced over to see that Gordo was still lying in front of Sammy, panting lightly, fixed on the discussion as though he understood every word.
Sammy was hugging himself, unable to stop shaking. It was funny. Thomas had never thought of the casino boss as a loser. A lot of other things, sure, but word had it that ever since Sammy had come back from university he seemed to have an answer for everything. He always came out on top.
Except for today.
“The city’s expanding,” Steve said.
“We don’t need Si’tala to tell us that,” Reuben said. “Anybody with half a brain can see it happening.”
Steve nodded. “But she pointed out that they’re going to run out of water and come after the tribe’s water rights—by force if the Women’s Council doesn’t give in to them.”
“They can’t do that,” Thomas said. “We’re protected by treaties and laws.”
A wry smile came over Reuben’s face as he squeezed Thomas’s shoulder. “That’s never stopped them before,” he said. “The only bones they ever throw us are the ones nobody else wants. It’s always been like that.”
Thomas’s brow creased. “So how’s Sammy supposed to help?” he asked.
“Si’tala says he’ll be able to deal with whatever they throw at the rez in a way that the Aunts and the dog boys won’t be able to.”
“So it’s a Kikimi problem,” Consuela said.
“I suppose you could put it like that,” Steve told her. “But it’s a serious one. If the tribe loses the water rights—”
“Who cares about water rights?” Consuela cut in. “What about the cousins Sammy’s trophy hunters have killed?”
Steve blinked.
“Where’s the justice for them?” Consuela hissed. “And if you let him live, what’s to stop him from bringing in even more hunters, which means more cousins will die.”
“Hold your horses,” Steve said. “We’ll have to get Morago to teach him how to tell the difference, so that nothing like that can happen again.”
Consuela shook her head. “That’s not good enough. I came here to throw him off the mountain.”
Thomas frowned at her. “I thought you said you were going to listen to what he had to say.”
“I changed my mind.”
“But your sister just told Steve—”
“I don’t care what Si’tala said. She’s not here, though she should be,” she glanced around, as though willing the ghost raven to manifest, then scowled. “Anyway, the decision is mine.”
Steve stepped away from Calico and stood directly in front of the raven woman. “How come your sister’s so much smarter than you are?” he asked, frowning at her. “Don’t you get it? Water rights are going to be a huge problem. Most of the runoff from the mountains passes through the Painted Lands. If the city needs it badly enough and they can’t buy the rights, they’ll find a way to take the rez away from the tribe.”
Consuela glared back at him. “You don’t seem to get it,” she said. “The life of a cousin should never be worth a fistful of money. Sammy doesn’t get to walk away from what he’s done.”
Thomas glanced over at Sammy, who looked like he was about to shit his pants.
Steve took a deep breath. “Look,” he said, keeping his voice even. “I know where you’re coming from. Sammy’s a smug asshole and I like him about as much as I do the one-percenters he does business with. But he didn’t know he was killing cousins. If the tribe’s going to need his expertise when the shit hits the fan, they need to keep him around. Look at him. He’s been scared to his senses. He can be taught to tell the difference so that nobody has to get hurt again.”
Consuela shook her head. “It’s not worth the risk or the effort. He still has his life, while theirs are gone. The debt he owes remains unpaid.”
Steve shook his head then turned back to Calico. “Can you help me talk some sense into her?” he asked.
Calico looked at him. “She does have a point about the risk to us ma’inawo,” she said. “Or are you just expecting me to blindl
y agree with you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t want me, or any of my friends, to end up with our heads mounted on a plaque in someone’s den because of that asshole.” She jerked a thumb in Sammy’s direction.
Steve looked aghast. “Neither do I, but listen: Si’tala would never have told me—”
“No, you listen. Some ghost woman that you’ve befriended—who most of us can’t even see—reads the future for you, and you don’t even stop to wonder if what she’s told you is true?”
Steve looked confused. “I thought cousins couldn’t lie.”
“We don’t. But some will bend the truth if it serves them. Lies of omission, that kind of thing.”
Steve tilted his head in Consuela’s direction. “Like when she claimed to be Night Woman?”
Calico nodded. “Right. She just let us assume that was the case. And knowing how manipulative she can be, what credence does that give to what her ghost sister—who apparently might be crazy—tells you?”
Steve studied her for a moment before saying, “First of all, her sister is nothing like her. And second, I never agreed to killing Sammy.”
Calico looked at him, defiance in her eyes. “So you’re choosing to side with her and not even considering how I, or the other ma’inawo, might feel.”
Steve groaned in frustration. “No. It’s not like that. You know Sammy had no idea that Derek or any of the others were ma’inawo. How are people supposed to learn from their mistakes if you kill them before they even have a chance to try to do better?”
She lifted a hand and touched his cheek, then stepped away into some other part of the otherworld.
Steve stood staring at the empty place where she’d been standing. “What the fuck?” he said. He turned to Reuben and Thomas for help. Thomas was as baffled as Steve and couldn’t offer any sort of explanation.
“She thinks you’re putting the tribe ahead of her, and looks like she might be a little jealous, too.” Reuben said.
Steve shook his head, his confusion plain. “Why would she think that? Even if Si’tala hadn’t come to me with her story, I still wasn’t going to be a part of killing Sammy.”
“Then you should leave now,” Consuela said. “All of you.”
Steve’s eyes narrowed. “No way, lady. Whatever beef you have with Sammy, you’re going to have to go through me to get at him.”
She gave him a feral smile. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“You might want to take that up with Gordo,” Thomas said.
Consuela studied her companion. The big black dog had risen to his feet and seemed at least twice the size he’d been the last time Thomas had glanced in his direction. Gordo stood facing Consuela, Sammy behind him, and growled a warning.
“Fine,” the raven woman spat. “Protect the murderer.”
The dog gave a loose shake, nose to tail tip. When he was done he was even larger, his dark gaze still fixed on Consuela. The raven woman stared back at Gordo for a long moment, then, just like Calico, she stepped away. Here one moment, gone the next. Thomas didn’t think he’d ever get used to it.
“Well, crap,” Steve said. “There goes our ride home.”
“You shouldn’t have pissed Calico off the way you did,” Reuben said.
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Reuben shook his head. “And so long as you keep believing that, she’s going to stay pissed off at you.”
“So we’re stuck here for the duration.” Steve looked from Reuben to Thomas. “Unless either of you guys…?”
“Worldwalking’s not in my wheelhouse,” Reuben said at the same time as Thomas shook his head. “I can do some simple crossovers but if I tried to do that here, we’d just end up stranded somewhere high up in the Maderas. That’s if we didn’t appear in the middle of the air between peaks and go splat, way down below.”
Steve sighed and walked over to where Sammy was still sitting on the ground. He reached out a hand, sighing again when Sammy flinched.
“Nice,” Steve said. “You did hear that I was the one saying you shouldn’t be killed, right?”
Sammy nodded. After a moment he took Steve’s hand and let himself be pulled to his feet.
“So do you understand what’s happening here?” Steve asked.
“Yeah, I get it. No more hunting.”
“No more hunting ma’inawo.”
“Right,” Sammy said. “That’s what I meant.” His gaze darted left and right. When it came to Gordo, he flinched and stared at the ground. The figure he cut was a far cry from the big chief Thomas usually saw strutting around the rez like he was better than everybody else, when he even bothered to come over to the traditionalists’ side.
It was strange to see him like this. His designer jeans were coated with dust. His fancy shirt was dirty as well and had a rip in the sleeve. But the biggest difference was his red face, how he kept looking like he was about to cry. Maybe Sammy had an auntie who’d told him the traditional stories before he went off to the white man’s university, and he was remembering them now. In a lot of those stories the bad guy didn’t get off lightly.
Thomas listened as Steve continued to grill Sammy. “And you’re going to learn the difference by…” Steve waited for Sammy to finish his sentence.
“Talking to Morago,” Sammy finally mumbled in response.
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Steve said. “But just so we’re clear, you fuck up, and I’ll take you down so hard you’ll wish I’d never saved your ass today.”
“Okay. I get it already. Can we just go now?”
“I wish it was that easy,” Steve told him. He turned away and walked over to where the rocks dropped off, then stared out to where the mountains marched into the far distance. The way his shoulders were slumped, Thomas figured he was probably thinking more about Calico than he was about getting back to their own world.
“Hey, man!” Sammy called after him, his face pale. He obviously thought Steve was reconsidering saving him. “I said I’d do what you told me,” he said in a pleading voice.
“Shut up,” Reuben told him.
“But—”
“If we knew how to get back, we’d be doing it.”
Steve never turned around.
While the conversation was going on, Thomas had been surveying the mountaintop. There had to be a way to get off. Earlier, he’d seen the sign of an old campfire—a smudge of coals enclosed by a circle of stones, too old to even hold much of a smell. If some of the people who came here weren’t ma’inawo, maybe there was some kind of a trail they could find that would take them down. He was about to go looking when Steve turned around. “What about the dog?” he asked Thomas.
Gordo lifted his head, dark gaze settling on Steve’s face.
“He’s not actually a dog” Thomas replied.
“I know. That’s the whole point. He’s some kind of serious shapechanger, right? Can’t he change into something that can take us off this mountain? Wasn’t he a helicopter at some point, or was I hallucinating that?”
“He can change into all kinds of things,” Thomas said, “but he’s a spirit of death, so I don’t think we want to owe him a favour.”
“Let’s worry about what he wants after we’ve asked if he’ll help us.”
“I know how this story ends,” Thomas told Steve, “and it never ends well. You ask him.”
“But you’re the shaman,” Reuben said.
“I’m not a shaman.”
“You pulled the evil spirit out of Steve’s head.”
Steve looked puzzled. “What evil spirit?”
“Si’tala,” Reuben said.
Steve shook his head. “She’s not evil. She’s just…different. Nice, actually.”
“Careful, cowboy,” Reuben said. “You better reign in those dreamy thoughts of yours.”
Steve’s mouth dropped open. “Are you kidding me?” he said. “Man, you couldn’t be more wrong.”
Reuben lau
ghed and clapped him on the shoulder. “I know. I’m just not sure that your girlfriend does.”
“Will somebody just talk to the dog? Get it to send us back?” Sammy pleaded.
“Shut up,” Steve and Reuben told him at the same time.
Reuben turned back to Thomas. “Come on, kid. You can do this.”
Thomas could see that Gordo had been following the whole of their conversation. The big dog also seemed a lot smaller than he’d been earlier—less the size of a horse, more like a large mastiff. More like, well, an ordinary dog. But there was nothing ordinary about the intelligence in his eyes as he watched Thomas walk up to him.
Thomas’s first inclination was to put out his hand and say something like, “There’s a good boy,” the way he’d do with the rez dogs. He stopped himself and stuck his hands in his pockets before he did something stupid. This was not a dog. It was a ma’inawo. No, it was something more than a cousin. It was a piece of death.
He felt something in his right front pocket when he put his hand in and pulled out the black feather he’d used to work the medicine that had pulled Si’tala out of Steve’s head. How could something so small have so much power?
He was so absorbed by the feather that he didn’t notice the dog until it had closed the distance between them. Its tongue whipped out and snatched the feather from his grip. The big mouth closed and the feather was gone. Swallowed.
Gordo backed away and began to change.
It was hard to watch. At first, the black dog simply got bigger and bigger. But then it was like staring into the sun for a moment, and when you looked away, lights danced in your eyes and you couldn’t see anything properly.
Gordo’s shapeshifting was like that—impossible to actually see it happen, but when it was done, the jet-black helicopter was back and the dog was gone.
No, not gone. The dog had become the helicopter again, like some frigging Transformer.
A door opened on the side of the sleek machine and hung ajar.
“What did you give him?” Reuben asked.
Thomas didn’t take his gaze away from what Gordo had become. “A feather. The one that Consuela—or Si’tala—slipped into my pocket back at the trading post when I first saw them.”
“The one you were waving in front of Steve’s face?”
The Wind in His Heart Page 35