Dead Soul

by James D. Doss

Moon also refused a second cup. “I’d best be heading home.” The Columbine was a long, lonesome way north. And driving alone gave a man time to do plenty of thinking. Which was not always a good thing.

  She turned off the blue propane flame under the coffeepot, and assumed a casual tone. “That young woman in the picture—she have a name?”

  “Wilma Brewster,” her nephew said. “She was a student.”

  Daisy pretended to be surprised. “Was?”

  Charlie Moon pretended to be taken in by his aunt’s amateur performance. “Miss Brewster is no longer with us.” Not in this world.

  After a brief prayer for God’s protection of Daisy Perika, Charlie Moon, Wilma Brewster—and himself—the Jesuit shepherd took his leave.

  Charlie Moon departed in the priest’s wake.

  Deprived so suddenly of her company, Daisy Perika felt a pang of melancholy.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  NESTED VISIONS

  THE AGED WOMAN WAS FEELING EVERY ONE OF HER MANY BIRTHDAYS. Except for my toenails, everything in my body aches. But there was work to be done, and no one else to do it. This being so, she leaned on the stout oak staff with one arm, carried a bucket of well water with the other. Very deliberately—stalk by stalk—she slaked the thirst of three rows of stunted blue corn. When this task was completed, the weary woman paused to straighten her stiff back. Oh, God…I am getting too old to live.

  Shielding her eyes from a bright patch of sky, Daisy squinted to the northwest. A long, leaf-shaped sliver of cloud drifted out from the San Juans to shade Three Sisters Mesa. As she watched, the cloud’s shadow slipped over the earth like a wizard’s cloak. A sage-tinted breeze was exhaled from the mouth of Cañon del Espiritu, whipping the old woman’s woolen skirt around skinny legs. The shaman shuddered, pulled her third husband’s overcoat tightly around her waist. Soon it comes—the Moon of Dead Leaves Falling. But for a while yet, only the highest peaks would be blanketed with white. The threat of a hard frost was of more immediate concern to the gardener than the uncountable mass of six-sided crystals brewing northward over the Never Summer range. The malicious freeze that would murder her vegetables might be lurking just past tomorrow, planning an icy assault on the tiny garden. Daisy picked the few ripe tomatoes, which would be ruined instantly by a sudden drop in temperature. The green ones—so delicious when sliced, sprinkled with flour and salt, fried in an uncovered iron skillet—would not last into the depths of winter if plucked from the vine. The gardener did not hesitate; she pulled all of the tomato plants up by the roots. These would be stored in a dark space under the trailer.

  Another breeze came to ruffle her skirt. This one also carried the spirit of winter—and something else. The shaman raised her nose, sniffed. It’s smoke. And within the tiny particulates, there was an additional message for her nostrils. The distinct odor of roasting animal flesh. Rabbit, she thought. The Ute elder knew in an instant who would be roasting cottontail up in the Canyon of the Spirits. The little man. And he might know something about the redheaded woman. Maybe that’s why he came knocking on my door.

  Daisy Perika hurriedly stored the modest produce from her arid vegetable garden, stuffed a few selected items into a tattered pillowcase. She had someplace important to go. Something important to do.

  The tribal elder started her stiff-legged journey toward the yawning mouth of the canyon. Once between the towering walls of Cañon del Espiritu, the grade was slight. A young person would hardly have noticed the climb. But the aged must walk slowly, pause frequently to take deep breaths. This allows time for their weary spirit-shadows to catch up and reattach to their mortal bodies.

  Each time Daisy made the trek, it seemed as if her destination had moved farther up the canyon. The sun—which had been low in the east when she departed on her walk—was near its zenith as she approached the badger hole, long since abandoned by the original tenant. She sat down on a small shelf of variegated sandstone. The tribal elder leaned her tired back against the rough bark of a piñon that was even older than herself. Laying the oak staff across her thighs, she closed her eyes. Saw darkness. Then ripples of dim light. Something very much like sleep overcame the bone-tired woman.

  The shaman would dream her way into the pitukupf’s subterranean home.

  The bottom of the badger hole had been hollowed out into an oval chamber. A thick cobweb of fine, hairlike roots hung from the ceiling. Sticking on some of these fibers were small, pearled beads of water. Embedded in an arched wall was a long taproot, descending from a middle-aged ponderosa. The flat, earthen floor was randomly cobbled with smooth stones that, eons ago, had tumbled along in an icy glacial stream. On the north wall of the snug chamber, the current occupant had fashioned a small fireplace, where a heap of dry willow twigs crackled with flame. Across the hearth, supported by notched blocks of sandstone, was a blackened oak branch. Mounted on this spit was the headless carcass of an unfortunate rodent. Grease dripped into the fire, popped in the willow embers. Aromatic smoke wafted upward through the thick whiskers of ceiling roots, found its way up through the twisting tunnel, drifted slowly down Cañon del Espiritu toward Daisy Perika’s home.

  Expert in the protocol of such meetings, Daisy held her tongue. The shaman stared at the pitukupf. Waited.

  The age-old creature was seated on a three-legged stool near the small fire where his meal roasted slowly. He busied himself with some obscure task. For an undetermined time (in this place, ticks and tocks from little clocks cannot measure the mysterious distance between then and now) Daisy watched the dwarf carve on a hard pine knot with a knife the diminutive craftsman had surely fashioned himself. The instrument’s handle was a crescent of knobby elk horn; the blade, resembling a glistening black elm leaf, was cunningly chipped obsidian. The smoky volcanic glass was streaked with ripples of crimson, as if some ancient reptile had been caught in the molten flow and left a bright trail of fossilized blood.

  Her patience grew taut and thin. I can’t sit here all day waiting for this little rascal to say something.

  The small craftsman blew fine shavings off the pine knot, into the fire. He held his work up for a critical inspection, then began to whittle again.

  She grunted.

  The pitukupf did not acknowledge the shaman’s presence.

  Daisy cleared her throat. “You’re looking well.” For a sawed-off little runt who must be at least a thousand years old.

  No response.

  She tried again, assuming the solicitous tone of a long-lost friend. “Haven’t seen you in a long time.” After a polite pause, she added, “Somebody knocked on my door yesterday—I thought it might’ve been you. Thought maybe you wanted to stop by and talk.”

  The little man seemed determined to prove that his reputation for rudeness was well deserved. Hunched before the small fire on the three-legged stool, he pointedly continued with the work that fully occupied his attention.

  The pitukupf had his own way of doing things. And his own notion of time. Well, I’ll give him a little longer. Sitting on the floor of his underground den, she hugged her knees and watched.

  Her inconsiderate host continued his concentrated effort to shape the woody object into something that did not look like a pine knot. Occasionally, he would pause to spit into the fire.

  Father Raes has warned me a hundred times to stay away from the pitukupf. Maybe I should have listened to the priest. The shaman was suddenly struck with the absurd nature of her relationship with this eccentric creature. Like so many times before, here they were again in the abandoned badger hole the little squatter had selected for his home. And as always, they played their assigned roles. She, bringing small gifts to exchange for supposedly priceless information. The pitukupf—arrogant to the point of outright nastiness—spurning not only her offerings, but apparently objecting to the shaman’s very presence in his domain. But in the end, he always accepted the bits of this and that she brought to loosen his lips. In return, he would break the silence to offer some fragment of inf
ormation that was so shrouded in dark symbolism as to be practically useless.

  Many winters ago, when Daisy had been a young woman, these clandestine meetings had filled her with awe, as if she were touching the edge of the Infinite. Now, with the fullness of age and experience, it was becoming apparent that the little man was little more than a man. A cranky, ugly, old man—the worst sort of that gender. But nobody drug me here kicking and screaming. I came because I wanted to. As this understanding grew in her breast, the shaman was beginning to feel a bit of a fool. Daisy Perika was not given to introspection, and this unexpected intrusion of self-knowledge was discomforting. Well, let’s get this over with. The shaman removed the old pillowcase from her coat pocket, placed it on the earthen floor.

  The small creature continued to whittle on the chunk of pine, seemingly uninterested in what the tribal elder had brought to his den.

  But as Daisy removed a small sack of tobacco and a half pound of coffee, she was pleased to notice a quick glance from the pitukupf—an appreciative flare of hairy nostrils.

  Even so, he continued to shape the wood with the stone blade.

  Enough is enough. She set her jaw and glared at the side of his craggy little face. “I’m going to tell you something. And you better listen with both of your ugly ears, because I won’t say this but once.” She waited for a sign that he had taken notice of her. It did seem that the rhythm of his whittling had slowed. “Two times, I’ve had a talk with a skinny, redheaded matukach woman. She told me some strange things, so I wanted to ask you about her. But you probably don’t know nothing about the whites and their strange doings.”

  There was a sudden darkness in his expression. But the elfin craftsman continued with his work.

  “And even if you do know something about this woman, it don’t matter that much to me. I am tired of your bad manners. Just the same, I’ll leave what I brought you.” The old woman turned the pillowcase upside down, dumping out a pile of oatmeal cookies.

  The pitukupf stuck the obsidian blade under his buckskin belt, snatched two cookies, wolfed one down in three frantic bites, got to serious work on the other.

  Miserable little glutton. Go ahead—eat yourself sick. “I’m going home now.” The Ute elder pushed herself erect. “I don’t know if I’ll ever come back.” She shook a finger at her host. “A mean little fellow like you don’t deserve human company.”

  He stuffed the sack of tobacco under his shirt, looked up at the shaman. An utterly astounding thing happened.

  She watched as a single tear formed at the corner of a yellowed eye, made a serpentine course down a leathery cheek. The shaman was slack-jawed with astonishment. It seemed impossible, but…I’ve hurt his feelings.

  The pitukupf had yet another surprise up his sleeve.

  He showed his guest a soiled palm. Upon it was what had been a pine knot. Now, the product of his skilled craftsmanship had taken on the shape of a delicate piñon cone. It was a thing of wonder.

  The old woman’s throat constricted, causing her to croak. “Is this for me?”

  He nodded.

  Daisy felt a pang of regret for scolding the little man, whose narrow face had taken on the wounded aspect of the martyred saint in the stained glass at St. Ignatius Church. “Well…that’s very nice of you.” She started to drop the carving into her pocket.

  The squint-eyed frown on the dwarf’s face made it clear that he opposed this action.

  The shaman took another look at the gift. It was no longer a mere carving. This was an actual cone. Equally real were the nuts nestled between the segments.

  It startled her when the pitukupf spoke. As in all previous encounters, he uttered his words in a choppy version of the Ute tongue so ancient that the tribal elder strained to understand.

  She stared at the pinecone, then at her frustrated host. “What did you say?”

  The dwarf scowled, made an impatient hand-to-mouth gesture.

  “You want me to eat them?”

  It was quite evident that he did.

  Daisy removed several nuts, pried open the split brown hulls with her thumbnail. She placed a tiny kernel into her mouth. Chewed. Delicious. She popped a second tiny delicacy onto her tongue, nodded to communicate her approval.

  The dwarf seemed to be quite gratified at this response.

  Encouraged, Daisy put a third kernel in her mouth. Oh my. This one must be rotten; it was extremely bitter. And getting worse. She made a terrible face.

  The pitukupf, who appreciated low comedy, slapped his skinny thigh, cackled a horrid laugh.

  The shaman tried to spit the stuff out, right in his face. But like a wasp’s nest under the eaves, it clung stubbornly to the roof of her mouth.

  The dwarf laughed even harder, almost falling off the three-legged stool. Real tears began to drip off his cheeks.

  It was clear that she had been the butt of one of the pitukupf’s crude pranks.

  Nasty little imp—I’ll get you for this if it takes me the rest of my life!

  She swallowed some of the bitter spittle. Coughed. Choked.

  And then came the vision.

  THE SHAMAN saw amazing things—things that made her tremble.

  She saw Charlie Moon, clad in traditional beaded buckskins, holding a feathered lance. The tall warrior stood by a spotted mare. Her nephew concentrated all his attention on the beautiful animal, whose thick black mane he was braiding. He seemed unaware of what was behind him—a magnificent tipi whose top reached up to touch the clouds. The conical dwelling, white as the first snow, was decorated with cryptic figures. A helical band of bloodred handprints. Here and there, humpbacked bison snorting fire. Swarming herds of tiny blue horses galloping across an invisible plain. And something that looked like a four-wheeled wooden cart. In the small wagon was a skeletal figure, stripped of all flesh, but with a tuft of white hair radiating from a bulging skull.

  The absurd skeleton did not frighten the shaman. That which terrified her came from the mists at the edge of her vision. It was that shadowy, amorphous figure who now routinely visited the world of her dreams—the same evil presence that had beheaded the pale elder.

  Daisy tried to call out, warn her nephew. She had no voice.

  The nightmare-shadow grew legs. Arms. Took on an almost human form. Placed a large scorpion on the earth behind Charlie Moon. The terrible creature scuttled inside the huge tipi. This done, the evil presence danced a few exaggerated steps—apparently to signify victory—then receded into the mists from whence it had come.

  Again, the shaman tried to cry out a warning. She barely managed a mouselike squeak.

  Charlie Moon, unaware of the imminent danger, caressed the mare’s neck, whispered something into her ear. The spotted pony nodded her handsome head, whinnied.

  Oh, God—it’s too late. The shaman tensed, waited for the inevitable.

  It came.

  A blinding flash of white-hot lightning, a horrendous rumble of thunder that shook the earth to its very foundations. Screams, shrieks, groans. Smoke everywhere. And hanging on the smoke, the smell of roasting flesh. But not rabbit flesh.

  A great wind came, swept the smoke away.

  The earth remained.

  The grand tipi was gone.

  Charlie Moon was no more.

  The spotted pony had likewise vanished.

  But not everything had melted away from her horrific vision. The shaman cringed at the pitiful sound of moanings…groanings…terrible pain. Hungry tongues of flame licked at charred flesh. There were great heaps of blackened corpses—more than she could count.

  Some twitched.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  AN OBSCURE ILLNESS

  AMONG THOSE WHO KNEW HIM, THERE WERE A VARIETY OF OPINIONS about Charlie Moon’s problem.

  Scott Parris thought that it was probably a virus, maybe a touch of the flu. Give ol’ Charlie a few more days, he’d be right as rain.

  Dolly Bushman offered the opinion that the Ute had too many branding irons in th
e fire. The rancher was simply overworked. Exhausted. He needed to get away, take a long, restful vacation. For once in a blue moon, her argumentative husband agreed.

  Jerome Kydmann thought Moon’s problems were related to stress. The boss should slow down, the Kyd said. Delegate more authority. Learn to take things easy.

  Alf Marquez had his own take on the matter. The Mexican assured his cowhand companions that the Ute’s trouble came from being too rich. If a man owned very much land, had dozens of people working for him, he was bound to worry all the time. And worry sickened the mind. What the Indian needed was to sell off his properties, marry a young woman, raise a flock of children—and at least once a month, get roaring drunk.

  An elderly Arapaho cowman conjectured that Charlie Moon had eaten food that had been cursed by a witch. Or maybe he had gotten the dreaded night sickness, which came from sleeping with the window open. Either way, the cure was well-known. The Ute would benefit from regular sweat baths, and smoking kinnikinnik in a red sandstone pipe.

  Had she known about the symptoms, Daisy Perika would not have agreed with any of these diagnoses, or the prescribed cures. She would have pronounced her nephew a victim of ghost-sickness, for which there was no reliable treatment. The aged Ute shaman would not have been so far off the mark.

  EVERY NIGHT, just moments after he closes his eyes, Charlie Moon drifts off into the same dream. And so it is no wonder that he awakens feeling bone weary. It is very hard on a man—dancing with a redheaded woman who never seems to tire. A woman who will not let go of him until the sun rises.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  THE KILLING

  THE VISITOR STOOD STIFF-LEGGED IN HENRY BUFORD’S KITCHEN, knees knocking like an old well pump.

  The BoxCar manager gave the impression of being quite at ease, and this unnerved his guest all the more. Buford was seated in a straight-backed chair, boots flat on the floor, right elbow resting easily on the dining table. He glanced at the pistol pointed at his chest. All five chambers in the cylinder were loaded. Serves me right—I brought this on myself. But who wants to live to be a hundred. “What’s the matter?” Buford raised his palms in a mocking gesture of surrender. “There’s nothin’ to be scared of—you got the drop on ol’ Henry. Hell, a blind man couldn’t miss at this range.”