Dead Soul
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Scott Parris bear-hugged Daisy, too, and warned, “There’s always black bears and hungry cougars and a few two-legged varmints roaming about, so you’d best be on the lookout.” Breathless from these manly embraces, Daisy was unable to respond with her usual tart remark that if any furry varmints or wild-eyed outlaws came skulking around her place, it’d be them that’d need to be on the lookout because she had a double-barrel 12-gauge shotgun in the closet that was loaded with buckshot and knew how to use it. But the white cop knew what Daisy was thinking and she knew that he knew and that Charlie Moon did too.
The final hug, a light embrace such as might be made by a fairy queen in a little girl’s dream, was administered by Sarah Frank. This expression of affection was accompanied by a pair of surprises that quite took the old woman’s breath away—two tender expressions that Charlie Moon’s aunt had not experienced in decades.
The sweet girl whispered in Daisy’s ear, “You’re like a grandmother to me.”
This was more than sufficient to strike the old woman dumb.
Sarah whispered again, “I love you.” And kissed Daisy’s wrinkled cheek.
Overkill.
If Daisy Perika was not literally bowled over by these tender endearments, they created a peculiar sense of disorientation. The woman with the barbed tongue and quick wit had not even the urge to make a sarcastic reply. Indeed, a salty tear appeared in the corner of her left eye. Daisy promptly blinked it away. Now what did Sarah do that for?
To those tender souls who appreciate occasional displays of fondness, Daisy’s querulous query might seem peculiar. But the woman who had suffered multiple huggings—and even being kissed—felt like one who has been deprived of some essential strength. And not the mere weakening of muscle or intellect; it was as if the tribal elder had been robbed of some precious inner possession…an essential secret weapon.
Daisy Perika scowled at her departing friends as if one of them were a thief. Or maybe it’s all three.
Any fair-minded person who is acquainted with Charlie Moon, Scott Parris, and Sarah Frank will be appalled and insist that Daisy’s unspoken accusation is without the slightest justification. The old woman—always prone to unseemly excesses—has finally become completely unhinged.
That possibility cannot be ruled out.
But bizarre as Daisy Perika’s conviction may seem, this much may be stated with absolute certainty—a vital arrow was suddenly missing from the shaman’s quiver.
Even so, did someone really purloin the pointed projectile?
Despite Daisy’s dark suspicions, a deliberate theft seems unlikely.
But it is equally improbable that the tribal elder has mislaid her treasured weapon—or that the missing arrow has bent a metaphoric bow and set itself aflight.
So what the dickens is going on here?
Those intrepid souls who raise such questions might be well advised to exercise a degree of caution. Ignorance, if not always bliss, is occasionally preferable to knowing what’s going on.
Chapter Three
Concerning The Visualization of Dead People and The Perception Of Their Voices
As Scott Parris drove away in his aged red Volvo, Charlie Moon’s Expedition was close behind. Sarah Frank waited in her freshly washed and waxed red F-150 pickup until the dust had settled, then waved at Daisy Perika as she left.
The very instant when the departing vehicles were out of sight, Charlie Moon’s aunt locked the front door of her house, got a firm grip on her walking stick, and set her wrinkled face resolutely toward her intended destination. Within the minute, the canyon’s gaping mouth had swallowed her whole.
As she trod along slowly, the tribal elder wondered how many times she had followed this sinuous deer path into the solitude of Cañón del Espíritu. A thousand? No. More than I could count on the fingers of a thousand hands—and here I go again. And she entered therein with the comfortable certainty that today’s journey into this inner sanctum of her soul would be witnessed by a multitude of curious characters. Daisy could already feel the cunning animal eyes watching her from their various concealments. (Her observers included a pair of prairie rattlesnakes, several cottontail rabbits, a gray squirrel, and a harem of shy mule deer.) Daisy was confident that the gossipy raven would show her face, and that Delilah Darkwing would to bring her up-to-date on the latest gossip concerning the occupants of Spirit Canyon. Thus far, her feathered friend was nowhere to be seen. The feisty old woman particularly looked forward to a contentious conversation with the venerable pitukupf. She supposed that after a light breakfast of wild honey and piñon nuts, the dwarf was probably napping in his snug underground home. (He may have been; we have no reliable information on the Little Man’s current whereabouts.)
But even if Daisy encountered neither her diminutive neighbor nor Delilah Darkwing, there was one constant in the Ute elder’s pilgrimages into these shadowy spaces between the canyon’s sandstone walls—the dead people who dwelled there. Like flitting bats who appeared with soft twilight and fuzzy moths drawn to flickering candlelight, the haunts were bound to show their faces—and several of these disembodied souls would bend Daisy’s ear with pleas for one thing and another. Among the recently deceased, the most common request was for information about friends and relatives who remained among the living. Once in a while, a vindictive apparition would (with considerable relish) inquire whether old So-and-So had finally died yet, and express the hope that his death had been painful. Some long-dead phantoms would announce their presence with sinister grunts and horrible groanings, and one of these ancients might utter unintelligible mutterings in a language that had died ages ago with his long-forgotten tribe. Most of these dead folk were unpleasant to behold, but Daisy had grown accustomed to empty eye sockets, withered limbs showing gristle and bone, and skin that hung in tattered shreds. Unique among the residents of Cañón del Espíritu was an Apache skin-walker whom Daisy had (with malice aforethought) personally dispatched to his present condition. Evidently chagrined, her victim delighted in making dire threats against the Ute elder’s person, to which the shaman would reply in like kind. The irascible old woman enjoyed such interactions, and most of her encounters with the ghosts of Spirit Canyon were stimulating social events. Though she would not have admitted it, the old woman looked forward to the hideous apparition’s predictable appearances.
To her dismay, on this day they did not.
Appear, that is.
Oh, the haunts were there, all right.
Daisy could hear the voices of several wandering souls. A recently dead quilt maker from Ignacio asked how her unmarried daughter was getting along. An Anasazi sorcerer who evidently considered the shaman a kindred spirit whispered urgently into Daisy’s ear. She could not understand a single syllable of what the dead magician said. A lonely old prospector who’d panned the stream almost two centuries ago inquired about the current price of gold. An 1870s Fort Garland soldier who’d died within sight of Three Sisters Mesa pleaded with the old woman to find his resting place and see that he got a decent Christian burial.
Though she usually enjoyed conversing with the dead, the Ute elder did not utter one word in response.
Her Apache victim (presumably waiting at the end of the queue) muttered several obscenities. He also threatened to sneak into her bedroom some dark night, suck all the blood from her veins, and vomit it into her water well. This aggravation was sufficient to loosen her tongue. “Come right ahead,” the feisty old woman said. “Try to put the bite on me and I’ll sew your nasty lips shut so tight that you won’t be able to say a four-letter word or suck sour stump water through a straw!” Under ordinary circumstances, this threat-counterthreat entertainment would have brightened up her morning. But not on this occasion.
Daisy was distracted by a totally unforeseen development. For the first time ever, the shaman could not see a single one of those dead people who hovered so closely about her.
It was unnerving.
So much so, that without a
thought to the friendly raven who was gliding down to land on a nearby juniper, or the cantankerous pitukupf whom she assumed was napping in his underground den, Daisy Perika turned as abruptly as one of her advanced age can and set her haggard face toward the open end of Cañón del Espíritu. As she pegged her way back along the deer path with her sturdy oak walking stick, a dismal thought hovered about her like a noxious vapor rising from a fetid swamp: I’m losing my powers. From Daisy’s unique perspective, this was equivalent to admitting that her vital life forces were ebbing. Sure as snow melts in May and cottonwood leaves fall to the ground in November and rot right on the spot—I’m dying.
Are Dr. Daisy’s self-diagnosis and bleak prognosis accurate? Perhaps. The truth of the matter remains to be discerned.
But of this much we can be certain: even as the old soul trodeth steadfastly toward hearth and home, Charlie Moon’s despondent aunty is not alone in this world of troubles. Other problems are always brewing in other pots, and one in particular is about to boil over that will—in one way or another—scald every member of the tribal elder’s inner circle.
When and where?
Tomorrow morning in Granite Creek.
For those who hanker for a higher degree of specificity, the epicenter of this localized eruption will be—the Wanda Naranjo residence and its environs.
You’ve never heard of the place?
That lack of familiarity shall be immediately remedied.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Acknowledgments
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