by Brian Hodge
Except that he intended to find out.
CHAPTER SIX
"Still can't get hold of the Mayor's office?"
Laura looked up from the phone at Bob Fergus, the Courier's city editor, and shook her head. "Nope. They're really mad at me this time."
He laughed. "For the time being. But just wait until they want to look good in the press. They'll come running fast enough." He watched as she swept papers into the center drawer of her desk. "Want another assignment in the meantime?"
"I'd like to pursue this one; Bob."
"Well, until you have another lead, why not look at what I've got? The leader of the National Coalition of American Indians got in today."
She sighed. "Okay. Name?"
"Thomas Yellow Colt is their, you'll excuse the pun, chief spokesman." She didn't smile. "Don't be so intense, Laura. You aren't at the Washington Post, for God's sake, and you're not uncovering Watergate."
She pressed her lips together, mildly irritated with him. "I know. I just want to do well."
He leaned across and patted her shoulder, almost in a fatherly manner, except that his fingers lingered a little too long. As he removed them, it was almost a caress. Oh wonderful, she thought sourly. Just what she needed. And him married and the father of three kids and balding and thirty years her senior. It would be just her luck for him to make a play, for her to refuse, and then for him to get her fired.
"Laura?"
"Sorry. I was thinking. Now, where's this Yellow Colt staying?"
"At the Hilton, for Christsakes. These aren't no dirt-poor Indians. Just a bunch of troublemakers who move from state to state, stirring up the locals." He grinned at her, waved a pudgy hand and started to stroll off. "Might make good copy, though, especially as they're planning a protest at the barbecue Friday."
She reached for the phone and made the call to the hotel.
"Yeah?" asked a low voice.
Pleasant sort. She plunged in. "'Mr. Yellow Colt? My name is Laura Rainey, and I'm a reporter for the Albuquerque Courier. I'd like to interview you this afternoon about your group and your planned protest. Would that be possible?"
He gave a short laugh. "Sure, honey. You come down to the Hilton and we can talk. Okay?"
"Fine, Mr. Yellow Colt. What time?"
"Two."
They arranged to meet in the coffee shop, and after she had hung up, Laura fished her notebook out of her purse, jotted down a few notes, then went to tell Fergus where she would be. Before she left for the Hilton, she called the Mayor's office again. Who knows—her luck just might be changing.
He needed to talk to someone. His university colleagues were out of the question. It had been too long since he'd last talked with them; too much had happened since then. And they would scoff anyway, if he told them what had occurred in the mountains. After all, it was all feelings and senses, and no facts.
He didn't know anyone else in the city. He was completely alone, alone as he had always been, and for the first time he was uneasy about it.
So he had turned to another Indian.
The only Indians he knew were in southern New Mexico, where his family still lived, and he didn't have time to drive down there to visit them. Too, this was hardly something he could talk about over the phone to his parents. His mother would just cry, while his father wouldn't say a word and Ross would be sarcastic.
Instead he had gone to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center on 12th Street and had explained to the middle-aged woman at the front desk that he needed to talk with someone who knew the old ways. She'd expressed some surprise at this. The whites were forever coming in and wanting to know of the old ways, but not young Indians. She had thought about it for a while, thumbed through a card file, finally jotted something down and handed the paper to him.
He'd thanked her, left and, as he got into the pickup, glanced at the name.
Fedelino Tenorio at Isleta Pueblo.
He'd been to Isleta once and knew it was located about fifteen miles south of the city. It was so named when the Spanish arrived, for the pueblo was literally on an island at that time, the river curving on each side. Through the years the Rio Grande had found a different route and flowed now only along the eastern side. The pueblo sat on high ground around which the river flowed.
He took U.S. 85 out of Albuquertue, crossed the bridge and drove into the unprepossessing settlement of old adobe and wood houses. Door frames and window frames were painted blue to keep out evil spirits. Ristras, the long strands of red chili peppers, hung on the outside walls. Most of the dwellings were one-story high, small, almost ramshackle. Along the river ancient cottonwoods spread rare shade. Dust, as always in that area, swirled in tiny dustdevils through the village as a hot wind swept down the narrow streets. A dun-colored dog raced alongside the truck, veered when he braked in front of one of the adobes. Other dogs, almost the same color as the first, slept curled in the shade of the houses. When he got out, he could feel unseen eyes watching him.
A little girl, barefoot and dressed in dirty jeans and a boy's western shirt, gaped wide-eyed at him. He walked toward her and she ran off. He stopped, waiting for someone to come out. But no one did. So he knocked on the first door, and when the woman answered and politely stood there, he explained carefully that he had come to see Fedelino Tenorio. In poor English she told him where he might find the old man. He was thirsty, but didn't want to ask her for a drink of water. So he graciously thanked her for her help, walked away, knew, she still watched him.
He stood in the middle of the dirt road and looked around. Up ahead were the adobe walls of the kiva, the underground ceremonial room for Pueblo Indians. He started to approach it, then stopped. It wasn't his religion. He had no right.
He turned away, searching for the man, and when he next looked back at the kiva, an old man was climbing down the ladder. He watched as the man came toward him.
"You have been looking for me. I am Fedelino Tenorio." Startled, Chato nodded. "I got your name through the Cultural Center in Albuquerque."
"Ah." Tenorio nodded, beckoned for Chato to follow him.
Tenorio settled in the shade of the eastern exposure of an adobe house so weathered its brick had been worn smooth from the years of rain and wind. Chato squatted a few feet away, and he studied the old man. Tenorio looked to be in his sixties, but Chato suspected he was closer to ninety. The skin around his mouth was wrinkled, as if few teeth remained, and his once black hair was shot with steel, but his dark eyes were still young, still lively, and they continually regarded him with curiosity. And with not a little suspicion. It hadn't been all that long, he thought, as the tribes counted it, that his people had been making raids on the old man's Tiwa family and friends.
"Tell me why you have come to me."
"I had an experience with lightning in the mountains. It was really … strange, and bothered me greatly, and I needed to talk to someone else about it.”
"A sign of bad things." Tenorio paused.
He knew he wasn't going to get anywhere fast with the man, so he told himself to relax and be ready to spend hours with the Indian. He had brought a pack of cigarettes, and while he didn't smoke, he solemnly handed the pack to Tenorio, who carefully opened the package and took out the first cigarette to light. Wordlessly the pair watched as the same small girl he had seen earlier ran by, the dun-colored dog jumping at her side. The dog barked suddenly, and the girl grinned and waved at Tenorio, who nodded solemnly.
He was aware of other eyes, the hidden eyes, watching him. The Isleta people were curious. Why, after all, had an Apache come to them?
Why had he come? Would he find what he wanted—whatever that was? Hardly.
"What sort of bad things?" He rubbed the bridge of his nose and watched the elder.
In turn, Tenorio studied him. Took in the details of his hair, his clothes, his hands. And seemed to make some sort of decision. He rocked back and stared past Chato's shoulder for a long moment, hummed what sounded like a chant, then fixed hi
s dark eyes on the younger man. "You do not believe."
"In what?"
"In what I am saying." Tenorio stubbed out his cigarette in the dry sand next to him, and Chato watched as the man, drew patterns in the loose soil with the butt. The shapes quickly took form. A man. A mountain. Clouds in the sky. And lightning. The man fell. Struck by the white fire.
Cold sweat trickled down Chato's back. It was too realistic, too much of what had really happened, and he wanted to rub the drawings out with the heel of his hand. As if sensing the younger man's thoughts, Tenorio squinted at him and smiled, the wrinkles around his eyes deepening. Maybe Tenorio was older than ninety. He looked it at the moment. Old and sly, and knowing, and Chato didn't like it at all.
"Why do you come then?"
"I told you. I wanted to know about some of the old traditions. I remember what my teacher said long ago, but I wanted to hear what you might say. About things. Such as lightning. "
"It happened to you." Tenorio's voice was low, but its timbre brought a chill to him.
"Yes …. And I wondered. "
"'About the old ways. There is more. You would not have thought of the past if you had not been scared—and—" He stopped, studied Chato. '"And because of what is to be for you, for others."
Chato frowned. "What?"
"You are drawn into this, lured by the voices."
"Bullshit.''
Tenorio lit another cigarette, sucked on it, shrugged. "You see, I am wasting my breath."
Remotely he felt anger at the old man. "Why are you being so coy? Why don't you tell me? You talk to the white writers and anthropologists who come to you."
"They are different. They are white; you are not. Go home, boy. Go home and ask the grandfathers of your village. Go now while you can."
"I can't. It's too far away. I need to know right away."
"Hurry, hurry. All the time. You are getting white, dreamer of dreams."
Now the anger flared and he wanted to reach out and hit the old man. But he knew Tenorio was right. He was getting white. He didn't have to hurry today; he wasn't going anywhere, didn't have to be anywhere or see anyone, only had to listen to the old man. And find out what he had to know.
Dreamer of dreams. Why had Tenorio said that? How had he known?
"Go away, boy. Look into yourself. Believe. Because what I say will not make sense to you otherwise. You will think me an old fool, and maybe I am. Go away." He shifted a shoulder toward Chato, dismissing him.
He stood, stared at the man for a few moments, then started to walk away.
He wanted to speak, and his fingers curled and uncurled at his sides. He wanted to know why the lightning had come after him, why he had heard the whispers, why he had been the one to find the bodies.
"You are touched."
Startled, he looked back. If was almost as if the old man had known what he was thinking. Like Junior that day. And at that moment a long black-grey cloud slid across the sun.
Tenorio raised his face to the obscured sun, murmured a few words, and in a few seconds the warm sunshine returned.
Coincidence, Chato told himself. That's all.
"By what?"
"The shadows have marked you. Beware. The voices. The eyes. Beware for you and the city. Remember what you have learned."
He walked away without another glance at the old man.
You fool. You wasted your time, and now that old man is probably laughing at you with his friends and relatives, and—hell, you dumb shit Indian—what did you expect to find here? Yourself? Your past? It had been, after all, a fool's errand.
But the old man had known what he was talking about. Had known from the very beginning when he had fumbled with his words, trying desperately to sort out his thoughts and hoping the old man wouldn't laugh. The old man had drawn the lightning all too accurately, had known of the voices and the eyes, even though he hadn't said anything about them. Tenorio knew. Knew something. He had to.
And he was … touched.
By the shadows. The voices. The eyes.
Beware, the old man had said.
Dreamer of dreams. Just as Josanie had called him so many years ago. But how had this old man known what another old man had called' him? How? Coincidence? Too much to believe in this instance.
Beware of what? Of whom? And how, when he was already involved?
Not involved, one part of him corrected.
Touched.
He slammed the door of the truck harder than necessary; the powerful engine roared to life and he sped out of the dusty village. The spinning tires spewing gravel, he headed back to the city, and tried not to think of the voices he had heard, of the eyes he had seen in the mountains, of the fact that he had found no answers.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"The problem," Thomas Yellow Colt said, draping one silk-clad arm along the back of the booth and sipping his Bloody Mary, "is that too many white people aren't aware of the existing living conditions for Indians. Take, for example, the reservations here in the Southwest. No matter how much publicity is given to the reservations, most whites still think my people all live in picturesque Taos pueblo. I know one couple from the East who came here, thinking that the Indians had come back there to live voluntarily—that they dressed in quaint costumes, much like the whites in Williamsburg."
Laura only half listened to the man's words. She jotted down a sentence or two when he said something halfway memorable, but for the most part she had her mind on other matters. She had met Yellow Colt at the Hilton coffee shop; they had drifted into the bar, were having drinks, and he had immediately launched into a discussion of his group's politics.
Yellow Colt wasn't tall by Anglo standards, nor was he slim, but he was powerfully built, had commanding dark eyes and a politician's smile. He was well-dressed, too, in expensive clothes. She wouldn't be surprised to learn they bore designer tags. She could tell he was attracted to her and he played on that, smiling a lot at her, patting her once on the arm. And that made her distinctly uncomfortable.
"About the statue, Mr. Yellow Colt." She had to break in so she could talk to him about the protest. "The one you're protesting."
"Fetish," he corrected. "It's a stone representation. That's what fetishes are here."
"Yes, I know," she said a little waspishly, "I've lived in Albuquerque long enough to realize that."
He smiled, not at all disturbed. "Kent has no right to take the fetish away. It's not his or the white people's. It should be returned to us."
"But the people who created the fetish no longer live. They died out hundreds of years ago, and they're believed to have left no descendants. So, who would be designated the caretaker of the fetish?"
"Easy enough. Let us take care of it."
"Us?"
"My group. We're more than willing to handle the fetish."
She glanced up momentarily as a stocky Indian, with long hair tied neatly back, walked into the bar, hesitated as he looked around, then walked out. She watched as he stopped one of Yellow Colt's co-workers. The man pointed toward the bar again. The other man thanked him and entered once more. He waited while his eyes adjusted to the darkness, then looked around until he saw Yellow Colt and headed toward their table.
"I think we would be the best choice because of our politics," Yellow Colt was saying. "What would you say, Ms. Rainey?"
"Oh." She forced her eyes away from the approaching man, from the seductive cat-like way he walked. She smiled at Yellow Colt, who was looking at her as if he knew she hadn't been paying attention. "Yes. Very difficult. I'd like to ask you—"
The man stood by their table now, and she couldn't ignore him. She glanced up at him, then at Yellow Colt. "May I help you?"
"I'm looking for Thomas Yellow Colt." The second man's voice was low, pleasant.
"I'm Yellow Colt." He raised his head to get a better look at the standing man. Laura couldn't help but contrast them: the new man, with a compact body, dressed in tight jeans, an attractive western shir
t, expensive boots, a serious face with high cheekbones; Yellow Colt, on the other hand, heavier, body that would run to fat in only a few years, and a sulky, almost petulant look that this other man didn't share.
"I'm Chato Del-Klinne. I heard about your group on the radio and I wanted to talk to you.”
"Sure. Sit down."
Laura started to slide over, but instead Yellow Colt moved so that Del-Klinne was sitting on the outside, almost opposite her, with Yellow Colt between them.
"This is Laura Rainey. From the Albuquerque Courier," Yellow Colt finally remembered to say.
Laura nodded at Del-Klinne, who nodded.
"Now, what do you want to talk to me about?" Yellow Colt's tone indicated he wasn't happy about this interruption. Del-Klinne started to speak, seemed to think better of his words and shrugged. There was something bothering him, Laura knew, and she didn't need to have a journalistic sixth sense to see that. Shadows lay in his black eyes, and there were slight creases along his forehead, recent lines on a face that she thought did not often frown. "Curiosity maybe. I wanted to find out a little more about your group, I guess. "
Yellow Colt shot her a glance, an I-told-you-so-and-even-other-Indians-don't-know look.
"In what particularly were you interested? By the way, would you like a drink?"
"Just coffee, please."
The Indian activist gave him an amused look—keeping away from the firewater, eh, bro?—and flagged the waitress.
"I don't know what to say, really," Del-Klinne said. "I guess I wanted to find out if you believed in the old ways."
"There are a lot of old ways."
"I know. Nature then. Evil spirits. Portents. Things like that."
The activist smiled genially. "You're an educated man, Del-Klinne. I can tell. What do you believe?"
Laura watched the two men with interest. They didn't like each other, hadn't from the moment Del-Klinne had approached the table. Warily the two men were circling each other. It would be interesting to see the outcome.