Season of Death

by Christopher Lane

  Although Margaret sometimes worried, she seldom wept in concern for his safety.

  “I … I had a dream …” she admitted.

  Aha! He knew that something had driven her to tears. “What sort of dream?”

  “It was horrible. You were floating in space with this … this … head. It was ghastly. A head—no body or anything. And it was kind of chasing you. You were trying to get away, to swim away.”

  “I thought I was in space,” he said, sighing at the chillingly familiar description.

  “A watery kind of space. Anyway, when you finally got to dry land, there was this girl waiting for you. She was just a kid, maybe ten. And she took you into the woods. You were looking for someone. Someone evil. And you … you … you found them.”

  “Margaret, it was just a dream, okay?”

  “That’s not all.”

  Great … “Listen, honey, you know what we read about the first trimester …”

  “Raymond Attla! I am not being overly emotional!” she shouted back.

  “Okay … Settle down …”

  She blew air into the phone. “Anyway, in the last part of the dream, you were running from this … this person with an ax.”

  Person with an ax? “Jack Nicholson?”

  “Raymond!” she warned. After a deep breath, she asked tenderly. “When are you coming home?”

  Emma had retaken her seat, and Uncle was digging into his pie. “As soon as I can.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I always am,” he responded glibly.

  “No. I mean it, Ray. Be careful. That dream may not have meant a thing. But … I’ve got a bad feeling about what you’re doing.”

  Ray wondered how she could have a bad feeling about it when she didn’t even know what it was. “Okay. I’ll be careful.”

  “I love you.”

  “Love you too.” Snapping the phone shut, he sat down and addressed his dessert.

  “You listen woman,” Uncle muttered. “She friend Light. Know Nahani evil.”

  Uncle had obviously been eavesdropping on the conversation. “Right,” Ray patronized. He tried the pie. It was as good as it smelled.

  There was a noise down the hall, and the floor creaked as someone approached.

  “Sorry I’m late, Uncle.” It was a girl. She was maybe eight or ten, dressed in a ceremonial skirt, her long black hair held in check by a beaded headband.

  Uncle replied in Athabascan, then motioned her to the empty chair. “Dis Raymond Attla,” he told her. “Light-walka.” Another sentence of Athabascan followed.

  The girl’s eyebrows rose.

  Grinning at Ray, Uncle said, “Dis Keera.”

  Ray smiled, relieved that she was a real person, not a spirit. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You go together,” Uncle said, lifting a forkful of blackberries and crust.

  “Go together?” Ray wondered aloud. Where? To the potlatch?

  Uncle nodded curtly. “Hunt find Nahani.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  RAY’S CONFUSION WAS complete. Uncle expected this girl to help him find Farrell’s murderer, the evil woodsman? This was getting irritating. “I really have to be going.”

  “First tell crates,” Uncle said.

  The girl sat up straight in her chair and looked at Ray with two piecing brown eyes. She suddenly seemed much older. Ten years more mature than her actual age.

  “I found the crates one day after school,” she began. “I was walking along the river with some of my friends, and we saw them stacked in the bushes. There were branches over them, like they were supposed to be hidden. They had funny markings on the sides. Not English. Not Athabascan. Some kind of Asian language, I think.

  “Excuse me.” She took a long drink of juice. “The dancing made me thirsty.”

  Ray nodded. Keera was cute, seemingly normal. He wondered how that was possible in this household. Maybe she didn’t live here. Maybe she visited on holidays.

  “Anyway, we tried to open one, but it was nailed shut. Finally we got a rock and pried one of the boards off.

  Usually I wouldn’t do that. It’s wrong to bother other people’s things. But this time, I had a special feeling. The Voice told me to open it.”

  “Voice?”

  “Keera too is a seer,” Emma explained.

  “She see into spirits,” Uncle insisted. “I teach.”

  Bingo! Another loon. Spirits … Voices … If the girl was hearing voices, she needed professional help, not praise from her elders or training in shamanism.

  “Inside we saw bones. Then someone came up the trail and we ran away.”

  Fascinating, Ray thought. He could see the lead article in National Geographic: Athabascan Sybil discovers crate full of bones. Earthshaking.

  “What do you think?” Emma prodded.

  Ray wanted to tell her that he thought the entire family was short on marbles. Instead, he shrugged. “Maybe someone gathered up some caribou carcasses.”

  “I don’t think they were caribou,” Keera said. She reached into a skirt pocket, pulled out a three-inch-long, off-white stone and handed it across the table to Ray.

  “What is it?” he asked, squinting.

  “I took it from the crate,” she admitted, blushing. “The Voice said it was all right.”

  Examining it, Ray decided that the girl was probably right. Not about it being okay to steal something from the crate or about listening to and obeying disembodied voices. But about the identity of the bone. It didn’t appear to be from a caribou. It almost looked like a finger. A fossilized human digit. Either that or a petrified moose dropping.

  “The others were mostly longer,” Keera said.

  “You’re sure they were bones?”

  “The Voice said so,” she said soberly. “The Voice said they were from people.”

  This Voice was handy to have around, Ray decided. Insanity had its benefits.

  Without provocation, Uncle suddenly hijacked the conversation. launching into a rambling tale about ho Raven had tricked Whale. The clever bird had lured Whale by claiming that the two of them were cousins. To prove this, he had them compare mouths. When Whale stupidly opened his, Raven flew in and took up residence in the mammal’s stomach, and spent several days slowly consuming his host from the inside. Eventually he cut out the Whale’s heart, killing him.

  Uncle related the graphic fable in broken English, apparently for Ray’s benefit. When he had finished, he looked at Ray expectantly. “Know meaning?”

  More like, “no” meaning, Ray thought. The moral seemed to be keep your mouth shut.

  “Know meaning?” Uncle demanded. He mumbled something in Athabascan. Then, “Nahani … Raven and Whale … Same. But not same.”

  Ray felt a headache coming on. There was supposed to be some link between the business about the villainous woodsman and this myth that pitted Raven against Whale?

  “I have to get going,” he said in something of a whine. This was torture. Rising, he extended his hand. “Emma, wonderful meal. It was nice to meet you.” Turning, he faced Uncle. “It was nice to meet you too.”

  Uncle sniffed at his hand. “You go Keera. Help hunt Nahani. She wait long. You slow come.”

  “She’ll have to look for Nahani on her own. I’ve got to get back to Barrow.”

  Uncle was horrified. “No! Must got Light-walka. Protect. No Light-walka, Nahani steal. Keera stealed.”

  “I can’t go without you,” Keera explained. “The Voice says so.”

  “Please,” Emma implored. “You must.”

  Ray blinked at them. Hunt for Nahani? These people actually expected him to set out into the wilderness and beat the bushes in search of some mythological character? That was crazy. And conducting this ludicrous hunt with a prepubescent girl …?” Surely this was a joke.

  “Must go,” Uncle implored gravely. “Much important. We wait long. Must go.”

  Whatever. It was obvious that Uncle was out of his tree. The same with Emma and Keera. Humori
ng them might be the best strategy. He was ready to do just about anything in order to break out of the Colchuck asylum for the mentally deranged. Even agree to play nursemaid to a young, promising, seer. Maybe he could deposit Keera with Jackie Miller. Then it would just be a matter of lining up a floatplane and …

  Uncle grunted as the cellular buzzed. He pushed the device at Ray.

  Flipping it open, he hit the receive button. “Betty?’’ he nearly plead.

  “Your Dr. Farrell never made it to Juneau,” she reported. “Or at least, if he did, he never checked into a hotel or filed any papers. I contacted the usual Bush plane services. Nobody flew a Dr. Farrell out of Kanayut.”

  “Could have been a private plane,” Ray thought aloud.

  “Suppose so.” After a pause, Betty asked, “What’s going on, Ray?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question.”

  “You want me to arrange to have you picked up?”

  He desperately wanted to say yes. But … The questions and coincidences and odd events were piling up, demanding his attention. Despite his reluctance to get involved, he was curious now. Why wasn’t Farrell in Juneau? Why was his plane sitting on the river? If he had never made it in from the archaeological site to the village … then … Was it really his head they had found?

  “The head,” Keera said, as if reading Ray’s mind.

  He stared incredulously at the girl. “Just a second,” he told Betty. Covering the phone with a palm, he asked Keera, “What did you say?”

  “The head, the one on the river … I saw it.”

  Ray realized that his mouth was hanging open. How could she possibly …?

  “It was Dr. Farrell,” Keera told him confidently.

  “How do you know that? Did the voices tell you?”

  “Voice. Just one.” She looked at him, her expression innocent, even angelic: just your average ten-year-old Athabascan girl. “It told me everything, yes. But I saw it too. I saw Nahani kill him. That’s why we’ve been waiting for you.”

  Ray mumbled into the phone, “I’ll call you back,Betty.” He flipped the phone shut and set it on the table. “Thanks again for lunch,” he offered in a distracted tone. How could the girl possibly know about Fred da Head? And how on earth could she confirm that it was Farrell?

  “Keera go,” Uncle ordered. The girl stood and stepped to Ray’s side.

  There seemed to be no point in arguing, and Ray didn’t have the energy. He bit his tongue as the old man raised an arm and began singing over them, blessing them. It was a nice gesture, but … When the hoarse, droning voice faded away, Ray sighed, “Let’s go.”

  “Wait,” Uncle insisted.

  “What …” Ray was no longer able to mask his annoyance.

  “First wash face. Paint look silly.” Uncle followed this with a barking laugh.

  Five minutes later, face freshly scrubbed, Ray stepped off of the front porch.

  “Be careful,” Emma warned. “Listen to Keera. She’s the seer. You’re the Lightwalker.”

  “Of course.” Ray rolled his eyes. He waved at Emma and started down the dirt path. Keera had to trot to keep up. The dog patrol raced from the brush and began yelping and nipping at them. Ray ignored them. Striding hard, he was intent upon putting distance between himself and the Colchuck home before Uncle wheeled out to offer a parting fable.

  They were a quarter of a mile down the trail, in sight of the squat buildings of thriving downtown Kanayut, before Keera spoke. “How did you get to be a Lightwalker?”

  Ray shrugged at the question. It was like asking, “Do you still beat your wife?” He finally sighed, “I’m not a Lightwalker, whatever that is.”

  “It’s someone who walks with the Light.”

  “That much I figured out. Anyway, I’m not someone who walks with the Light.”

  She pursed her lips. “The Light is all around you. In front, in back … all around.”

  Ray glanced to his left, his right, over a shoulder. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Just because you cannot see it, does not mean it isn’t there. You cannot see gravity either.”

  “I can feel gravity,” Ray countered, swinging his arms.

  “Can you feel time?” she asked. “Time is passing like the current of a river. It is a silent guest, a mute companion, a shepherd ushering us forward.”

  A Native Confucius in the making, Ray mused. This girl had a future writing greeting-card slogans. Gazing past the village, he noted a dozen tiny figures circling the pole on the beach. From this distance they looked like mosquitoes harassing a thin giant.

  “The Light …” Keera said dreamily. “It goes with you. Follows you. Rests on you.” She studied him for a moment. “You don’t see it. Don’t feel it. But it is there.”

  Voices … Visions … A Light that trailed after you like a stray puppy … For Pete’s sake! The bit about the head, about it being Farrell, that had been rather intriguing. Even if it was some sort of parlor trick—mind reading or hypnotism or something. It had gotten Ray’s attention. But this … An ever-present Light? He decided to take her directly to the Community Center.

  “You can’t leave me with Jackie,” she said.

  Ray shuddered. Keera was beginning to give him the creeps. What was she, a witch? If he took off at a sprint, would she fly along at his side cackling?

  “You have to go with me.”

  “Go with you where?” Ray sighed.

  “After I saw Nahani kill Dr. Farrell, the Voice told me to go to the place of no return, the land of deepest night, where even the light is like darkness.”

  Ray nearly swore at her. “And where, exactly, is that?”

  She glared at him with an exasperated expression. “The Red Wolf Mine. And I can’t go by myself. I need you, Lightwalker.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  RAY SLIPPED OFF his pack and sank to the wooden step. Working both temples with his fingertips, he resisted the urge to scream. He wanted to laugh maniacally, to yank his hair out, to cry uncle. For a long moment he closed his eyes and mentally transported himself to Barrow. Billy Bob and Lewis were back by now. What was Margaret doing? Leafing through maternity magazines? Jotting down possible names for the …

  “Congratulations,” Keera said, taking a seat next to him. “You’re going to be a father, aren’t you?”

  “How did you …?” Ray struggled to remember if he had intimated anything about that at lunch. No. Scowling at her suspiciously, he asked, “How do you do that?”

  She shrugged. “It’s a gift. I inherited it from Uncle when I was very little.”

  “You mean you went around doing ESP tricks when you were a baby?”

  “They’re not tricks. But yes, the ability came before I could even talk. I started dreaming and hearing things.”

  “Bizarre,” Ray muttered. “No offense, but that’s really weird.”

  “Some people aren’t comfortable with my gift.”

  “Really?”

  Two minutes passed. A band of locals dressed in ceremonial garb emerged from the Center. They were followed closely by a group of whites: men with cameras, women oohing and ahhing, pointing as if they were on safari.

  As another cluster of locals and tourists dribbled out of the Center, Ray considered his options. First and foremost, he could go home. That was by far the most preferable choice. Second, he could try to shake free of Keera, mill around town asking questions about Dr. Mark Farrell, then go home. That way he would at least fulfill his promise to Cindy. Third, he could bite the bullet and do the job right. Apparently, something had happened to Dr. Mark Farrell. Whether or not it involved Nahani, a rafting accident, or just a failure to communicate a change of travel plans, it was clear that he was missing. Since he might be injured, it was equally clear that someone had to go looking for him. And, at present, Ray was the prime candidate: a public servant and trained professional.

  Ray sighed audibly, wrestling with the sense of responsibility and with the guilt he knew he would ex
perience if he tried to shirk this duty.

  A trio of youths approached the Center. Two were wearing baggy shorts and T-shirts. One shirt read “No Fear,” the other, “Local Motion.” Both boys had their caps on backwards. The third kid was wearing a caribou outfit, his face painted red. It was obvious from the dour look on his face that he was uncomfortable, even humiliated. Ray identified with the boy. He too had been forced to don the costumes, dance the dances, and celebrate the festivals. And he remembered that it had been fun until he was about twelve. After that it had been intolerable.

  The interesting thing, Ray mused, was that as you grew up, you grew out of that attitude. He had never fully embraced all of the traditions, but neither had he fully denounced them. As an adult, he had come to value his heritage. Now the stuff about spirits and ghosts … The supernatural … He had never been able to swallow that. It got stuck in his throat like a bone.

  He glanced at Keera out of the corner of his eye. After another long, melodramatic sigh, he said, “Tell me what happened.”

  “You mean with Dr. Farrell?”

  He nodded. Maybe her account could be useful somehow.

  “On Thursday night, I woke up sweating,” Keera began. “I was having a bad dream. Except, when I opened my eyes, the dream kept going. Like a vision.”

  Or maybe her account wouldn’t be useful whatsoever, Ray thought, backtracking.

  ‘I saw a man running in the forest. He was very afraid. Terrified.”

  Mental health aside, this girl was rather amazing, Ray decided. Ten years old and she was tossing out words like terrified.

  “Someone was chasing him. Trying to hurt him.”

  “Nahani?” Ray tried, half-seriously.

  “I couldn’t see who it was. Just that it was an evil person. They caught up with Dr. Farrell and …” She cringed as if she were watching it happen all over again. “They swung something … some kind of tool. Like a shovel, with a long, sharp, pointed end.”

  “A pickax?” Ray suggested.

  “Maybe. Anyway, the first swing hit his leg.” Her face contorted at the image. “He fell into the river. Then a second swing hit him in the back. There was a crunch … an icky sound … and suddenly there was blood everywhere. I think he was dead then.”