The Widow's Revenge

by James D. Doss

  “Your memory’s working fine.”

  Scott Parris inhaled deeply. “Then why’d you come back?”

  Starlight sparkled in Charlie Moon’s eyes. “To look after you.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHARLIE MOON’S AUNT

  DAISY PERIKA HAS A TENDENCY TO FORGET HOW BLESSED SHE IS TO spend her twilight years in the snug, sturdy house Charlie Moon and his ranch hands built for her in the eastern wilderness of the reservation. Not only is the crabby old soul miles from her nearest human neighbor—a circumstance greatly to the advantage of all concerned—but Daisy’s home is situated on a site that can best be described as picturesque. Imagine living at the yawning mouth of Cañón del Espíritu and in the late-afternoon shadow of Three Sisters Mesa, whose stony siblings serve as sentries to warn the tribal elder of those booming storms that so often roll down from the San Juan Mountains to spit white-hot fire and boast thunderously of their destructive power.

  How sad that, as Daisy carried a basket of foodstuffs to seventeen-year-old Sarah Frank’s red pickup truck, she cast not a glance at the Sisters’ dark profiles, or at the cloud of warships floating by in majestic parade.

  Neither was she aware of the approach of a neighbor.

  THE DANCING DWARF

  The what?

  This sounds very much like a put-on, but events that would be eyebrow raisers even in Crestone, Colorado, or Sedona, Arizona, are reportedly commonplace in the vicinity of Spirit Canyon. Moreover, it is whispered that Daisy Perika attracts strange company. And speaking of which (company), one is reminded of how those whom we least look forward to see approaching our front door have the aggravating habit of dropping by at the most inopportune times.

  If the Ute woman, currently preoccupied with preparations for a visit to her nephew’s vast high-country cattle ranch, had known who (what) was trudging up the dusty pathway from Cañón del Espíritu, she would no doubt have groaned, set her remaining teeth on edge, and said something like, “Isn’t it always the way. You plan a nice day and something is bound to happen that’ll mess it up.” Daisy would have recoiled at any suggestion that she was a pessimist, but she believed in an oft-quoted version of Murphy’s First Law:

  If Something Can Go Wrong, It Will.

  This was (according to the tribal elder) a knockoff of an archaic Ute proverb, from which is derived Professor Perika’s Eleventh Contention, i.e.:

  Just About the Time You Get Ready to Leave the House,

  the Little Varmint Will Show up Wanting Something or Other.

  Though the rural environs wherein Daisy’s home is situated supports dozens of life forms that she would designate as varmints, the specific pest referred to in the aforesaid proverb is neither insect, arachnid, canine, feline, reptile, rodent, nor a member of any other group you might care to mention. Being one of the few of his kind that survives from the olden times, this varmint is not only a rare and endangered species—he is a singular creature indeed. So much so as to be almost unheard of outside the boundaries of the Southern Ute reservation, and even on the res, only a dozen or so traditional Utes have accurate knowledge of such creatures, and those experts tend to disagree with one another on minor details.

  But enough of the preamble. He is about to appear in the flesh.

  IT’S SHOWTIME!

  Daisy was lugging a small cardboard box of homemade jams and jellies to Sarah Frank’s F-150 when she spotted the unwelcome, self-invited guest. He was peeking from behind a piñon trunk. The shaman pretended not to see the little man, which should have been easy, seeing as how the creature was apparently attempting to hide from her. This was merely a ploy to set up his Big Entrance.

  The pitukupf danced directly into Daisy’s path.

  No, we do not refer to a lighthearted gait, or to an effeminate, mincing step. Danced is to be taken literally.

  Despite his considerable age, which was rumored to be several hundreds of years—probably in excess of a thousand—the little fellow was an agile and enthusiastic dancer. Picture a stunted, twisted, evil version of Fred Astaire. As he danced, the knee-high performer also tipped his floppy-brimmed hat and flashed a possum smile that exposed a set of tiny, yellowish, pointy teeth. While standing in place, he tapped out a captivating rhythm with his moccasined feet.

  The tribal elder had seen such shenanigans before and was not impressed. Daisy knew that the pitukupf could be likable—even charming—when he wanted something.

  Something like a jar of strawberry-rhubarb jam from the Ute elder’s cardboard box.

  Nasty little scamp! She resisted a temptation to return his toothy smile. “Whatta you stomping around on my property for?” As if I didn’t know. It was always the same with this one-dimensional personality. He rarely asked for an outright handout; the dwarf preferred to cheat his nearest neighbor and only friend. Barter was the name of his crooked game. The little gossip would propose a trade—his valuable knowledge about something or other for a few tidbits from Daisy’s pantry. On occasion, he might express an interest in an inexpensive trinket such as a pocketknife, mirror, or an old-fashioned dollar pocket watch that tickety-tocked his lonely hours away.

  The diminutive entrepreneur doffed the scruffy lid and responded to the shaman’s query in a direct fashion. And though he spoke modern Ute, Spanish, and English with enviable fluency, he preferred to converse in an archaic version of the Ute language that was difficult even for Daisy to understand.

  What it all boiled down to was that the dwarf had picked up some information that would be useful to his neighbor. He preferred to tell her right up front, but all the sprightly dancing had weakened him. His blood sugar was low. Could she spare a jar or two or three or four of the sweet, fruity confections she carried?

  Daisy replied that she could not. These jams and jellies had been prepared for Charlie Moon, who was her closest living relative. The shaman took this opportunity to remind the pitukupf of those several occasions when he had acted in bad faith. She wanted no more dealings with him. With that, she took a stride directly at her neighbor, who, when he was not wearing his tiny hat, hung it in his abandoned-badger-hole home in Cañón del Espíritu.

  With a quick side step, the agile little man got out of her way. He watched in dismay as Daisy placed the box of preserves on the floorboard of the pickup and slammed the door shut. He suggested that she reconsider.

  She did. “Okay, here’s the deal.” Daisy picked up a dead juniper limb and shook the sturdy club at him. “If you’re not out of sight in five seconds flat, I’ll whack you all the way into the middle of next week.”

  The little man hung his head. Exhaled a long, melancholy sigh. Looked as if he might cry.

  Daisy wasn’t fooled for a second. Silly little booger. But he did look so sad. And hungry. “Oh, all right. I’ve got some Kroger’s strawberry jam in the pantry.”

  The homely little face brightened perceptibly.

  “And I got half a store-bought cherry pie in the bread box.”

  The famished visitor licked his thin, gray lips.

  “And I guess I could give you Sarah’s old plastic compact.” She grinned wickedly at the dwarf. “The mirror’s cracked, but so are you.”

  Overjoyed, he commenced the energetic two-step.

  Daisy put her hands on her hips, a stern look on her wrinkled face. “But first, tell me what you know that I don’t.”

  Predictably, her cunning little neighbor suggested a compromise. Half a story for half a pie. The balance upon payment of strawberry jam and mirror.

  “Forget it.”

  This old woman was a hard sell. The expert bargainer proposed an up-front hint.

  “Let’s hear it, Shorty.”

  He took off his hat and dropped it. (No. Not that hat. The hint.) Which was to the general effect that someone Daisy knew was about to get into serious trouble.

  She sneered. “Who?”

  The sly little fellow shook his shriveled head, which was about the size and texture of an apricot that h
ad suffered through the scorching heat of a long, dry summer. A hint was a hint, his expression said. If she wanted to know more, deliver the goods!

  Daisy advised her visitor that she would go inside and get the strawberry jam and the half pie. But if her half-pint neighbor made the least attempt to get into the pickup and mess with Charlie Moon’s goodie box, she would use her sharp butcher knife to slit him from gullet to—

  No. Repeating what she said would only encourage the vulgar old woman to worse excesses.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE SHAMAN’S BRAINSTORM

  NOT ONE OF THOSE CLOAKED BY NIGHT’S DARK SHROUD, THAT SNEAKS in silently and waits until it is directly overhead before commencing to ka-boom! slumbering souls wide awake and wide-eyed. Daisy Perika’s mental storm began more like a whiff of fragrant sage-scented moisture, the low rumble of a distant cloud rolling slowly over the San Juan Mountains’ round shoulders.

  On the way to get the preserves and pie, as the old folks used to say, Daisy “got to thinking” about the situation. Opening her front door: Two or three times every year, I end up doing a deal with the pitukupf. And more often than not, I get the short end of the stick and end up looking like a silly old fool. Padding silently across the parlor carpet: And even when I get a teensy smidgen of useful information, that slippery little runt always holds something back on me. Into her kitchen: But it’s my own fault for having anything to do with the dwarf. Click-clicking her heels across the linoleum: Father Raes Delfino warned me for years to have nothing to do with the scoundrel.

  At the propane range, Daisy put her fingers on the enameled surface above the pilot lights, determined from the warmth that they had not been blown out by a draft. She shook her head. It wasn’t fair. The scrawny pitukupf must be ten times as old as I am, but he prances and dances around like a teenager, and I can barely walk. What it all boiled down to was—I’m too tired to fool around with the likes of him. She squinted at the clock on the stove, watched the slender black hand steal away precious seconds. My time is running out and I need to spend what little I’ve got left like an old miser with nothing in her purse but a few thin dimes.

  First order of business: What I have to do is stop having any dealings with the pitukupf.

  Like so many well-meant resolutions, this one was easier said than done.

  I hardly ever go to see him in Cañón del Espíritu anymore. But what can I do when the nasty little imp comes to visit me? Today’s encounter had demonstrated the difficulty of her dilemma. And he don’t just come to my house; the cheeky rascal is likely to show up practically anywhere. She recalled that embarrassing Sunday morning years ago when the brazen creature had shown up in church during Holy Mass—and had practically sat in her lap! Daisy had a sneaking suspicion that Father Raes had caught a glimpse of the dwarf, who was supposedly invisible to whites. And only last year (or was it the year before that?) the pitukupf visited me at Charlie Moon’s ranch.

  Somehow, I’ve got to figure out some way to keep clear of him.

  The problem was well defined. But what was the remedy?

  Daisy sighed. What made it so hard was that, like all his kind, the little man was a recluse. I’m the only friend he’s got. He don’t talk to anybody else. I wish there was somebody he’d rather pester than me.

  But who? Hardly any of the young people in the tribe believed in the Little People, and those few who did were terrified of meeting one of the dwarfish clan, much less doing business with them. Oh, what to do!

  But Daisy was no quitter. There must be someone—

  “Aunt Daisy?”

  “Ahhh!” It would be an unwarranted exaggeration to report that the old woman practically jumped out of her skin, but she was startled by the sudden appearance of Sarah Frank at her elbow. She feigned a slap at the girl. “Don’t do that—you scared me out of a year’s growth!” She scowled at the young woman. “I thought you was in your bedroom, putting stuff into your suitcase.”

  “I was; then I came into the kitchen.”

  Daisy snorted. These young people had a snappy answer for everything. Why, in my day— The tribal elder paused. Cocked her head as if she heard something coming. Narrowed her eyes as if to catch a glimpse of it.

  The barometer plunged precipitously.

  Gale winds shrieked and bent trees to the ground.

  The rain was horizontal, drops whizzed by like bullets.

  Fortunately, these were merely metaphorical barometers, winds, and rain.

  The brainstorm had hit full force.

  Her notion was radical. And a long way from being a sure thing. More like what Daisy’s poker-playing nephew would call “a real long shot.” Never mind. The Ute elder was willing to give it a try. The girl is only half Ute, but that might be enough. The wily old woman turned a warm gaze on the innocent. “Sarah, I’d like you to do a little favor for me.”

  “Okay. What?” The Ute-Papago orphan—not a relation of the tribal elder—was always doing something for “Aunt” Daisy.

  Daisy told Sarah what.

  This struck Sarah Frank as a strange request, even coming from the unpredictable old woman. Which was why she repeated what she thought she’d heard, practically word for word. “You want me to get the jar of Kroger strawberry preserves and that stale half a cherry pie and my old plastic compact—and take them outside and set them on the cedar stump?”

  Daisy nodded.

  Sarah shrugged. “Okay.”

  Most teenagers would want to know why. The old woman smiled. What a sweet child.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT

  SARAH PLACED EACH ITEM ON THE STUMP, THEN BACKED OFF TO INSPECT the arrangement with a critical eye. “Is that okay?”

  The shaman nodded. “It’ll do just fine.” Daisy turned to glare at the pitukupf, who was loitering a few paces away, directly across the stump from Sarah. The little man seemed rather older than a few minutes ago, when he hadn’t looked a day over nine hundred years. Hah! Little Mr. Silverheels doesn’t look like he’s in the mood for kicking up a jig now. She studied her smallish adversary’s uneasy expression. I think he’s afraid of the girl. Which might be a good thing. The critical issue was, did Sarah have enough Ute blood flowing in her veins to enable her to perceive the presence of the pitukupf? It was not necessary that the girl see him right away—that might scare her half to death. If she just has the feeling that he’s here, that’d be enough for now.

  Daisy recalled her first encounter with the pitukupf, when she was about eight years old. She had been able to see only the little man’s footprints in the sandy bottom of Cañón del Espíritu, and a faint impression of his shadow on a bloodberry bush. The aged woman leaned on her oak staff and addressed the sullen-looking dwarf. “Well, there it is—everything you asked for. Start talking.”

  The pitukupf did not utter a word. Neither did he move. He might have been carved from knotty pine, his thin gray lips sealed with piñon sap.

  Sarah stared at the peculiar old woman. “Aunt Daisy—can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “The little man.”

  “Oh.” The girl felt her skin prickle. Her eyes darted right and left. “Uh—where is he?”

  Daisy pointed her walking stick. “Right there.”

  Sarah stared intently at the spot. There’s nothing there. Well, not that I can see. Maybe Aunt Daisy is teasing me. The determined youth tried harder. She engaged all her senses and powers. I still can’t see anything. Except . . . Except for something like smoke. No, smoke did not quite describe it. It’s more like a haze. But not like the thick gray fog that sometimes spilled out of Cañón del Espíritu’s mouth. It’s more like when the morning sun shines on a roof that’s still wet with last night’s dew. And the wisp of smoke-fog-haze was about the right size to be the dwarf that Daisy had described on so many dark winter nights while they sat close to the flames crackling in the fireplace. And Sarah could almost ma
ke out a leering little face. This was beginning to be scary. There’s probably nothing there. It’s just my imagination. And even if I do see something, I’m not sure I really want to.

  Neither the young woman nor the old one was aware of the fact that Mr. Zig-Zag had appeared on the scene. Sarah’s black-and-white spotted cat was sitting by his mistress’s left ankle, staring directly across the stump at the space where the dwarf was supposedly present. This did not necessarily mean that the cat saw the little man. It was more likely that an intelligent and observant feline like Mr. Z-Z, having perceived where the human beings were looking, was merely exhibiting a cat’s natural curiosity about an empty spot in space.

  If the apparition looked back at the toothy mammal with some apprehension, that was probably because those of his ilk detested members of the feline clan.

  When Daisy turned to fix her gaze on Sarah, she noticed the cat. You see him, don’t you? The shaman’s beady little brown eyes fairly glinted with expectation as she spoke to the girl. “Well?”

  The youth drew in a breath of fresh air. “I may see just a little something.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Like thoughtful spaniels do, Sarah cocked her head. “It’s nothing much.”

  Daisy chuckled. Neither’s he.

  “Sort of like a shady spot.” She strained to expand on this. “It’s like something was soaking up the light.”

  Daisy smiled. She sees the little booger all right. But the development of any useful skill takes time. With a little bit of luck, the more the girl looked, and the more she wanted to see—the clearer the pitukupf’s image would be. “Anything else?”

  There was. But, being a polite young lady, Sarah hesitated to mention the distinct olfactory sensation.

  The tribal elder pressed. “Well—what is it?”

  Sarah hoped that the little man (if he was really there) was not a sensitive sort. “Well, I think I can smell something.”