Find your own truth s-3

by Robert N. Charrette

  "You claim they're real, then you call them a pipe dream. Make up your mind, Caliban."

  "Oh, they're real enough."

  "But you can't tell me where they are." He shrugged. "Deeper pockets than yours have asked, but I'd give it to you, my dear. I'm an old man now. I don't have the strength for it. But I can't sell or give away what I don't have." He chuckled dryly. "At least not to you, my brilliant student. Barbarossa will not awaken in my lifetime. Cosimo took the secret of the lost weapons to his grave when Mossad cornered his Fenris faction in Casablanca. His papers were all destroyed in the firestorm. There have been plenty of fakes over the years, but IVe. seen through them all. None ever had the marks." Hart leaned forward. "What marks? The wolf?" "Of course, the wolf. But there were others." As he described them to her, she remembered what she had seen. Each detail fit. Her doubts had fled well before he finished.

  So it was true. All of Caliban's old hints had been true, except for the one that he knew the secret hiding 'place of the weapons. Like most runners in the Eu-jiopean shadow world, she had grown up believing that if Caliban didn't know, no one did. But somewhere, somehow, someone had found Cosimo's legacy. The data Dodger's contact had retrieved from Grandmother's operation had included a map, but the accompanying text hadn't specified the map's purpose. Hart had almost missed the small symbol near Deggendorf. Dodger hadn't recognized the stylized wolf head, but she had. She hadn't wanted to believe the map could be real, but the details Caliban gave her left no room for doubt. Her worst fears were confirmed. Sam had to be told, of course. But beyond him, who?

  Sam awoke with a shock. The old Hummer was jolting him as it bumped its way down an embankment. Ahead and to the left were distant mountains, screened occasionally by the buttes of a badlands. The landscape was all dusty greens, multi-toned grays, and dusky purples that were deepening in tone as the sun sank lower in the sky. He wasn't in Denver anymore. The ache in his head and the stiffness in his body told him that he hadn't dreamed his travails in the Ute zone. In flashes, he remembered parts of his escape from the battle. The alley and the ever-louder sirens. The fugitive glimpses of a hunched figure in a scrape. The muck and filth of a trash heap. Strong hands dragging him. An old surplus Hummer stacked with boxes and cans. Shadows, darkness, and light shot through with voices, gunshots, and chanting. Wind and cold, then wind and warmth.

  Someone had rescued him and driven him away from danger.

  Apparently that same someone had covered him with a cloth that had once been bright with color, but was now stained and filthy. Even though the wind of the Hummer's passage drew most of the scent away, enough remained to tell Sam who had rescued him.

  He turned his head to look at the driver. Sure enough, it was the old Indian. The driver's reservation hat was tilted to shade his eyes from the setting sun, casting most of his face in shadow, but there was no mistaking him. Sam squirmed to get a look behind him. The rear of the vehicle was full of supplies. They were alone. ffi amp; mWtM amp;V 3553SS8 amp; ti amp; IbmpanWs notice. "Hey hey, back in this world for a while?" Sam's attempt to reply in the affirmative came out as a croak.

  "Canteen on the floor by your feet." On the third attempt, Sam convinced his body that it could bend forward and retrieve the canteen. The water was tepid and tasted of minerals, but his parched throat didn't care. He splashed some into one hand and rubbed it on his face, wincing when he touched his scrapes. Nevertheless, he felt better than he expected, or deserved. Well enough to realize that last night's it was just one night, wasn't it? thoughts about the old man had been unduly unkind.

  "I guess I owe you some thanks for pulling me out of that mess last night." "Yup."

  "Well, thanks." That seemed the end of the conversation for a time. As the Hummer nearcd a broad river, Sam decided to try again. "Where are we?" "Under the sky."

  "Oh." He had been hoping for something a little more specific. Maybe the old man didn't trust him. Introductions might break the ice. "I'm not from around here. Mostly, I live in Seattle. Out there, they call me Twist." "Yup."

  That was it? Maybe the old man thought Sam already knew who he was. "You haven't even told me your name." "That's right."

  The hummer hit the edge of the river. Muddy drops churned up by the tires splashed against the windscreen. Sam was getting annoyed. "Well, what should I call you? 'Old man' doesn't seem very polite." The old man shrugged. "Description's always po 176

  Robert N. Charrette lite, Anglo. If you gotta problem with it, call me Dan-cey."

  "Dancey? As in Dizzy Dancey?" "That's me." The Indian threw both hands into the air and bounced in his seat, chanting a few nonsense syllables. His motion sent the Hummer out of control. It swerved under the pressure of the water, then dipped as it struck a pothole. Water splashed up over the sill, wetting Sam's leg with its cold mountain freshness. As Sam recoiled, Dancey returned his hands to the wheel and took control of the Hummer.

  In the shadows of Denver Sam had heard about Dizzy Dancey, and none of it had been comforting. The old man had once been a hot shadowrunner who had hosed up badly and been caught by the Navajo Tribal Police. Whatever they were supposed to have done to him had left him slightly out of his head ever since.

  The Hummer jounced out of the river and began to crawl up the long sloping embankment. It topped the rise, scattering a pair of small horned animals that ran like jackrabbits. The Hummer then bounced a dozen meters across the grassy prairie and onto me remnants of a road. Dancey started to hum and seemed happier, as though the river had been a boundary beyond which he need not worry. The Hummer picked up speed.

  "How'd we get here?" Sam asked. "And where's 'here' anyway?"

  "Upcountry, Anglo. Safest place when the city gets hot. Things'11 cool in a while, then you can go back, if you're crazy enough.''

  "But I've got important things to do in the city. I've got no time to waste." "Think staying alive is wasting time?" "No."

  "Good," Dancey pronounced with a confirming nod. "Then shut up. Driving was easier when you were asleep."

  Sam followed his advice, more out of frustration and annoyance than anything else. He tried watching the scenery for a time, but his mind kept clouding. His nagging concerns wouldn't let him go. He fidgeted, worried about Janice.

  "Hey hey, Anglo. What's so important about being iii the city, anyway? Filthy place, not good for somebody like you."

  "I'm looking for someone to help my sister." Dancey made an exaggerated show of looking in the back of the Hummer, then across the prairie. "Don't see no sister."

  "She's not around here. She can't travel just now."

  "Hey hey, Anglo. Sounds bad. Ya got my sympathy.

  Family is real important, but you understand that.

  Don't need no old man to tell ya that. What kind of doctor ya looking for?"

  Sam hesitated. What did it really matter? Sam hadn't gotten anywhere with his investigation. Maybe it was because he had been so closemouthed about why he was seeking Howling Coyote. Maybe if he had let it be known that it wasn't political, he might have gotten help. If Dancey spread the word in Denver, it might even help. That is, if anyone took the old man seriously. "Not a doctor. A shaman. She's got

  … magical problems."

  Dancey wheezed a laugh. "So you come looking for the tribal medicine men. Lotsa luck, Anglo."

  "Not just any medicine man. I'm looking for Howling Coyote."

  "Ain't gonna find him in the city." The old man laughed. "Ain't gonna find him at all." "What do you mean?"

  The old man pointed at the sky. "Good clouds today, Anglo. A man can see a lot in clouds. Things that aren't there and things that are. Clouds change a lot. The stars, now. The stars are different. They're always spinning, racing across the sky even when ya can't see them. They don't change much. At least not so a man can see. 'Cept for the falling stars. Flare, burn, and fall. Not much of a legacy. Ever see a star before it fell, Anglo?"

  What did stars have to do with anything? Sam gave up. He turned his head and s
tared at the sunset.

  It wasn't much longer before Dancey pulled the Hummer off the track and bounced them to a stop in a small canyon. He rustled around in the back of the Hummer for a while, emerging first with a bedroll that he tossed to Sam without a word, then later with some cooking gear and a field pack. The old man made a fire and cooked supper in silence. They ate, and then, in silence, they sat watching the glowing embers.

  A scuffing in the darkness startled Sam, but Dancey didn't appear to notice. The old man seemed used to the prairie, so Sam dismissed the sound as not dangerous. He looked up at die stars playing hide-and-seek among drifting clouds. The air was chill, cooling quickly, so he wrapped the bedroll around his shoulders. The fire wanned his front.

  He heard the furtive noise again and caught the gleam of eyes just beyond the firelight. The old man tossed a supper scrap out. After a moment, a coyote padded over to gobble it down. Dancey tossed another, this time closer to the fire so that the animal had to come well within the firelight to get it. The animal moved forward and took the new offering. Scrap by scrap, Dancey lured it closer until it was taking food from his hand.

  A lonesome yipping echoed in from the surrounding buttes. Their after-dinner guest sat on his haunches and raised his muzzle to howl back. The sound conveyed an odd mixture of companionship and isolation. Sam closed his eyes to concentrate on listening to the distant calls. Their coyote howled again, this time in concert with another close by. Sam opened his eyes, hoping to spot the newcomer.

  He had not expected what he saw. Dancey had joined the chorus. His head, tilted at the sky, was not that of the old man. A coyote's pointed snout poked from beneath the tilted brim of the battered reservation hat. Sam could almost smell magic in the air. Trickster!

  "You!" Sam shouted, scrambling to his feet and frightening away the animal. "You're Howling Coyote!"

  The vision of the coyote head vanished and the old man looked at him with dark, but human, eyes. "Been called a lot of things. That, too." "I need your help."

  The old man turned his eyes to the ground. His finger traced patterns in the dirt. " 'Course, I might just be another ragged Coyote shaman limping along in the trail of the Trickster."

  Sam shook his head. He had felt an aura of power, or something, enwrapping the man as he sang with the animals. This was no ordinary shaman. "No. Not just any shaman."

  The old man met his gaze again. "Coyote's not a lucky fella. Gets killed a lot. Howling Coyote died, you know.''

  "So I heard. All shamans die. A shaman has to die to touch the power. Dog told me."

  The old man's expression became suspicious. "Dog told ya? Hey hey, they talk to dogs where ya come from, Anglo?"

  "They talk to dogs everywhere. It's when the dogs talk back that you get problems."

  The Indian grunted. "So ya say you're a shaman. Well, show me something. Impress me."

  Sam shook his head. "That's not what the magic's for."

  "No? Why not? What good's anything if ya can't use it?"

  Sam was becoming angry at the man's flippant attitude and mocking tone. "I didn't say I can't use it." "Hot, hot. Leave it for the sun. Hey hey. Pride's trouble, Anglo. Had plenty enough trouble in my time."

  "I don't want to cause trouble. I want to stop it. My sister, she

  …"

  "She's trouble." The old man's voice held both sympathy and warning.

  "Well, yes. But she doesn't want to be, and that's what will save her." Or so he believed. "I'm sure of it."

  "Sure, are ya? Ain't no surety, Anglo. Ya talk about trouble and magical problems. Ya don't say much. Ya gotta talk plain, Anglo. I'm just a stupid old man."

  Sam didn't believe that, but he played along. He told the old man about Janice. He talked about the ritual and its failure, and about his fears that Janice would succumb to the wendigo curse, and his hopes for her salvation. He ended his tale with an appeal. "You are Howling Coyote. You led the Great Ghost Dance, the most powerful transforming magic the world has ever seen. You're the only one who knows enough about shamanic magic to make the ritual work. You've got to help me."

  The old man stood and turned his back on Sam. "Don't got to do nothing. Coyote's freedom, ya know. Does what he wants. You're on a fool's quest." "IVe got to help my sister." "Very noble, Dog." He spat. "Blind optimism." "No, it isn't," Sam protested. "I felt her spirit and I felt the magic. She can be saved, but I can't do it myself. I need you to help me help Janice," "Help yourself." "Are you refusing to help?" "I said what I said."

  "Okay, okay," Sam said, exasperated. "If you won't help, then at least teach me what I need to know.

  YouVe taught others to use magic. Teach me. Teach me how to save Janice." The old man turned around. "Why not?"

  "Coyote knows all, sees all," the shaman said "Tells little."

  "Like you," Sam observed.

  "Hey hey, pup. Sing a sour song and you jinx the magic. Sky ain't gonna change color to suit you. A shaman is what he is because he is what he is. Ya gotta know to do, and do to know. Got that?"

  "Sure," Sam replied dubiously. Clear as mud. The last two days had been full of exercises in frustration. The old man had led him deeper into the wilderness, hauling packs when they left the Hummer behind. Most of the time, Sam's questions and comments fell on deaf ears. The old man only spoke when he wished, and then half the time he spouted nonsense commentaries on life or nature. The other half was split between totally incomprehensible monologues in a language Sam guessed was his native Ute dialect and almost equally incomprehensible orders. So far Sam had listened to how the wind made pifion trees sigh, observed ants scurry about their business, smelled and compared the scents of yucca leaves and flowers, and watched buzzards wheel in the canyon updrafts. Time and again, he had gathered a variety of plant materials and animal remains, only to have the shaman leave them behind the next time they stopped. He felt more like he, or his patience, was being tested rather than taught.

  They had climbed a long series of switchbacks up a bluff and were now making their way across a gradually sloping mesa top. On the way up, Howling Coyote had taken a detour and led Sam out on a precarious spur of rock. The stretch of plain that ran to distant mountains left Sam in awe. The prairie seemed to go on for a hundred kilometers. The shaman had tugged Sam around to face south and pointed to a series of peaks in that direction.

  "See. It ain't me," Howling Coyote had said. "He's still sleeping."

  Sam hadn't understood what the old man meant, and said so.

  "The Ute, pup. He's still sleeping," was all the shaman would say on the subject.

  They came to a place where a wide circular depression was marked by stone walls. In sharp contrast to the dusty soil and sparse vegetation elsewhere, the grass here was bright and green within the hole. Traces of ditches, some with stones, could be seen through the stunted trees. "Thirsty, pup?"

  "Yes," Sam replied honestly. His lips were dry, and even his lungs felt seared by the dry air.

  The shaman sat on the wall and dangled his feet over the edge into the depression. There was perhaps two centimeters clearance between the soles of his feet and the earth. "Ah, nice and cool,", he said. "Have a drink if you're thirsty.''

  Sam looked at the grassy depression toward which the old man gestured. He could see no sign of water. Just grass. The shaman swung his feet back up, with a heave rising to his feet and padding off down a path between the fragrant pinon. Sam was shocked to see Howling Coyote leave damp footprints. He hurried after.

  ' 'What did you do back there?'' "Hey hey, pup. I didn't do nothing. The old ones iuilt all around here. 'Anasazi"s the name you Anglos stuck on them. They built that lake for irrigation before Whites ever walked the land hereabouts."

  "But your footprints," Sam protested. "You left wet footprints as though your feet had been in water. There wasn't any water in that lake bed. How did you do that?"

  The shaman laughed. "I didn't do nothing. Just experienced the lake and the wisdom of the old ones. What did you
experience?"

  Nothing, Sam thought. Aloud he said, "I don't know."

  "Some shaman. Gotta see the past if you're gonna face the future."

  Without any further explanation, Howling Coyote led Sam through the tangled, dark trees. Near sunset they came out at the rim of a forested canyon. The rock face fell away beneath them for a dozen meters of sheer drop. The far rim looked as Sam imagined the side on which he stood must appear. Trees and brush grew on all the surfaces that offered the least foothold, only succumbing when the rocks were nearly vertical. In niches where the sandstone of the cliff had caved away, someone the old ones? had built clusters of structures. After silently contemplating the vista for a few minutes, Howling Coyote led Sam back from the edge to a grove of pinon trees that were taller "and broader than their immediate neighbors. It took Sam a moment to realize that each of the larger trees stood within a slightly raised area.

  Before he could ask a question the shaman took his arm and dragged him deeper into the grove, where a few piles of stone marked the outlines of a building made of many small rooms. No wall was higher than a meter. There was a wide clearing to one side, in the middle of which yawned a dark, rectangular hole. Two logs and the first rung of the ladder they supported poked out of the hole into the failing sunlight. "A kiva. Be warmer to spend the night in there," the sha 184

  Robert N. Charrette man said, and disappeared down the ladder. Though Sam felt the air already turning chill, he didn't find the thought of climbing down into darkness inviting. While he stood indecisive, a chant and faint wisps of smoke began to come from the hole.

  He rises, to the sky. He rises, seeking light. He rises, toward the power. To the sky, he rises.

  Dusk lay on the mesa; a cool breeze arose, rustling through the pinon and caressing the twisted mesquite logs. An owl called, distant and plaintive, and the faint chitter of a hunting bat skittered across Sam's ears. Other hunters would be about. Sam looked at the hole. Where the kiva had seemed to offer only darkness and mystery, it now promised light and warmth and the only companionship on the mesa.