Dead Horses

by David Knop

  “Answer my question.” I dropped my arm.

  Oso said, “Not much to it. Walked through the wall.”

  “What are you doing in here, Oso?”

  “Wasn’t you lookin’ for me? Got to correct some misinformation and protect your lame ass, too.”

  “Start correcting,” I said.

  “First of all, I am not, was not, Grizz.”

  “Navy says you’re dead, Oso.”

  “So?” Oso hunched his shoulders.

  I stared at him.

  The cell door opened, and a deputy appeared. “Keep it down in here!” He looked around the cell, didn’t acknowledge anyone but me, and slammed the door.

  “You’re invisible, too?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “That guy…” I said, pointing to the door.

  “He doesn’t believe.”

  “I believe you’re not Oso.”

  “Trust me and you might learn something.”

  “All I’m learning is you won’t answer my questions. And trust you? No.” I held my head in my hands. “Here’s my problem with you. You say Pokoh is Grizz. It was Pokoh that led me to safety after I rolled my truck near the campito. He warned me Grizz was about to attack last night in the mountains. Been tailin’ me since I arrived in Colorado. Protecting me.”

  Oso snorted. “That what you call protection? He’s stalking you. He knows you got the power. You’re the only one who can stop the asteroid.”

  “How the hell am I supposed to believe you?”

  Ropes appeared in Oso’s jaws and neck. “I just walked through the wall and you ask a question like that?”

  “Yeah, so did a two hundred pound deer last night.” I sat on the bunk; my brain had given up trying to figure out what was going on. “Shit, I don’t know.”

  “Come with me. I got somebody you need to talk to,” he said.

  “Who?” I asked as he disappeared through the wall. “Hey, wait! Who do you want me to talk to, Oso?”

  His head poked out from the wall. “You coming? Haven’t got all day.”

  “Through a block wall?”

  Oso held out his palms. He said, “For a guy in a hurry, you got a lot of questions.”

  “You —” I almost said no one could walk through walls, but there he was, partly-in, partly-out of a thick partition with only his head and two hands jutting from it. “I can’t just…it’s physics!”

  Oso stepped into the cell. “To hell with physics. Look at your skin,” he said, rolling his eyes like I was some dumb kid.

  My hands and arms were blue.

  “Well?” Oso asked. “You can’t recognize a sign?”

  Until this moment, my occasional change of skin color had not registered a purpose except to scare Grizz. Now, it was a gift from the ancient ones, a spiritual directive, a call-to-action. Still, I could not get past the physics problem.

  I stared at Oso not knowing what to say. At this point, I didn’t understand a thing.

  Oso stared at me. “You want out of here?”

  “Bet your ass.”

  Oso said, “Leave all you know behind. Say goodbye and let your guard down. Let it go. All of it.” Oso had a leather bag hanging from his shoulder and he pulled a small bottle from it. “Here, take this. It’ll help.”

  “What is it?”

  “Peyote. The hell you think it is?”

  I can take or leave peyote. Some truly believe one can’t commune with the ancients without it. That was not my problem. My immediate goal was to get out of this cell and Oso, or whoever he was, clearly knew how. I nodded.

  Oso smiled, led me in a ritual to honor the six sacred directions, North, South, East, West, Earth, and Sky, an exercise in imagination because all four walls, the floor, and ceiling of my cell were identical in nearly all respects. Only the toilet, bunks and sink broke the sameness.

  “We have no drums, but you get the idea,” Oso said.

  We finished the ceremony, but I experienced no effects of the peyote. “I saw Oso looking at me. “What? Nothing’s happening.”

  Oso started to chant. My body warmed and my knees weakened as Oso’s songs traveled straight to my soul. The walls began to warp, pulsing as if they were breathing in time with his songs. The walls curled and pulsed more as Oso’s chanting got faster. His voice blended with unseen others. The singing got louder until it enveloped me, the walls pulled away.

  Oso’s face contorted, elongated. His arms elongated until they touched the ground. I laughed, his smile reached his ears, I grabbed my sides.

  Oso said, “I see you’re ready.” He disappeared into the cement blocks.

  I walked toward the wall in a haze not caring I was about to receive a busted nose.

  Chapter 36

  We didn’t run, walk, or ride, and moved in no particular direction past sparse vegetation, mountain lions, eagles, and mountains, all in luminous, vivid colors. We stopped in front of a cave. Inside, a cathedral of stalagmites contained scattered fragments of pottery. Next to them lay a small skeleton belonging to a child. The tiny bones had calcified to shimmering crystal. Nearby, a body of sparkling water glowed. Walking on, we passed more human remains, adorned with meticulous care, they looked like sacrifices to various gods and spirits.

  My thoughts summoned up Xibalba, the Place of Fear, ruled over by Mayan death gods and inhabited by vampire bats. Places like this contained rivers of blood and scorpions ruled by demonic gods. “Is this Xibalba?”

  “No,” Oso said.

  The high-ceiling cave exited onto an endless plain, an undulating sea of grass rimmed by a white-capped range gleaming like silver. We followed a brush-lined river, I drank water pure and sweet. Buffalo by the thousands grazed, ran, and rolled in wallows. Birds swirled in vast clouds that cast shadows on the green earth.

  Everything I touched was real; brush, the ground, the grass. We came to a hill with dramatic views of towering, three-hundred-foot rock slabs of pink sandstone against a backdrop of snow-capped peaks and brilliant blue skies. The wind whispered voices I didn’t understand while I admired stone spires and humpbacked formations lined up like migrating dinosaurs.

  Oso said, “My Ute ancestors lived here. Rivals laid down their weapons and gathered here in peace. This is sacred ground. Our spiritual way of life started here.” He spread his arms wide.

  “Our elders grew up here and the bones of our forebears are part of this earth. An elder, a blind man, brought me here for the first time when I was a child. He led me to spots where the tribe once held religious ceremonies. Whites call it, Garden of the Gods, now.”

  “Why are we here?” I asked.

  “You’ll find your answers here. Go.” Oso leaned against a tree, panting, but there was a glow around him. From the beginning, Oso had been my guide and I’d misjudged him.

  I walked on. My answers were here. Somewhere, they were here.

  A path, overgrown with thistle, meandered through sheets of upended stone. Bones, big enough to belong to dinosaurs, stuck out of the rock. Rib cages big enough to walk through curled overhead.

  I looked back. Oso was gone and I wondered if I might ever see him again.

  A plateau overlooking the rock formations produced a better view. The sun stood straight up and baked my head. I’d worked up a sweat from the climb, so I unbuttoned my sleeves and rolled them up past my elbows. The injuries from Wolf’s attack glowed an angry red laced by black stitches over my blue skin.

  Under a rock formation resembling kissing camels, a ribbon of smoke drifted upward. I hiked downhill to a small bonfire where an old man sat cross-legged inside a circle of stone. He chanted and tossed bone fragments on the ground, studied them, scooped them up and threw again. The man wore a full eagle headdress and a loose smock of tan leather without decoration. His nut-brown skin contrasted with white braids that hung low and brushed the ground. The old one took no notice of me until I neared his stone circle.

  “Sto
p,” he said.

  I did, then asked his name. He looked at me as if I should have known. His black eyes seemed heavy, half asleep, his thoughts in another place, perhaps. “You have travelled far to talk to me, yet do not know who I am. Why?”

  “I seek answers.”

  “And you, in your arrogance, expect that I, Senawahv, have the answers and will provide them?”

  I stepped back. I was in the presence of the creator, Senawahv himself, who had created the mountains, rivers, rain, snow, wind and wildlife for the Utes. He created the Utes themselves from loose logs falling from his knapsack. He normally lived in the sky, but now he sat before his earthly campfire eyeing me with an intense, unswerving stare.

  “Pokoh said he put the stars in the sky.”

  “Pokoh is my creation. A spirit, yes, but only one of many. I’ve made spirits who heal the sick, another for thunder and lightning, a spirit of war and one of peace. Pokoh is a self-indulgent fool, a legend in his own mind. Yes, Pokoh put the stars in the sky, but only as I commanded. Clearly, he’s bored. Fear him.”

  “He intends to send an asteroid to earth,” I said.

  Senawahv’s chest expanded and his face reddened. “Justify your sacrilege or I will kill you where you stand.” Senawahv’s voice shook the earth. Stones rattled off the rock slabs. Sand trickled down like hissing snakes.

  I could barely control my shaky voice when I said, “Pokoh intends to reignite Navajo and Ute hostilities. People will die at a ceremony, then more will die from the revenge war.” My voice caught.

  Senawahv’s glower suggested I lacked worthiness to speak.

  “What is it you want from me?” he asked.

  “How do I stop Pokoh’s asteroid?”

  His grimace burned my skin. “Get out,” he said.

  “What? Why?”

  “Power is obtained from knowledge received through one’s own dreams or visions. I can give you none.”

  I stared, hiding my rush of anger and disappointment. Senawahv looked down, threw the bones and scooped them up. He threw the bones again, scooped them up with no attempt to study their meaning. I dared not move.

  He gazed at me with red eyes. Bushy white eyebrows shadowed his pupils. “I see you were sent here by your spirits. I recognize the blue of your skin, but I have no aid for you. Be gone.” he said, through tight lips.

  I stood fast, rooted like the rocks surrounding us.

  Senawahv rose, his human form stood eight feet tall, his menacing gaze that of Cougar. His face colored as he judged me, “It is time for you to go.”

  My pounding heart said run. My knees weakened as nerves twitched in my legs, but I would die rooted here if I had to. I wanted answers. I puffed up my chest fearing Senawahv could hear my amped heartbeat ricochet off the towering pink slabs. If this was the end, then it would be the end.

  Senawahv balled his fist, then threw a lightning bolt that exploded at my feet. The blast knocked the wind out of me and peppered my legs with gravel. I gasped when he threw another bolt that passed between my thighs and heated my groin. Rock shards from the impact behind me stung my ass, but I dared not flinch. Senawahv had the power to incinerate me.

  Senawahv said, “The next one is the last. I will not tolerate your impudence.”

  I steadied myself for the end and would have sung my death song had I possessed one. Senawahv stopped, then turned his attention to the bite marks on my arms. “How did you receive those wounds?”

  “Wolf. Pokoh sent a pack of six. They attacked me. I killed two.”

  “Shinab are sacred here,” he said, slit-eyed. “You killed two?”

  “They were trying to kill me.” I stretched out my arms, offered the sutures as evidence.

  Senawahv growled, “How did they die?”

  “Bravely. In combat by my hand. One with a kick. The other by a broken neck.”

  “Those were my children.” Senawahv looked at the fire, paused, mouthed a prayer ending with the kissing of his tobacco pouch. He looked towards me, then smiled. “I knew they had died in battle, but I needed to hear how,” he said.

  “I am sorry for your loss.” I braced for a lightning bolt straight to my gut.

  Senawahv looked at me with kinder eyes. “My children fought and lost but did not shame their kind. A warrior’s destiny is unalterable and death in battle is the only reward. But, as their father, I demand justice. I command that you face Pokoh.”

  “How do I face a mighty Ute spirit?”

  Senawahv shook his head. “Do you fear death? If you want to live, breathe, and evolve, you must conquer that fear. You must figure out how. I have spoken, now go.”

  Before I had a chance to speak, another form materialized out of nowhere. Pokoh stood in front of Senawahv wrapped in smoke and quaking like the yellow aspen that flecked the far hills.

  Gone was the straight posture and spread-legged stance of the powerful. His once beautiful clothing hung in tatters. Pokoh hunched over Senawahv’s fire as if collapsing into his rib cage. He clutched his constellations to his chest as if protecting them. Tangled black hair over his face failed to hide wet tracks on his cheeks.

  Senawahv, towering above Pokoh, pointed and said, “You may no longer smoke the pipe at my council fire.”

  Pokoh howled and begged. Pointing to me, he said, “This miserable wretch blocked my path to justice for our people!”

  Senawahv chastised him, “You sent my children to their deaths! Your only salvation is they died bravely at the hands of a worthy warrior. I withdraw your invitation to my fire.”

  The conversation continued in Ute and ended in a loud scolding that caused Pokoh to cringe at each stressed word. Senawahv pointed a lightning bolt at Pokoh. Instinctively, I put my arm up to cover my face.

  I had become a forgotten bystander. I felt reluctant pity for Pokoh, but nothing I could do now would alter his destiny.

  Pokoh vaporized to a mist.

  The sun pierced my eyelids.

  Chapter 37

  A generator exhaust pipe pumped poison over my face. I coughed and rolled away. I sneezed until the exhaust smell faded from my nose. My head throbbed as I stood on rubber legs and dusted off my jeans. Somehow, I’d ended up behind Reel’s mobile command post.

  I rubbed the lump on the back of my head, no doubt a result of a farewell gesture from Senawahv. Time slowed as my heartbeat sped up.

  A path led to the front door of the command center. I trotted as fast as I could on shaky legs. Reel needed to know what I had learned. The steps up and into the command post seemed higher and the short hallway to the conference room rocked and rolled with every step.

  Reel blanched when she saw me. “Peter? I can’t believe —”

  “I don’t believe it either,” I said. My experience with Senawahv had both exhilarated and exhausted me.

  “Where have you been?” she asked. Her feminine side showed in her eyes.

  Talking through my pounding headache, I told her what I had learned during my peyote trip. “Pokoh said the asteroid would strike at high noon. Less than four hours.”

  She asked, “Okay, so where is Oso?”

  “I left him at the sacred garden.” Her question irritated me. “Did you just miss the point of my story? There’s no time to worry about Oso. Everything happens at twelve.”

  She raised a palm, said, “I sent you to find Oso’s imposter. You were to bring him in for questioning. I need to know who we’ve been dealing with.”

  “I don’t understand you. I just told you of a potential catastrophe and you’re worried about your investigation? The ceremony is on Indian land. Evacuate everyone from the ceremony site before it’s too late. Use your damn authority.”

  “We keep having the same discussion on this distraction. And, I don’t like your attitude, Officer Romero.”

  I said, “Distraction? Are you serious? Since when are mass casualties a distraction? What do I need to tell you? Danger is not coming from a
perceived security threat to your investigation, it’s coming from the sky. Today, Jean. Today in less than four hours. It’s a real fuckin’ disaster.”

  The wall clock showed eight-fifteen and my breath shortened with every twitch of the second hand.

  “I’ll determine what’s important in my investigation. And I’ll say it again. I am not cancelling the groundbreaking ceremony based on the threats of a spirit who claims he can control a space object, an object which you know damn well cannot be verified by anyone at NASA, or your own aunt.”

  “I can’t shake the feeling you’re sleep-walking through this entire Pokoh threat. Because no one can see the object, doesn’t mean it isn’t hidden by the sun, damnit. I’m also beginning to wonder what you think is more important: your job or your Indian. You’re losing your instincts, Jean.”

  If I could have caught those words in mid-air, I would have. Her face darkened, and I saw more than fire in her eyes. Fear, pain. I suspected she was up against it, dealing with things I knew nothing about and afraid she’d lose her job.

  She stood, pointed to the door. “Get out. I’ve had it with your antics.”

  Alarm stuck in my throat. I had wounded her. My jaw clamped shut.

  I rose from my chair, headed for the door, then turned. “That’s not what I meant.” I held out my hands. Paused. “This day is not going to end well if that ceremony proceeds.”

  “Get out, or I’ll have you arrested.” She pointed to the door, her outstretched arm a lance straight me through.

  “This will be on you, Jean.” I stepped outside the conference room. She wouldn’t have me arrested because she was the one who hijacked me and dragged me into her investigation. I wasn’t supposed to be here in the first place without a security clearance. I turned to face her. “Jean, I—”

  “You’re taking advantage of our relationship.” She slammed the conference room door, said, “Don’t come back.”

  She had cut me off at the knees.

  Every pair of eyes in the command center avoided mine as I hurried outside. The last thing I saw when I stepped from the command center was the digital wall clock showing eight-twenty.