Stone Butterfly

by James D. Doss

  She did. “Which dirt road are we talking about?”

  “The one to your place.”

  “Was this reckless driver anybody I know?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  This response puzzled his aunt, also annoyed her. “Whatta you mean by that?”

  Moon tried on the hat, observed his reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece. Lookin’ good. And Mr. Stetson don’t look too bad neither. “The population density out here is about one soul per sixty square miles, which is you. That being the case, I thought maybe this reckless driver was on his way back from paying you a visit.”

  “Nobody’s been out here all day.” With a suddenness that made her heart do a triple thumpity-thump, she recalled the fear that had driven Sarah into the wilderness of Spirit Canyon. “Did this fella have a name?”

  “Everybody has a name.” He made this assertion with a distinctly philosophical air.

  Big smart-aleck. “Well, what was it?”

  “According to the registration in the Bronco, it was Tate Packard.”

  Daisy shook her head. “Never heard of ’im.”

  “That’s probably because he’s not from around here.” Moon adjusted his hat to a jaunty I’ve-got-spurs-that-jingle-jangle-jingle angle. “His complete moniker is Deputy Sheriff Tate Packard.”

  This did not sound like good news. Daisy waited for it to get worse.

  Moon did not disappoint her. “He’s attached to the sheriff’s office in Tonapah Flats.” The face under the brim of the black Stetson shot his aunt a deadpan glance. “Which is up yonder and across the border. In Utah.”

  “Oh, that Tonapah Flats.” To buy some time to think, she busied herself by adding a few sticks to the waning fire. “Wonder what was he doing so far from home?”

  “That’s not much of a mystery,” Moon said. “Deputy Packard must’ve been looking for Sarah Frank.”

  Daisy straightened her back, rubbed at a persistent ache. “Why would he think she was around here?”

  “Now that’s the mystery. He wouldn’t have driven his Bronco all this way without a good reason to believe he’d find what he was looking for.” He gave his cantankerous old aunt the hundred-watt smile. “Is she?”

  He puts on that silly grin just to aggravate me. Daisy returned a glare, upping the ante to a kilowatt and change. “Is she what?”

  Moon had not been intimidated by this crusty old woman since he was seven years old when she’d caught him with his fingers in the quart jar of her damson plum preserves that won a blue ribbon at the La Plata County Fair. “Is she here?”

  The tribal elder pretended to be astonished at such a brazen question. She pointed at the floor. “You mean—here in my house?”

  He nodded.

  “No she’s not!”

  “You absolutely dead-sure about that?”

  Daisy fixed him with the sort of “witching” gaze that had been demonstrated—and this was attested to by several mostly reliable witnesses—to paralyze such animals as short-horned lizards, slow-witted porcupines, and adult human males. “If she was, d’you think I wouldn’t notice?”

  Moon’s brain was unfazed by the assault. “No. Way I see it—if Sarah Frank was in this house, you’d be bound to know.” His smile wouldn’t go away. “But maybe, for some reason or other—you wouldn’t want to tell me.”

  Daisy stamped her foot. “If you don’t believe me, you can search the place from top to bottom!”

  The best poker player in sixteen counties generally knew a bluff when he saw one. And he figured she was holding nothing better than a pair of deuces. If that. “You sure you wouldn’t mind?”

  She seated herself in the rocker. “Take it apart for all I care—as long as you put it back together again.” Her mouth wrinkled into a rueful grin. “But any loose change you turn up belongs to me.”

  Moon called the presumed bluff. Within twenty minutes, he had searched the closets, the pantry, peeked under the bed (where the old woman stored her shoes and canned goods), the attic (accessible through a small portal in the top of Daisy’s bedroom closet), the small camping trailer behind her house (which belonged to the tribe, but which Daisy claimed she wanted to keep for extra storage space but which was actually used for another purpose altogether). Finally, he removed a two-by-two-foot section of plywood and stuck his head through the opening under the kitchen sink which provided access to the crawl space. A flashlight beam illuminated clear evidence that no one had been crawling in the dusty place. I guess she must’ve been telling the truth.

  The cattle rancher appeared by the fire, looking moderately sheepish.

  “Hah!”

  He squatted beside her rocking chair. “I heard that ‘hah.’”

  “You was supposed to hear it, you big jug-head. Just imagine—coming into an honest, law-abiding woman’s home, accusing her of hiding a runaway girl who’s wanted for…” She could not bring herself to say murder.

  “I can’t think of any reason Deputy Packard would’ve been in this neck of the woods unless he come to see you. And the only reason he’d want to see you would be to inquire about Sarah’s current whereabouts.”

  Daisy responded with a grunt.

  “But since he didn’t show up here, I guess he never managed to find your place.”

  And he never managed to find Sarah. Pleased with this thought, she rocked a little faster. “Lots of people get lost out here.”

  Moon picked up an iron poker, stirred the smoking embers. “Packard was probably on his way to Ignacio, to get some directions.” He frowned at a sudden spurt of flame. “Or more likely, to get somebody at SUPD to show him the way to your house.”

  I hope he’s not coming back. Realizing that God was always listening, she added: Not that I hope the poor man’s drowned in the river. Just that he won’t come snooping around here. Having made that clear, she slowed her rocking to a more tranquil pace. “You never told me what happened to this Utah deputy. Did he get banged up some when he wrecked his car?”

  Moon leaned the poker against the stone fireplace. “It does not look good for Deputy Packard—when he drove his Bronco into the Piedra, both doors popped open. The eyewitness told Danny Bignight that he tried to pull the driver out of the water, but he slipped loose and got swept downriver. Packard might have made it to the bank somewhere downstream, but when I left the bridge about an hour ago the search party still hadn’t found him.” He added grimly: “What with all the snowmelt runoff we’ve had this spring, the river’s running fast enough to roll big boulders away.”

  The old woman had seen more Piedra floods than she could remember. This year’s was one of the most impressive. Daisy shook her head. “It may take a few days, but they’ll find his body a few miles downstream.”

  The tribal investigator did not dispute this prediction.

  For some minutes, the fire crackled merrily, seemingly laughing at those manifold troubles that plague the lives of human beings.

  When the clock struck nine, Moon got up from his chair. “I’ll be away from the Columbine for a few days, taking care of some business.”

  Daisy stopped rocking, looked up at this man who stood straight and tall as a lodge-pole pine. “What kind of business?”

  “Sheriff Popper—he’s Packard’s boss—is coming in from Utah to find out what his deputy was doing on the Southern Ute reservation, and what’s happened to him. I expect he wants to be present when they pull Packard’s body out of the Piedra. And we’ll be having some meetings with the FBI and the SUPD. Sheriff Popper and me, I mean.”

  “Oh.” She returned her gaze to the fire.

  He hesitated. “If you hear anything from Sarah, let me know right away.”

  The old woman showed no sign of hearing this request.

  I still think she knows something she don’t want to tell me. “If you have any problems while I’m busy, call my foreman. Pete Bushman’s got standing orders to see that whatever’s broken here gets fixed. If he can’t com
e himself, he’ll send a couple of the cowboys down to take care of it.” The Columbine was largely independent of the outside world. Whether the job required skills in plumbing, electrical wiring, welding wrought-iron, or mending a leaky roof, the hired help managed to get the job done.

  Moon stood before a mirror mounted on the closet door, adjusted the damp hat, cocked his head this way and that. “Funny thing, how people can surprise you.”

  “What people?”

  “You remember Yadkin Dixon—the fella who comes begging at your back door?”

  “I’d rather forget him.” She snorted. “The good-for-nothing thief.”

  “Well, turns out he’s good for something.”

  Another snort. “So is pig manure.”

  “Mr. Dixon was the eyewitness to Deputy Packard’s accident at the Piedra bridge.” Moon adjusted the Stetson just a tad. “And he risked his life in an attempt to save the deputy. Which makes him a hero of sorts.”

  Daisy thought about this, came to an uncharitable conclusion. “I bet ol’ Yad risked his life to try to loot the drowning man’s car.” But this news had quite taken the wind out of her sails. Maybe—like my mother always said—there is some good in everybody. Even that beady-eyed matukach moocher. But for the set-in-her-ways old woman, this was an unsettling thought. So she dismissed it.

  Not long after Charlie Moon’s departure, Daisy Perika got herself ready for bed. Once under the colorful quilt, she lay very still. For a long time, she tried to think of nothing. This was not possible. For a longer time, she watched countless beads of rain beat against the windowpane. But her old ears could not hear the rain. Not on the double-pane window, not on the roof. Her almost-new house was too well-insulated to admit the soothing sounds of Nature’s lullaby.

  Somewhere on the far side of midnight, Daisy got out of her warm bed, pulled on her slippers and a heavy overcoat that had been the property of her third husband. It was of the type and vintage popular during the 1940s in cities like Chicago and Detroit. The inside breast pocket on the left side—placed to be convenient to a gunman’s right hand—was just the right size and shape to hold a short-barreled .38 Special. Daisy did not own such a weapon. As has been mentioned, she was a 12-gauge shotgun sort of personality, and the up-front kind of shooter who would never think of concealing a weapon.

  She left her house by the back door, padded through wet sand to the tiny camping trailer. Once inside, she shed the overcoat and slippers, plopped her weary body onto a chilly cot, pulled a coarse woolen blanket up to her nose.

  Ahh…that’s much better.

  What was much better was that she could distinctly hear distant rumbles, and rain pattering on the metal shell—Grandmother Thunder’s soporific spell. Within minutes, she had taken leave for that world-without-laws where anything can happen. At first, it was a peaceful slumber.

  Then, it was not.

  In the shadow of Three Sisters Mesa, Daisy laboriously made her way up the trail on the rocky slope. When she arrived at the shelf, she saw him. Only a few paces away, a young-looking white man was standing by the lightning-scarred ponderosa, staring at the small cave. Without knowing how she knew (for this is what dreamers do) the old woman was certain this was that very same man who had driven his car into the Piedra. The deputy was saying something to Sarah Frank, who was huddled in the cavern’s dark recess. The man had Sarah’s cat cradled in his arms, and though Daisy could not quite make out his words, he was clearly making a threat.

  With a suddenness that took the shaman’s breath away, Sarah emerged from her hiding place, the matukach lawman grabbed the girl, there was a violent struggle—

  The dreamer tried with all her strength to hurry to the defense of Provo Frank’s frail daughter, but her feet were rooted to the earth. Daisy tried to scream; was mute as the stones.

  The man flung Sarah over the edge of the shelf, down the talus slope! In impotent horror, the tribal elder watched the doll-like body bounce and roll down the rocky incline, heard the girl’s brittle little bones snapping like dry twigs.

  When the dreamer awakened on the cot, a driving rain was rattling on the camping trailer’s thin metal shell, sudden gusts of wind rocked the flimsy structure, riveted joints squeaked and creaked, and Daisy’s old frame was shaking like she had caught a hard chill. While she stared up into the noisy blackness the trembling of her limbs gradually subsided, but the heavy message of the night-vision pressed on her chest like a massive stone.

  Sarah Frank is dead.

  Unwilling to accept what her fears knew to be true, the shaman reminded herself that her visions were not always perfectly accurate projections of the future. Most of them provided warnings of some calamity that might occur unless someone (usually herself) took bold action to prevent it, and she grudgingly admitted that a very few of these “revelations” managed to get things upside-down and backward. These uncharacteristically modest thoughts Daisy-chained her to another, even more demeaning possibility: Maybe it wasn’t a vision at all—just a bad dream. Which reminded the tribal elder of her nephew, who (so it seemed) took the view all of her visions were merely dreams. The big gourd-head! She imagined herself whacking the unbelieving relative across the knees with her oak walking stick, and—when the imaginary nephew winced with intense pain—this revenge on the skeptic gave the offended party a measure of satisfaction. Before her conscience could slip a word in edgewise, Daisy cut it off: Charlie Moon had it coming—if he hadn’t told me about that Utah deputy driving his car into the Piedra, and how he must’ve come here looking for Sarah, I’d never have dreamed about him going to the place where I told the girl to hide. Daisy Perika turned on her side, nudged her face into the lumpy little pillow. Of their own accord, her eyes closed. If it was just a nightmare, it was all Charlie Moon’s fault—if it wasn’t for him, I’d have dreamed about something else. A weary yawn. Something nice, maybe. Like fields full of purple asters and them olden times when I was young and pretty and my little son was still alive and happy and… She was whisked away into that dusky, timeless land where past and future stroll hand in hand. On this occasion, the dreams were sweeter and joy filled the hours.

  Chubby little boy, chasing a frisky brown puppy through fields thick with flowers.

  Pretty Daisy, running after him, laughing—black hair flying in a perfumed breeze.

  But it seemed odd (her youthful version thought) that in the vast blue sky, there were no birds on the wing—only a single butterfly.

  When she finally drifted up from this field of dreams, to skim along the interface with Middle World—this thought passed through her mind: Soon as the sun comes up, I’ll go find Sarah and tell her about that cop from Utah. If he didn’t drown in the Piedra—not that I’m hoping he did, God—he might come back and cause us some trouble.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  In the Canyon

  The morning that followed the Shaman’s nightmare was not of that exhilarating sort where a valiant sun, gleaming sword unsheathed, charges boldly over the horizon to obliterate the lingering remnants of last night’s noisy storm troopers. This blushing dawn was held at bay by a thugish mob of rumbling thunderheads. To the shaman’s ears, it seemed the brawny gathering was tumbling boulders into the canyon—and mumbling ominous warnings of worse to come.

  These rude demonstrations did not deter Daisy Perika.

  Before the first crack of dawn had echoed off the towering cliffs, she was filling a hemp bag with food, a quart Thermos of honeyed coffee, wooden kitchen matches, warm woolen socks, and other such necessities as a girl in hiding might require.

  With the sturdy oak staff clenched in her hand and the bulging sack looped over her shoulder, Charlie Moon’s aunt entered the gaping mouth of the canyon—only to discover that the year-round stream that typically trickled lightly along the sandy bottom of Cañón del Espíritu had swollen overnight into a muddy, roiling creek. In places, it was knee-deep. Leaning on her walking stick, the intrepid hiker proceeded to get her feet wet. The w
ater she waded in was numbingly cold, and choked with silt from far up the canyon. It occurred to Daisy that fording this stream might turn out to be a serious mistake; perhaps her final one. If I was to fall down, I might not be able to get up again. She quaked with a bone-rattling shudder. I don’t want Charlie Moon to find my body stuck in some bank, me with my mouth full of mud and ravens pecking at my entrails and my eyes staring wide open like a pair of poached eggs! Daisy’s long list of shortcomings did not include a lack of imagination. But the image of perishing in these rushing waters—much like that deputy from Utah who had ended up in the far deeper and more dangerous waters of the Piedra—was a picture that brought all her native stubbornness to the surface. The tribal elder set her jaw like iron, made up her mind. She would simply refuse to die in this place. When my spirit crosses over that last river, I intend for my body to be in bed. I’ll be decked out in my best polka-dot nightgown and my long white stockings and have my hair done up in a braid. But if it happens outside, I won’t give up the ghost unless I’m on dry earth.

  And having decided to stand, she did not fall.

  Once across the stream, Daisy set her face toward the barely discernible path that snaked its sinuous way up the steep slope where, for thousands upon thousands of winters, water trapped in the cracks and fissures of Three Sisters Mesa had frozen, thawed, and frozen in endless cycles. With the infinite patience of Nature’s tireless rhythms, the recurring contractions and expansions had gradually loosened great slabs of sandstone. These were compelled by Gravity’s decree to tumble down and reside alongside those of their kin already resting in the haphazard jumble. This process eventually fitted the broad waist of the mesa with an enormous skirt of stony rubble.

  The aged woman moved along the precipitous path with considerable caution. One false step could end in a fall, possibly a broken hip or leg. In this wilderness, where an injured person might not be discovered for days, even a sprained ankle might result in a lonely, lingering death. She could clearly see the gory scene: If I took a slip and broke something, come nightfall the foxes and coyotes would be all over me. Snapping and biting and fighting over the pitiful little bit of meat left on my bones. As she watched the spectacle develop, a cougar arrived, chased the coyotes and foxes away. She was about to cheer the tawny brute, when the big cat picked up the remains of her corpse in its jaws, dragged it away for a private feast. Daisy scowled at the imagined affront, gripped her oak staff like the club it was, readied herself in case a mountain lion dared such a discourtesy while she still had a breath of life in her. If he so much as shows his fuzzy face, I’ll give him such a whack that he’ll forget his name and next of kin!