The Ute was almost right. But not quite.
“Charlie…”
“Mm-hmm?”
“If Bearcat had found me, do you think he would’ve killed me?”
As the tribal investigator considered this innocent question from the sole witness to Bearcat’s murder of Ben Silver, Sheriff Popper’s words echoed in the dark corridors of his memory: No matter how nasty the job is—you can always depend on Bearcat to get it done. “There’s no point in thinking about things like that.”
She jerked at his hand. “But I can’t help thinking about it.”
Moon pretended to shrug it off. “Let’s go get a dose of sunshine.”
Still hand in hand, they left the gloom of Quiet Shade House.
Though reluctant to abandon the stalking of a fat black cricket, Mr. Zig-Zag gave up the game and followed the human beings into the light.
The Tribal elder watched her nephew approach with Sarah Frank. “All them government people are gone.” As if it hardly mattered, she added: “Including that FBI lady.” At the mention of the pretty white woman, Daisy Perika thought she saw a sparkle in Moon’s eye. Aha—I knew it! But I’ll let on like I don’t suspect a thing. “I don’t know why you two had to be so standoffish.” Eyeing the girl, Daisy said: “Charlie wanders off like he’s lost, and you go hide in the shadows.”
“I was afraid of the grave,” Sarah murmured. “That man in it tried to throw me off the cliff.” And if I hadn’t kicked him, Aunt Daisy would’ve buried me under those rocks.
“Well, I can understand how you’d feel that way.” The shaman patted Sarah’s thin shoulder. “His spirit decided to follow me home.” Realizing that this was an opportunity to provide the half-Ute girl with some useful information, Daisy proceeded with the lesson: “Once a day-old ghost gets inside your house, getting rid of it is like trying to wash sorghum molasses out of your hair. What you want to do is to keep ’em from crossing the threshold in the first place. So I tried to act like I’d lost my mind.” A sideways glance at her nephew dared Charlie Moon to smile. “Sometimes that’ll scare a ghost away.” At the puff of a clammy breeze, Daisy pulled her woolen shawl tightly around her shoulders. “But it didn’t work. That white man’s spirit has been hanging around my house ever since. Rattling pots and pans. Turning lights on and off.” She released a hopeful sigh. “But now that they’ve hauled his sorry carcass away, I don’t expect he’ll be bothering me anymore.”
Moon’s expression made it clear that he disapproved of such talk in front of the girl.
When Daisy became aware that her overly tall nephew was looking down his nose at her, she tilted her head back, glared up her nose at him. “Well, what’s your excuse, Kaw-Liga?” Catching Charlie off-guard was her specialty.
“What?”
“Kaw-Liga was a wooden Indian in an antique store.” She smirked. “Us real Utes know stuff like that.”
Moon smirked back at the Real Ute. “Kaw-Liga wasn’t in the antique store.”
“Don’t correct me—I’m older than you and I know what I’m talking about!”
The alleged Wooden Indian asked: “What exactly are you talking about?”
It took Daisy a moment to gather her thoughts. “Ol’ Kaw-Liga never did ask that white woman whether she’d like to be the mother of his—”
“There wasn’t any white woman.” Knowing it would irk his aunt, he launched into the lesson with a combination of patience and courtesy. “Way it happened, was like this: Kaw-Liga never could get up the nerve to speak to that Indian maiden—who was the one in the antique store—and it was too late when a rich man came and bought her and—”
“Listen to me, you big gourd-head—I was singing along with that Hank Williams song years before you were born and I know every word in every song he ever sung. So don’t you go correcting me—I’m not interested in anything you have to say!”
“Then I might as well be ‘Howlin’ at the Moon.’”
Daisy was in no mood to let the subject drop. Unconditional surrender was what she wanted. “Then admit you know I was right!”
“‘I Saw the Light.’” He hung his head. “‘You Win Again.’”
Emboldened by this unexpected capitulation, Daisy raised her oak staff. “Charlie Moon—tell me right now what plans you and Lola Fay McFigg worked out, or I’ll whack you across the shin with this stick!”
Looking like a man suffering from the “Lovesick Blues,” he muttered: “‘I’ve Just Told Mama Good-bye.’”
Daisy’s petals wilted. And I’d hoped they’d name their first daughter after me. “Does that mean there won’t be no—”
“‘Wedding Bells’?” He exhaled a wistful sigh. “Looks like ‘I’ll Be a Bachelor Until I Die.’”
“Well, it’ll be your own fault.”
He nodded. “‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.’”
Charlie don’t sound quite like himself. The elder’s overworked brow furrowed with concern. And he’s got a kind of glassy look in his eye. “Don’t let that high-tone white woman bother you overly much, Charlie. You know what they say—‘There’s lots of other fish in the ocean.’”
Moon shook his head with an uncharacteristic vehemence that alarmed his aunt. “There’s other fish in the bucket.”
“Okay, have it your way.” The concerned relative reached out to touch his hand. “Them other fish are all in a bucket.”
Gotcha! “But ‘My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It.’”
Barely suppressing a shudder, Doctor Daisy made her grim diagnosis: Charlie’s losing his mind. But I shouldn’t be all that surprised—most of the men on his daddy’s side of the family was a little peculiar. She tried to recall an appropriate herbal preparation for treating his mental malady. I could make him some yarrow tea. No, that’s for a toothache. What I need is some peony or valerian roots. I wonder if I’ve got any left over from last year’s batch.
Moon was trying to think of a way to work ‘I’m a Long Gone Daddy’ into the conversation, when his concentration was interrupted by a squeeze from Sarah’s hand.
She was smiling at him. Reassuringly. Poor Charlie—you’ve still got me.
Assuming Sarah had caught on to his game, he returned the smile.
Assuming her nephew was about to mutter another absurdity, Daisy thought she might distract him by changing the subject. “Something’s been bothering me ever since I buried that Utah deputy here in Spirit Canyon.”
Moon had anticipated that his aunt would raise this issue. “You’ve been wondering: ‘If the deputy’s under the sod, who drove his Bronco into the Piedra? Was it some person who came to the reservation with Packard, then hightailed it when things went sour? Or was the reckless driver a third party, whose identity and motive remain a mystery?’”
Grateful for this apparent return to normality, she waited to see how long it would last. Well, do you know and are you gonna tell me?
He did and did. “The driver of the ill-fated Bronco was Yadkin Dixon.”
“That matukach good-for-nothing who walked off with my ax!”
Moon nodded. “Seems Mr. Dixon stumbled onto the spot where Deputy Packard had stashed his car, hot-wired it and took off like a bat outta—” He remembered the little girl who was holding his hand. “Uh—outta a barn loft.” The tribal investigator went on to describe how the enthusiastic felon was driving too fast in the rainstorm, missed the bridge, ended up in the river, barely managed to get out before Packard’s Bronco washed downstream. “When some kindly motorists stopped to help, Dixon thought it was not in his best interests to admit he was a car thief.” He shook his head, grinned. “So he told ’em he’d almost drowned himself trying to save the driver.”
Daisy grudgingly admitted that as thinking-quick-on-the-spot lies went, this one was up there in the top 10 percent.
Her nephew agreed. “And Mr. Dixon might’ve gotten away with it, but yesterday he borrowed a fancy red Jaguar from a tourist who’d stopped in Pagosa to buy herself a T-shirt. The lady saw h
im drive away, called 911 on her cell phone, and SUPD was notified by the state police dispatcher. Just as Dixon hung a left at Capote Lake, Officer Danny Bignight pulled him over. When Danny recognized the hero of the Piedra Bridge incident, he got suspicious and started asking some hard questions. After our SUPD cop leaned on him for a while, the truth came out.” Moon raised a hand to forestall the venting of his aunt’s pent-up I Told You So. “Dixon told Officer Bignight that he wasn’t responsible for his actions—all his life, he’s suffered from an overpowering compulsion to test-drive other people’s automobiles. You can read the details in next week’s Drum.”
Daisy had puffed up like a tree frog about to chirp. “I told you that rascal would steal anything that wasn’t nailed down.”
“Yes, you did.” Moon gave his aunt a gentle pat on the back, which she thought was well deserved.
Having resolved the who-was-the-Bronco-driver puzzle, Daisy turned to Sarah with another query: “So why didn’t you tell me that white man gave you his pink butterfly?”
Sarah put her hand over Ben Silver’s canvas neck wallet, which made a slight bulge under her blue cotton blouse. “He made me promise not to tell anybody about it while he was alive.” His exact words had been until my corpse is six feet under the sod.
Daisy detected a sizable flaw in this argument. “He was dead before you got here.”
The girl nodded. “But by then, lots of people thought I’d killed him. If you’d found out I had his stone butterfly…” Her words trailed off into the twilight.
Daisy understood. I’d have been sure you murdered that matukach. “So what’re you gonna do now?” Before the girl had a chance to respond, the tribal elder gave her the Look. “I don’t think you should go back to Utah and live with your Papago cousin and her boyfriend.”
Sarah tossed a shy glance at the tall man, squeezed his hand. “Maybe Charlie would like for me and Mr. Zig-Zag stay at the Columbine.”
Moon was about to extend the invitation when he looked down at the hopeful fourteen-year-old—and realized he was staring Serious Trouble straight in the eye. I’m a Long Gone Daddy.
The phrase is admittedly overused, but—“There was a taut silence.” Extremely taut. Indeed, if a mischievous musician had reached out and plucked it, the resultant TWANG! might have fractured the brittle atmosphere into shards.
Daisy Perika found herself on that proverbial spot. She knew that the best cure for what ailed her nephew was not tea brewed from the tincture of peony or valerian roots, but a brand-new sweetheart—and here was Sarah Frank, applying for the job! But she’s young enough to be Charlie’s daughter. On the other hand—The girl is half-Ute. Which reminded the Ute elder: But her other half is Papago. Daisy shook her head and snapped: “Charlie’s ranch is no place for a young lady—it’s full of half-wit, cow-pie kickers.” In a gentler tone, she added: “You’ll be better off here with me.” Noting that Sarah was still giving her nephew the cow-eyes, the crafty old woman added a spicy enticement. “There’s lots of important things I could teach you—like how to use nutmeg and dill weed to kill fleas and centipedes.” The silly girl’s not listening to a single word I’m saying. The sly old woman tried another approach. “And on days when I get all lonesome and blue, it’d be nice to have somebody to talk to.” I might as well be talking to a tree. At a pleading look from her nephew, the tribal elder ground her remaining teeth, mumbled: “I’ve been having some troubles with my hip joints. If I was to fall down and couldn’t get up, you could phone for help.” This final humiliation almost did Daisy in.
Confronted with duty, Sarah effected a girlish little shrug. “Okay. I’ll stay with you for a while.” Until Charlie realizes that he needs me.
Charlie Moon released the breath he had been holding. Thank you, Aunt Daisy. He looked to the heavens. And thanks be to God.
Also by James D. Doss
The Shaman Sings
The Shaman Laughs
The Shaman’s Bones
The Shaman’s Game
The Night Visitor
Grandmother Spider
White Shell Woman
Dead Soul
The Witch’s Tongue
Shadow Man
Acknowledgments
I wish to offer my thanks to
Silve Ralph Dahlstron, M.D.,
Silver City, New Mexico,
and
Geri Keams and James Bernardin,
author and illustrator, respectively, of
Grandmother Spider Brings the Sun,
ISBN 0-87358-694-8
Rising Moon Books for Young Readers from
Northland Publishing, Flagstaff, Arizona.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
STONE BUTTERFLY. Copyright © 2006 by James D. Doss. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Doss, James D.
Stone butterfly / James D. Doss.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-0-312-34054-4
1. Moon, Charlie (Fictitious character: Doss)—Fiction. 2. Police—Colorado—Fiction. 3. Ute Indians—Fiction. 4. Colorado—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3554.O75S76 2006
813'.54—dc22
2006043406
Stone Butterfly Page 34