Accessories to Die For

by Paula Paul

  “No,” she said. “Here on the edge of the pueblo is good.”

  He didn’t question her odd request or comment on her obvious attempt to stay out of sight. His last words as she got out of the car were “Be careful. Keep your eyes open.”

  Juanita could acknowledge to herself that her plan to look for Danny was poorly conceived. Johnny Holland had not offered to help, but he was always stoned and wouldn’t have been much help anyway. At least he had warned her that someone was out to kill her son. She only knew that she had to start looking for him somewhere, and her belief that he was on the pueblo land was unrelenting. She knew how he liked to go alone to the high mesa where he could sit among the sacred sites of the ancestors and play his flute. He had told her once that was how he would purify his spirit and rid it of the need for drugs and unravel his entanglement with outside forces. She remembered how his eyes had glistened with unshed tears as he told her those things. She remembered, too, how he had gone to confession at the Santo Domingo church in the center of the pueblo, and then he had disappeared one more time with his flute. This time he didn’t return. That had been late July. Now it was nearly time for the annual August 4 Green Corn Dance on the church plaza, and he still had not returned, but at least she knew he was still alive.

  Juanita had always been one of the women who participated in the Green Corn Dance, moving her bare feet in time to the drum on the hard-packed dusty plaza—bare feet because it was a woman’s privilege to come in direct contact with Earth Mother, a giver of life just as the women were. The men would dance in moccasins and masks in order to lose their identity and become the rain and thunder gods they invoked in thanks for the corn harvest. Danny had been allowed to dance last year. The combination of native beliefs and Christian religion was a long tradition in Kewa, as it was in all Native American pueblos, in spite of early attempts by the Catholic Church to annihilate the old religion. Juanita, like many others, was a devout believer in both.

  Walking behind the flat-roofed and mostly single-story houses of her pueblo, Juanita could smell the smoke from a piñon fire. Women were baking bread in the outdoor ovens called hornos. She felt a gnawing in her stomach at the thought of the fat, hot loaves that would be pulled from the rounded mud brick ovens and served for dinner. She hadn’t eaten since long before she left the Santa Fe jail, but she pushed away thoughts of the hot bread and the venison stew her aunt Angelina often served with it. She had to keep her mind on her task—finding Danny.

  Her plan was to skirt the village, walking west toward the Rio Grande to a shallow crossing that would take her to the mesa that Danny loved. It would not be difficult to find a crossing this time of year. The river was no longer consistently the full and robust stream that had inspired its name of Big (or Grand) River centuries ago. Dams and irrigation had diminished it to a far smaller waterway much of the year. Now that it was early August, its banks had long ceased to overflow with the spring runoff from the mountains, and the summer rains had barely had time to come into their full force.

  She had just passed the shadow of the last building on the northern edge of the pueblo when she saw a figure appear from between the buildings to her left. The figure, a man, was walking toward her, and she soon saw that it was Tony Tonorio. She stopped, knowing he had seen her. She waited. Perhaps he would urge her to go back to Santa Fe and turn herself in to the jail authorities.

  When he stopped, directly in front of her, he didn’t speak, but nodded a greeting. She returned the silent greeting with a nod of her own.

  His dark face was partially hidden under the brim of his hat, and he held a bottle of water from Costco in his hand and something draped over his arm. “Don’t go into the pueblo,” he said finally.

  “Of course not.” She knew that if she did go inside, too many people would be compromised. Under the law, they would be obligated to turn her in, but only a few would be willing to do that. The rest would risk the legal consequences.

  “The mesas,” he said, with a nod toward the flat-topped hills to the west.

  “You sure?”

  Tony shook his head and took a drink from the water bottle. “Not sure of anything, but that’s where he always liked to go.”

  She nodded.

  “You have water? Supplies?”

  “There was no time,” she said. “I had to leave Santa Fe.”

  “They’ll be after you, and they’ll come here first.”

  She didn’t reply but stared at him, frightened and ashamed. The last thing she wanted was to harm the Kewa people.

  “Go.” He gestured toward the mesas again. “No one has seen you yet except me, and I must leave the pueblo soon.” He handed her the water bottle and took the cloth from over his arm and handed it to her as well. It was a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. “If I can, I’ll bring more food and water later.”

  She whispered a thank-you and turned away from him, walking toward the mesas, stopping only long enough to change out of her jail uniform into the clothes Tony had given her. She wadded the jail uniform into a small bundle and took it with her, afraid someone would find it if she discarded it and would know where she was. She had to trust that she would find Danny soon. She had to trust that she could survive the search. She knew what plants she could eat, but they were sparse in the high desert. The Rio Grande had always been the lifeblood of her people, and, once Tony’s bottle of water was gone, she would have to depend on it for water to drink, even though it was muddy and contaminated by livestock upstream. She had been taught by her grandmother how to snare a rabbit and start a fire to cook it on a spit, the way her people had done for centuries, but she’d never done it on her own. She had to hope that Tony would find her in time bring her supplies.

  I must leave the pueblo soon, he had said. No one would be suspicious when he did. He often left, not just for his work in Santa Fe, but for meditation or to find medicinal plants, and since the Green Corn Dance on the feast of Santo Domingo was approaching, he would need time alone to prepare himself.

  She began her walk away from the riverside pueblo toward the mesas and cliffs. She wasn’t completely certain where she should go. It had never seemed right to follow Danny or ask him to tell her precisely where he went with his flute. It was something he needed to do alone. She understood that he had to have time to communicate with Earth Mother and Father Sky.

  The early August sun was almost directly overhead now and pressed against her head and shoulders. Spirits of the ancestors danced in front of her in the form of heat waves as she moved toward the distant mesa. She had convinced herself that the particular hill in front of her, flat as a tabletop, was where she should go. There was a shrine there, an outcropping of rocks and boulders that had been designated as holy by the Kewa people long ago—as far back as the beginning of time, perhaps. No one seemed to remember why it was considered sacred, but that was of no consequence. According to collective and ancient knowledge, it was sacred, and that was enough.

  Features in the high desert landscape, such as the looming mesa in front of her, always appeared nearer than they actually were. She stopped for a moment and pushed away strands of dark hair that stuck to her face, both hair and face damp with sweat. Tired and hot, Juanita looked around for a cooler place to relax and finally sat down in the meager shade of a scrubby juniper. She opened the bottle and took a small sip, knowing she would need to conserve the water.

  She longed for sleep, or at least a long rest, but that was a luxury she refused to allow herself. She had to find her son. Pushing on toward the mesa, she reached the upward slopes sooner than she’d anticipated. As she trudged up the side, she thought of the last time she’d been here. It was long ago. Too long ago. She’d not yet reached puberty when her father and uncle had allowed her to tag along on a rabbit hunt. They’d stopped at the top of the mesa and showed her the shrine. It didn’t look like the shrines she’d read about and seen pictures of in catechism classes at the church on the plaza of the pueblo. Yet she could sense that
, although there was no statue or bubbling fountain, this place was hallowed ground. Standing on the mesa top, several feet higher than the ground below, it was possible to feel that she was communicating with the ancestor spirits who visited as clouds and rain.

  There had been only a little shower today. She realized that as she eased herself down next to the shrine to rest and saw the sand slightly dampened but already beginning to dry and become powdery. She took another drink of the precious water. Leaning against the stunted and contorted trunk of a piñon tree, she closed her eyes and took in the scent of the earth. She wanted desperately to drink all that was left in the water bottle, but she had to content herself with the small taste she’d just had. Juanita allowed herself a moment to close her eyes.

  She might have slept. She wasn’t sure. She only knew that something made her open her eyes suddenly and rise to her feet. She stood, looking at the rocky natural monument for a few seconds before she walked toward it.

  She had walked several yards beyond the spot where she had rested when she saw the powdery dirt at her feet looked as if it had been chopped with something, and dry grass bent all the way down to touch the face of the earth. A little beyond that, several broken twigs lay beneath one of the stunted trees, and one small branch clung to the tree by only a rough stretch of bark.

  Something had happened here. A struggle, most likely. Danny scuffling with someone? Or could it have been the Frenchman? Squatting, she looked closely at the ground, searching for blood. If it had ever been there, it had dried and blown away on grains of dirt or been washed away by a spot shower. As if to confirm her suspicion, she heard thunder in the distance over the Jemez Mountains.

  She searched the ground again, looking for footprints, but there were none. Just ahead, however, she spotted tire tracks and did her best to follow them, but they disappeared in the scant grass and shrubs of the landscape.

  When she spotted the tracks again, she thought they appeared to be heading to the south, the area where her home, Kewa Pueblo, joined Cochiti Pueblo. She kept walking even after she’d lost sight of any tracks at all. She kept walking even after she heard the sound of a car motor behind her.

  The sound frightened her at first, but eventually she stopped and turned around to see the old Dodge Durango approaching her. She knew immediately that it was Tony.

  She waited for him, watching him bounce along over the rough terrain until he stopped only a few feet from her and spoke.

  “You’re headed toward the lake.”

  She nodded, although she’d had no clear idea at all that was where she was going. He meant Cochiti Lake. The lake and dam on the Rio Grande had been an Army Corps of Engineers project, hotly opposed by the Cochiti Pueblo because it inundated their agricultural land and some of their sacred sites. As usual, the army had won. Now it was filled with boaters, water-skiers, and fishermen.

  “Get in the car,” he said. “I have some bread for you. Not much, but it will help.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “The men were there a few days ago. At the lake, I mean,” Tony said. “Heard it from old Messina.”

  “That man from Cochiti with those funny-looking goats?”

  Tony nodded. “They call ’em Jamnapari goats. I went by Cochiti to see him after I left you. Just to ask him if he’d seen anything unusual. He knows about Danny. Remember, he’s the one who told me about the Frenchman looking for things stolen from us.”

  “I remember.” She also remembered that Tony knew about Danny and the drugs and that Danny had been seen with the sacred necklace. He would not remind her of that, however. Neither would he mention that the Frenchman was dead or that she was the chief suspect.

  “Messina said he saw the Frenchman’s friends at the lake.”

  “And Danny…?”

  Tony shook his head.

  Juanita felt her throat tighten with fear and grief, but she pushed the feeling away. She couldn’t give up hope.

  “Get in the car,” Tony said.

  Juanita got in and watched as Tony shifted the vehicle into four-wheel drive. They bumped across the landscape until they reached the main road leading to the dam and lake. She wanted to ask him if he thought they would find Danny there and if he still felt her son was alive. She didn’t ask, though, afraid of what his answer might be.

  Just as they reached the road to the lake and recreation area, they both heard the gunshot somewhere in the distance.

  Chapter 6

  Irene felt the sharp impact at the top of her forehead and in the next moment warm blood was trickling down, sticking to her eyelashes, blurring her vision, leaving a salty taste on her lips.

  “Irene!”

  Who had called her name? Who was seated next to her? She was too stunned by the force of whatever had happened to her to remember. She knew there had been the sound of a gunshot. Now she was bleeding. Had she been shot in the head? Was this what it was like to be dead? Confused and sticky with blood?

  The voice again. “Irene? My God, are you all right?”

  She turned toward the voice. “P.J.?” Of course it was P.J. She remembered now. They were in his pickup, the one he called Miss Scarlet. They’d been looking for Juanita.

  He reached a hand toward her, then pulled it back. “I’ve got to get you to a doctor.”

  “I don’t think I’ve been shot. I think it’s probably just shattered glass that—”

  “You have a shard of glass sticking out of the middle of your forehead.” P.J. gunned the motor and took a sharp turn, creating a cloud of dust as he headed his pickup back toward Santa Fe.

  Irene brought her hand up to her forehead and felt something sharp slicing her finger. Blood dripped from the cut and mingled with polka dots on the Alexander McQueen dress she’d garnered from her consignment stock. It had been brought in by one of Santa Fe’s wealthiest doyennes with the Neiman Marcus tags still attached.

  “If I could just get my finger around that piece, I could pull it out, and—”

  “Leave it alone!” P.J. snapped. “I’m taking you to a doctor.”

  Irene pulled a tissue from a box sitting on the dash and wrapped it around her cut finger to try to stop the blood gushing from the tiny slit. Her head was aching now, and she tried to lean it against the back of the seat. It did no good. Her head bounced and rolled from side to side as P.J. pushed Miss Scarlet at top speed across the rough, roadless terrain. The bouncing made her head wound bleed more, bringing a fresh stream down to drip off the end of her nose.

  “It’s going to be late by the time we get out of a clinic.” Irene closed her eyes against the pain in her head. “Juanita could be far away by then.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” P.J. spoke without taking his eyes off the road. It had grown dark, and the headlights made shadows dance along the ditches at the side of the path.

  Irene closed her eyes against the signs of movement. The ache in her head was giving way to a numb dizziness. She opened her eyes again when the sound of a car horn startled her.

  “Angel,” P.J. said and slowed enough to allow the Mustang to catch them.

  “We heard a gunshot!” Angel shouted through an open window of his car as he drove beside them.

  “Irene’s hurt,” P.J. called back. “I’m taking her to the emergency room.”

  Irene could hear Adelle’s terrified voice. “Irene? Oh, my God! Is it bad? What am I going to do?”

  It was almost an hour later before they reached the emergency room at St. Vincent’s hospital in Santa Fe. Irene’s head throbbed with more intensity, and the puncture wound ached as P.J. led her inside. She was taken to a curtained-off room immediately. P.J. accompanied her into the room, and behind her he could hear Angel trying to soothe Adelle.

  She also heard Adelle’s hysterical voice. “I’m her mother! I have to be with her! Get your hands off me. Let me go!”

  A nurse’s voice interrupted. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we can’t allow you to go with her in the state you’re in.”
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br />   Irene couldn’t make out Adelle’s response as she was wheeled away, but she could tell that Adelle was still shouting at the top of her voice.

  “Your poor mother,” P.J. said as he walked beside her wheelchair.

  “I think she’s afraid that if I don’t make it she’ll be left alone with no one to care for her.”

  “Cynical,” P.J. said. “Even when you’re bleeding.”

  By the time the shard of glass was plucked from Irene’s forehead, the wound stitched and bandaged, along with assurances that she had no life-threatening injuries as long as she avoided infection, it was past midnight. P.J. entered the room she’d been assigned on a temporary basis and told her he’d made a police report about the gunshot while her head was being sewed together.

  Irene spoke to him in an urgent whisper. “You didn’t tell them we were looking for Juanita, did you?”

  “I managed to avoid that. I told the sergeant who took the report we went for a romantic moonlight drive. I think he thought it was a little odd that your mother came along in another car.”

  “So he’s suspicious.”

  “Probably. He knows we were near the Kewa Pueblo, where Juanita lives, and he knows Juanita escaped.

  “But you didn’t tell him she—”

  “No, I didn’t tell him she came to your store. I didn’t tell him anything. You won’t, either, I assume. They’ll be in touch with you for questioning tomorrow. I managed to convince them that you need a little time to recover.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’m all right, really, but I appreciate your thoughtfulness.”

  “You look cute in that bandage wrapped all the way around your head with a little spot of blood showing through, like a ninja.”

  Irene responded by closing her eyes and shaking her head.

  “I’m glad you’re all right,” he added.

  “I am,” she assured him, “but we still haven’t found Juanita.”

  “Maybe we should just let it go,” P.J. said. “If she doesn’t want to be found—”