The Bone Man

by Vicki Stiefel

  When I got to the four-way in Thoreau, I decided to check one more thing. I drove to the St. Bonaventure Indian Mission and School. Inside, I found a nun. I realized it had been years since I’d seen a real nun.

  “Sister.” I almost curtsied, even though I’d never been Catholic. “I’m looking for a place to spend the night. Someone suggested Grants, but it’s pretty far out of my way.”

  She folded her hands. “What’s a pretty girl like you driving around New Mexico alone for?”

  I grinned. “Sightseeing.”

  Her eyes narrowed. They were gray and soft, with gray brows above them. I felt instantly guilty. I’d just lied to a nun!

  She smiled. “Well, I guess it depends on the lodging you’re looking for. We have a film crew tenting just a few miles east of here.”

  I held up my hands. “No tents, Sister!”

  She chuckled. “Not for me, either. Most folks do go to Grants, but you look like a Navajo Pine Lodge girl to me.”

  “I bet I am,” I said.

  “It’s lovely. Off the beaten track. Very pleasant.”

  “Perfect.”

  She led me to the front door and pointed. “Right about thirteen miles from here down Route 612. Very close, really.”

  “Thank you.” I turned to leave.

  “You’re not in trouble, are you, miss?”

  I turned back to the sister. “I might be. Believe me, Sister, I have done nothing wrong.”

  She tapped her finger to her lips. “Do be careful.”

  “Yes. Um, I do have a question.” I asked her about Delphine—if she knew her as an art dealer. If she’d seen her.

  “No. I’d remember a beautiful Frenchwoman.” She moved closer and placed her hand on my arm. She was so short, she had to look up at me. “There would be more people in Grants who might know your friend. We’re a poor area with not much to offer.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” I kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”

  I called ahead, and the Lodge’s owner, Tom McGuire, said that he had a room for me, but no one might be around, and so I should make myself at home. He even gave me a room—Number Three. He’d leave it unlocked.

  It sounded like heaven. It was after two P.M. when I pulled into the Navajo Pine Lodge. Driving just those few short miles, the topography had become mountainous. Much like Taos, in fact, with lovely vistas and trees and even the sight of a lake.

  The lodge was simple, yet comfy, as if you were stopping at an old friend’s home. I loved it on sight. I dumped what little stuff I had in my room and went exploring. The front room—I called it the living room—had a fireplace and three cozy chairs and a card table all set to go for a hot game of Spite and Malice. The TV was on, but no was seemed to be around.

  “Hello?” I said. Nothing.

  I was tempted to watch some tube, but I kept on down the narrow hall. Midway on my right was a powder room, with all the necessary plumbing. On my left I found a small tidy room with another fireplace, sofa, furry rug, and shelves of books. Perfect.

  There was no one in that room, either, but within a few minutes of looking, I discovered the book I was searching for. I found two, actually.

  In the middle of the oak shelf sat two books on Chaco Canyon. I pulled them out and sat on couch. Bliss. The first book was for kids, which was fine by me, by authors Vivian and Anderson. It looked wonderful, but I put it aside. The second, Chaco, a Cultural Legacy, with its magnificent door on the cover, insisted I read it first. I got a chill when I looked closer at the cover. There, in a photo, was a frog fetish carved in some black stone, maybe jet, and inlaid with turquoise squares across its back. I had its replica at home on my mantel. Frogs were important fetishes in Zuni because of the need for rain. Made perfect sense. I hadn’t realized my frog was a replica of one found in Chaco Canyon.

  I opened the book by Strutin and Huey. The first spectacular spread was of a place called Chetro Ketl. Hard not to be awed by the structures built in such a harsh climate so very long ago. I began to read and learned about great houses and kivas—rooms used by Pueblo Indians for religious rituals—and roads thirty feet wide. The pottery, so abundant, with its geometric and iconic designs, rippled down through time to the Hopi and Acoma and Santa Clara and other modern American Indian tribes.

  Here was a six-toed foot and there sandstone cliffs and timbers as wide as a man. The contemporary photos were spectacular, but it was the old ones from the early discoveries that made my pulse quicken. For just an instant, I felt I was a time traveler and discoverer of magic.

  And then I saw it—my first glimpse of Pueblo Bonito. The giant D-shaped building contained rooms upon rooms upon rooms, some circles, others squares, in some strange order yet to be deciphered. Snugged up against the north wall of Chaco Canyon, Bonito looked like something aliens had built for a king. I tried to picture it in its heyday and for a minute I forgot why I was out there and all the lives that had been lost in the process.

  The book was a fast read, and I raced through words and images knowing I hadn’t much time. And as I read, I felt the pull of Chaco and an odd familiarity, as if I’d walked the roads and bent beneath the T-doors years earlier. Grasses grew throughout Chaco, and in spring I assumed wildflowers blossomed among the rocks, for most of Chaco was rock and masonry and light.

  The Chaco petroglyphs fascinated me, as did all petroglyphs. They were classic spirals and stars, hands and people, animals and symbols of harvest and corn and, most especially, Kokopelli, the wizard and trickster and flute player extraordinaire. At least that’s how we Anglos saw him. I should ask Aric.

  I bit my lip. Where was he? Was he all right?

  My Coyote-bitten hand throbbed with memory. And the future. The oddest thing about Chaco was how I knew it was pulling us all forward to some destination I could feel but not see.

  I read on until my eyes grew heavy. Then I slipped upstairs to Room Three and crashed on the bed.

  I awakened disoriented and woozy. Out the window, the sky had faded to a softer shade of blue. I checked my watch. I’d been asleep for two hours. It didn’t feel like it.

  I showered, lathering my bumps and bruises, while trying to keep my bitten hand dry with the shower cap, a fairly annoying process. I toweled off, rubbed a second towel through my hair. I felt almost human again. Boy, I’d needed that.

  I tugged on my jeans and a baggy white shirt from my limited wardrobe. Didn’t matter. I was clean and not running from someone or something. I flipped open the cell phone. Huh. I sure didn’t have much reception here, but it might be just enough. . . . I called Aric’s cell phone, the number he’d given me days earlier. It went straight to a mechanical voicemail. Now what?

  I looked around the room for a phone book. No luck. I needed to get some numbers in Zuni. I slipped on the Merrells Hank had bought me and trotted downstairs.

  A blond teenaged girl in an apron appeared in the hall.

  I introduced myself.

  She rolled her eyes and blew a pink bubble, reminding me of Gert. A wince of pain. The girl’s cute face pruned up. “Par for the course. Pops is out somewhere.”

  “Tom, the owner, you mean?”

  “Nope. My pop’s Niall, the manager. I’m making dinner. Gotta get back to it.” She pivoted and fled.

  “But . . .”

  She didn’t even look back. Ha! Teenagers, gotta love ’em. So where was the lodge’s phone book? I walked into the living room. My steps slowed. I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing.

  Slowly, carefully, I walked closer. A pot sat on a large shelf beside the fireplace. The pot was a duplicate of the one broken at the Peabody Museum in Salem. It looked just like Didi’s sketch and was sized the same.

  My breath caught in my throat. Was it possible? It couldn’t be a coincidence.

  I was mesmerized as I walked toward the pot. I needed a close-up view. I needed to see inside the pot.

  Halfway across the room, a chorus of voices froze me to the purple shag carpet. I swung ar
ound. A clutch of middle-aged-to-older folks looking amazingly fit entered the lodge, all chattering away. So much for privacy. They streamed past me, cheeks flushed, doffing coats and gloves, and beelining it for the tea and scones provided by the lodge. Enthusiasm grew as one tall balding fellow opened a cabinet and began pulling out bottles of red and white wine, Seagram’s, Old Granddad, and a host of other liquors.

  The noise level escalated. A petite woman turned to me and opened her mouth.

  I smiled and walked backward out of there but fast.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Out back, I caught my breath. I wasn’t comfortable being around all those people. They made me nervous. I didn’t know why. Maybe I just needed some peace and quiet to think, not a bunch of folks out jiving it up in the New Mexico wilderness.

  The late afternoon breeze felt good on my face. I walked down a path soft with pine needles and paused to look over the hill at the lake below. What a view! The lake’s crystalline beauty enthralled me—so still and quiet and deep. No ripples. Smooth and soft.

  Sadly, it provided no answers about who had killed my friends or Aric’s location or any of the things foremost in my mind.

  Reality called. I headed back up the path.

  Really, things were in a pickle.

  I had no clue where Aric was. Didn’t know what Hank was doing. Or who’d shot those bullets into our hotel room. I might have gotten rabies from Coyote. Natalie was dead. If I continued my litany, I might as well just shoot myself. Things were grim, and, worse, I saw no end on the horizon.

  So what the hell was going on?

  I rubbed my hands up and down my arms to stop the chill that crept into my bones.

  Why was that skull so important? At least three lives had already been lost. I couldn’t make sense of it. I walked onward. Minutes later, something just off the path caught my eye.

  I walked over to the path’s edge. Before me lay acres of pine. I hesitated, then left the path. There, beneath a fallen pine bow, something shined white. I crouched down, and with a stick I pushed some of the earth and needles away.

  A shed antler. A small one, from a young deer. Lovely. Nature was incomparable. Beside it sat a rock shaped like a faceted heart in the colors of red and ochre and green. It glittered in the blue-sky day. The rock just fit my hand, and its sharp edges dug into my palm. It was worth taking. Its beauty reminded me of the Southwest. I slid the rock into my jacket pocket and the small antler into the opposite one. Treasures. My favorite kind. I stood, turned, and slammed into a burly oldster smelling of booze and sweat.

  “Pardon me.” I went to sidestep around him.

  He smiled and matched my step.

  I wasn’t amused. “Don’t,” I said. “It’s annoying.”

  He laughed, and his hands slid onto my upper arms. He squeezed, and pulled me toward him.

  I pushed. And instantly knew he was no oldster, but some guy made up to look geriatric. I looked toward the lodge. I’d walked farther than I’d realized. “What’s your problem?”

  “Now?” he said. “None. You’re coming with me.”

  He had that flat, Minnesota-Scandinavian accent, and a vision of Fargo and the wood chipper bounced into my head. “My ass I’m coming with you.”

  “The baby in my pocket says you are.”

  “Screw the baby.”

  He jerked his head back. “Do I look stupid?”

  What a great opening. He still held my upper arms tight enough so that I had little mobility. I could knee him, but I wasn’t close enough. “Sad to say, yes.”

  He threatened to backhand me across the face. “Bitch.”

  I bent my head, tried to reach his hand and bite it. No luck. Dammit.

  He laughed.

  “Screw you,” I said.

  “You’ll get your chance.”

  “In your dreams.” I squirmed to get away, and he laughed harder. He stood there like a chunk of petrified wood until I exhausted myself. That was when I recognized him. He was the fake cop who’d come to pick me up in Zuni. Then he’d been wearing a hat and a uniform and a mustache.

  He began to drag me down the path, away from the lodge. I squirmed some more, but I had trouble finding purchase. I tried to swing my leg around to kick him in the balls. All I did was fall flat on my back. He hauled me back up again and dragged me forward.

  “Don’t fuckin’ do that again,” he said.

  “Or what, you’re going to kill me? Looks like you have that in mind anyway.”

  “You don’t know shit, lady.”

  “I know you’re an asshole.”

  He backhanded me. My neck snapped, and for a moment I was stunned as blood filled my mouth. Bastard. I spit at him. Bull’s-eye, right on his shirt.

  He raised the back of his hand again.

  Painful as it was, I smiled. “Go for it, asshole.”

  His hand squeezed into a fist he raised high in the air.

  I felt myself cringe, forced my body to relax. “Like I said . . .”

  He punched me in the face.

  My ears rang, and dizziness nauseated me. I twirled, stumbled, and became a bouncing boomerang from his hold on my wrist. I spit blood, then more, then began to heave.

  The world slowly stopped spinning and my panting sounded loud in my ears. The guy would kill me or turn me over to people who would. “Why?” I mumbled. Already my face had started to swell.

  He pulled me to my feet, and we walked forward, and that’s when I realized he’d released his death grip on my upper arms. My head pounded with each step, and my vision blurred.

  Yeah, he’d kill me. I slid my free hand into my jacket pocket as we bumbled along the trail. I grabbed the heart-shaped rock. My right hand. Not my best or strongest.

  If I went for it and messed up, I’d be in for a beating. I’d never been punched in the face before. I shook. That fist pounding into my face had been shocking. It was fast and furious and painful.

  I tightened my hand on the rock. Okay. Here goes.

  I faked a stumble, fell to my knees. Pissed him off, as I knew it would, and he began yelling at me. I slid the rock out of my pocket.

  “You stupid bitch.” He leaned down, his splayed fingers with their black, broken nails, reached to pull me up. “We’re gonna fuckin’ use you up.”

  I whammed him in the face with the rock. That feeling sickened me, but I made sure I followed through on the swing.

  “Fuck!” His hand went to his face, and blood gushed between his fingers as he stumbled backward.

  Just as he righted himself, I leapt up, pivoted, and slammed the rock into his temple, which was softer and even more horrible. He staggered. Blood streamed down the right side of his face into his stubbled jaw. He blinked over and over. He growled, a mixture of pain and fury.

  I ran, clutching the rock, not letting go, out of the woods to the path and up the hillside. I slipped on pine needles, stumbled onto my knees. I stretched out my arms to catch myself, but I couldn’t. I landed on soft earth and hard rock.

  Pain shot into my knees and elbows, and my eyes watered. Fuzzy vision, woozy. Shit.

  I pushed myself up just as I heard him, close, behind me, there, breathing, panting. Closer.

  I lurched to my feet, and something brushed my long curly hair. I bolted, stumbled, caught a branch to steady myself, and ran on.

  “Fuck!” came from behind. “Arrhhhh.” A crash, rolling.

  I looked back, and he’d fallen, was rolling, and I almost went to help him. I shook my head. No way.

  I ran uphill toward the lodge. “Help! Help!”

  “What!” came the voice up ahead.

  “I’m being attacked!”

  “Coming!”

  On the crest. There. A middle-aged man and several oldsters, branches in raised hands. I laughed, and just then . . .

  My feet flew out from under me, the rock bounced away, and my head snapped back from the tug on my hair.

  A hairy fist shot toward me, but stopped midair with the b
oom of a gunshot.

  I tumbled backward—still attached to my pursuer, who rolled over and over down the hill.

  I reached for roots, branches, anything to hold on to that would stop us. Nothing worked.

  “Let go!” I shrieked.

  Faster and faster, and dirt and needles billowed around me. I had to stop us. I flailed my arms, dug in my feet, except nothing worked. In my ears, screams and hollers and shrieks.

  I forced my legs apart, and on my belly, pretended I could run uphill. I pedaled my legs, digging my feet into the slippery, pine-needled soil as I swam the breast stroke, all trying to stop our roll, but it wasn’t helping, not at all, but . . .

  Yes! I grabbed the hard thing, tucked my arms around a huge surface root. Cuddled. Again my neck snapped. Couldn’t let go, couldn’t, couldn’t. The pressure on my scalp. I was being pulled and pulled and . . . Holdonholdonholdon.

  A sob burst from my mouth. I was so scared. “Damn you!” I screamed over and over and over.

  Pebbles streaming around me, then feet, then a sudden glorious easing of the pressure. I flattened to the earth, let it cradle my cheek. Struggled for a breath without tears.

  “Am I free?” I finally said.

  “Yes,” someone said. An arm wrapped around my waist and lifted me to my feet.

  I leaned against the middle-aged man, just one of my clutch of rescuers.

  “Welcome to Navajo Pine Lodge,” he said. “I’m Niall, the manager.”

  I chuckled. “Thanks. So much.” Atop the hill, Niall’s daughter gave me the thumbs-up, and I gave it back. As I relaxed, I sensed a recession of adrenaline, replaced by the sting of scrapes that went from the top of my head down to my ankles.

  Soft murmurings that I couldn’t hear as Niall helped me up the hill toward the lodge. I looked behind me, and my legs grew rubbery when I saw the precipice that would have launched me into space just a few yards away.

  “Ohmigod.”

  “You can say that again,” said an oldster.

  “I definitely need a good shot of bourbon,” I said.

  “Coming right up.”

  We stumbled onward, Niall half-dragging me up the hill.

  “Will you be able to get him back to the lodge?” I asked.