The Bone Man

by Vicki Stiefel

  I slipped my hand into my pocket in search of some gum, Altoids, anything to feel a little normal. Instead, my fingers touched something hard and egg shaped. It felt warm. I laughed out loud, slapped my hand across my mouth. But I couldn’t help smiling. The rock I’d brought from Chaco. I’d slipped it in my jeans for a pocket fetish. I rubbed my thumb across its surface. It comforted my heart.

  And a lightning bolt of recognition hit me. Almost literally. I found another alcove down the hall and backed into it.

  My brain had finally put the insignia in its proper place. The lightning on the boots and the one on the National Geographic guy’s shirt. Lightning bolts. And just now, the monster who’d tried to kill me, he had what I’d taken as a Zorro poker chip. I nearly laughed again. Of course it wasn’t that, but it was a chip with a bolt of lightning on it. And, yes! I’d seen another one. Izod-man’s gold tooth. I’d taken the mark on it for a Z, but, again, it was a bolt of lightning.

  I knew just what those lightning bolts meant.

  According to Zuni belief, humans lived in an underworld before they emerged to the surface of the earth. The earth was swampy and humans couldn’t live there. So Sun Father created twins. These brothers were to take care of the humans. The twins created lightning, which could ignite fires that would dry the earth. And so the surface became livable and humans emerged.

  Except many were eaten by ferocious beasts.

  So the twins turned the creatures to stone, all except for their hearts, which continued to beat. The twins then told the stone animals to serve as guardians for humans. They have done this ever since. And so fetishes were born to protect and aid the Zuni.

  Could the pot thieves believe that a fetish would protect their work? I had trouble getting my head around a desire for a particular fetish over and above all else.

  The lightning was some fetish cult formed by these non-Zunis.

  I could sort that out later. I shook myself. Right now, what I believed didn’t matter. What they believed was what counted. I had to get moving.

  I eased out of the cranny and continued on down the hall. The farther I went, the more disturbing the vibe. The place was a hellhole. I wished Hank knew where I was. From its abandoned look, no one ever ventured into the building. No one except people doing very bad things.

  The hall tilted downward and widened a bit. I wondered if that was real or my perception. From a bend down at the end of the corridor, what looked like the shadow of fire flickered on the wall. It stopped me.

  I’d seen that in some dream. Nightmare. I’d swear it. Go beyond that turn, and I would die.

  I sagged against the wall, clammy with sweat and fear. I had dreamed this very scenario. Foolish, foolish. But in my bones, I knew it to be true.

  At that turn, right there, right beyond where I could see, monsters awaited me with arms wide. Their embrace would be slow, but final. I would go insane. I would lose myself. Forever.

  I leaned back. What was wrong with me, seeing these things, believing them?

  I closed my eyes, willing myself out of there. I stroked the stone in my pocket. It calmed me. Penny. She would never, ever leave me in a place like this. Never.

  So how could I leave her?

  I straightened. Whatever that right turn held, I refused to go gently. Knife in my left hand, flashlight in my right, I walked forward, toward the flickering, shadowy light up ahead.

  I took a breath, was about to make that hideous right turn, when I heard a familiar clack-clack.

  I flipped around, and saw a low shadow in the dark hall. I ran uphill toward it, and the clacking grew louder, and in an instant, two paws slammed into my chest.

  I buried my face in Penny’s fur and cried. “Safe. You’re safe.”

  “I found her,” said a woman’s voice.

  I jerked up. “Pozor!” I commanded Penny.

  “She doesn’t need to guard you, you know.”

  I beamed the light up, toward the sound of the soft voice. Five feet up the corridor stood a pretty, young woman. I walked toward her, kept my knife at the ready. Penny hugged my side.

  “Here,” I said to Penny. “Come.”

  As I closed on the young woman, I saw that she was filthy. One side of her face was bruised, and her hair hung in greasy hanks. She looked unwell, feverish or starved or sick at heart.

  “You are?” I said.

  “Um . . .” She rubbed her lips with her finger, back and forth. “I’m . . . I’m not sure. They’ve been drugging me. I’m confused.”

  She began to collapse. I grabbed her waist, but I couldn’t keep her upright. We both ended sitting. She tilted her head back against the wall.

  “Let’s get you out of here,” I said. “All right?”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “Take a few breaths,” I said.

  “Okay. Yes.”

  Hard to tell, but I’d swear the girl was Amélie, Delphine’s daughter. I felt her forehead. She was burning up.

  Her frail hand reached out and buried itself in Penny’s fur. “She saved me.”

  “Her name is Penny.”

  “She . . . she found me.”

  The gloves. Maybe they weren’t Delphine’s but Amélie’s. I pulled them out. “Do you recognize these?”

  She held the gloves as if they were fragile glass. She smiled. “Yes, yes, I do. Mama knit them for me. Long ago.”

  “Come on.” I got to my feet. “We’re leaving.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Yes, you can.” I snugged my arm around her waist. “Help me, now.”

  “Yes,” she said with a whisper.

  I pulled and she pushed, and we somehow got her to her feet. We wobbled, but managed to stay upright.

  I looked up the hall, which now seemed a monumental hill to climb. Yet I could see no other way out of here but back the way I’d come.

  “Okay, Amélie. Here we go, huh?”

  One foot, then the other, then again. We inched slowly up the hall. For such a petite girl, she had to weigh four hundred pounds. One foot, then the other. I prayed our snail-like progress would be enough to get us out of there.

  I looked ahead, flashed the beam once, and saw that we’d almost made it to the upper hall. Once there, no more hills, but flat until the downward stairs took us out of the hellish place.

  “You okay, Amélie?”

  “Okay.”

  A surge of joy.

  Then a flash of light doused hope.

  A burst of pain in my head, then . . .

  I awakened slowly, as if a hangover made breathing hard. I was sitting, but my head was bowed, my feet on the floor. Maybe the Fun House of Horrors had all been a bad dream. Yes. I smiled. I was home. With Hank. Sitting on the . . .

  No, I wasn’t.

  I opened my eyes, but didn’t look up. My hair hung like a curtain, shielding my face.

  I sensed a vast room, well lit, warm. I wiggled my fingers. They were bound in front of me at the wrists. My ankles were bound, too.

  Murmurs, chatter. I couldn’t tell what was being said. Strange.

  “We know you’re awake,” came a voice.

  Rat-a-tat of footsteps moving closer.

  “Bonjour, Tally.”

  I looked up. Blinked a dozen times. The ghost remained.

  She wore a black turtleneck and tight black pants. Her signature black hair was pulled back into a long ponytail and she wore bangs, as always. Silver yei figures dangled from her ears. A wide red belt wrapped her tiny waist, and a slash of red covered her thin lips.

  “Flies will get in your mouth,” Delphine said, “if you don’t shut it.”

  “Delphine,” I said.

  “Oui. In the flesh.” Laughter poured from her lips.

  “Penny!” I blurted out.

  “She’s alive.” She pulled over another straight-backed chair and straddled it.

  Relief made me lightheaded. “Where?”

  “There.” She pointed, and I saw Amélie asleep on a couch with P
enny sprawled across it, her head resting on Amélie’s lap.

  “You are dead,” I said. “You were dead. What’s going on?”

  “I assure you, I am not dead.”

  That was obvious. I took in the room. Comfy. A small kitchen, three couches, two beds with curtains like in a hospital. Several work tables with potsherds resting on them. Tubs of water, giant mortar and pestles. Another table with heat lamps. Naked pots beside some paints. One was half painted with Old Ones’ motifs. A man sat at that table, and he dipped a stick into the paint, then applied some to the pot. Shelves on the wall with whole Anasazi pots and bowls and other pottery items lining them. And on yet another table, a smaller one, the Zuni manuscript from the library alongside a pair of leopard-print eyeglasses and a grouping of modern fetishes. My fetishes.

  “I get it,” I said. “Of course.” I couldn’t stop looking at Delphine.

  “What do you get, Tally?”

  “What you’re doing. It’s so simple. You’re crushing the old Anasazi potsherds, then reconstituting them into clay and making new pots that you’re selling as antique. That’s why the carbon dating is inaccurate. You reconstruct the Old Ones’ pots using spring water, right? Have a potter make new ones. And you’re all set.”

  She nodded.

  “And that’s how you got the skull in the pot. You put it in there before you made the thing.”

  Her aristocratic face flushed. “I did not do that stupidity. Gerard did.” She gestured to the pot painter, who looked up and winked at us. I recognized the handsome guy from National Geographic: Zoe’s boyfriend, Jerry Devlin. “Stupid, Gerard.”

  “It was a joke,” he said. “I know it was stupid.”

  Her Gaelic shrug of “whatever” boggled my mind.

  “Whose skull?” I said. “Whose skull was in the pot?”

  She waved a hand. “The woman who Gerard replaced at the museum. We had to make an opening, you see?”

  “She must look just like you,” I said.

  “Moi?” Delphine said. “Non. Not at all.”

  “You have killed so many people,” I said. “Didi, the governor, his aide, many, many others. I . . . What the hell, Delphine? Weren’t you making enough money at your shop? To kill all those people. How could you? For what?”

  “Shut up, you stupid woman. You really think I made money at my shop in genuine antiquities? What a fool. They don’t matter.” She frowned. “Except for you! Not that we didn’t try, eh?”

  I’d found Death, and she made no sense to me. None.

  She held out her stained and roughened hand. “Give it here, and I won’t kill your dog. See? Easy.”

  “Not so easy,” I said.

  She shot me a dark look and reached down for the knife, the one I’d taken from her henchman.

  Her cell phone rang the Harry Potter theme. She checked it, leaped from the chair, and flipped open the phone. Barking into the phone, she walked over to the man painting the pot. She sat on the bench beside him and finished her conversation. When she flipped the phone closed, she rested a hand on the painter’s shoulder, kissed him, and he left.

  All that time, I’d tried to chew my way out of the nylon straps holding my hands. I’d made zero progress when she turned back to me.

  “Let’s focus, Tally, shall we?” She again sat on the chair facing me, legs widespread, hands on the chair back. A smirk marred the lovely face of the woman I thought I’d known.

  “Trust me,” I said. “I’m focused.”

  “Ah, the woman with quips.”

  “I’ve got to do something, since I have no idea what’s going on. A woman I thought I knew is a pot thief and murderer. From what I saw at your home, you love your daughter, yet she’s been starved and beaten and abused.”

  Delphine rubbed her neck, and for the first time I saw a vulnerability. Something was off, and it had to do with Amélie.

  “Why did you do that, Delphine?” I said. “Why hurt your sweet daughter?”

  She slapped my face so hard my neck snapped backward. Black night and stars blinded me for a moment. When my vision cleared, Delphine was shaking her hand.

  “That hurt,” I said. She’d split my lip, and warm blood trickled down my chin. I tried to wipe it using my shoulder.

  “Here.” She leaned close and dabbed at me with an embroidered handkerchief. “Sorry. I don’t like being out of control. Amélie knows nothing about me. This. Nothing. I had two of the men take care of her, as she was jabbering on way too much, just like always. They got a bit carried away. They’ve paid. Oh, yes.” The anger in her black eyes looked feral. She was mad. Delphine could hide an army of corpses here, and they might never be found.

  “Why, Tally?” she said. “Why could you not let things alone?”

  “Me?” I’d heard that one before. Many times. “You killed my friend Didi and the governor and others. But I also believed you were dead, killed by the same person who’d murdered Didi.”

  Delphine’s sculpted eyebrows shot up. “What would ever make you think that?”

  “Didi’s reconstruction. It was your twin. I was sure you were dead.”

  “That?” She pointed to her left, and there, lying on its side on one of the tables, was Didi’s re-creation from the skull.

  “Yes,” I said. “That.”

  She retrieved the clay head and sat it on her thigh. “I don’t understand.”

  I didn’t, either. I stared at the re-creation. The face looked nothing like Delphine. A stranger in clay stared back at me.

  I shook my head, wished I could rub my eyes. I blinked again and again to clear my vision. But it remained the same. Not Delphine. “I . . . I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “Let’s get on with it,” she said. “I want Amélie out of here before she awakens.”

  So she intended to keep her daughter forever in the dark. I doubted that was possible. “Fine,” I said. “I still don’t know what we’re getting on with.”

  “Simple,” she said. “I really never took you for being stupid. The blood fetish, of course.”

  “Ah. I know something about it, ever since you’ve been looking hot and heavy for it. It has been you, yes?”

  “Of course. It’s all I want.”

  Swell. I was supposed to give her some mythical fetish. “Here’s what I know. Well, not even know, but what I read.”

  Delphine leaned forward, an eager child. “Yes. You must see, my dear, how you’re a part of all this?”

  “All what? My hands are numb.”

  “A shame. Let me say one more time, where is the blood fetish?”

  “In my pocket, of course.”

  Time stopped.

  I am back in the Navajo school library. Kai smiles at me. I read the description of the fetish and how it runs red with the enemies’ blood. The Bone Man had written the book. The Bone Man has carved the fetish.

  Could he possibly be the young man in my vision, who’d loved the crippled girl?

  I am in Chaco. The young warrior and the young woman are saying their farewells. I see the mountain lion fetish, and then later, the fetish again, when I am with Gimp. Only with Gimp, the fetish has changed. It now wears a bundle of obsidian and turquoise and heishi.

  I breathed out, my mouth forming an O.

  “Don’t do that!” Delphine barked.

  I refocused. “Do what?”

  “Whatever. We searched your pockets. There was no fetish.”

  “Of course there is,” I said. “Why do you want it so very much?”

  Her eyes lost focus. “Ah, yes. The blood fetish. I learned about it when I began collecting American Indian art. An old man told me, the old trader.”

  “The one you had killed?”

  “Yes,” she snapped. “He wasn’t so smart. It’s incredibly powerful. It can rule others, bring great wealth and power.”

  I almost blurted that she was being absurd. Given the look of madness in her eyes, it was a good thing I hadn’t. “So you want the power.”

>   “Yes,” she said. “Of course. And the beauty. After all, it’s carved from a huge ruby.”

  A ruby. Swell. I thought I could pull something off with my rock. A ruby, eh? “Ah, of course. If you cut my bindings, I’ll show it to you.”

  Amélie moaned, and Delphine ran over to her. She kneeled in front of her daughter and felt the girl’s forehead with her palm. The gesture challenged my ideas of her as a stone-cold murderer. But that’s just what she was.

  A sudden memory of Niall’s daughter at the inn. A pretty blond girl even younger than Amélie. Delphine had tossed Niall and his daughter aside like refuse. I knew what I had to do.

  “Hey, Delphine,” I said. “Let’s get going here, huh?”

  She looked over her shoulder. “What’s your rush to die?”

  “I like bringing the inevitable closer.”

  She stood, brushed the dust off her black pants, and strode over. “A stupid attitude.” She had a gun in her hand, a small one that she waved at me. She crouched down, lifted the big knife, and cut the plastic binding my wrists.

  They snapped apart, and the blood cascaded into my hands with painful force.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it? Get the fetish, and let’s get done with this.”

  I figured I could get the stone, show it to her, and convince her it was the real blood fetish. After all, she’d never seen it. Either that, or I could bash her on the head with it. Two brilliantly stupid plans, but I was fresh out of ideas.

  I slid my hand into my pocket and . . . Cripes. Not there. I moved my fingers around. Nothing. Nope, not there at all. I tried the other pocket. Same deal.

  I glanced at Delphine, whose thunderous expression reminded me of a death mask I’d once seen in a museum.

  I looked around on the various tables, chairs and . . . There it was, on the table next to us, along with a pack of my gum and fifty cents. I leaned over, but couldn’t reach it.

  With what little feeling had returned to my fingers, I waggled them at the stone. “There it is. That’s it.”

  “Don’t move.” The gun she had pointed at my face never wavered.

  She walked over to the table, looked back at me, and pointed. “This?”