The closet was empty.
Chapter 20
Return to Home
WHEN NOT ONE BUT two men leave you in the same week, it’s time to get out of town. You buy a ticket on a night flight to Santa Fe; toss hiking boots, jeans, and a fleece in a duffel; and send an e-mail to all your students canceling classes. You arrange for Sadie to visit a lonely, complaining Bella. You call Nico and book a space on his couch. Finally, you endure your angry sister’s crazy driving to the airport in Minneapolis.
“This is nuts,” said Heart, cutting off a semi and ignoring the blare of the horn. “You shouldn’t go to the scene of the crime. Someone could be waiting for you there.”
And someone was.
TUM LIVED IN THE mountains outside Taos at the end of a network of narrow gravel roads so winding and steep they made the four-wheel drive whine. I parked halfway up Tum’s mountain and hiked the rest of the way on the path through the woods. A slow march, up and up, memories of Tum playing a dirge in my head. For a while, a young deer kept me company, a procession, like New Orleans mourners without the jazz. The closer I came to the top, the slower my step. I did not want to say good-bye.
As I rounded the bend of pine trees, I saw them. A murder of crows perched on the rim of the circular kiva. I was not expecting to meet the grief of nature here. I had heard of mourning elephants in Africa traveling for days to reach the home of their one-time human protector. They remembered and came to say farewell. Did crows do the same thing? Had these birds been here all this time? It was May; Tum died in February. Or maybe they came in waves. I had an image: word of Tum’s demise passing from one winged messenger to another across the land, of birds making the trip according to their own rhythm but making it nonetheless.
The scent of pine hovered like a cloud. The mountain welcomed me, and I experienced the first sense of peace in several days. The stone of the kiva was golden in the morning light, the curved walls casting ever-changing shadows on the stone bench that ran the circumference of the round room. If I climbed down the rough log ladder and stood in the center of the chamber, which was open to the sky and resembled a stone basement without a house, my head would just barely come to the top ledge of the kiva where the birds sat quietly watching me.
“They won’t let you near that hole,” said a voice. I spun and saw Jorn limping out of a nearby stand of trees with a pack strapped to his back, scuffed hiking boots kicking up dust, one shoelace untied. He hadn’t shaved in a while, and there were bags under his eyes. He swiped a frayed ball cap from his head and brushed his brow with his sleeve.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Probably the same thing you are,” he said drawing closer.
“I doubt it,” I said. He was here investigating a murder, chasing a story; I was here to say so long to a friend. And now he had bulldozed right into the middle of everything. I liked it better when he was missing. And so did the birds. The appearance of Jorn sent them into a tizzy, cawing and screaming and chortling. They fluttered and lifted into the air but never strayed far from the kiva.
Remembering Jorn’s empty closet and how the sight of those dangling hangers felt like a punch to the gut, I said, “I thought you’d gone. You took all your clothes.”
“I don’t have many clothes—wait, how do you know?”
“The door was open,” I said, refusing to feel guilty. We were supposed to be partners in this investigation, after all.
“You browbeat Randy into letting you in.”
I dropped my hands to my hips and lifted my chin. “I do not browbeat.”
“You threw me out of class.”
“One class. I kicked you out of one class,” I said. “That didn’t mean leave town.”
“I like to check out stories in person.”
“This isn’t a story.”
“We’re running down facts. That’s what I do. I’m good at it.”
“Then why do you look like you spent the night fighting this mountain?”
“Because I did.”
“What?”
Jorn refused to meet my eyes. He mumbled, “I got lost.”
To keep from smiling, I turned back toward the kiva. “By the way, Randy’s going to kill your cactus.”
“It’s unkillable. I’ve tried.”
The crows watched us. As Jorn stepped up beside me, they started squawking again, sending out alarms to the woods. There must have been about thirty, and more were joining them. The closer we got, the more anxious they became.
“Be ready to run if they go Hitchcock on us,” Jorn advised.
Several flexed their wings and jabbed their heads in our direction. Then a breeze swept between us and the birds, like a calming hand. Fear left the mountaintop. The birds quieted, and my heart settled.
“This is Tum’s kiva,” I said softly. “It is a sacred place of meditation and communion with Spirit.”
“Tum’s spirit?” Jorn asked, lowering his voice as well.
“Could be,” I said. “But mostly THE Spirit.”
“Ah, the Big Kahuna.” Jorn nodded.
God, Spirit, the Big Kahuna. To those who required proof of life, these were difficult concepts to accept. I wondered, had Jorn ever prayed, even when he was facing death in Afghanistan? I somehow doubted it. Jorn did not believe in miracles.
“Tum built it. Here is where he prayed,” I said. “Here he became One.”
Jorn wasn’t touching that.
I decided not to enter the kiva and disturb the birds any further. I bowed my head to them and began backing away. Jorn followed my direction, and we turned to the remains of Tum’s house. I couldn’t look at it yet. So I walked to the edge of Tum’s world and looked out.
May in New Mexico was comfortable, a time before the heat ravaged the land and the people, making us feel as if we were caught, baked and bleached, in a Georgia O’Keeffe painting. I was raised on the other side of this mountain, not far from D.H. Lawrence’s ranch, where O’Keeffe once lounged back on a bench like a schoolgirl and stared up into the canopy of a large pine tree, her mind filling with shapes and ideas.
From Tum’s doorstep the woods rippled down the mountain, a living blanket of bristles over the Sangre de Cristo range. I realized I missed these high desert altitudes, the dry air, the endless sky. Even when it was hot enough to curl your edges, you could breathe here—unlike a sticky ninety-five-degree summer day in Minnesota.
Another breeze lifted up from the valley below, reminding me there was much still to be done. Long good-byes were not Tum’s thing. I turned and faced the burned-out structure. The home of James Tumblethorne. The roof was gone, and the fire-eaten walls stood tired and lonely. The air still smelled like smoke. I walked closer and stepped carefully through the scorched door frame. The breath was sucked from me, as if I were standing in the heat of a furnace, only it was the heat of violence. Suffering. Anger. Death. The energies were painful. I had never felt such residual energies so strongly. I grabbed the door frame to steady myself and felt a hand on my arm, Jorn’s. When I glanced back at him, he appeared soft and fuzzy. There were tears in my eyes. He said nothing, just stepped closer, his support a shadow behind me.
We were standing in ashes, standing in the whispers of Tum’s life, maybe even Tum himself. I took a shaky breath, and in my head, I heard him, “Kid, even when you think I’m gone, I won’t be gone.”
Somehow Jorn sensed I needed to talk about Tum. “Tell me about him,” he said.
I thought for a moment. “He baked bread. He said yeast taught patience. He devoured mysteries as if they were doughnuts, gritty stuff, hard-boiled Dashiell Hammett stories he got at the used bookstore in Taos. He didn’t understand art. I would take him to museums, and he would shake his head, saying over and over, ‘I don’t get it.’
“He was drawn to my mother’s calm, as m
any people are. She insisted on calling him James. He thought my father was crazy. Tum hated computers and don’t get him started on Facebook and Twitter.”
“Didn’t trust social media, huh?” Jorn said, looking around.
“A guy living alone on a mountaintop isn’t into ‘social.’ He always said he’d made enough friends in his lifetime.” I drew swirls—like cinnamon spiraling through a loaf of Tum’s bread—in the dust on what was left of the kitchen island. “He liked to do Sudokus while he baked. He built this place with his own hands.”
“Handy and logical,” Jorn said. “Not exactly mystic material.”
“He never stopped dressing like a Hell’s Angel. Black tees, worn leather vest, heavy boots. He said since he only had black socks and shirts, he never had to worry about matching anything.”
“Good idea. Maybe I should try that.”
“He enjoyed looking big and scary.”
“Was he scary?”
“I never thought so, and after he answered the shamanic call, many people seemed to lose their fear of him. They came to him for healing.”
“Like a medicine man.”
I smiled at the thought. “There wasn’t a drop of native blood in Tum. He said anyone could be called. Some say shamans are ‘wounded healers.’ They survive, are changed, and, thus, are able to help others change.”
We walked through the house, stirring up more gray dust. In the bedroom, Jorn pointed to the charred bed. “The arson investigator I talked to said this was the origin of the fire. A secondary fire was set in the living room near the body.”
I glanced at him in surprise. I wasn’t ready to think of Tum as a body.
He went on, “The investigator can’t explain why the whole place didn’t burn down. He said temperatures must have reached more than eleven hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The smoke was reported by a volunteer in a fire tower across the way. By the time firefighters got here, it was just smoldering, no danger of leaping to the surrounding forests. That’s the thing—it should have. It was unusually dry up here in February. The whole area was still suffering from last summer’s drought. Any spark was dangerous. But this fire put itself out.”
We returned to the living room and kitchen. Via the open roof, a large black bird swept into the house, circled the room, and lit on a pile of debris near the remains of Tum’s sofa. The bird began pecking at the debris, and soon it was tugging at something shiny buried in the pile. I edged closer and caught a glimpse of silver. I crouched down and gently pulled the object free.
“I know you found it first,” I reassured the bird. It was a silver cuff with a turquoise stone in the center. My heart stopped for a moment as I recognized the one piece of jewelry Tum always wore. I dusted it off. I recognized the work, the craftsmanship. Etched in the silver band was a bird, a spiral, a turtle, and a tree. The bird, transcendence, to show man can rise above his circumstances. The spiral, the sun, to remind man he is part of everything. The turtle to bring man good health. The tree to give man everlasting life.
Jorn stepped closer. “It looks perfect,” he said, astonished.
“The melting point of silver is just over seventeen hundred degrees,” I told him. “Most metals and jewelry can survive the flames of a common house fire.”
“How do you know that?”
I gave him a tiny grin and flicked at my earrings—several delicate strands of silver braided into intricate knots. “I have my sources.”
I placed the bracelet on the floor and stood up.
“What are you doing?” Jorn asked, puzzled.
The bird pecked at it, looked at me, and cawed loudly. I expected it to snatch the silver bracelet up in its beak and fly away. Crows love shiny things, and it seemed fitting, somehow, that the bird have this special piece of Tum. Instead, it bobbed its head and lifted into the air, its large wings brushing my arm.
Only then did I pick up the bracelet and slide it on. The metal felt warm against my skin. I followed the bird outside. It stroked over the cliff and high into the cloudless sky.
Was that where Spirit lived? Was that where Tum was?
MARCHING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN, my spirits were lighter. In jazz funerals, this is a time of joy when you have said farewell to your loved one and “cut the body loose.” It was time to celebrate the life of Tum. As I made my way down the mountain, I felt almost happy, somehow reassured that Tum was in a good place. Jorn would probably say there is no afterlife, no heaven or hell, no place of peace. But I just knew Tum had found it.
As I guided Jorn down the mountain to my rental car, I kept a slow pace. He was favoring his hip, but one glare kept me from offering assistance. He really needed to get back to yoga class, and some reiki wouldn’t hurt either. He was in a terrible mood, having spent the night on the mountain. Apparently, he had fallen in the dark and had to sleep curled under a tree because the crows wouldn’t let him near the kiva. “What the hell is with the birds around here anyway?” he’d grouched. The only thing he’d had to eat or drink was the little water he’d brought and three candy bars.
When we reached my car, I tossed him a bottle of fresh water and a bag of trail mix. He ripped the bag open with his teeth, downed half the water, and sank into the passenger seat with a sigh. I suggested we come back for his car, which he’d left around the bend and down the road when he couldn’t find the drive to Tum’s house.
“Let’s take a spin over to Whispering Spirit,” I said.
He paused, lowering the bag of trail mix. “Where you grew up?”
“Nico said someone had been there asking about Tum. I want to make sure everything is okay.”
“How far?”
“An hour by car. Twenty minutes as the crow flies.”
“Damn crows,” Jorn muttered.
We circled Tum’s mountain on a gravel road, dipping into valleys, twisting in and out of forests, finally taking a right off the road onto a drive that Jorn swore wasn’t there. Whispering Spirit didn’t exactly advertise its location—minimal weed whacking, no mailbox. We nuzzled our way through an overgrown path for about ten minutes, climbing, always climbing, until we burst into a clearing on top of another mountain.
“Christ, what happens if you meet another car on that?” Jorn said, glancing back at the road that was already disappearing, as sentinels of foliage and tree branches snapped back into place. I shrugged. There were occasional pull-offs, if you knew where to find them.
I slowly got out of the car and looked around. In the years since I had left, it hadn’t changed a bit. Worn cabins of various colors and sizes nestled around a large log building—the lodge. All gatherings, from meals to meetings, were held in the lodge. I scanned the area to the left of the lodge. There, two cabins over, was our house—the blue cottage where Evie, Larry, Heart, and I had lived.
Jorn got out to stand beside me. He motioned toward the buildings. “Which was yours?”
“Guess,” I said.
He studied the tiny community with a critical eye. “The blue one.”
I nodded. The little cabin still had a mess of cables and wires sprouting from its roof, a wild electronic hairdo constructed by Larry.
Jorn took in the lodge, the barn, the gardens, the pen for the sheep. “Did you like growing up here?”
I thought for a moment. Home schooling. A revolving door of parents and adults, some disciplinarians, but mostly huggers, both tree and people huggers. Nature was essential to life in Whispering Spirit, a part of our lessons, our work, our play; a part of our very being. I was born here, in that blue mountain cabin. I carried this place inside me, and I always would.
“It was the best,” I told him.
“Maya Bird?” I heard my name, and both Jorn and I turned.
There he was. Just as I remembered him.
Before I knew it, I was running into open arms, being lifted and twirled. I knew those arms.
I knew this game. I was the airplane, and he was the wind.
“Zeke!” I smiled.
By the time Zeke had put me down, Jorn had approached. I introduced the two. Nodding to Jorn, Zeke held out a hand connected to an arm covered in silver dust. Zeke always did glow.
Soon we were surrounded by people, young and old, familiar faces and new ones, all talking at once, all hugging me. Dogs barked around us, while a cat ignored the ruckus from the lodge porch. I tried to answer the questions about Evie’s painting, Larry’s computers, and Heart’s love life, but they were flying from all directions. Finally, people began to drift off, back to their chores, and we were alone with Zeke and his wife, Marianna. With the easy smile I remember so well and a very pregnant Marianna clinging to his arm, Zeke led the way into the lodge.
Jorn held me back a moment. “Who is this guy?”
“When you were growing up, did you have a friend who meant everything to you?”
“Sure, Bernie Nordebruch. He ate my vegetables in the cafeteria, even though he hated them as much as I did.”
“Zeke’s my Bernie.”
“And the girl?”
Marianna was ten—a year younger than I and four years younger than Zeke—when her family moved from France to Whispering Spirit. “Marianna has never known whether to love me or hate me,” I said.
“I like her already.”
As we sat at one of the long tables in the large open room, sounds of clattering dishes and dropped pans filtered in from the kitchen. The kitchen at Whispering Spirit was never quiet; feeding twenty to thirty adults and children was a daylong chore. Mid-afternoon sun streaked through the windows and across the huge flagstone fireplace. Marianna disappeared and returned with a tray: glasses of lemonade and bread. Zeke rose, took the tray from her, and settled her into a chair beside him.
Jorn pounced on a slice of sourdough.
As I nibbled on the bread, I complimented Marianna. “Great bread. Tum’s recipe?”
Down Dog Diary Page 12