by Sandi Ault
“Sat phones are a little more reliable, but they don’t always work here either, especially in winter when a snowstorm blows in.”
He opened the door, and turned. “Have a nice night and get some rest.”
“Am I supposed to check in periodically or anything?”
“I’ll contact you for now. If you get anything of importance, get to someplace where the device I gave you works and dial zero.”
“Okay. So I guess I’ll see you when I see you, then. And I’ll use Buzz if I need you before that.”
“Buzz?”
“It makes a buzzing sound. I have to carry two phones now. I can tell which one is ringing by the sound it makes.”
“I never heard of anyone naming a phone before. Except something like ‘John’s cell’ for the purposes of backing it up to a computer.”
“I name all sorts of stuff. You can actually increase your recall by doing that.”
“Good to know.” He walked through the open door. “Good night.”
I pushed the door shut and locked it the best I could, given the state of it after the events of the wee hours of that day. I turned and looked at Mountain, who hadn’t even bothered to get up from where he was sprawled on his lambie in front of the fire. “That guy isn’t so bad once you get past him breaking in all the time.”
15: Under Covers
The intelligence report on Adoria Abasolo contained a vast amount of data: she kept at least $10,000 in the bank, had donated her Nobel Prize money to several charities, had type O blood, and size 5 feet. She had graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stephens Women’s College in Columbia, Missouri, in 1976, gone on to receive an MFA from Sarah Lawrence just three years later, and received her PhD in creative writing at the University of Illinois at Chicago just three years after that. Her publishing career began in journals and periodicals while she was still an undergraduate, but Abasolo’s first book of poetry was released the year she completed her doctoral studies. Her second book of poems won a Pulitzer Prize. After this, she retired to northern New Mexico to devote herself to her writing, and the report stated that there were few photos of her and no interviews.
After skimming through financial data, utility bills, and more, I set the intel report aside. “Talk to me, Adoria,” I said, as I fluffed up the pillow behind my back and then opened one of the volumes of her poetry.
In Search of Pablo (a Tribute to Neruda)
I long for your lips, your smile.
Alone and aching,
I wander over the hills.
I want no other nourishment
Beyond your kiss, your warmth,
Your musk.
I search for the shadow
Of your footprints
Or the hint of your feet dancing
In the pool of ivory light that streams
Between the branches of the trees.
I want to feast on the radiance
That erupts from within you.
I want to swallow the angle of your brow
And devour your eyes, too,
Your jaw,
Your muscled shoulders,
Your lean legs.
I travel these mountains
Starving for your scent,
Your strength,
Smelling around for you,
And your maleness
Like a wild cat
In the black night.
I swallowed hard. “Wow,” I said to no one but Mountain, fanning my face with my hand. I looked on through the books of Abasolo’s work. With passionate eloquence, she skillfully crafted words to create multi-dimensional pictures of migrant workers harvesting grain in Texas, the hope people feel for a young couple at their wedding, sunlight coming through a stained glass window, a child watching her parents fight. I was becoming a huge fan.
But I was also getting sleepy. I started to stack up the books on my nightstand, and something on the cover of Videl Quintana’s Traveling Between Worlds caught my eye. It was a picture of a large black cat, perhaps a puma, silhouetted against a white light streaming between tall trees. I studied the artwork for a few moments, and then I opened the book and began to read. After I’d flown through three riveting chapters, I stopped and checked the time. Midnight. I closed the book and looked at the cover once more, then turned off the light.
I woke in the morning with my clothes drenched in sweat and an insatiable ache between my legs. I had been dreaming of Kerry again.
16: Talk to the Bones
There was an expression around Taos: Scratch someone in nice clothes and you’ll find a hippie underneath. This was never more true than in the case of Riley Franklin. In a previous incarnation, a mere two or three years ago, he’d gone by the name of Bone Man and lived in a commune off the grid on the west mesa, on the other side of the Rio Grande Gorge. Filthy and unkempt, he hitchhiked and panhandled, brazenly opened and sampled foods from the shelves of the local market without paying for them, traded crude taxidermy for psychedelic drugs, and—until they shut the place down—sold animal skulls, bones, and faces to tourists on the highway between Taos and Española. Among the locals, he had earned a reputation as something of a psychic. Recently, however, in a true Renaissance, Bone Man improbably became Riley Franklin, and his signature chicken bone totem necklace was either gone or hidden under his spiffy après-ski sweater. The greasy dreadlocks had disappeared, and his now-fashionably-highlighted hair cascaded almost to his chin on one side in contrast to the short, neatly clipped locks on the other—this asymmetrical design no doubt the brainchild of a high-priced stylist in Santa Fe. Wearing expensive sheepskin boots, with his soft pants bloused over the tops of them, a thin shimmering gold chain at his neck and one diamond earring, the metamorphic gonzo waited on customers in Joseph Jacquez’s gallery.
Jacquez was a Tanoah sculptor who had briefly lived in the same commune as Riley before he left to apprentice at a foundry near Corrales. His bronze renderings of romanticized Puebloan figures brought him renown when he won the best in show at the Heard Museum and the Santa Fe Indian Market. Prices for his work soared, and he soon became inundated with orders. He opened the showroom on Harwood Street near the plaza in Taos and hired his old friend Riley to curate it while he focused solely on his art.
I studied the new persona Bone Man had created, but I still remembered the old one— especially the stench of his clothes and body, which made it easy for him to pilfer goods at the markets, because no one wanted to confront him for fear they would have to spend time in his vicinity.
Riley spoke to a couple about Jacquez’s maquette of a bison bull charging. “You can see the energy in the animal’s muscled thighs. And look at the detail of the dust rising around his hooves, and the hair of his mane.”
I perused the artwork—most of it studies of Indians captured in the deeds of a life that was now extinct—but I kept one eye on Riley. At one point, he looked away from the customers and saw me, and the change in his expression made me think of a stage when the curtain drops. He returned to his pitch and rotated the bronze on its swivel base so his potential buyers could view it from all sides.
Within minutes, the couple left and Riley sauntered across the gallery to me. “Jamaica!” He held out his arms as if hugging was something we did.
I pulled back. “Well, look at you.”
“I know, right? I’m like a phoenix rising from the ashes of my former self.”
“I heard about your conversion to a socialized grown-up, but I had to see it to believe it.”
He spun slowly around, like the bronze on the swivel base. “Do you like my new look? Joseph insisted on a makeover when he gave me the job.”
“I don’t know, Bone Man. You don’t smell as bad, but you don’t seem quite yourself. Not even a cleaned-up version of yourself.”
“Jamaica,” he cocked his head to one side and almost whispered. “No one calls me Bone Man now. I’m Riley. That’s my real name, Riley Franklin. Remember when you used to give me
a few bucks now and then so I could pay to shower at the north side gym? Well, now I have a membership there! I work out three times a week. You should feel my biceps,” he raised his arm and flexed the muscle, but I didn’t take him up on the offer.
“That’s great. You do look like you’re in better health.”
“So!” He scrubbed his palms back and forth on each other. “Enough about me; how have you been, Jamaica? You look as thin as a supermodel. What kind of a diet are you doing?”
“Riley, I don’t even know who you are when you say things like that. But more importantly, I don’t have time to chit-chat. I came here to ask you a few questions.”
He frowned. “Fine.”
“A few years back, you told me that you were a member of the American Indian church, and that you went to meetings at Tanoah pueblo. I want to ask about that.”
“Why? It’s legal, it’s a church, a private religious thing. There is nothing wrong with it.”
“I know. How often do the members meet? And where?”
“There’s no schedule.”
“Well, how do you know when there’s a meeting so you can plan to attend?”
“It’s all word of mouth. Someone tells someone, and they tell someone else, and the word gets around. If you see a guy who comes now and then, you let him know about the next meeting.”
“Well if, for example, they were going to meet next Sunday, how would you know?”
“It probably wouldn’t be on a Sunday. Usually, it’s on a Saturday. Except once. Once it was the night of a feast day in the middle of the week.”
“Okay, if they were going to meet next Saturday…”
“Someone might tell me.”
“But how, exactly?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Let’s just say I’m curious.”
“I don’t want to get anybody in trouble. Besides, I don’t go anymore. You have to be in the right place at the right time to hear about the meetings, and I’m in here six days a week. I don’t know when the next one is. So I can’t tell you anything.”
“I’m not looking to bust anybody. This isn’t about the use of peyote. I’m looking for someone.”
“One of the tribal elders?”
“No, why did you ask?”
“They’re the ones who administer the sacrament. And there’s the peyote chief who oversees most of it. He’s the only one who can dispense the jimson weed.”
“Do women come to the church and take the peyote?”
“A couple of old grandmothers in the tribe.”
“Any outsiders?”
“Like me, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“There used to be a dozen or so of us. Now there might be half that many, if that.”
“I’m looking for a woman. She would have been an outsider.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think there’s ever been a woman outsider at the meetings. Not when I went. Last fall they were talking about banning non-Indians. They are one of the few fireplaces that allowed non-Indians, but I don’t know if they still do.”
“What do you mean by fireplaces?”
“It’s like we say church, only they say fireplace for a peyote group.”
“Okay, thanks.” I started to go, then turned back. “Do you still do that thing with the chicken bones?”
He put a hand to his chest. “I still have the medicine, but the circles I travel in now… there’s not a lot of use for it.”
“The woman I’m looking for is not from Taos. The last time anyone heard from her, she was going to Tanoah Pueblo for a ceremony. At her age, she would be considered an elder.”
Bone Man grimaced. “Only for you, and only because you were always good to me.” He looked in one direction and then the other, making sure we were alone, then reached a hand under the wool top and pulled out the necklace. Dozens of chicken bones were laced together side by side, small and white. He began to strum his fingers up and down the bones from one side to another like he was playing a marimba, tapping here and there, jumping from bone to bone with his fingertips. After a minute or so, he began rolling his head atop his neck and he breathed loudly in and out of his nose. Abruptly, as if someone had snapped their fingers to bring him out of his trance, he stopped moving, drew up straight, blinked his eyes, and once again hid the string of bones back beneath his garment. “Do you still have that wolf?”
“Yep. He’s in the back of my Jeep right now, waiting on me. Do you still have your dog—wasn’t his name Bob Marley?”
“No. Marley’s still among us, but he fell in love with a girl I met and followed her when she left for Vegas. It was the right thing to do, to let them have each other.”
I nodded my head. “Okay, well, I’m going to head out now. It was nice talking with you.” I knew that if Bone Man had seen a vision, he would tell me about it as soon as he could assimilate it into speech. Right now, I doubted he was even aware that he’d gone into one of his trances, and it might take him a while to get himself grounded again.
Riley Franklin walked with me to the door, and a di-ding sound rang from the bell when I opened it. He stood in the doorway after I’d walked through. “It was really good to see you, Jamaica.”
“Take care,” I said. I crossed the street to my Jeep, opened the driver’s side door and started to get in.
I heard footsteps coming fast behind me and I turned and saw Bone Man just before his feet slid on a patch of ice and he slammed into my car, still upright.
“You okay?”
“Oh, yeah. The bones…I just got something.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure what this means, but for some reason, she really wanted to be able to go to another time. I’m kinda out of practice. That’s all I got.”
“Thanks, Bone Man.”
“No problem.” He moved back as I got in the car and then—still standing in the middle of the narrow street—smiled and waved as I drove away.
17: Mad About a Dog
I was headed out to Tanoah Pueblo when the Screech Owl sounded. “Jamaica?” Something in Roy’s voice sent up a red flag. “I know you’re working for Santa Fe right now, but I thought I ought to warn you.”
“What’s up, Boss?”
“Lor Talgren was just in here about that dog of his, and he was looking for you. He was so worked up, I had to call the town police, but he left before they got here.”
“Oh, no.” I pulled over on the side of the road.
“He talked like he was out for blood. I filed a complaint with the cops. But you need to watch your back.”
“Great. Well, hopefully Talgren will simmer down before I get back.”
“I don’t think so. The man was a ball of fury. If you ask me, he’s as rabid right now as that dog of his was. I was afraid this might happen; they couldn’t save it, euthanized it yesterday. Lor threatened to make you pay, and I don’t think he was talking about the vet’s tab.”
“I wish he would have vaccinated his animals. This could have all been prevented.”
“I don’t like having to call you like this, but the guy is a nut case. He was in here yelling about how he’d find you, that he knew your Jeep. Said he was going to take it out on your wolf and make him suffer like his dog did, and make you watch. It was downright grisly. Way he was acting, I didn’t hesitate to call 911.”
“What did the police do?”
“What they did was take their sweet time getting here. Talgren was already gone.”
“Well, are they going to do anything now?”
“I suppose if they see him in town they might arrest him on the complaint I filed. But Talgren doesn’t live in town. And seeing as you’re up on the High Road; Lor’s place is closer to where you’re at now, so it’s more likely he’d run into you up there.”
I wasn’t “up there” at the moment but I decided it was better not to mention where I was, given that I’d be back in the High Road area soon enough.
�
�I want you to take extra precautions.”
“Okay, I will, Boss, thanks.”
“Why don’t you give me a call before you head home tonight.”
“I don’t think you need to worry…”
“It might have sounded like I was asking, Jamaica, but I wasn’t. You’re loaned to the Santa Fe district at the moment, but you still work for me.”
“All right, I’ll call you. It might be late.”
“Just do it.” He hung up.
Lor Talgren owned what had formerly been a winery in a wide, winding canyon that led from the Rio Grande valley up into the mountains and connected to the High Road. The winery had gone under, the property had been foreclosed on, and Talgren probably bought it for pennies on the dollar at auction. It was in need of a lot of work when he did, and it had only gone downhill since then. The rows of grapevines were strangled with brush and weeds, the fences in need of mending, the metal-roof on the vat room was now held down by an unsightly collection of used tires, its corners alternately curled and sagged where they had been hammered by wind. The three buildings on the property cried out for upkeep and care.
Talgren’s acreage abutted BLM land on two sides, and when I was range riding that area in December, I saw three dogs running after what I thought was a wounded raven. When I got closer, I discovered that it was a bat. Before I could intervene, the lead dog—a pit bull—had the mammal under his muzzle, but then he yelped and jumped away. The bat spread its wings wide, then drew them around its body and keeled over dead. The other two dogs sniffed around, but I got off my horse, yelling and waving my arms, and all three dogs began to growl aggressively. The one that had likely been bitten by the bat lunged at me as the other two barked and snapped—ready to join in. Before they got to me, I drew my handgun and fired it into the air. The dogs ran off. Wearing gloves, I bagged the bat to take to the wildlife center for a biopsy, but I was certain it was rabid. No healthy chiroptera would be so active in daylight.
Before I left that day, I went down to Lor’s winery to talk to him. He was all but violent with me then, when I mentioned that one of his dogs had surely been bitten. I told him that if it had, it would need to be quarantined. Talgren threatened me then, waving his arms and yelling for me to get off his property.