Snake Dreams Read online

  Even way out here in the wide-open spaces, there is no shortage of critics.

  The performer accepted it all in good humor. Mr. Moon was feeling good.

  You want to know why?

  We will tell you.

  This final frigid blast of winter, which drifts down from the Never Summer Mountains every year about this time, is potent stuff for a fellow who enjoys invigorating weather—especially on top of a breakfast of three fried eggs, a slab of Virginia ham thick as a boot sole, a heap of crispy home-fried potatoes and a quart of steaming black coffee fortified with a generous helping of Tule Creek honey. The potent combination is sufficient to persuade a pessimist that good times are just around the corner and convince a man like Charlie Moon that he is alive on one of those golden days when life is fine and dandy and that he can accomplish anything. Anything.

  Such as persuade Lila Mae McTeague (aka Sweet Thing) to accept a diamond engagement ring.

  And why not? Here on the high plains stretched between two snow-capped mountain ranges, where a rolling river rollicks and chuckles its uproarious way to the western sea, anything is possible.

  Almost anything.

  One hates to be heard saying a discouraging word at Moon’s home on the range, but despite a hardworking fellow’s best efforts, his plans will occasionally go awry. Putting it another way, the Ute has plenty of the right stuff but sometimes his best effort is not quite up to snuff.

  The full-time rancher and part-time tribal investigator knows how to handle hardcase cowboys, high-spirited horses, cranky internal-combustion engines, leaky plumbing, and—when absolutely necessary—deadly weapons. Sadly, Moon’s expertise does not extend to an understanding of the daughters of Eve.

  Case in point—the diamond engagement ring. It is not brand new. On the other hand, the ornament has never encircled a lady’s finger and so cannot be categorized as used merchandise.

  It happened like this. Quite some time ago, and at considerable expense for a man of his means, Charlie Moon purchased the ornament for another charming lady. It is a melancholy story that he would just as soon forget. He particularly prefers to disremember the stunning finale, where (after refusing the ring) the potential fiancée roared away in a shiny Mercedes-Benz—spraying dust and grit in his face.

  Why bring up such a disagreeable event? Surely, Charlie Moon does well to forget the bitter disappointment and move on. But, unless we are badly mistaken, the residue of that unhappy romance will come back to haunt him.

  And we are not.

  Three

  Charlie Moon’s Aunt

  For as many hard winters as she can remember, Daisy Perika has lived in the eastern wilderness of the Southern Ute reservation where long, brown mesa fingers stretch out from the San Juan Mountains to grasp at the arid prairie. Her home, situated near the mouth of Spirit Canyon, is miles from her nearest neighbors—an arrangement best for all concerned. Unlike so many little old ladies whom we hear about, Daisy is not burdened by a sweet disposition. As we shall shortly see, neither is patience to be counted among the tribal elder’s virtues, which list (so her detractors say) could be inscribed upon the nail of Daisy’s little toe. With space left over for the Preamble to the Constitution and St. Paul’s Epistle to Philemon. This is an uncharitable and wholly unwarranted exaggeration. There might be room for either the Preamble or the Epistle, but certainly not both.

  Regarding Those Mechanical

  Contraptions That Aggravate Us

  Daisy Perika had things to do. As she stood watching the school bus that Sarah Frank had just boarded, the tribal elder fidgeted and fumed. Her steely gaze was not directed at the driver, who was vainly attempting to restart the engine. She knew her thick-skinned third cousin to be unresponsive to helpful advice, angry threats, and scorpion stings. The shaman used her left thumb to draw an invisible spiral in the air, spat twice in the yellow dust, and muttered a guttural instruction to the recalcitrant motor vehicle: “Start up!”

  The flooded engine coughed. Sputtered. Coughed again.

  Daisy rolled her eyes at a pale turquoise sky. I might as well be talking to a brick. But this caster of spells knew another trick. Switching to the Ute tongue, she whispered a thirteen-word incantation that almost never failed, the gist of which was that a subject that did not respond to her subsequent order would immediately be infested with lice, cockroaches, and various other vermin. She followed this awful threat with: Now start running and get a move on, you rusty old bucket of bolts!

  Instantaneously, cylinders sparked to life, gears meshed, clutch connected engine to transmission, and big rubber tires began to rotate. Thus empowered, the small yellow bus jerked and jolted away to transport Sarah Frank to Ignacio for the final day of school before summer vacation commenced.

  Gratified by this victory, Daisy returned a cheerful wave to the Ute-Papago girl who shared her home.

  The Shaman’s Secret Mission

  The moment the boxy vehicle was out of sight, Daisy slung a hemp bag over her shoulder, got her sturdy oak walking stick firmly in hand, and set her leathery face toward the mouth of Cañón del Espíritu. It was a short, easy walk past Cougar Tail Ridge and she made good time for one of her years. About a hundred yards into the canyon, she paused to gaze at her lofty objective on the cliff wall, which loomed almost two hundred feet above the canyon floor—just short of the crest of Three Sisters Mesa. As she made her way slowly up the steep path, taking care not to stumble and tumble down the crumbling talus slope, her ascent came at a painful price. She gasped for every breath.

  Just as Daisy thought she could not go another step, she arrived at the end of the trail, where a brownish red sandstone shelf jutted from the sandstone wall to hang over the abyss. Leaning on her walking stick and wheezing like an overworked mule, she surveyed the floor of Cañón del Espíritu, where tall ponderosas and spruces looked small enough to slip into her apron pocket. The tribal elder had not made this climb for the view. Daisy expected to find the object of her tiring trek concealed in a small cavern, which was behind her. She was not yet ready to peer into that darkness. Indeed, she would have preferred to be at home, in her comfortable parlor. But last night, when a sliver of silver moon sailed through the starry sky, the shaman had heard his raspy voice.

  Not with her ears.

  She had perceived the urgent summons as she slept. But do not tell Daisy that this was merely a dream. Oh, no—the little man was definitely calling her. And there was nothing the least bit vague about the message; she was instructed to bring specific items to him, and right away—his need was urgent! Moreover (and this was peculiar), the dwarf had informed the shaman that he was not in the long-abandoned badger hole that served as his residence on the canyon floor. He was high on the side of Three Sisters Mesa, in the tiny cave she had often visited as a girl.

  Before setting out, Daisy had given the matter careful thought. The pitukupf, who rarely left his underground home, was a slippery little fellow. The sensible decision would be to ignore the summons. But, as is so often the case in such matters, there was an “on the other hand.” By some mysterious means, her eccentric little neighbor seemed to know about everything that went on in the vicinity, and on occasion he would exchange useful information for bits of food and inexpensive trinkets. Also, Daisy was curious. I wonder what that little wart’s up to now.

  Father Raes Delfino, former pastor of St. Ignatius Catholic Church, had sternly warned Daisy Perika to stay away from the pitukupf. But the wise old Jesuit was no longer present to advise this perpetually backsliding member of his flock.

  I might as well get this over with. Daisy set her jaw and turned to peer at the opening in the cliff wall.

  Mimicking a gouged-out eye socket, the dark portal stared blindly back at her.

  Nothing stirred in the inner blackness.

  Daisy cocked her ear to listen.

  A fat black cricket ratcheted a clickety-clatchet.

  A sage-scented breeze whispered over the mesa.

>   From a branch on a lightning-killed ponderosa, a jovial raven croaked a crowish joke.

  In no mood for fowl humor, the footsore woman called out, “Well, here I am—are you in there?”

  He was.

  Now, if Daisy had brought along a companion, would that person have seen the dwarf? The unambiguous answer is: It depends.

  Charlie Moon certainly would not have; he did not believe in the Little Folk.

  Sarah Frank probably would not; the Ute-Papago girl had not quite made up her mind on the matter.

  Daisy’s cousin Gorman Sweetwater, who was a traditional Ute? Quite possibly.

  The aged shaman saw him quite clearly, and what met Daisy’s eyes almost unhinged her jaw. Unconsciously, she took a step backward, then another, until her left heel was at the very edge of the precipitous shelf. One more step and—Thankfully, she did not take it. But what exactly did she see?

  The little man—usually well dressed for one of his ilk—was naked except for a tattered rawhide robe clutched around his emaciated frame. The pitukupf reeled this way and that on knobby, wobbly little legs. His yellowish eyes were crisscrossed with bloodshot vessels that throbbed with each beat of his heart. Moreover, spittle dribbled from his lower lip.

  Daisy Perika got a grip on herself and the walking stick. The ugly little booger is sick. This called for a diagnosis. I bet he ate some spoiled jackrabbit. Or was he drugged to the gills? Maybe he’s been smoking some jimson weed. Dr. Daisy assumed her best bedside manner. “You’d have to get lots better just to look like death warmed over.”

  In a version of the Ute tongue so archaic that the tribal elder strained to understand, the smallish person explained the reason for his pitiful appearance.

  Oh, my! Daisy swallowed hard, croaked, “You’re dying?”

  The decrepit little fellow (who understood English perfectly well) nodded.

  I thought I’d be gone long before he would. After taking a moment to absorb this grim news, she managed to speak. “Is there anything I can bring for you—like some medicine?”

  The pitukupf shook his shaggy head, thanked the Ute elder for coming to visit. Her presence would make his final hours easier to bear. And he wanted his neighbor to know that despite her occasional harsh words—such as that instance just a few weeks ago when she’d said he was a nasty lying old trickster who’d cheat his own mother out of her last copper penny just for the fun of it—he had forgiven all. Daisy had always been his best pal, and now as he was about to draw his last breath, she was his only friend. As if by an afterthought, the prospective corpse inquired whether she had brought along those modest necessities he had requested.

  Removing the hemp bag from her shoulder, Daisy placed the offering before him. Seeing a faint glow of joy brighten his gloomy countenance, the old woman felt her eyes well up with tears.

  A sad little story. Very near to being poignant.

  And one that is not finished.

  Daisy watched the dwarf lick his bluish lips as he found a chunk of walnut fudge in the bag. The famished creature stuffed the whole thing into his mouth, and while still chewing he helped himself to a handful of vanilla wafers, a matched pair of peppermint sticks shaped like miniature shepherds’ staffs, and a string of purple glass beads. Each of these gifts seemed to bring with it a small measure of healing. Indeed, as on those occasions when an unexpected beam of sunshine flashes though a momentary gap in the thunderclouds, there seemed reason to hope that the pitukupf might not be quite ready to find a bucket to kick, buy the proverbial farm, or—to put it more plainly—cash in his chips.

  Daisy was astonished at the remarkable effect of such modest gifts on the diminutive invalid, who appeared to be regaining his health with every heartbeat. The pitukupf’s benefactor watched with fascination as his pallid funeral-parlor pallor was replaced by a leathery glistening such as one might observe on a healthy iguana’s skin, and the dwarf’s rheumy eyes were regaining a measure of their glinty sparkle. These were merely the preliminaries, and we shall skip the in-between phenomena—which included such displays as blowing disgusting spit bubbles, flexing barely discernible arm muscles, and grinning like a halfwit who’s just heard an off-color joke—and get right to the good part, where the elfin clown popped two cookies into his mouth, hung a peppermint stick over each hairy-tufted ear, and began to yip-yip like a frisky juvenile coyote.

  A most remarkable recovery.

  Indeed, he had already gone about a yip too far. But even now, had he proceeded with just a smidgen of caution, the pitukupf might have gotten away with it. It was not to be. When your happy prankster savors that first heady taste of triumph, he tends to lose all sense of proportion and prudence. So what did he do for an encore?

  You will not believe it.

  The impudent little imp put his knuckles on his hips and performed an energetic jitterbug that was much like a Mexican hat dance, but without the impressive headgear. Oh, and how he did leap and prance! To his credit, the lively little acrobat stopped short of backward somersaults and triple cartwheels, which self-control a more charitable soul than Daisy might have attributed to innate admirable character traits such as discretion and modesty.

  What was the icing on the cake?

  While displaying the lively footwork, the brash fellow laughed. Loudly. And right in the Ute elder’s ashen face. Why did he press his luck? Hard to say. Perhaps because a virile, clever creature such as himself had insufficient respect for a feeble old woman who was so easily made to look the fool. Also, the pint-size Fred Astaire was staying just beyond arm’s reach.

  Daisy’s arms might be stubby, but he had not taken her sturdy walking stick into account. That multipurpose tool was a good two yards long.

  As one of Charlie Moon’s rustic ranch hands might’ve described what happened next: That sassy little feller never seed it comin’.

  The oak staff caught him about belly-button high. The unexpected blow loosened the molars from his jawbone and the cookies from his hand, sent the peppermint sticks aflying, and laid the startled offender flat on his back. While the stricken dwarf was gasping to get his wind back, he felt the Ute woman’s foot resting heavily on his chest. When he saw her dark face looking down at him, there was no mirth in Daisy’s grin; rather, the keen foretaste of retribution.

  Seeing as how they were best friends, and also as a professional courtesy, the shaman explained precisely what she was going to do to her diminutive counterpart, and how much she was going to enjoy it. The lurid details of what she said to the hapless practical joker shall not be repeated here. Even the mildest of her threats (about how she would reach down the small person’s throat all the way to the other orifice, jerk out his en-trails, and strangle him with them) is somewhat beyond the bounds of good taste.

  Suffice it to say that her words had a marvelous effect on the pitukupf, who began (as well as one can with his lungs almost deflated) to apologize. The general tone of this expression of contrition was that he was mightily sorry if he had (however unintentionally) offended the kind old lady, but that she would surely understand why one such as himself could not be held accountable for having a sense of humor, which was deeply ingrained in his dwarfish nature, which he had inherited from his daddy’s side of the family.

  It was Daisy’s turn to laugh in someone’s face, and she did not allow the opportunity to pass. But, admiring his effort, she graciously offered to yank out only the lower half of his en-trails. That long, ropy section was all she would need to choke him to death.

  The potential victim gulped, made a desperate counter-offer. In exchange for mercy, he would tell the heavy-footed woman something important that she needed to know.

  Daisy’s derisive “Hah!” rattled him somewhat, but the cunning little customer knew he had her hooked when this hearty expletive was followed by: “What does a nasty varmint like you know that I’d care to hear about?”

  It had to do with an unexpected visitor who would have important business to discuss with the Ute elder
.

  Daisy’s derisive grin melted away to make room for a suspicious frown. This sounds like another trick. But two factors worked in his favor. First, she did not actually relish the thought of yanking out his lower digestive tract and wrapping it around his scrawny rooster neck. Second, curiosity once again got the better of her. “Who’s coming to see me?”

  He suggested that it would not be reasonable to expect him to reveal what he knew before she removed her foot.

  The tribal elder’s response was too vulgar to reproduce. Truly excessive. And to add weight to the harsh reply, she leaned heavily on the offending foot.

  Thus pressed, the little man was obliged to cough up his secret.

  After considering the involuntary testimony, Daisy’s frown deepened. We wasn’t friends when Chiquita Yazzi lived in Ignacio—why would she want to come see me? He could make up a lot better lie than that. But that very fact imbued the dwarf’s report with an aura of truth. She removed the foot to give him a cheerful kick in the ribs—and followed the comradely gesture with this warning: “Don’t you ever mess with me again!” Before departing for hearth and home, the victor ground the vanilla wafers under her heel and stomped the peppermint sticks to red-and-white flinders.

  Cruel acts? Not from her perspective.

  At an early age, Miss Daisy had been forcibly enrolled in that famous School of Hard Knocks, whose flinty-faced graduates live by such proverbs as “don’t leave a job half done” and “he had it coming.”

  In fairness, it shall be noted that she left one gift intact—possibly because her victim had fallen on the necklace of purple beads and she did not notice it. But we shall give Daisy the benefit of whatever doubt there might be, and interpret her oversight as a deliberate act of charity.

  Four

  Evening

  In this tumultuous, unpredictable world, it is a comfort to know that some things can be depended upon. Daisy Perika’s satisfaction at day’s end could be attributed to a tribal bureaucracy that provided reliable transport for young scholars, an exquisitely tuned solar system, and a well-provided pantry.