The Witch's Tongue Read online

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IN THE SHAMAN’S DEN

  His poker winnings nestled satisfyingly thick in his wallet, Charlie Moon arrived at his aunt’s trailer home with the first stirring of smoky-gray light in the east. He jackknifed his long, lean frame into a straight-backed wooden chair, eased his knees under Daisy Perika’s kitchen table. The tribal investigator stirred several helpings of sugar into a mug of scalding coffee, noted with approval that the brew was coal black even in the spoon.

  The Ute elder, who had risen well before daylight to have a meal of warmed-over posole and saltine crackers, fussed around the propane stove to prepare a proper breakfast for her nephew.

  The fifty-year-old vacuum tube radio was tuned to KSUT—the tribe’s FM radio station. The paper diaphragm of the permanent-magnet speaker vibrated to reproduce the haunting voice of a long-gone Hank Williams. The unspeakably sad soul wailed a melancholy lament about his lover’s cheatin’ heart.

  Moon looked at the old woman’s back. “Good snow we had last night.”

  “Good for you, maybe. This cold, damp weather makes my bones ache.” Daisy Perika cracked three brown-shelled eggs into a cast-iron skillet where a half-dozen pork sausage links soaked in a blistering bath of popping grease. The cook was startled to discover that the third egg was abnormal. “Uh-oh.”

  Moon raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  “This cackle-berry’s got a double yolk.” She scowled at the thing. “I don’t remember right off if that’s a good sign or a bad one.”

  Her nephew saw the opportunity and seized it by the neck. “It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “It’s good luck if one yolk is bigger than the other one. But if the other one is the biggest, that’s serious bad news.”

  Daisy glared back at the offensive double-eye floating in the skillet. “That doesn’t make no sense at all.”

  He was very pleased with himself. “It’s just my notion of a yolk.”

  The old woman sighed, shook her head. “There was always rumors of insanity on your father’s side of the family.”

  Moon grinned. “If I recall correctly, you are my father’s oldest sister.”

  She did not miss a beat. “It was only the men that was affected.” The tribal elder remembered the significance of cracking a double yolk. This was a double omen. Unexpected company was coming, and trouble was not far behind. Daisy Perika was not surprised. Bad news was always knocking at her door.

  THORN BUSHES reached out hooked talons to rake her naked arms, tear at her cotton skirt. Terrified that her heart might stop beating—or that something far worse than death might embrace her soul—Kicks Dogs hurried along through the snow, stumbling over juniper roots and jagged pieces of stone. Though trembling with fear, she was immensely relieved to be out of that horrible canyon. Despite her unhappy night, the woman had an iron-willed determination to survive. She also had a particular destination in mind—the old Ute woman’s home, which was out there somewhere. Over and over, the thought raced through her consciousness:

  All I have to do is get to Daisy’s little trailer…then I’ll be all right.

  Though she did not know why, she knew this was a lie.

  She would never be all right again. Never.

  AS IF bent on the complete and utter destruction of the eggs, Daisy Perika selected a delicate three-tined fork, stirred viciously at the yellow-white puddle.

  Charlie Moon, who had his heart set on sunny-side-ups, grimaced. “Scrambled, huh?”

  “This ain’t no fancy restaurant.” The cook did not bother to look at the hungry man. “The rule here is you take what you get and you like it.”

  He raised his nose to sniff at the sausage scent. “It smells almost good enough to eat.”

  The old woman muttered a phrase that was pointedly profane and, fortunately, unintelligible.

  Moon turned his attention to the weekly tribal newspaper.

  Daisy Perika raised her voice so he could hear her complaint: “I didn’t sleep very good last night.”

  He took a taste of the sugary coffee, waited for the rest of the story. It would be because of the cold winds that moaned all night or a noisy coyote or some spicy leftovers she ate right before going to bed or bad dreams or—

  “I had some bad dreams.”

  Aha.

  “Somebody was throwing dirt in my face.” She flipped a sausage. “And there was an owl on a tree limb right out there”—Daisy pointed a dripping spatula at the wall—“that hooted for hours and hours.” She glared at the small, curtained window that looked out onto the pine porch. “At least a dozen times I thought about hauling myself outta bed, loading up my old twelve-gauge, blowing that big-eyed screecher into a splatter of guts and feathers.”

  Her nephew’s mouth made a wry half-smile. “So why didn’t you?”

  She gave him a poisonous look. “You know why.” Big smart Aleck.

  Charlie Moon put on an innocent, perplexed expression. “You fond of owls?” The old woman could barely tolerate any of God’s creatures.

  “Owls are messengers—they come to tell us when somebody’s going to die.” She twisted a knob on the propane stove, lowering the ring of blue fire under the iron skillet. “Any fool knows that.”

  “Oh yeah.” The specified fool nodded. “I’d forgot to remember.”

  Ignoring a hint of amusement in the unbeliever’s voice, she assumed a pious tone. “It’d be wrong to harm one of God’s hardworking creatures when they’re just going about their job in this world.” And it would certainly summon up the very worst kind of bad luck. The human being foolish enough to kill a messenger owl might very well be selected to cross that dark, deep River before their appointed time. Daisy opened the oven door, pulled out a tray of made-from-scratch lard and buttermilk biscuits.

  Charlie Moon watched Daisy hobble about her small kitchen, wondered how long it would be before the Owl called her name. Life without the superstitious, cantankerous, unpredictable old woman was unthinkable.

  “I don’t know why you bother to come out here,” she grumped. “You with your fancy big ranch to run.”

  Moon winked at his aunt. “Must be the free food.”

  She held back a smile, slammed a plate on the table. “Well, here’s your grub, so shut your mouth and eat!”

  He nodded a happy assent to this contradictory order, and got right into the job.

  The old woman sat down to watch her nephew enjoy his breakfast.

  KICKS DOGS thought she could see the old woman’s trailer, yonder just below the slope of the long, sinuous ridge. All I’ve got to do now is keep on putting one foot in front of the other. She tried to smile. And keep my wits about me.

  The snow fell harder.

  MOON GAZED out the window toward an invisible Three Sisters Mesa, watched the snow scatter in a light breeze. It was peaceful here, near the mouth of Cañon del Espiritu. Aside from the occasional groan of restless west winds, or the calls of night creatures scurrying about, the quiet in this place was more than the mere absence of sound. The silence was a palpable, intense medium that issued from the cool depths of Snake and Spirit canyons. It had a way of hushing those troublesome noises in a man’s soul.

  Daisy frowned at his faraway expression. The elder knew this look. It could come upon a man when his spirit was about to slip away from his body. Or when his mind was occupied by idle, foolish thoughts. As far as she was concerned, the former state was highly undesirable—the latter an outright affront. “Charlie!”

  Mildly startled, he turned to focus on the old woman’s wrinkled face. “What?”

  Having nothing in particular to say to her nephew, Daisy was momentarily befuddled. She fumbled around for words. “You—uh—want some more coffee?”

  Coffee? “Way you yelled, I thought maybe I had a six-inch centipede on my neck.”

  “What you had was a more-than-usual stupid look on your face. Now do you or don’t you?”

  “Coffee will be fine.” He flas
hed a smile. “In all my life, I never shunned a second cup of stimulant or a lady’s well-meant compliment.”

  Daisy poured a thin stream of ebony liquid.

  He stirred up a small whirlpool in the mug. Watched another storm brewing behind the old woman’s black eyes.

  She tried to think of just how to say it. “How’s you-know-who?”

  “Could you be more specific?”

  “That woman.”

  “Miss James?”

  “When are you gonna tell me her first name?”

  “I’ll let her tell you.”

  Daisy snorted, swiped a damp dishrag across the oilcloth. “And when’ll that happen?”

  “When I bring her to see you.”

  She paused in midswipe. “You intend to bring that white woman to my home?”

  “The thought had crossed my mind once or twice.”

  Daisy frowned, shook her gray head.

  “Is she not welcome?”

  “You men don’t understand nothing.” Daisy scrubbed at a sticky jelly spot. “I’m your closest family. You bring your white-eye sweetie pie out here to see me, she’s liable to get ideas.” She left the unsettling thought to curdle in his mind.

  Charlie Moon watched his aunt rub a hole in the oilcloth. “I see what you mean.”

  Daisy sighed with relief. “Then you won’t be bringing her.”

  “On the contrary.”

  She sat down, stared across the table. Well, he’s a grown man. It had to happen sooner or later. “You goin’ to ask this matukach woman to share your bed?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I had thought about proposing something a bit more formal.”

  Daisy closed her eyes. “Oh, God.”

  He smiled, reached across the table to touch her hand. “But if she says yes, we’ll want your blessing.”

  Daisy got up, stomped off to the stove with the coffeepot. She tried very hard to think of some suitable response to this thunderbolt from her nephew. Something to say that she would not regret until her dying day. Which, the way I am feeling, could be tomorrow. She was distracted by the sudden sense that someone was out there. The tribal elder went to the window, pushed a curtain aside just a notch, groaned as she saw the bedraggled woman hurrying toward the trailer. “Oh no—it’s Kicks.”

  Her nephew cocked his head. “Who?”

  “Kicks Dogs.”

  “Oh. That Kicks.”

  Daisy rubbed her hands on her apron. “Before she married Jacob Gourd Rattle, her name was Frieda Something. I told Jacob he should’ve never taken up with a white woman.” She shot a wicked look at her nephew, was annoyed that he took no offense at the sideways reference to his own pale-skinned girlfriend. “But you know how stubborn and know-it-all a man can be. Jacob told me that he didn’t plan to raise no family with her, that he just needed a woman to take care of his house. And warm up his bed.”

  “Is Jacob out there with her?”

  Daisy moved to the other side of the window. “No. And I don’t see his rusty old van.” She performed a bit of elementary logic. “Kicks must’ve walked in.”

  The tribal investigator considered this. “It’s a long way from the paved road. Maybe her car broke down on the lane.”

  Daisy continued with her commentary: “I don’t know why that paleface gal stays with Jacob—he’s got a nasty temper. Last November, the Ignacio town police arrested him for whacking her on the head with a tire iron. But after she come to her senses—what little senses she’s got left—Kicks wouldn’t make any charges, so the police had to let Jacob go. Can you believe that?”

  Charlie Moon could believe it without half trying. The former tribal policeman had seen it happen time and again. He buttered a biscuit, added a double dollop of chokecherry jelly. “How’d she get that name?”

  “Her husband gave it to her.”

  “Does she really kick dogs?” He firmly disapproved of this.

  “I don’t know.” Still peeking though a crack in the window curtain, Daisy muttered, “You can ask her yourself—here she comes up the steps.”

  There was a sudden pounding.

  The Ute elder jerked the door open, glared at the wild-eyed white woman. Jacob Gourd Rattle’s wife was teetering back and forth like she might collapse. “What is it, Kicks?”

  “Oh, thank God you’re home.” The woman was a sight to be pitied. A floppy felt hat was squashed over a moppy shock of yellow hair; a tattered poncho almost covered a faded cotton blouse; a soggy canvas knapsack hung over one shoulder. Her gray cotton skirt was dirty and torn. The woman’s bare arms were scratched and streaked with tiny lines of coagulated blood.

  There was a crescent-shaped bruise on her right cheek.

  Daisy raised her chin to point at the purple mark. “What happened to your face?”

  At this remark, Charlie Moon got up from the table.

  Kicks’ lower lip began to tremble. Tears flowed from her pale blue eyes. Slowly, at first, then twin gushers. Enough, it seemed, to wash the spray of freckles away.

  Daisy cringed at the pathetic display. “Oh, don’t start bawling like a sick calf.”

  Having appeared at the door behind and above his aunt, Moon grimaced at the battered face. Looks like Jacob has been at it again. “How’d you get hurt?”

  “Hurt?” Her hand went to the bruise. “I don’t know. Must’ve bumped into something. A tree, most likely.” She stared at the tall man. “You must be Daisy’s nephew—Charlie Moon.”

  The Ute confirmed this suspicion.

  Kicks pushed past Daisy to enfold the startled fellow in a hug.

  Moon, a longtime member of Alcoholics Anonymous, noted that the white woman’s breath smelled sweetly of whiskey.

  Daisy slammed the door, muttered her complaints: “I might as well live in town. Way our here, you’d think I could keep my distance from the lunatics and riffraff. But does it help? No, it does not—the crazies walk for miles and miles, just so they can annoy me.”

  Gently, but very deliberately, Moon disengaged himself from the tightly entwined woman. He eased her onto a chair at the kitchen table. Kicks put the knapsack in her lap; tears continued to drip from her chin. He searched his jacket pockets, found a spotless handkerchief to offer the unexpected guest. He could not help but notice that Jacob’s wife was a good-looking woman.

  After wiping her face with the linen square, Kicks focused her watery blue eyes on the man. “I’m sorry to barge in like this and act such a silly fool. But it’s been just so awful….” The white woman’s words drifted off into a pitiful sigh before she inhaled deeply. “I am just all worn out.”

  “What you need is a stiff dose of caffeine.” Moon found a cup in the cupboard over the sink, filled it with coffee, offered it to the distraught visitor.

  The white woman accepted the hot beverage. “Thank you.” He is so sweet. She took a drink of the black liquid. Made a horrible face, looked cross-eyed at the cup.

  He grinned. “Ute Mountain Java. My aunt picks and roasts the beans herself, and adds a dash of paint thinner to give it character.”

  “No I don’t,” Daisy muttered. This white woman might be just dumb enough to believe such foolishness.

  “But don’t take big gulps,” Moon warned. “It’s a delicate brew, meant to be sipped.”

  Daisy plopped down in a chair, groaned.

  The new arrival almost managed a smile. “Charlie—it is all right if I call you Charlie? I mean, I don’t want to be too familiar or presumptuous or anything—”

  “You can call me Charlie. And I’ll call you Mrs. Gourd Rattle.” Now that she was moderately refreshed, Moon inquired about what the matter was.

  She stared blankly at the coffee cup. “I want to make sure I tell it just like it happened, but I don’t know quite where to start.”

  “Start with something simple,” he said. “Like what you’re doing here.”

  She took another deep breath, brushed a wisp of wet hair off her bruised cheek. “It all started about this time las
t month. Jake—poor fella—he got so he was tired all of the time. I’m sure it was on account of those strange dreams he’d been having. That was what made it hard for him to get enough sleep.”

  At the mention of dreams, the Ute elder narrowed her dark eyes.

  The white woman kept her gaze fixed on Charlie Moon’s friendly face. “Jake told me he’d been having this same peculiar dream over and over. He was always at a particular place in that big canyon”—she pointed at the window—“so last week, he made up his mind he’d go there and stay a few nights. That way, he figured he might be able to find out what his dream was trying to tell him. On Monday, we drove out to the mesa. I left him in the canyon with his camping gear and drove the van back home. Then last night, I came back to get him.” She looked at her hands, flexed her cold fingers. “But Jake had decided he wanted to stay for an extra night, and he asked me to stay there with him so I did.”

  “Spirit Canyon is no place to be staying all night,” Daisy muttered. “Especially not in this kind of weather.”

  Kicks pointedly addressed Charlie Moon: “Would you like to hear about Jake’s dream?”

  “I’m sure it’d be real interesting.” He said this with a slightly pained expression. “But first I’d like to find out why you’re here, and where Jacob is now—”

  “I’m here because I didn’t have no other place to go.” She dropped her gaze to the silver bear paw on the Indian’s bolo tie. “And I don’t know where Jake is.”

  Moon did not like the sound of this. “When was the last time you saw him?”

  The white woman paused to wipe at her red nose with the loaned handkerchief. “This morning—around daybreak. Jake was walking off with his buffalo robe. It was foggy and snowing, so I thought he was going to look for a dry spot.” She picked at a loose thread on her blouse. “I thought he might come make his bed with me, but he just walked off up the canyon.”

  Daisy drilled the woman with a gimlet eye. “You two wasn’t sleeping together?”

  Kicks shook her head. “Jake was camped out in the middle of the canyon—I’d bunked under one of those overhangs.” The white woman frowned as she yanked the stubborn thread. “After he left, I laid there for a while, wondering where he’d gone. Finally, I got out of my blanket, hollered his name a few times. When he didn’t answer back, I kinda got panicky. I worried that maybe he’d had a heart attack or something, so I went looking for him.” Kicks rubbed her hands together briskly, as if hoping to produce some warmth. “I kept on yelling for him, but all I heard was my own words coming back at me. I got really scared. It was something about that awful, spooky place—it was quiet as a graveyard. And those clouds was a-billowin’ up like smoke from Lucifer’s chimney.” Getting a blank look from the man, she turned to Daisy. “Do you know what I mean?”