Shaman Winter (15 page)

“They both built pyramids,” Sonny said.

“They were connected, somehow they were connected. So the ankh sign appears on a Toltec bowl. The sign of life.”

“Mesoamerica as Atlantis,” Sonny murmured. “I never bought the theory. Sure, many a prehistoric boat might have landed on the shores of Mexico, but it was the indigenous people who created their own civilizations.”

“I agree. People tend to look for connections in the sky, aliens from spaceships, or ships from Atlantis. But as don Eliseo teaches, there is a world consciousness. A collective memory. We are connected. The thoughts of one group affect another across time. Did they need to cross the ocean bodily to communicate with each other? No. At certain times on earth, perhaps affected by sunspot explosions or lack thereof, the minds of the world think the same thoughts. That's when mankind moves into new levels of consciousness.”

“A world dream,” Sonny said. “Mind travel, some kind of mental telepathy, long ago. Why not?”

Don Eliseo talked about the interrelatedness of everything. But Sonny had thought only of the material connection, that atoms and molecular structure were connected. Was mind also connected? The Egyptian priests communicated with those of Mesoamerica? A world mind connecting those who could tune into it? You didn't need to explain historical parallelisms through aliens or travelers from Atlantis, it was simply the great minds of men and women communicating across space and time. Space and time became their thoughts, their ideas.

During the summer drought don Eliseo had gone to a prayer meeting with his Indian neighbors. “We prayed for rain,” he told Sonny later. “The weatherman said there is great ocean stream of wind and weather in the sky. The jet stream. It is like a giant snake entwined around the earth, and when it slides south, we receive its energy. We get rain. Now it is too far to the north, above Montana maybe. So together we reached up and grabbed the tail of the jet stream and pulled it down. With prayer we pulled it down.”

The next day it rained. A wonderful steady drizzle that broke the drought. Prayer. Minds connecting.

The old man believed the earth was alive; it had a spirit, a consciousness. To cut the Amazon forest meant the entire weather patterns of the earth would change. A philosopher coughing in China created hurricanes in the tropics. Thoughts, memories, dreams curved around the earth, like the glyphs on the bowl, and affected other dreamers.

“We are connected,” Sonny murmured. “Not only in body, but in spirit.”

Snow driven wild by the wind swirled around the van when Lorenza pulled in front of the Seven-Eleven at White Rock. The earlier feathery stuff had turned into a heavy, wet snow, the kind that would bend the boughs of even the toughest pine trees. Tall ponderosa pines, firs, blue spruces, even the leafless aspens would gather the wet flakes onto their branches and bend with the gift. The trees were old men and women thanking the gods for the gift of snow.

Behind them the Jemez peaks were hidden in the darkness that hovered over Redondo, covering the mountain. Ancient deities were praying over the sacred mountain, praying and then rising to carry the gift of water down to the pueblos.

Lorenza went into the store and came out with a large hot coffee, aspirin, and a fleece jogging sweatshirt and pants.

“Gracias a Dios they stock a few things for campers,” she said. “Put these on. I don't want to deliver you to Rita in your birthday suit.”

She helped him slip into the warm cotton shirt and pants. Then she covered him again with the canvases. “Take these.” She handed him three aspirins and he drank them down with coffee. “Try to keep awake,” she said.

“Why?” Sonny asked, and the minute he asked, the answer flashed in front of him. She was afraid that Raven would come again if he fell asleep.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, and she was on the road again, heading down into the Río Grande valley.

The hot coffee warmed him, the shivering stopped. He told her how he had seen the kachinas right before Raven attacked him.

“It's that time of the year,” she replied. “The solstice is near, the spirits of the mountains come to visit the pueblos. They come to bring winter rain, snow. Raven knew that, so he waited for us.”

Where the angels gather, the Bringer of Curses appears, Sonny thought. Just what don Eliseo said. The devil always comes to the angels' convention.

The snow that minutes ago had covered the road now grew thin. They knew that by the time they descended into the valley, only wisps of the storm would remain. That's the way it was with a front like this, it would drop snow in the high elevations, but merely dust the lowlands. That's why in New Mexico during the winter people could ski and golf in the same day. From Jemez to Taos, the high peaks would get snow, in Alburquerque, nada.

Yes, Sonny thought, the time for the ceremonies was at hand. Already the Matachine dances had been held at Jemez Pueblo on December 12, día de la Virgen de Guadalupe. More dances would be held on Christmas Day and on New Year's Day. The people remembered their prayers and ceremonies. They still kept the sacred calendar of their ancestors, still survived in the essence of their original dream.

Sonny hunkered deeper down into the warmth of the canvases and tried to keep his eyes open. But the hum of the motor, the fatigue, and the warmth made it almost impossible. Even the coffee didn't help. Exhaustion and soreness crept through his bones.

“Stay awake,” Lorenza reminded him.

“Tired,” he answered. He had done too much the first day out, he knew that now. But he also knew there weren't many days left. Raven would strike on the winter solstice, the day the sun stood still. Like the first atomic bomb exploding at Trinity, forty miles southeast of Socorro. The sun standing still.

His father, who had been raised in Socorro, and his mother who was raised in La Joya just across the river, told him stories of the “day the sun shone at night.” They were children then. His father told of getting up at the crack of dawn to milk the cows when, on his way to the barn, the morning lit up. Five twenty-nine
AM
on that fateful day, the demon light of the bomb exploded over the desert before sunrise, lighting up the skies. “The work of the devil,” the old people warned.

Now the Bringer of Curses controlled some of that power. Raven hadn't gotten the Zia medallion he came after, but he had the plutonium. Sonny dozed and saw him holding the nickel-coated ball aloft with his bare hand. A burning sun, a power no man dared to touch, the Raven was flirting with it. Invincible, Raven taunted, I am invincible.

Raven was growing in power, growing in the madness Sonny had recognized at their first meeting. Now the FBI had uncovered part of his past. Raven wasn't Raven, that was just one of his many names. Raven was a sorcerer, one of those brujos who could fly. Not fly like the old curanderas to do a healing, to deliver a blessing, but to destroy.

All this went through Sonny's mind as he struggled to stay awake during the long drive home. Lorenza had called Rita, letting her know when they'd get back, so Rita was waiting at Sonny's place when they arrived.

Chica came bounding out of the house ahead of Rita, barking, tail wagging, jumping up on Sonny's lap the minute the lift hit the ground. Tail wagging, whining with a secret message of love, licking his face, and sniffing the strange smells on her master.

“Chica, good dog.” Sonny hugged her.

Rita kissed Sonny, then seeing he was pale and shivering, she exclaimed, “Dios mío! What happened? Your clothes?”

“Raven,” he tried to explain with one word.

“Let's get you in the house,” Rita said, taking charge. They got him into the house and into the bathroom where Rita stripped his clothes off and helped him into a hot bath. She had made a strong lemonade, hot and flavored with osha, an herb she used for colds. She poured two shots of bourbon into the glass, and Sonny drank the soothing mixture.

Then she helped him out of the bath and rubbed him vigorously with a towel from head to toe. The circulation returned to his limbs.

“Ah, great,” he kept muttering. How sweet it was to be cared for by the woman he loved. She covered him with Mentholatum, wrapped him in a warm terry-cloth robe, and got him into bed. Chica jumped in with him.

“She's been waiting all day,” Rita said. “Don Eliseo kept her, tried to feed her, but she wouldn't eat. Imagine a dachshund that doesn't eat? She's been worried.”

“Hey, I'm home, safe and sound,” Sonny said, rubbing Chica's belly.

“Let's hope you don't catch pneumonia,” Rita scolded as she served him hot chicken and rice soup.

He thanked her weakly. “What would I do without you?” He held a piece of tortilla with butter up for Chica.

Lorenza brought the bowl in and set it on the lamp table. Under the light it shone with a mysterious beauty.

Rita gasped. “It's beautiful. The bowl in your dream!”

Sonny ate while Lorenza told of their meeting with Raven.

“What does it mean?” Rita asked when Lorenza finished. “You dream a bowl and it appears?”

“It means what don Eliseo suspects,” Lorenza said. “Raven has found a way to get into Sonny's dreams.”

“But he needs to sleep.”

“I don't know—” Lorenza cautioned.

Rita arched an eyebrow. “Por qué?”

“She's afraid if I sleep, Raven might appear in my dreams,” Sonny said weakly. “Or nightmares.”

The warm bath and food and fatigue were already more than he could bear. He was going to sleep regardless. Chica had already burrowed under the blanket.

“He doesn't have a choice, does he?” Rita asked, looking for guidance from Lorenza.

Lorenza shook her head. “He needs the rest. No, he doesn't have a choice.”

Sonny's eyelids felt heavy. “Chica will guard my dreams,” he mumbled. “Tomorrow I want to—”

Rita placed her fingers over his lips. “He doesn't know when to quit,” she said, and kissed his forehead.

“Is there any way we can guard his dreams?” he heard Rita ask.

“No,” Lorenza replied. “We may be in the dream, but only another shaman can walk with him. He has to learn to be the actor in the dream.”

“Is there anything
we
can do?” Rita was worried.

“Follow don Eliseo's instructions,” Lorenza said, leaning to make sure Sonny heard her. “It's very important that you construct the dream. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Sonny mumbled. “I must pick the place, I have to set up the stage. When I pass through the door into the world of spirits, I must be in charge.…”

“Who is your guide?” Lorenza asked.

“Coyote.”

“Y los santos,” Rita whispered, making the sign of the cross. “May they guard your sleep. Your Señores y Señoras de la Luz, may they shine light on your path.”

“Buenas noches, amor,” Sonny replied, his eyes closing.

What a woman, he thought. He and Rita had been dating a couple of years, dancing on Saturday nights, and sharing his investigating work. She, like his mother, nudged him from time to time to get out of the detective business. Rita's restaurant was booming, business was good, the city and the state were on a roll, and she had suggested more than once that together they could run the café.

“Become a taco pusher. Me?” He often teased her.

“You need to settle down,” she said. “Marry me. I'll make you happy.”

“Oh, I know.…”

He loved her, the way she talked, spoke, the color of her eyes, hair, the fragrance that lingered around her, her magic green thumb that grew flowers and herbs, her business sense, and in a hundred other ways he loved her, but he wasn't sure he was ready for marriage. He had quit teaching literature at Valley High because he found the schedule too restraining. He liked the freedom of private investigating, even though it meant that from one month to the next, he didn't know where his next meal was coming from.

“Yes, I'm ready to settle.…” he whispered, smiling at the thought. Sleep could be as sensuous as Rita, a wave of pleasure washing over him. The soreness in his body and the fatigue of the day melted into the mattress, and instantly he was breathing in an even, soft rhythm.

“You need this,” he heard Lorenza say. She slipped something cold under the covers. The Zia medallion.

Ah, he smiled.

“And this,” she said, and slipped another cold object into his hand. He recognized his pistol.

“You said bullets don't hurt Raven,” he mumbled.

“They can't hurt him when he has taken the form of his nagual, his guardian spirit,” she replied. “But when he's Raven the man, then you draw first.”

She moved away, leaving her enticing body aroma in the swirl of the oncoming dream. The door closed and the room was dark and silent again.

He was sure the hammer was on an empty chamber, just like his father had taught him. An old rule of the West. Billy the Kid always kept his hammer there. That way if you dropped the pistol, you didn't shoot yourself in the foot.

Carry the pistol into sleep? He shivered. Damn, he couldn't stay awake!

Be master of your dream, he heard don Eliseo say.

It was up to him to will the dream into being. Which dream? The next momentous event in the history of La Nueva México was the expulsion of the Spaniards by the Pueblo Indians. He had to go there. According to the rough family tree he had sketched out, that's where the Anaya branch of the family tree joined the Bacas. The only name he had found in his research was the name Caridad de Anaya. Did he have to find her in his dream?

He moved toward the door of dreams and was surprised to see don Eliseo waiting for him.

Don Eliseo?

Who were you expecting? Bugs Bunny?

Sonny laughed. The old man had a sense of humor.

Are you going with me?

No, not this time. You see, to become the master of your dream you must first go alone. I cannot interfere. Not now.