Maggie exhaled. “Yes. She said she’d found one of the Haze People.”
“The boy she was talking about is one of the Haze People?”
“That’s what Aunt Hail says.”
Maureen set her empty coffee cup on the ground beside her chair, and said, “Who are they? The Haze People?”
“I didn’t really understand what she meant.” Maggie shook her head, and short black hair fluttered over her broad cheeks.
Maureen pressed, “But your aunt meant that there’s another burial there, correct?”
Maggie’s shoulders hunched. “That’s the part I didn’t understand. You see, Haze People are people who were never born.”
“The unborn?” Sylvia said. “Oh, man. That’s not like the ‘undead, ’ is it?”
Dusty said,
“Sylvia,”
and lowered his brows reprovingly.
Maggie frowned down at her Coke can. The red lettering had deepened to black in the fire’s glow. “I don’t know for sure. I need to ask Aunt Hail about it tomorrow.”
Dusty turned. “I thought you were leaving tomorrow.”
“No,” Maggie whispered. “If it’s all right with you, I think I’ll call in and take two weeks of annual leave. I’m afraid that—that my aunt might need me.”
“We’ll be happy to have you out here,” Dusty said, then tipped his head toward Maggie’s tent where Hail Walking Hawk slept. “Is she … all right?”
“She tells me she is.”
Fear edged Maggie’s voice. Dusty saw the way her hands fumbled with the Coke can.
He hesitated, then softly said, “If you need me, just ask. For anything. You understand?”
Maggie jerked a nod. “Yes. Thanks.”
Maureen studied Maggie intently. “Maggie, tell me more about the Haze People? Are they human? Earth Spirits? Sky people?”
Maggie opened her mouth, about to make the effort to answer, then apparently thought better of it. “I’m really tired,” she said. “Please excuse me. I think I’ll hit the sack.” She got to her feet.
Maureen leaned back in her chair. “Good night, Maggie.”
“Good night everyone.”
Sylvia said, “See you tomorrow, Magpie.”
Maggie slipped her Coke can into the cardboard box marked
TRASH, that set outside of her tent, then tiptoed through the red flap, and lowered it. Dusty heard her take off her boots, and unzip her sleeping bag, then her aunt murmured something soft and affectionate, and Maggie said, “I love you, too.”
Dusty took another drink of stout. Maggie’s grandmother had died just down the road at Pueblo Bonito a few years ago. She must be thinking about that. He’d heard the eerie story from the president of the local hiking club, Kyle Laroque, who’d been there when it happened. Kyle said he’d been talking with Maggie when the notes of an ancient flute had eddied around the ruins, then he’d heard a man’s deep beautiful voice whisper,
“You may stay if you wish. You do not have to come today. I just thought you might wish to.”
Kyle and Maggie had found her grandmother on the other side of the gigantic crumbling pueblo, dead, holding half of a broken turquoise knife in her hand. Slumber Walking Hawk had been dying of cancer. Maggie believed the voice Kyle had heard belonged to one of the
Shiwana,
the spirits of the dead who became cloud beings.
Tomorrow, he would tell Maggie that he’d be happy to shut down the excavation until she could find another monitor for the project. The good doctor would probably be livid, but he didn’t care.
Sylvia yawned, and stretched her arms. “I assume we’re still rising with the ducks?”
“That’s right,” Dusty said. “Five A.M. sharp. If you’re not up, I’ll kick you out of your bag.”
Sylvia grinned at Maureen. “He’s not kidding. One time, about a year ago, I’d imbibed a wee too much wine the night before, and didn’t get up when dawn cracked. So Dusty simulated another dawn by setting off a shotgun over the top of my tent.”
Maureen’s jaw dropped. “You
what?
”
Dusty smiled. “Tell her what happened after that, Sylvia.”
“Well, after I got my hearing back and threw up on him—”
“
After
that.”
“Oh, you want the litany.” Sylvia clasped her hands as though in Sunday School. “I learned a valuable lesson that day. Now I never drink too much when I know we have work to do the next day.” She rose, said, “G’night y’all,” and headed for her tent.
“Sleep well, Sylvia,” Maureen said, and suppressed a smile.
When Sylvia had zipped the front of her tent closed, Maureen added, “What a character.”
Dusty nodded. A strange sober tone entered his voice. “Sylvia and I have a lot in common. Sometimes I think she knows me better than I know myself. That fact isn’t particularly soothing, but she often keeps me from making a complete fool of myself. That’s why I keep her around. And if she sticks with it, she’ll be one of the great archaeologists of the next century. She has natural talent, but don’t tell her I said that. She—”
“I heard that.”
Dusty looked over his shoulder at Sylvia’s tent. “What ears. I need a bigger shotgun.”
Maureen laughed in genuine delight.
Dusty smiled and toyed with his empty bottle. “You know, I may have misjudged you. You’re not as bad as I thought.”
Maureen wiped her eyes, and her laughter turned into a closed-mouth chuckle. “Well,” she said, and leaned forward, fixing him with dazzling black eyes. “That’s because I haven’t had a chance to tell you that your idea of a slave burial ground is sheer, unadulterated nonsense.”
Dusty stared at her. Her braid had fallen from her lap, and almost brushed the ground by her foot. Every hair shimmered.
“I knew ‘Mary the Hun’ was only a breath away,” he observed.
“Okay. Tell me why?”
She rose to her feet. “After you’ve finished excavating, I’ll
show
you.”
She walked for her tent.
Dusty muttered, “Women,” flopped back in his chair and searched the ground for a Coors Light can to crush.
W
ATER SKIMMER, MATRON OF THE BADGERPAW CLAN, sat on a soft red blanket in the village plaza. To her right, the canyon wall gleamed in the bright morning sunlight. As the stone warmed, a dusty scent filled the cold air.
Her clanspeople stood around, muttering behind their hands, pointing at the strange old man who balanced on his head in front of Water Skimmer. He looked like a stink bug with his rear thrust into the air. His mangy brown-and-white turkey feather cape covered his face. Actually, his entire head.
Water Skimmer adjusted the black blanket over her shoulders and leaned sideways to whisper to her husband, “What is he doing?”
Birdtail lifted his hands, and shrugged. Wind Baby teased the three hairs left on top of his bald head. “He hasn’t said a word since he started this.”
“What did he say when he first entered the plaza?” She had been inside her chamber, sewing porcupine quills onto a finely tanned buckskin shirt.
“He said he wished to speak with you. Then he turned himself into a dung beetle.”
At the age of sixty-two summers, Water Skimmer had seen many curious things and had learned to watch and wait. The meaning of this eluded her, but perhaps it would become clear.
She tucked loose strands of chin-length white hair behind her ears and lifted her wrinkled chin.
The old man’s rump wiggled, then he shoved his cape aside to look at her. His wrinkled face glowed bright red. “Ah,” he said. “You must be Water Skimmer.”
“I am. Who are you?”
The old man collapsed to the ground, his cape in a mass of feathers over his left shoulder. He pulled it straight, and said, “I am the Blue God.”
Water Skimmer smirked. “No, you aren’t. I’ve seen her close up. Last sun cycle the Fire Dogs attacked and ran a lance through my chest. I know the Blue God personally, and you are not even related to her.”
The old man’s face fell. “But I know the names of all your dead relatives.”
“So do I. That doesn’t make me the Blue God.”
“Do you believe in her?”
Water Skimmer eyed the old man, wondering at his purpose. “I am ancient enough to remember the days when everyone believed in her.”
He cocked his white head like a demented stork. His narrow face, long beaked nose, and wide mouth added to the impression. In a low solemn voice, he said, “Then you are a wise woman, indeed. Did you see her when she came here hunting your niece, young Cactus Wren?”
Water Skimmer leaned back on her blanket.
Eight moons ago, her twelve-summers-old niece had vanished without a trace. No one had seen raiders. No one had even seen Cactus Wren leave the village. It was as though she had been lifted straight up into the air by a whirlwind.
In a hard-edged voice, she replied, “No. Did you?”
The old man shook his head. “I regret that I did not. Was the girl ill?”
Brilliantly painted capes flashed as villagers closed in around them, hissing and nodding their heads.
Water Skimmer said, “How did you know she was ill?”
“I didn’t until now. What was wrong with her?”
She debated on whether or not to tell him, but could see no harm in it. “The child had gone on her first vision quest three moons before. She had received a very powerful Spirit Helper. We were excited, and hopeful. But every time he came to speak with her, she suffered headaches. The last time the headaches were so terrible we called for help from the Blessed
Kokwimu
at Hillside village. She—”
“Cloudblower,” the old man said the name reverently. “Did she come?”
“She always comes. Whenever anyone needs her, she rushes to help. She brought her assistant, Hophorn, and they felt around on my niece’s head, and gave her many herbs to drink. The girl felt better, and they left. Cactus Wren disappeared that night.”
“Did you search for her?”
“Of course we did. We found nothing.” She extended a hand to the murmuring crowd. “Many here believe that my niece was abducted. That a witch flew in on a rawhide shield, scooped her up, and carried her away to eat her.”
The old man asked, “And you, Water Skimmer, what do you believe?”
She glanced around at her clanspeople. All eyes had fixed upon her, awaiting her answer. In the blue sky over their heads, stringy Cloud People sailed northward.
“I believe she is gone,” she answered. “And we must now think of ourselves.”
The old man got to his feet, and hobbled toward Water Skimmer with his black eyes shining. When he stood less than three hands away, he asked, “Tell me, when you hear about a witch being tortured to death for his crimes, do you see through the eyes of the witch or the people in the crowd?”
“The witch,” she answered without thinking. In her souls she also suffocated with every child who had the coughing sickness and every mother who labored in childbirth. “Whose eyes do you see through?”
The old man’s wrinkled lips pulled into a smile. “One of the onlookers, of course.”
“Hmm.” She tapped a finger against her knee. “Now tell me why you asked such a question.”
He brushed at an invisible speck on his feathered cape. “I am confident, Matron, that I have power over my own deeds. I know I will never be before those torturers. You, however, are not so sure. You fear yourself. You fear what others think of you. Most of all, you fear what you are capable of that no one else realizes.”
The villagers burst into laughter. They knew how confident and courageous she could be. They had seen her pull herself from
a sickbed, grab her bow, and rush out to fight invaders. They had seen her stand up and curse the most powerful gods in the sky. They knew she feared nothing.
As the villagers drifted away, slapping each other on the backs and shaking their heads at the old man’s foolishness, Water Skimmer looked at him more carefully.
“I think you are Trickster Coyote in disguise,” she said. “What are you trying to get from me that I don’t wish to give up?”
The old man smiled. “What you really wish to ask me is why we see differently. Let me tell you a secret, Matron. You are afraid because you have always felt isolated and lonely. Different from others. That is why you are a strong, powerful woman. You had to gain a position where you did not have to feel that way as often. I suspect you would do anything to keep from feeling that way again. I, on the other hand, am afraid of evil. It is my greatest fear, and always has been. That is why I see through the eyes of an onlooker.”
Water Skimmer’s mouth quirked. “So. We can all rest at night knowing you will never be a leader. Is that what you came here to find out?”
His eyes widened, and he blinked owlishly at her. “Why, yes, Matron. It is.”
Irritated, she said, “Then why did you ask about Cactus Wren?”
“Because I thought she was a witch, just like the young woman at Whitetail, but I wasn’t sure until we spoke. Thank you for your help, Matron.”
Before she could tell him what an outrageous accusation that was, he turned and left.
Water Skimmer watched him hobble across the plaza, humming loudly to himself, his ratty turkey feather cape flapping around his scrawny legs. He took the road to Frosted Meadow village.
Water Skimmer turned to Birdtail. “Did you understand any of that?”
Birdtail squinted, scratched his wrinkled throat, and said, “Not a word, my wife.”