Rook & Tooth and Claw (31 page)

They arrived in Window Rock at mid-afternoon, under a flawless blue sky. It was a small Arizona town much like any other, with stores and gas stations and office-buildings. John Three Names had booked them into the Navajo Nation Inn, $73 the night. A calm, handsome woman in a blue dress showed them to their rooms – plain, but sunny, and decorated with
yei
rugs with stylized figures on them. A boy of about five followed them a few paces behind, frowning with shyness and curiosity. John Three Names stopped, and went back to the boy. He held up both hands, which were empty, but then he rubbed them together, and produced a quarter out of thin air. He gave it to the boy and said, “Don’t spend it all on candy.”

Sharon and Catherine were sharing a bright, big room with a view of the pool. Jim touched Sharon’s shoulder as she carried her bag through the door, and said, “Don’t forget, will you? Keep your eye on her … and if you see anything that worries you—”

“I’ll look after her, Mr Rook,” Sharon reassured him. “She comes from an ethnic minority that’s even more minorer than mine.”

Jim and Susan had adjacent rooms with a connecting door. Susan rattled the handle to make sure it was locked. “You know, just in case you start sleepwalking.”

“What if I’m awake?”

“If you’re awake, you die.” She didn’t realize how prophetic that was.

John Three Names followed Jim into his room. Jim slid open the patio door and stepped out onto a small
terracotta-tiled balcony with a table and chairs. In the distance, the vermilion mountains were washed out with heat. A lizard baked in the dust beyond the balcony, but didn’t stir.

“Like the room?” asked John Three Names.

“It’s fine, thanks.”

“Tell me what really happened on the airplane.”

Jim looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“It wasn’t just instrument failure, was it?”

“Oh, no? What makes you think that?”

“When we were driving here, I could see you in my rear-view mirror. I saw you take out the whistle. I saw Catherine White Bird caution you not to blow it. Then I saw her cover her face.”

“So what did that tell you?”

“It told me that you had probably blown the whistle before, for some reason, and that you were puzzled about the effect it had produced. So maybe you wanted to try it again, to see what would happen this time. But Catherine White Bird said no, you would disturb him – and when you asked who
him
was, she covered her face.

“You know why she did that? She didn’t want to speak his name, in case it was carried to him on the wind, and he knew that she was coming closer. But that whistle has only one purpose, to call the spirit called Coyote. And to do
this
–” and here he covered his face in the same way that Catherine had done “– is to warn people that Coyote isn’t far away, and that he’s listening out for you.”

Jim said, “I think you’d better explain this from the bottom up.”

John Three Names came and stood next to him. “In days gone by, before the white men came, when you could see spirits by broad daylight, Coyote was the greatest mischief-maker of all the Navajo demons. A killer, a trickster, a raper of women, and a thief. When it came
to the grand assembly of all the supernatural beings, the gods would sit facing the south and the demons and other malevolent spirits would sit facing the north. But Coyote was so deceitful that none of the other spirits would allow him to sit close, and he stood by the door, ready to run away before the others ganged up on him.

“Coyote did everything perversely. He profaned against the sacred rites. He tipped his arrows with grey feathers, which is a recognized sign of bad luck. The month of October, which is the month of mishaps and mistakes, was dedicated to him. When the night sky was created, he was given a handful of stars to put in their places, but he was too irresponsible to do it properly, and so he flung them up all in one mass, and created the Milky Way.

“Whenever games were played, Coyote would set one side against the other, and then run off with the prize.”

Jim said, “This is all myth, surely. I mean, it’s a story – the same kind of story that the Greeks and the Romans used to tell. Zeus hurling his thunderbolts, Neptune with his trident – and Apollo riding his fiery chariot through the sky.”

“Not quite,” said John Three Names. “There are no records of anybody ever having
seen
Zeus, in the flesh. But Coyote was spotted by Navajo hunters as late as 1861. They turned back from the hunting-ground, of course, because if you ever saw Coyote it meant unhappiness and death. It’s all recorded on blankets, if you want to see them.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Jim. “I was always a slow reader when it came to blankets.”

“The days of the gods and the demons began to die in 1864, after the Navajos had persisted in raiding their neighboring tribes, the Hopi and the Zuni. Colonel Kit Carson went on what you might call a search-and-destroy mission to rout out the last of the Navajo. Carson laid
waste their crops and killed their livestock. Then he made eight thousand of them walk three hundred miles from Fort Defiance to Fort Sumner on the Pecos River. Many died. The rest he kept prisoner for four years until the Navajo finally agreed to sign a treaty.

“It was during this time that the Navajos’ faith in their spirits was so badly shaken, and their spirits – well, what can spirits do when nobody believes in them any longer? They don’t die, they’re immortal, but they melt away. The earth gods sank into the ground, and if you go out into the desert you can still see the hills where they did it. The wind gods blew away across the mountains, and caused tornadoes. The river gods ran away to the ocean, although once in a while they come back to flood the Mississipi to remind us of the powers they used to have.

“But mostly the gods were not believed in, so they went their way. There was only one exception – Coyote. When the white men came, and the days of myth and legend were all over, he was wily enough to find a way to live in the open, so that humans would believe in him, and spirits, too. He mated with a human woman, who gave birth to a child that was human and Coyote, both. And this boy gave birth to another child, and so on, from one generation to the next. What this means is that Coyote is still with us today, Mr Rook, and he’s very much alive.”

“This isn’t easy to believe,” said Jim.

“Why shouldn’t it be? You’ve seen Coyote’s mischief with your own eyes. Henry Black Eagle told me what happened at your college; and he also told me that your apartment had been torn apart, and your cat killed.”

“So explain it to me. Why is he doing it, and how?”

“The why is simple. The man that Catherine was supposed to marry went to a wonder-worker and asked him to summon up Coyote’s powers, so that Coyote would
bring Catherine back to him – and if she fell in love with any other man, to kill him.”

“Like a hex, you mean?”

“You could call it that. Except that this hex has taken the shape of a beast, which watches Catherine day and night.”

“I think I’ve already seen it a couple of times,” said Jim. “It’s like kind of a shadow that seems to follow Catherine around.”

John Three Names said, “You’re the only man who ever has – and that’s why Henry Black Eagle and his family asked you to come here. If you can persuade this man to release Catherine from her promise, the beast will have to leave her – and only you can be sure that it really does.”

“Do you
know
this man that Catherine’s supposed to have married?” Jim asked him.

“I’ve seen him once or twice, but I’ve spoken to him only once. He lives in a trailer up at Meadow Between Rocks. Most of the time he keeps himself to himself, and everybody respects his privacy and leaves him alone. He’s supposed to have quite a ferocious temper on him, although I’ve never seen any of that.”

“Does he have a name?”

“Several. But most people call him Dog Brother.”

Jim sat down on the end of the bed. “The question is, John, what am I going to offer this – Dog Brother to give up Catherine? She’s a beautiful girl. If I had the choice,
I
wouldn’t give her up.”

“Henry Black Eagle has some property up by Shiprock, as well as stocks and bonds. You’re authorized to offer these to Dog Brother in exchange for releasing Catherine from her promise, plus a quarter of a million dollars in cash.”

“What if he’s not interested?”

“Then we will have to try another way. We will have to find the wonder-worker who conjured up Coyote’s curse and see if we can make a bargain with him.”

“And supposing
he
doesn’t want to play ball, either?”

“I think we should cross that canyon when we come to it.”

“What about this Coyote character? If he’s half-human, then he must be findable.”

John Three Names shook his head. “You wouldn’t want to try that, Jim.”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s more human than you think. Come on, John, how can this be real? A demon who lives for ever by mating with human women?”

John Three Names laid a hand on his shoulder. “How about a drink? I’ll bet you could use one, after that journey.”

The bar was deserted except for three iron-haired Navajos in ponytails and business suits talking about industrial leases in Tuba City. Jim ordered a beer and John Three Names asked for a Bloody Mary (“I didn’t have time for lunch, and this is as good as.”) In the background, Nat King Cole sang
Ramblin’ Rose.

John Three Names guided Jim over to a table by the window. “I like to see what’s coming and what’s going, especially at times like these.” He parted the venetian blinds with two fingers and peered out into the glaring street.

“In the original Navajo legend,” he said, “Coyote lusted after a very beautiful girl. She had two brothers who tried to protect her. The girl was strong-willed as well as beautiful, and Coyote struggled for months to seduce her, to take over her soul. She hated him at first, and put him through all kinds of tests – literally making him die for her. But each time he died, he buried a flint next
to his body so that he could dig himself up again. In the end, he was so persistent that she couldn’t resist him any longer, and she allowed him past the hem of her skirt.

“Under Coyote’s influence, she became a creature which we call the Changing Bear Maiden, joining Coyote in all of his evil-doing. The stories say that she took a particular pleasure out of snapping men’s necks with her jaws, and ripping their chests open with her claws.”

“She had only one vulnerability – she couldn’t change into a bear when anybody was watching her, so her family protected her by making sure that they kept a guard on her day and night.”

“Sounds familiar,” said Jim.

“It’s a legend. How much of it you care to believe – well, that’s entirely up to you.”

“What’s your part in all this?” Jim asked him.

“I’m an interested party, that’s all – apart from being a friend of Henry Black Eagle. I work as a freelance for the Navajo newspaper
Diné Baa-Hané.
A demon hunter by night and a mild-mannered reporter by day.”

At that moment, Susan came into the bar, followed by Catherine and Sharon and Mark. “I thought I’d find you two in here,” said Susan. “I could murder a Bloody Mary.”

Jim moved around so that Susan could sit next to him. Catherine sat opposite, and gave him an odd, worried look, as if she had something on her mind but didn’t quite know how to start talking about it.

“What happens next?” asked Susan.

“We’ll go up to the Meadow Between Rocks at first light tomorrow,” said John Three Names. “We’re lucky. They’re holding a first laugh rite there for one of my nephews. That’s something you don’t get to see very often.”

“A first laugh rite?”

“When a child first laughs, around its fortieth day, he joins the human race, and he will make a covenant with the laughter gods which will be sealed with salt. There will be prayers and a big celebration. Meanwhile I suggest you all get some rest. You haven’t had an easy journey, and there will be much more difficult times ahead of us.”

“I’m going out to catch some rays,” said Mark.

“Don’t burn,” Susan told him.

Catherine stayed where she was. John Three Names asked her if she wanted a Coke, but she shook her head. “Something’s happening to me,” she said. “Something’s happening to me and I don’t know what it is.”

“Go on,” said Jim.

“It’s just that I keep having these nightmares, only they’re not nightmares. They happen during the day.”

“What kind of nightmares?”

“They’re just like a flash in my head. Flash, and they’re gone. But since we’ve come here to Window Rock I’ve had three or four of them already.”

“Are they all the same?”

“I keep imagining that I’m running very fast. Not running away from anything. I’m not frightened. In fact it’s the opposite – I’m chasing something, or somebody. I want to jump on them and attack them. I want to hear them screaming. I’m strong. I can’t believe how strong I am. I could tear somebody’s arm off just like that.

Tears suddenly welled up in her eyes. “You just talked about a child laughing and joining the human race. I don’t know, I have such a terrible feeling. I feel like I’m leaving it.”

Chapter Six

During the night, Jim was woken up by the sound of his own heart beating. He placed his hand over his chest, but then he realised that it wasn’t his heart beating at all – it was drumming. He sat up in bed and he could hear it quite distinctly – a slow, persistent
throb-THROB-THROB-throb, throb-THROB-THROB-throb.
He listened for a while, frowning into the darkness. Jesus, it sounded like
Drums Along The Mohawk.
He swung his legs out of bed and walked to the patio window, pulling up his newly-bought pajama pants. He slid the window back and stepped out barefoot onto the tiled floor, which was still warm from yesterday’s sunshine.

In the near distance he could see a fire glowing, its sparks whirling into the darkness. Up above him, the whole sky was crowded with stars. He hadn’t seen stars like this since he was a boy, and his father had taken him fishing off the coast of Santa Barbara. He felt a strange emotional surge – a mixture of nostalgia for days gone by, and regret that he never saw the stars any longer, not like this.

He climbed over the railing that surrounded his patio and dropped heavily down onto the dusty, prickly ground. He heard something scurry in the darkness, and a lizard flickered over his foot. He was beginning to regret that he hadn’t put on his sneakers. There were rattlesnakes here, too, and scorpions.

But the drumming went on, resonant and repetitive.
Throb-THROB-THROB-throb,
echoing and flat. Jim looked around. He was amazed that it hadn’t woken anybody else – but then again, maybe it had, and they had recognised it for what it was, and ignored it. He hesitated for almost a whole minute, wondering whether he ought to go back to bed and forget about it. But then he saw a dark figure rise from the ground, just in front of the fire, and begin to sway from side to side. It looked as if the figure was wearing an odd, bulky headdress, with horns or ears, and dangling necklaces.

What was more, on the far side of the fire, Jim was sure that he could make out a black, bulky shape. It didn’t seem to be illuminated by the flames: it was more like a shadow, except that it couldn’t be a shadow, because there was nothing to cast it. He saw two red sparks that might have been sparks, or might have been blood-red eyes. A cool wind blew against his bare back and brought goosebumps all the way up to his hairline. There was something there, he was sure of it.
Something cold. Something old. Something bristling.

He made his way cautiously toward the fire, trying to step over rocks and dried-up weed and prickly vegetation. He could see now that it was the figure with the headdress that was beating the drum. It was a naked man, his body shining with sweat. He was grasping a tall decorated drum between his thighs and banging it with the edge of his hands. The fire had burned low now: it was nothing much more than a heap of glowing ashes, but it gave off so much heat that the air above it was rippling and distorted. Jim stopped, and shaded his eyes with both hands, but it was impossible for him to tell if the shadow was really there, or whether it was nothing more than a mirage produced by the heat. All the time the drum kept beating
throb-THROB-THROB-throb,
and now Jim
could hear the man chanting, too, although he couldn’t understand any of the words.

He thought: this isn’t getting me anyplace at all. This is probably some kind of Navajo ceremony. Paying homage to the night sky. Thanking the moon for coming up and going down again. Who knew? He felt embarrassed because he was intruding; and he felt slightly paranoid because he kept looking at every slow-dancing shadow around the fire and imagining that it was more than just a shadow. It was the Changing Bear Maiden, with her claws and her teeth, ready to snap men’s necks.

He turned back toward the Inn, but as he did so, he saw Sharon rush out onto his patio. “Mr Rook!” she called out, and she was obviously distressed. “Mr Rook? Where are you?”

The man standing by the fire turned around, his pelts and necklaces swinging. Abruptly, the drumming stopped. Jim called out, “Here, Sharon! I’m just over here!”

“It’s Catherine, Mr Rook! She’s gone missing!”

Jim glanced toward the fire. The man in the headdress was still staring in his direction, his drum stilled. The heat from the fire was deflected by the wind, and for one split-second Jim was sure that he saw a huge, sloping-shouldered figure, as black as the sky between the stars – just like a bear only three times larger. But then the wind blew up a cloud of smoke and ashes, and the figure vanished.

Jim walked back to the patio, his feet bruised and scratched. Sharon was wearing a voluminous pink T-shirt with a picture of the Care Bears on it. Her hair was thicketed with pink plastic rollers. “I woke up to go to the bathroom, Mr Rook, and Catherine was gone! She was only wearing a nightshirt and she didn’t take no clothes with her. I was looking for her along the corridor when I heard that drumming and I was frightened.”

“It’s OK,” said Jim. Behind him, the drummer was still silent, and the fire was beginning to die down. “I don’t know what’s going on, but the best thing you can do is get yourself back to bed. Catherine’s been pretty disturbed since she came back here. Maybe she’s gone for a walk to think things over.”

Sharon nodded toward the fire, and the silhouetted man with the drum. “What is that, Mr Rook? What’s going on here? Is that guy wearing any
clothes
?”

“Erm, no. It doesn’t look as if he is. But, you know, this isn’t Santa Monica. I guess they do things a little differently here.”

“And where were
you
going?” Sharon frowned. “You’re not even wearing any shoes.”

“I was … well, I guess I was going to investigate.”

Sharon gave him a narrow-eyed look. “There’s something weird about this trip, Mr Rook? I mean, this isn’t like your usual college cultural trip. So far I’ve been scared out of my brain in an airplane and now it’s all drums and fires and people shouting in the middle of the night, and nobody’s even
mentioned
anything cultural.”

“Oh, it’s cultural, all right,” Jim told her. “I’m just worried that it may be a little
too
cultural.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” said Jim, “the truth is, we’re not really here on a field trip. We’re here mostly for Catherine’s sake. When she was fifteen she was promised in marriage to a Navajo guy called Dog Brother, but now she doesn’t want to marry him. I came to Window Rock to see if there’s any way to break their engagement. I needed you guys along to keep her company.”

Sharon stared at him, distinctly unimpressed. “This Dog Breath, he still wants to marry her?”

“
Brother,
not Breath. But yes, so far as I know, he still wants to marry her.”

“But why did she have to come back at all? Why not write him a ‘Dear Dog Breath’ letter, and forget about it? And why did you have to come? Couldn’t her father have brought her?”

“I had to come because of Martin, and what happened in the locker room. I had to come because my home was wrecked and my cat was killed.”

“Hunh? I don’t get it.”

“Sharon, this Dog Brother is a very jealous guy, by all accounts, and he’s worked some kind of spell on Catherine. If any guy gets too close to her, Dog Brother makes sure that he suffers. Anything that means anything to him gets destroyed. In Martin’s case – well, he was destroyed, too.”

“I thought Catherine’s brothers did all that. They’re in jail for it, aren’t they?”

“There’s some circumstantial evidence that suggests they might have killed Martin, for sure. But for all of the vandalism and killing my cat they have pretty unshakeable alibis. They claim that everything was done by some kind of a
force
– a force which Dog Brother conjured up when Catherine ran off to LA. It’s all to do with Native American magic. I don’t even understand it myself. But it looks like the only way to face up to this force is to come here and talk to this Dog Brother face to face.”

“When you say ‘force,’ do you mean like that voodoo guy you had to hunt down?”

“I guess something like that. It’s invisible. Nobody else can see it except me.”

“Why didn’t you tell us before we came out here? Don’t you trust us?”

“Of course I trust you. That’s the whole reason I wanted you to come. It’s just that I didn’t know what I was dealing with. The logical explanation is that Catherine’s brothers
were
responsible. But I’ve been seeing things and feeling feelings that make me think that maybe they’re telling the truth. Or part of the truth, anyhow.”

“What feelings? What things?”

“Nothing specific … shadows where shadows shouldn’t be. A kind of tension in the air. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”

“Well, next time you see something like that, maybe you’d like to let the rest of us know.”

“Sure, I promise,” said Jim, trying to be reassuring. “Now, we can talk about this later. Why don’t you go back to your room and wait to see if Catherine comes back. I’ll go take a look around the grounds and see if I can find her. I doubt she’s gone far.”

“Just remember –
trust
,” said Sharon. Jim gave her a high five and she went back to her bedroom.

Jim started to walk cautiously back toward the fire. He hadn’t gone far, however, when he heard Susan’s voice calling, off to the right. “Catherine! Sharon! Where are you?”

“Oh, God, that’s all I need,” said Jim. “Susan! Sharon’s fine! She’s gone back to her room! I’m just looking for Catherine!”

He couldn’t see Susan at first, but then she appeared out of the smoke, halfway between the Inn and the fire. She was wrapped in a light white towelling robe, and she was carrying a flashlight. “Jim?” she said. “Is that you? I’ve been looking for Catherine and Sharon! Their beds are empty!”

“For Christ’s sake, Susan—” Jim began, but he was interrupted by the sharp bang of a hand on a drum. The fire had almost completely died down now, so it was difficult to see the man’s figure, except for his dangling headdress and the curve of his glistening chest. But then he banged his drum again, quicker and harder, until he was beating out a fast, insanely complicated rhythm and
his hands were a blur. Susan, confused, stopped where she was for a moment. “Jim?” she called out. “Do you have Sharon with you? Where’s Catherine?”

She was still more than a hundred feet away. And it was then that Jim saw the black shadow detach itself from the other side of the fire and come rushing toward her, quite silently, with no other trace of its passing than a light whirl of dust and a few small clattering rocks. Susan was standing quite still now, obliviously waving. Yet the darkness was approaching her with all the speed of a charging bull. Weirdly, though, it was totally silent.

“Susan!” Jim shouted. “Susan – watch out!”

He sprinted toward her as fast as he could. He hadn’t run like this since he was at high school, when he had almost won the 200m against the school’s best athlete, Eddie LaFrance. He could see Eddie’s grinning, self-satisfied face even now. Jim had burst his heart trying to win that race and he hadn’t been able to believe it when he came second. He had done the unforgivable, and started to cry.

That was why he was running so furiously now. He couldn’t fail a second time.

“Susan!” he gasped. “Susan, watch out! On your right, Susan! It’s there, on your right-hand side!”

Susan stopped, perplexed. She looked to her right but it was obvious that she couldn’t see anything at all. “
Just believe me
!” Jim screamed at her. “
Just get down
!”

The beast was big – much bigger than Jim had imagined. Its shoulders were hunched, its claws were lifted in terrifying curves, already tinged red by the fire. But its speed frightened Jim the most. He was running so fast toward Susan that he was almost flying. His feet skipped from rock to rock and he leaped over bushes like a hurdler.
Yet the huge black shadowy thing was bearing down on Susan and he knew that it was going to be touch-and-go to stop it.

The worst thing was that only
he
could see it. Susan stayed where she was, turning around and around, looking for something which was totally invisible.

Jim reached Susan and flung himself at her in a football-tackle. Astonished, frightened, she stepped back, and he hit the ground with a bruising impact and rolled over into a thicket of thorns. He twisted his head around in time to see the beast almost on top of her, its fur bristling, its eyes smouldering like coke-cinders. Jim could
smell
it: the cold, old bear smell – rank with blood and urine and decaying pelts. He could smell it and he could see it, yet Susan was standing right beneath it, her hands perched on her hips, saying, “Jim – for God’s sake – do you mind telling me what’s!—”

Jim screamed, “
Get down
!” at her, but she was still looking at him in annoyance when a huge claw swept right under her chin and knocked her head right off her body, skying it right up into the night, right up against the stars, with blood spraying behind it like a comet’s tail.

For a moment, her body remained where it was, still standing, headless, with her carotid artery pumping out geysers of blood. Her towelling robe turned from white to crimson right in front of Jim’s eyes. Then the beast dug its claws into her again, and literally tore her apart – ribcage, pelvis, arms and legs. The crackling of bones was so loud that Jim pressed his hands over his ears, and closed his eyes. He opened them again to see what was left of her collapsing onto the dirt, like a broken bird’s nest, rags and sticks and branches.

He looked up at the beast. For a moment, he thought that it was going to strike him down, too. It stood over him
for a moment, blotting out the night sky. Jim lowered his head and closed his eyes and he was sick to his stomach. But then he heard the drums start up again –
throb-THROB-THROB-throb
–
throb-THROB-THROB-throb.
He looked up, and saw the beast turn its head. Then its outline appeared to waver, and soften, and one by one he saw the stars begin to shine through its bristling fur. The drum persisted –
throb – THROB
–
THROB – throb
– and the beast began to move away, or perhaps to
melt
away, disappearing into the darkness in the direction of the fire.