The Shaman Laughs (16 page)

Oswald nodded impatiently. "No, no, Charles." He held his palms outward in a gesture that pleaded for reason. "Which of your ancestors would strike a large animal with a rock held in his hand? An experienced hunter would want some leverage, to effectively lengthen his arm." The old man waited for some sign that these policemen might understand his point. There was no sign. "Cain," he said as he made a chopping motion with his right hand, "would use an instrument with a
handle
."

"A bull that size," Parris said, "I'd imagine it'd take at least a ten-pound sledge hammer to—"

"Butcher… now he might use a sledge," Oswald frowned thoughtfully, "but Cain… no. I am certain that he would not. This particular mutilator has a certain… refinement that would be reflected in his choice of instruments." The old man sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Cain would select a weapon that was appropriate for the ceremony. And I assure you, that this is a
ceremonial
killing." He paused, as if recalling something, and his face brightened. "Wait, let me show you something to demonstrate my point." Oswald pushed himself up and took quick strides out of the room.

Parris muttered, almost to himself. "I don't see what's wrong with a sledge hammer."

Moon ate the last half-dozen cookies.

Oswald returned triumphantly, carrying a heavy staff of hard wood. A grooved stone was attached to one end with thin strips of bark and a dark, sticky substance. "I picked this wonderful artifact up in Mexico several years ago. A Mayan girl discovered it in a limestone cavern in Yucatan. Within five kilometers of the classic ruins at Uxmal." He offered the artifact to Moon. "I estimate it to be late tenth or early eleventh century." He glanced at the Ute's crucifix. "Of the Common Era."

Charlie Moon accepted the club with a sense of reverence.

In the days before the Spaniards came, the People had made similar weapons to kill Navajo and Apache, even Sioux. The head of the club was formed by laboriously pecking a small granite boulder until it was egg-shaped and about twice the size of a softball. Then, a deep groove was fashioned around the stone, and a stout oak handle was attached with wet rawhide and pine pitch. This Mayan club was fashioned in much the same way, except that the stone head was a smoky yellow quartz. Moon gripped the club in both hands and slowly swung it in a chopping motion.

Parris watched the Ute, who seemed fascinated by the artifact. "Cain'd have to be a pretty strong guy to crack a bull's skull, even with a club like that."

"Not necessarily." Oswald puffed impatiently on his cigar. "A healthy twelve-year-old could do the job. It is," he said with an air of authority, "a matter of steady nerves and accuracy, not brute physical strength." He went to a shelf, withdrew a thick volume, and blew a puff of dust off the covers. "Here. In Sisson and Grossman's
Anatomy of Domestic Animals
. You see?" The old man placed the open book on the marble table. "Examine this figure." The lawmen leaned forward to see an ink drawing on a yellowed page that was labeled skull of ox: lateral view. Oswald was enjoying his role as teacher. "The brain of a bovine is, compared to the size of the skull, relatively small. Your mu-tilator would have to land a blow within a circle… I would estimate… hmmm… certainly no more than five, maybe six centimeters in diameter… situated on a bisecting line midway between the eyes and the horns on the frontal bone. Right here." He tapped the pencil eraser on the sketch to identify the lethal point.

Moon nodded. "That's just where he smacked Big Ouray."

"Except for an internal central ridge, the bovine skull is less than a centimeter thick in this region. A moderate blow would do the trick. But, of course," Oswald said as he saw lingering doubt on the lawmen's faces, "the blow must be carefully aimed."

"Yeah," Moon said, "if he misses, he's got himself a mean-tempered bull with a bad headache. Maybe he gets disemboweled." The big Ute shook his head in awe. "This guy must not be afraid of anything."

"Cain, you see, draws strength from the danger associated with his task." Oswald rolled his cigar between two fingers. "He is calm. Calculating. Limited by neither mercy nor fear. That," he gazed thoughtfully at Moon, "is why Cain does not miss his target. It is the power of intellect over emotion."

"A sane man," Parris muttered, "is afraid of being gored to death. And only a lunatic," he glanced at Schaid's color photographs, "would cut up a dead animal like that."

"Lunatic," his host said patiently, "is a word we use to describe an unusual mind. The mutilator, within his own frame of reference, is quite sane."

"If he's sane," Parris pressed, "then what's his motive?"

"Motive?" The old man paused and considered the question. "Motive. Such a serious word… a policeman's word." He patted Parris's hand. "But it is only a game, don't you see?" It was clear from the policemen's puzzled expressions that they did not see. "The testicles and the ears are trophies—a tangible celebration of the victory of the hunter's intellect and courage over the animal's instinct and brute strength. The only
motive
, gentlemen, is to win the game." He reached for the onyx bowl, and tapped the fresh ash off his cigar. "Life is a game that we all must play. A contest of both wit and chance, even bluff. Not unlike poker." Oswald gazed out the rain-streaked window at a willow dancing with the wind. "To use a card player's term, Cain has sweetened the pot." The old man felt a cold draft; he shivered.

"When word about Big Ouray gets out around Ignacio," Moon said with a faint smile, "some folks won't believe it was a human that did it."

"I have heard all of those fantastic rumors that float around after an animal mutilation," Oswald said softly. He turned to look over his cigar at the Ute. It was no surprise that Charlie Moon was tainted with a touch of superstition. All men were. "Let me assure you—this mutilator certainly was not the
pitukupf
. Or one of those old Anasazi spirits defending his resting place. This was a man. A man with an excellent mind, capable of meticulous planning."

Scott Parris's thoughts drifted away from this nonsense; he wondered what Anne was doing in Washington. Right now. At this moment. Maybe she was thinking about him. Wondering what he was doing. He got up, hoping Moon would take the hint and make his good-byes. "Looks like we've got our work cut out for us."

Oswald snapped the book covers shut. "I doubt it will happen, but if either of you should happen to come face-to-face with this mutilator, I advise you to be very prudent. Cain… I am sure that he is getting bored with killing animals. Some day soon, he will begin stalking"—almost imperceptibly, the old man shuddered—"the ultimate prey. What you are involved in," he blinked at Moon through watery eyes and his voice quavered, "is a most deadly game."

The Ute patted the old man on the back and smiled. "Thanks for the warning, Oz."

"This is starting to sound like pretty serious business. Maybe," Parris glanced slyly at his friend, "we should call in the FBI to give Charlie a hand."

Oswald Oakes watched Moon disappear down the tree-lined brick walk; the white man trailed behind the big Ute. He shook his head with the sad resignation of one who has tried to communicate and failed. Surely, the game had already begun. But who could prevent it! Not this mismatched set of policemen. If anything was to be done to influence the outcome of this affair, it was up to him. Filled with conflicting emotions, Oakes shuddered and tried to dismiss a multitude of fanciful worries from his mind.

On that very evening, as other old men drifted gratefully into the misty world of dreams, he would resist the gentle call of night. Finally, in the small hours, his resistance would fail. At first he would nap peacefully enough. But soon Oswald's eyes would begin to shift and flutter under his lids. He would dream dreams. Of being watched. Stalked. Of running… a formless, relentless hunter in close pursuit. The dream would end as it always did. There would be sharp pains, like hot fire ripping through his flesh. Rivers of warm blood. His violent death at the hands of the huge, shadowy form that pursued him through a forest of stunted, twisted trees.

And without knowing how he knew, Oswald Oakes knew this: The one who stalked him was not a stranger.

Outside the museum atmosphere of Oswald Oakes's Victorian home, the sun was breaking through the overcast, throwing a pale filtered light on the wet, emerald lawns. Parris rolled his window down; the moist, clean air was delicious. As they drove slowly through the old residential section of Durango, Moon glanced at his pardner. "Old Oz can't imagine an ordinary lunatic killing an animal and cutting it up just for the fun of it." He sounded almost apologetic. "He doesn't meet the sort of folks we have to deal with." Moon suddenly pulled onto the shoulder. He switched off the ignition.

The Ute seemed to be watching someone, or something, past a thin grove of lodge pole pine. Parris looked, but saw nothing unusual. "What is it, Charlie?"

"Funny," Moon replied dreamily, "never thought about it before, but that kinda looks like fun."

Parris followed Moon's gaze to the pair of men strolling across the manicured grass. "Surely you jest."

"Oh, I don't know," the Ute said, "I get some spare time, I may take up golf."

Daisy Perika awoke long before daylight; she had thought she heard a deep rumble of thunder in the west, but maybe it was a dream. No… there it was again. The storm was somewhere south of Durango but still west of Ignacio. Just about over Bondad. The old woman settled her head onto the rumpled pillow and sighed. Sleep would not return. She stretched her legs in a futile attempt to drive away the stiffness and the painful cramps that drew her toes under her feet. The shaman imagined that the faraway thunder was, as her grandmother had told her when she was barely five summers old, the great buffalo-hide drum of Man-in-the-Sky. She heard his palm slap the hide of the drum once more, with a solid crack that reverberated off the earth. Gradually, the drumbeats became synchronized with the pounding of her old heart, echoing across the dim memories of her many years. She whispered the shaman's song that her uncle, Blue Humming Bird, had taught her:

"Carry me over the clouds Carry me over the great snow mountains I will hear the sound of your wings Carry me there on your shoulders

Carry me down to Lowerworld

I will hear the sound of your wings
…"

Daisy felt herself covered with a heavy fog, then she drifted away with the sound of the drumbeat. She seemed to float through the aluminum roof of her trailer home, then saw the San Juan range far below—rounded peaks covered by thin wisps of silver cloud that flitted ahead of the west winds. The shaman was carried higher, until the horizon curved gently, and she could see a soft boundary in the Kansas prairie where the morning sunlight was sweeping in from the east. Abruptly she felt her body plummet toward Lowerworld, but the shaman was not afraid. This had happened many times, more times than she could remember.

Without any sensation of landing, she was in a deep forest of vines and ferns and trees that were old beyond reckoning. She found herself in the eternal twilight of Lowerworld; a trio of pockmarked orange moons cast strange, flickering patterns over the fluttering leaves and twisted vines. At first, the shaman felt rather than saw the presence above her. A shadowy form moved slowly above the mossy forest floor, floating like a kite under the branches of the trees. Fascinated, she watched the shadow transform its amorphous darkness into another shape, the form of an animal with wings. It was now a great bird, like an owl, with pitiless yellow eyes and curved yellow talons that ached for prey. The feathered creature dropped behind a mass of ferns, as if to make a kill. Daisy heard a scream. The awful shriek, which gradually fell to a low, pleading moan, left her trembling with horror. Was she the next victim? When the enormous bird arose with a ponderous flapping of wings, its talons were crimson—dripping with blood! Daisy shuddered as the great feathered creature circled under the limbs of the ancient trees. While she watched, the bird was gradually transformed… it was once again a flickering shadow, without discernible form, darting to and fro like a great moth among the mossy trunks of the trees.

The dwarf appeared on the forest floor, puffing smugly on his clay pipe. She heard the voice of her power-spirit; the
pitukupf
spoke in the archaic Ute tongue. Daisy rearranged the words in her mind and translated most of the prophesy into English, the tongue she used from long habit. The words hinted of a dark personality—someone, some-
thing
, who would commit a barbarous, taboo act.

"
One who was
Avaa,

Is not
Avda,

Will become
Avaa
again after spilling
nuu-ci
blood."

His final warning made the blood run cold in Daisy's veins. One of the People would surely die, and the manner of death would be horrible. So unspeakable was the crime, that the
pitukupf
refused to describe it. "Who is the Ute who will die, little man, and who… what is it this flying shadow that kills one of the People?"