Wild Indigo (23 page)

The rain began to let up a little and turned to a blanketing mist. The horses strained against the sharp ascent of the trail. I pulled the hood off of my hat so I could regain my peripheral vision. Diane stopped again. An iron pole gate stretched across the track. A sign suspended from the center read
FOREST ACCESS CLOSED UNTIL SEPTEMBER
6
FOR TANOAH PUEBLO INDIGO FALLS CEREMONIES. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED
.

“What shall we do?” Diane asked.

I felt light-headed. “We'll have to get off the horses and walk them through the trees and around that gate.”

“I got a bad feeling about this,” she said, swinging her leg over the saddle and down.

We led the horses around the gate, over slick, wet ground and slippery pine needles, through dense stands of conifers, and up a steep slope to the path on the other side.

“I'll take some nourishment now,” Diane said, breathing heavily from the sharp ascent we'd just climbed.

We tied the horses and took off our packs. My behind was glad to get out of the saddle. I opened my pack and removed a zippered plastic bag of energy bars and small pouches of trail mix and dried fruit. I tossed it at Langstrom.

“Well, Jamaica,” she said as she retrieved a nut bar from the sack, “you sure know how to show a girl a good time.”

“Yeah, I excel at outdoor entertainment,” I said.

Diane took a few other items and returned the bag to me. I stared at the contents. The energy bar wrappers glowed like neon lights.

“Aren't you going to eat anything?” she asked.

“Not right now,” I said, wincing. “My stomach is still kind of upset.”

“You sure you're all right to go on?”

“Gotta do it,” I said, and returned the food pouch to my pack, strapped it on, and climbed back on Ruby.

A few hundred yards up the course I felt a shift in the atmosphere. The drizzle continued, but the air felt light, like clouds surrounding my body. I felt as if I were floating.

Ruby smelled like a wet goat. The saddle seemed to be cawing like a crow with every shift of her hips. When I stared in one direction, I could make out the individual drops of mist as they fell from the sky, follow their journey as they traveled slowly to the ground. I heard the trees murmuring.

Again, Sonny's rump appeared stock-still in front of me. I came alongside and saw two massive trees across the trail, not blowdowns or slash, but deliberately cut to block access. A large sign read
KEEP OUT. TANOAH PUEBLO RESERVATION LANDS. NO ONE ADMITTED. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PUNISHED BY DEATH, ACCORDING TO THE LAWS OF THE SOVEREIGN NATION OF TANOAH PUEBLO.

“Something's wrong,” I said.

“Damn straight. I'm not going in there without a search warrant and a lot of other white people with guns and ammo.”

“No,” I said. “This was too easy. We should have had a problem getting up here without being turned back.”

“Hmmm. I guess it does seem odd. I've always heard the trails were heavily guarded this time of year.”

“Yes, and remember when Contreras told us he was going to tell his brother, the governor, that we were out here on the mountain? That would normally spark a militia into action. The minute they knew I was on the reservation during Quiet Time last Saturday, they sent out folks to keep me from getting to Santana's body and put me off the rez. I was surrounded almost the moment he died.” I swallowed, coughed, almost choked. I felt as though I had a small bird fluttering its wings in my throat.

“You all right?”

I nodded my head, coughed some more. “Could I have some of your water? Mine tastes sour.”

She got a bottle out of her pack and handed it to me. “Well, what do you think happened? Why didn't they come up after us, and why isn't there anyone here at the fork in the trail to protect their shrines?”

“I don't know,” I said, “but we're riding on.” I unstrapped the prayer ties and took out another strand. Again, I felt the beating of tiny wings against the walls of my throat. I coughed and coughed.

“Listen, I'm getting concerned about you,” Diane said. “What's going on?”

I opened my mouth as wide as I could. A Rocky Mountain bluebird flew out, winged its way into the clouds of moisture above us, and vanished into the air. I turned to look at Langstrom. Her face was full of concern. “I don't suppose you saw that?” I asked.

“Saw you coughing? That's what I'm talking about. You're coughing, you're throwing up, you don't seem well. I think we should head back down and get you to a doctor.”

I cleared my throat. My tongue felt like a slick stone pressed into the bottom of my palate. I couldn't lift it to speak. I slid off my horse and took the string of prayer ties to the sign and tied it to one of the large lodgepole legs. I got back in the saddle.

Diane shook her head and blew air out of her nose. “Okay,” she said, and turned away from the sign to where the trail forked to the left. “I don't know where I'm going, or if you'll even be alive when we get there, but I guess we'll ride on.”

The track we followed showed little use. Stones and limbs littered the path, and branches grew close overhead so that we frequently had to dismount and walk. The way narrowed to little more than a game trail as it wound around the mountain to the north and then to the east. We climbed sharply. Then the trace played out. Diane stopped, looked at me for direction.

“Look for a place to leave the horses,” I said. “We'll go the rest of the way on foot.”

As I tethered Ruby to a pine, I felt her nervousness and fear. A surge of guilt swept through me, as if I were abandoning her.

As I had Mountain.

Suddenly I felt a hot poker in my chest and a searing pain emanating from it in wide circles. My torso and legs grew hot, my arms were burning, my hands and fingers, even my toes, were on fire. A thought ran through my mind ahead of the blazing heat:
This must be what it feels like to be electrocuted.
I drew in what I thought would be my last breath, opened my eyes, and the heat was gone.

I saw Diane looking at me. “Where were you just then?”

“You mean…?”

“Yeah. You took a little trip somewhere and left your body here. I've been talking to you for five minutes. Did you hear anything I said?”

I shook my head. “I'm sorry. No.”

“It's something in your water, right? That Contreras guy put some kind of hallucinogen in your water.”

I swallowed. “Yeah. I don't feel it all the time; it flashes in and out—I'm thinking I had some built-in immunity to it or it could have been worse.”

“Why didn't you say something?”

“Because I didn't think you would stick with me. I thought you'd insist that we go back.”

“Damn straight I would have.”

“Well, we can't go back. And it's no use going back now anyway—as far as we've come, it would be no easier than going on.”

“Fine. Great. Just great. I've got a ticket on the Magical Mystery Tour. Well, while you were out there in the ethers that last time, I was saying how we should have brought flares, a GPS, things like that. Other than your forest ranger, nobody knows where the hell we are. Including us.”

“No, I know. I know where we are.”

“You do? Well, good. Maybe you'll take the lead now, Miss Acid Head.”

“Yeah, I will. Miss Acid Head?” I grinned.

She glared. “You could have told me, you know. Before we got this far.”

“I'm all right.”

“Yeah, that's what you said before.”

“No, I am. It's wearing off. I'm all right.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. Now, bring your pack, all the water you have left, anything you have. We have to be getting close to timberline. The air is getting rare, and I feel that cloud deck bearing down on us.”

“I'm right behind you. Where we going?”

“To the place where the old ones used to live.”

We came into the elbow of the box canyon from above, hiking over wet red clay and slick slabs of stone that looked like elephants' backs. As we approached the rim campsite, I heard the wash running. Large pools of liquid collected in rock depressions. Above us, the sky looked like an oyster—heavy, wet, glistening silver gray. We moved through clouds of mist looking for a good place to ford the wash, which gushed along at an amazing speed toward the edge of the gorge.

“Take your boots and socks off,” I told Diane. “Roll your jeans up if you can, tie your bootlaces together and sling them around your neck, and we'll hold on to each other to keep from getting caught in the current.” We tucked our pistols into our backpacks, and Diane helped me to wedge the rifle between my pack and my back, its stock and barrel resting on the straps.

We stepped together into the flow, our feet sinking into cold, slippery mud, our arms locked together for support. The bottom of the wash felt like an undulating snake, shifting and squirming beneath us. A constant roar told of the crashing and tearing of water forcing its way against rock, tree, and earth. Thick, reddish-brown water pummeled our ankles, next our shins, our calves, and then our knees. The flood was deeper than I'd thought. A sudden crack, like a rifle shot, and a long juniper limb came surging toward us, its green foliage bright against the muddied deluge. The thick end of it smacked hard into the side of Diane's knee. She went down, and nearly pulled me over with her. I reached with my free arm to grab her biceps and I braced my feet in the mud. My left arch found a stretch of flat stone embedded in the wash bottom, and I pushed against it for leverage. Diane sped away with the current as far as her arm could stretch, turning to one side, scrambling. Her head and one shoulder disappeared beneath the flood for an instant as she flailed with her arms and legs to find a hold. Her backpack twisted and bobbed atop the surface. I saw her boots race away on the angry torrent.

“My boots! My boots!” She thrashed with her free hand, trying in vain to reach them as they sailed off.

“Stand up!” I screamed, pulling hard on her arm. “We've got to get out of this current!”

“But my boots!”

“Come on!” I nearly dragged her the rest of the way across the wash.

We stood on the bank, assessing the situation. It was cold, and Diane's clothes were soaked. Her boots had flown downstream so rapidly that they were no doubt at the bottom of the canyon by now. Her pistol had been in her pack and—even though she'd gone under briefly—had been spared from getting waterlogged because the pack had floated.

I rummaged in my own ruck and found a pair of running tights, an extra pair of socks, and a hooded T-shirt. Diane stripped down under a tree and then struggled to pull on the clothes over wet derma. I saw her skin—which was blue with cold—grow scales, her back sprout a dorsal fin. Her short, slicked-back hair made a cap on her head, and her eyes seemed to bulge out beneath a sloping forehead. Gills formed on the sides of her face and fanned open and closed. She looked like a dolphin. I strained to call my mind to clarity while I retrieved my handgun from the pack. I holstered it again on my belt. “Maybe we can each wear one of my boots.”

“You kidding? Your feet look like they were bound when you were young, they're so small. I couldn't even get my toes into one of your boots.”

“We could cut the toe out so you could use the sole and the uppers.”

“I don't see how tearing down the only good pair of boots we have between us is going to help.”

I thought about it. Diane was probably right. With clothes on, she looked human again, but her voice sounded high and squeaky, like the dolphin's.

I peeled off my parka. “You take this,” I told her.

She didn't hesitate to grab it and put it on. She shook out the rain poncho she'd borrowed earlier, spraying water everywhere, then folded it up and tendered it to me. “This will keep you a little drier, anyway.”

“You can't go barefoot,” I said. “The rocks will tear your feet to ribbons, the cacti, pinecones, all of it—you'll have bloody soles inside of a few minutes.” I looked at what we had between us, inventoried my pack in my mind: my medicine pouch was soft deer hide, which would wear through in only a little more time than a sock. Besides, there wasn't much leather there anyway. My backpack was made of some sort of waterproof nylon, and Diane's looked to be of a similar material. Perhaps we could cut one of our packs apart and wrap her feet in the fabric. Too thin.

“Damn it! I don't see how you can go on without something on your feet.”

“I'll try it barefoot. How much farther?”

“No, it's no use. We have to climb down into that gorge. There's no way you can do it without something to protect your feet.” Then I had an idea: my water bladder! It was made of thick, pliable vinyl. It wouldn't be punctureproof, but it would shield her feet some. I'd drunk it dry anyway. I opened my pack and pulled out the plastic vessel.

“What are you doing?” Diane asked.

“Making you some moccasins,” I said. “Only, since we don't have any buffalo leather, we're doing it the modern way. These will give you a little protection, though I doubt you can climb in them.” I used my knife to cut the bladder down the side seams, creating two rounded rectangles of vinyl. “Put your foot here,” I said, laying one of the plastic pieces on the ground.

She put one foot in place. “How are you going to fasten these onto my feet?”

I stopped to think. My head was swimming. The episode in the wash, the roaring of the water, the constant drizzling mist, and the eerie gray light—I felt nauseous again, and I thought I could hear voices, drumming and chanting. I took a deep breath and waited, listening. Suddenly I knew what to do next. I took my knife to the corners of my poncho and cut two large squares. I folded the material into thirds to make insoles. I took two of my ropes of prayer ties from around my neck. I heard Tecolote's voice:
Spend these like gold, Mirasol.
I cut away the prayer bundles and placed a long rope of braided sinew under each “shoe.” Pointing to one, I told Diane, “Step on this.” When she did, I pressed the vinyl around her foot, and she bent down and helped me hold it in place. I wove the sinew around her toes, then over and under her foot again and again, then behind the heel, securing the wrapping with a tie around the ankle. “Try that,” I said.

Diane strode a few paces, circled around a bit, and came back. “It might work,” she said, “if I'm careful.” We outfitted her other foot. She stamped around a little, trying to see if the foot-wraps would work themselves loose. “Pretty clever,” she said.

“Those won't do for climbing. And the sinew will wear through sooner or later. But they might last for a little while,” I said as I pulled the altered rain garment over my clothes, then strapped my pack on over it.

We loaded up and started off along the rim. Diane soon moved with speed and confidence. “I'm glad I have these. They're actually staying on just fine. I'm amazed.”

I held up a hand. “Stop! Do you hear voices?” I half-feared I was having another hallucination.

She raised her head and held perfectly still. “Yeah, I thought I heard something. From down below, right?”

I listened, too, sniffed the air as Mountain would when something strange alerted him. The voices had ceased.

We walked on a little, then I heard someone cry out, far in the distance. “There it is again!”

Diane stopped abruptly. “I heard it, too. That sounded like a man—maybe calling for someone else—but I couldn't make out what he was saying. Maybe it's someone looking for your little guy.”

“We'd better hurry, then.”

We skirted along the rim until I found the way down into the canyon. “This is some dangerous climbing,” I said. “It's nothing but slick rock all the way. There's no way you can do it in those makeshift moccasins.”

She looked down. “Jesus! It's got to be a six-or seven-hundred-foot drop to the bottom! How far down do you plan to go?”

“There's a ruin. Well, there are lots of them in this canyon. But where I think the kid might have gone—it's a couple hundred feet down, then over, then back up again to that wide ledge there, then down again, and over. It's a long, arduous climb.”

We stood at the edge in silence. I shivered. “You take my rifle, and cover me from up here.”

“Cover you? I'd be happy to, but it's going to be hard to see around all those ledges and overhangs, even if it weren't for all this mist. There are times when I can hardly see twenty feet in front of me as it is. I'm not letting you go down there by yourself, it's too dangerous.”

“Just do it, Diane. Take the rifle and try to keep sight of me. And one more thing.” I felt around in my shirt and found the map, pulled it out and spread it open against a nearby stone. “See this place here?” I pointed to a site on the northern aspect, on the way to the four-wheel trail coming up the mountain from the other side. “There's a twisted old juniper about forty feet west of the trail here—it looks like a big old bonsai, really picturesque. It stands there all by itself, no other trees around for about a dozen yards. Step out twenty paces due west of it, and there's a cache buried there under the silt. There's water, some food, blankets, ropes, some horse feed, and maybe even some ammo—I don't remember. But if you need it, it's there.” I watched a small bonsai sprout from the place on the map, then quickly folded it to make the apparition go away.

“Thanks for the info, but I won't be going anywhere until you come back up.”

“I'm just saying it's there. Remember it.”

Diane tucked the map into the pocket of the parka. “Okay. Forty feet west, then twenty paces west of the tree.”

“You got it.” I started to lower myself into the gorge.

“I don't see what good this will do. You're going to need help. You're not right…you're having hallucinations. I don't want you to go down there alone. Wait until your forest ranger comes, and let him go down with you.”

“Just watch my back.”

On the climb down, it started to rain gently. The rocks and ledges were slick and cold. The temperature dropped. In spite of the hard work of climbing, I was chilly. I worked my way past the numbered digs, the dwellings with the corn silos, on toward the ceremonial ruin. A cold mist hung like clouds lodged in the gorge, obscuring my view of all else but the next rock in front of me. Once, I thought I heard an animal panting. The thick vapor that surrounded me muffled even the sound of the waterfall created by the flooded wash. I moved down-canyon, climbing over slide areas, across the ragged ledges, and through narrow passages where twisted junipers clung to the walls of the ravine, permitting me to step through their branches when there was no other solid footing. A few times, I stopped to look up toward the rim, hoping to see Diane, but the fog was so thick that I could only see a few yards above me.

I felt an outrageous thirst, and my stomach threatened to send up any juices that might remain. I stopped on a flat rock, clutched my middle, and bent over, hoping to get it over with. I heard feet scrambling behind me, small rocks stirring and then plummeting down the side of the cliff. I straightened and turned to heighten my radar. More scuffling, another rock clipping each stone face in sequence as it fell,
click, click, click.
And heavy breathing. Close.

I started around the giant boulder that would lead me to the ledge to the ceremonial ruin. My feet wouldn't cling to the wet basalt, and I began to slip. I clutched with my hands for a purchase, and met with sandpaper grit as the rough surface abraded the skin of my palms. As I slid, I twisted to try to get my backside against the rock face, and my left knee hit a hard out-jut of stone. Pain shot up my leg, through my bones. I saw the leg of my jeans turn red, felt the warmth and wet of blood soaking into the denim against my skin. In the distance, I heard men's voices calling, something in Tiwa. They sounded far away, up-canyon, perhaps near the high lagoon under the cliff overhang.

I turned again and tried to pull myself back up. My bloody knee rang with pain when I put weight on the leg. Again I heard panting from behind me, and small rocks bouncing as they dislodged and toppled to places below. I forced myself to ignore my injury, pulled my body up on a sheet of rough granite, and scrambled up to the high shelf that led to the ceremonial ruin. I stopped to catch my breath and saw a trail of blood drops on the stone below me, thinning with the mist and rain.

Now the hard lift lay before me. I hoisted myself by my arms, and as I jumped, a sharp pain tore through muscle and bone and caused me to cry out in agony. The toe of my right boot swung high and clung to the shelf. I heard footsteps somewhere near, the wheezing breath of exertion. I hung in terror for an instant, and then I strained and struggled and wrestled my body onto the ledge.

Before I could raise myself from my prone position, I felt hands grab at my waist. I turned to see Hunter Contreras below me, grasping at my pack. “What are you doing?” I wrestled to free myself of his grip, and to rise to my knees, but he held a firm grip on the belt of my pack.

“Is the boy up there? You can't go up there!”