Wild Indigo (7 page)

After my encounter with Gilbert Valdez at the gas station in Cascada Azul, I headed toward Taos. On the way back to the highway, I saw a hitchhiker waiting with his dog beside the road, a common sight. The BLM encouraged a Good Samaritan practice. I pulled over on the shoulder, leaving plenty of room between me and the hitcher so I'd have time to prepare. I unlocked my glove box and took out my Browning high-power automatic. I unsnapped the holster, but left the gun in it, then reached across my body and clipped it onto my belt over my left hip, away from the passenger seat, but making sure I could get to it if I needed it. I reached into the backseat and skewed my rifle on the floor, wedging the butt end under my seat so it would be hard to dislodge quickly.

It was then that I noticed a regrettably familiar face approaching in the rearview mirror on the passenger side. “Oh, Jesus,” I whispered harshly to myself, “it's Bone Man!”

Under an enormous knit cap and a swirling tangle of greasy dreadlocks, a cheesy smile lit up a leathery face smeared with dirt. “Wow, Jamaica, I thought that was you. Dude, what happened to your Jeep?” He folded down the seat back in order to throw his duffel bag behind it, then started when he saw my rifle. He threw up his hands in a mock gesture of being held up. “Whoa! Peace, man! Don't you know it's dangerous to live by all that hardware? I'm almost afraid to get next to it, dude. Bad karma.”

“Okay by me,” I said, and put my Jeep back in gear. “Get your stuff out, then.”

“No, wait, okay, I was just kidding,” he said. “Is it all right if Bob Marley sits in the backseat?” He urged his golden retriever in the back without waiting for me to answer.

Once inside, he fastened himself in with the seat belt, and I noticed a terrible stench. “God, Bone Man, don't you ever wash?” I waved my hand in front of my face, then leaned toward the opening where my door once was to breathe air that wasn't fouled.

He grinned at me, his teeth edged with detritus around the gums. His army-surplus fatigues were stained and torn. “They charge six bucks for a shower at the Northtown gym. Maybe if you could help me out with a little change?”

I blew out a breath, hoping not to have to take one in again soon. “Where you headed?” I asked, eager to drop him off anywhere I could.

“Bob Marley and I were up visiting friends at the pueblo,” he said, reaching behind him to fondle the panting retriever. “We don't have to be anywhere in particular now. We're just hangin'. Where are you going?”

“You were at the pueblo? It's closed now; it's Quiet Time. Besides, they don't allow you to bring your dog in. They don't even allow pedestrians.”

He shrugged uncomfortably and started picking at his front teeth with a grit-packed thumbnail. “I got a buddy who meets me down at the gas station by the casino. We go in the back way, in his truck.” Then, looking at his dog in the backseat, he said, “Hey, is it all right if Bob Marley chews on that Kong toy?”

“No! That's Mountain's. He'll know if someone else has been gnawing on it. Wolves are very territorial about their stuff. It's going to be bad enough when he smells your dog in my Jeep.”

“Okay, okay. Give me that, Marley.” Bone Man reached in back and grabbed the big black rubber cone. “What do you want me to do with it?”

“Give it to me.” I snatched it out of his hand and laid the toy in my lap.

“Sorry, dude.”

I pulled onto the highway and headed back toward Taos. “Why don't I let you and Bob Marley off at the gym and you grab a shower, okay?”

“Cool,” he said. “And if you could spare us some—”

“I'll see what I've got,” I said, cutting him off.

And then he began to perform the ritual that had earned him his name. He reached under his shirt and pulled out a long necklace made of chicken thigh bones strung tightly against one another—there were literally hundreds of them on one long strand. He closed his eyes and began running his fingers up and down the bones, playing them like piano keys. “I feel a vibration of danger here, Jamaica. I feel an animal coming for you. A big animal…”

I pulled into the gravel lot in front of the Northtown gym. “Save it!” I snapped, as my tires slid against the crushed stone and the Jeep jerked to a rocking halt. “I'm not interested, Bone Man.”

He looked offended, but he hurried out of his seat belt. “But you said you'd help me with some spare change…”

I reached in my pocket and found a wad of several dollar bills. “I'm not giving you a ride again if you don't do something about that smell,” I warned as I tendered the cash.

He nodded his head in gratitude. “Okay, Jamaica. Thanks.” He opened the door of the Jeep and began extracting his dog, his things. Then he leaned down and looked in at me. “I really did see a big animal,” he said. “It was coming after you. Maybe it was trying to get you but it got your Jeep.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Brilliant deduction there, Bone Man. You really hit it right on this time.”

“No, I mean, there's something coming for you, Jamaica. It's out there.”

“Okay, Bone Man,” I said. “I gotta go.”

He pressed the flats of his palms together and held them to his greasy forehead in a prayerful salute.

I shifted into reverse, dug into the gravel, and spun my Jeep around, then pointed the nose toward the highway again and paused, waiting for oncoming traffic to pass.

But Bone Man wasn't done with me. While I sat watching for an opening in the traffic, he suddenly appeared beside my face, his breath like a feedlot on a warm day. “I guess it's probably a good thing you have those firearms after all, Jamaica,” he said. “The bones tell me you're going to need all the protection you can get.” He held up the chicken-bone necklace and rattled it at me, as if to verify the fact.

In the hills above the tiny village of Agua Azuela lived an old bruja named Esperanza. The villagers, mostly Hispanos, called her Tecolote, which meant Owl. They half-feared her, half-revered her, and most of them sought her out as a
curandera
, or healer, in spite of the fact that they also thought she was a sorceress or witch of some sort.

The bruja and I had a short but intense history together. The previous spring, Tecolote had approached me in a churchyard—a complete stranger, without benefit of introduction—and demanded I visit her at home. A week later, following the directions she had given me, I climbed the mountain to find her waiting for me, even though I'd never let her know I would come. That first visit, she made me a potion that gave me an unforgettable hallucinatory experience. We had several subsequent and equally peculiar meetings. I'd been writing then about
Los Penitentes,
an ancient and secretive brotherhood that still practiced ritual flagellation and—some said—crucifixion in the remote high mountain villages of northern New Mexico. A priest I'd consulted in my research had been found dead, his lifeless body roped to a cross. Esperanza seemed tied somehow to the enigma through her associations and her clairvoyant visions, which were shrouded in mystic symbolism. She offered me cryptic clues, then appeared—and disappeared—in public places as I followed those clues. She tendered disconcerting advice that seemed irrelevant, but—when followed—ultimately led me to solve the mystery involving the murder of my friend the priest. That episode left me with an inestimable respect for the mysterious powers of Esperanza de Tecolote.

As I approached her remote casita now, again without notice, she was waiting expectantly on the
portal
as she had been the first time. “Mirasol,” she called, waving me forward, “come in. I made tea.”
Mirasol
was the word for sunflower, a nickname she had given me. This time, I didn't even bother to ask her how she knew I was coming. “Montaña.” She waved to the wolf. He ran to her.
“¿Cómo está? Ven aquí,”
she continued as she ambled inside, the wolf right behind her.

I stooped down to pass through the low doorway of the tiny adobe home and entered her spartan living space. As always, candles were lit in the
nicho
before the carved santos, and the low adobe hearth was covered with pottery jars and iron pots. The teakettle hissed over the fire, above which was the slab of adobe that was Tecolote's bed—what the locals called a shepherd's bed. The only furniture in the one-room house was the cottonwood plank and stick table and two chairs.

Tecolote held a meaty bone up before Mountain, whispering to him in Spanish as he watched her and drooled. She raised one hand and pointed with two fingers at her eyes. The wolf followed this gesture and looked at her submissively. The wildlife ranger who'd placed Mountain with me for adoption had instructed me never to stare directly at the pup because wolves saw this as a threat. But Mountain never seemed threatened by Tecolote. Rather, he seemed to sense that she was in charge. The bruja handed the bone to the wolf and he took it delicately from her and curled up on the adobe floor.

Then Tecolote turned to the hearth and busied herself with teacups. The large hump at the base of her neck caused her frame to twist to one side and the shoulders to slope downward at an angle from one side to the other so that she seemed always about to tip over. She was short and lean and brown, and her thick calves were knotted with hard muscle. She always wore a plain sackcloth dress, a shawl, and unlaced, brown, curled-up-at-the-toes men's wingtip shoes. Her thin white hair was pulled tightly back at the nape of the neck.

She toddled toward the table with my cup and set it down, giving me a mostly toothless smile. Her few teeth, like her long, gnarled fingernails, were stained brown. “I'm glad that good boy recognized me,” she said. “You better hold on to that one, Mirasol.”

At first I thought she was referring to the wolf. Then I wasn't sure. I frowned, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“That beautiful boy. The one you spend time with. He's good to look at. And smart, too. He's good for you. I'll bet he's good in the sack, too.” She cackled loudly at this, her eyes squeezing into tight squints of delight.

“Kerry? How do you know about Kerry?”

She slapped the tabletop and twisted her head, laughing hoarsely. “Maybe I saw you with him. Maybe I was flying by and looked in your window. Or maybe I heard some people talking. How did you get that bump on your head?” She turned back to the hearth to fill her own cup.

While her back was turned, I quickly sniffed my tea to make sure it wasn't the same thing I'd had the first time I'd come here.

“It's not a
cura,
Mirasol. It's just some Indian tea. It grows on the mountain. Do not be afraid.” She turned then to face me, smiling again.

I shook my head. There was no fooling Esperanza. She could see out of the back of her skull. “What bump on my head?” I instinctively placed my hand on my scalp and found a knot beneath my thick mane of hair where the owl struck me. She couldn't have seen that small knob through my tresses. “How did you know I had a bump on my head?”

“I'm a bruja, Mirasol. That's why people come to me, because they need healing. I can see what ails them and I give them a
cura
.” She seemed irritated with me that I would question her talents. “You know, that beautiful boy of yours has more brains than you do, Mirasol. Maybe I should work with him instead of you. At least he knew what to do when you got that smack on your
cabeza
.”

I clamped my lips shut, trying to control my face. It was only feeding Esperanza's ego for me to show my incredulity. She had a diverse bag of mysterious tricks. On previous occasions, she'd disappeared, practically in front of my eyes, and I now knew that she did this partly to impress me. I took a drink of my tea.

“I see you've taken up with my good friend Mrs. Santana,” she said. “This is good. She is a good teacher for you.”

My mind was reeling.
How did she know about Momma Anna? What else did she know about me?

“It's too bad about her son. I felt very sorry about that. I don't know much about that, of course; you know I can't see into everyone's secrets. But I can tell you this: it's not what it seems. And I think there's another one dead, but maybe he doesn't know it yet. One of their brujos. I think he was the first one of them that died over this.”

“Over what? What are you talking about, Esperanza?”

“I'm talking about what you think was done by
los búfalos
.”

“You mean the stampede? I saw it happen.”

“You only think you saw it.”

“I saw the man die, Esperanza. He was gored and then trampled by a herd of bison. I couldn't do anything to save him. I nearly got killed myself.”

“You are the only one who was in any danger from those beasts. That other one? He was already dead. Now you have a different kind of beast to worry about.”

I had enough experience with Tecolote to take this last thing seriously. In our previous situation, she had warned me about what she called “the black thing” that was stalking me. And she had turned out to be right: a person with a dark purpose had indeed been looking for an opportunity to silence me and end my search for my friend's killer. Though her visions were hard to read literally, hindsight had taught me that they were true enough to be trusted.

I felt my pulse escalate. “Am I in danger?”

She raised a bony finger and pointed it at me, its knobbly knuckle causing it to hook and curve before it settled on a path generally in my direction. “You were trying to decide that yourself just last night, no? Whether to follow your own nature or leave things alone?”

I remembered my conversation with Kerry about the messages of the stars versus the owl. I looked hard at Esperanza, whose black eyes were fixed on me like two tiny headlights. “What are you saying?”

She lowered the finger and twisted her chin up and her ear down, looking sideways at me, as if to study me from a different perspective. “It is your nature I am talking about, Mirasol. You're always going to be seeking the truth. That is usually dangerous, wouldn't you agree?”

I didn't answer. I was considering now what Roy had said about me always finding trouble.

“This is why you came here,” Esperanza said, pushing her cup aside as if she needed more space. She placed both her palms on the table and leaned forward over it. “You are in the dark. They want you in the dark. And we need to let in the light so you don't get swallowed up. You know, they go into the ground, in the dark down there. Then they eat the peyote so they can fly out the little hole at the top and be free of their bodies, of the darkness. But you, you must go another way to find the light. What about your writing? Are you writing?” Esperanza had a way of raising the pitch of her voice to a shrill batlike squeak when she was getting ready to show power.

Instinctively, I drew back from her, as if to brace myself. I felt defensive and fearful. “I'm working on a book about the pueblo's life and ways. That's what I'm doing with Anna Santana.”

Esperanza leaned even farther forward, rising a little out of her chair so that her upper body was completely over the table. “You are not an Indian! That's not who you are. What about Santa Lucia? Do you still carry her with you?”

I fingered the silver St. Lucy medallion inside my shirt. Esperanza had given it to me last spring and told me she was a white saint, a yellow-haired saint, the patron saint of writers.

Just then, the bruja's hand flew out and seized the medallion, pulling me forward by the neck so that the chain bit into my flesh in back and I was forced to throw my hands out on the table to keep from falling face-first into the scarred wood plane between us.

The light in the room vanished and I was underground, in the dark. A small red glow came from some fiery embers in a pit in the center of the room, and when my eyes adjusted to the blackness, I could see the naked man lying prone in the dirt, his back bloody with a pattern of claw marks. Three peyote buttons nested in the center of a tiny micaceous clay bowl on the ground beside him, along with an olla, a pottery water jar.

I heard a snakelike rattle and spun around just in time to see the bear coming toward me, his face a man's face
—
painted white on one side and black on the other
—
a red strip of cloth tied across his forehead. The bear's huge arm suddenly swiped at me and clawed me across the face. I fell backward and hit my head on something hard, something so hard it caused my ears to ring and ring and ring.

I felt the cool wetness of the cloth on my burning cheek. I opened my eyes and found Tecolote's face inches from mine, her eyes black moons in a sea of flesh arroyos. “Mirasol,” she said tenderly. “You have been marked by
el oso
.”