The Wind Thief (Vanished, #4), page 2
I throw the truck into reverse and creep backward, very carefully, and pull in behind the tree, down a bit so that the big rock hides the truck. I kill the engine and grab my bag. When I step out, I’m swallowed by the night.
I start walking. A small light glows up ahead, and I focus on that. Nothing looks out of the ordinary, if you consider a visit to a backcountry bootlegging shack ordinary, but a sound stops me cold, like sand sprinkling on glass. I freeze as a snake sluices across the road in total silence, maybe six feet in front of me.
I’m used to seeing snakes out here, garter snakes, mostly. I’ve heard a few rattlesnakes doing their thing but have never come across one, thankfully. This is no garter snake or rattler. It’s thin and long and banded white and black.
It stops in the middle of the road and turns its bullet-shaped head toward me. A white band crosses its face, too, giving the unsettling impression of a mask.
“Get out of the road, please,” I say, only recognizing how strange that sounds once I’ve said it, as if it might respond to polite manners.
It stares at me, black tongue flicking, and for a terrible moment, I think I’m going to have to try to stomp my way out of this in loafers that show entirely too much ankle. After a moment, it slides its way to the other side, and the little hairs on the back of my neck settle again. The snake must’ve been caught by the sudden temperature drop when the sun disappeared, to act like that. At least, that’s what I tell myself to calm my racing heart the rest of the way up.
Ahead, a simple structure sits against a backdrop of stars, low and flat, maybe twice again the size of the Old Boat, a bit like an improvised double-wide. Two hissing propane lanterns illuminate a single wooden slab of a door. Beyond, the land falls away again, scruffy with mesquite and creosote bushes that fade quickly to darkness.
The Bodrey trading post.
I know surprisingly little about the Bodreys, considering my son is head-over-heels in love with one of them. I can see why Grant likes Kai. She’s very pleasant to Caroline and me, but in that twinkle-in-the-eye way that tells me she’s got a bit of a fearless streak held back like a trick card up her sleeve. I know that look—know how hard resisting it can be—because Caroline has a bit of it too.
Hosteen Bodrey is an angry young man, militant in his beliefs about protecting what he sees as the old ways of his people. They landed him in jail for a while, and then Grant said he bounced around a bit doing nothing productive. Their dad died while Hos was away, caught in a vapor fire that took out one of their hidden distilleries somewhere in the valley beyond, according to Sani Yokana. The mother, Bly Bodrey, lives here still but is ill. From what Kai described, it sounds like diabetic neuropathy, which makes for a particularly brutal day-to-day, even for an area of the country where chronic pain seems as prevalent as the desert dust.
But I’m not here to see Kai’s mother. I’m here to see Kai, and I don’t have much time.
I knock sharply three times on the spring-hinge door then step back into the harsh brightness of the propane lanterns. The curtain on the single-pane window to my right flutters, and I see a flash of glossy black hair. When Kai opens the door, I get a waft of fry bread and can almost taste the butter. She’s dressed in a black tank top that hugs her chest and dark jeans tucked into ankle boots made of black leather worn nearly white at the heel. She also looks like she might fight me.
“Hi, Kai. I’m just here because Grant asked me to come.” Something occurs to me. “Please tell me Grant also told you he asked me to come.”
I’ve used the crow totem to phase to some of these backcountry places before, for a drop-in, but explaining away how I showed up out of the blue is always tough. If the Navajo ever caught me phasing in and out, they’d brand me a witch, for sure. Plus, I almost always lose my bag when I try to carry it through.
The way Kai looks out beyond me, scanning the run up to the outpost like she was counting every star, every rock, every roll of the hills to make sure they were in their proper places, makes me very glad I came in the truck.
I jangle Grant’s keys in my pocket. “I parked behind the rock tree, like Grant said.”
She exhales and mutters Grant’s name under her breath in a way that is somehow both reprimanding and strangely endearing. “I don’t know how many times I gotta tell him I’m fine,” she says. “Get in before someone sees you.”
The Bodrey trading post is a bit like a cross between an army surplus and one of those run-down NYC bodegas that are almost certainly fronts. Outside of cigarettes, jerky, and energy drinks of all sorts, what’s on offer has very little rhyme or reason. Shovels, buckets, barbed wire, camping equipment, construction vests—it’s all a mishmash of different colors and shapes.
Kai leads me through the back of the shop into a living area that is actually quite cozy. A laptop glows on a low end table, adjacent a small kitchen with an electric stove and a chipped wooden table. Someone snores heavily from behind a narrow door in the back—likely Bly, medicated, and in bed.
Kai bids me sit in the den, and I catch a glimpse of an essay of some sort on the whirring laptop before she closes it. Grant has told me Kai is considering enrolling at UNM in Albuquerque—or maybe ASU—somewhere still near the land of her people but far from her family. I don’t blame her. I also don’t think this place will survive all that long without her at the front desk. And I have no idea what her mother is going to do without her.
I can see these things, or things very much like them, weighing on her. Her gaze is distant, caught up on a small totem set in the center of the table—a bear sprinkled with what looks like blue cornmeal. I’ve seen bear totems before but never one carved out of black obsidian and certainly not one with white eyes. I recall the banded snake that seemed to be waiting for me on the road, and for a moment, my own totem feels like it thrums in my pocket.
I pull my black bag around and set it on the table between us, and my world comes back into focus. “Tell me what happened.”
“It’s not a big deal. Sometimes, I feel really tired—that’s all.”
She tucks her hands between her thighs, and I wait. My father used to say that silence was one of many tricks of the trade that doctors shared with bartenders. And trust me, he would know.
“I got up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water, and everything went woozy. I sort of… fell. Woke up on the floor by my bed.”
I grip the bag more tightly by the worn leather handle and try not to think of Ben Dejooli, collapsing out at the Arroyo way back. “When did this happen?”
“Yesterday.”
“Has it happened before?”
Her eye catches mine in a quick flicker that tells me the answer even before she eventually nods. “Once or twice. I eat something and feel better. Sometimes I think I forget to eat. I got a lot on my mind.” She gestures at the laptop and the store and glances beyond the little kitchen toward her mother’s room and then at the bear totem last of all. Her fingers tremble when she brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. Her brow is damp.
The air thrums. Assigning cosmic significance to that banded black bear is easy enough, after what I’ve seen over the years, but I still believe fortune favors the rational mind. Medicine does as well. And her aside about feeling better after food strikes me as important.
“What did you eat to feel better after you passed out?”
She seems to wince at the phrase, but that’s what happened. She passed out. I tiptoe around a lot of topics in this world, but physiology is not one of them.
“Just some crackers,” she says, shrugging. “And orange juice.”
I nod and pop open my bag. “Have you ever had a blood workup?”
Kai looks at the worn leather like it’s the gaping maw of some monster.
“I take it that’s a no. If you’ll allow it, I’d like to take a blood sample just to rule some things out.”
She looks unconvinced, and I know I’m not going to get another shot at this. “Please, Kai. For Grant, if only to get him off your back about it.”
She allows a slight smile. If I were to guess, not a lot of people have cared about Kai the way Grant does. It’s a powerful thing, to have someone care about you and to get that care returned. It has a way of softening even hard-luck eighteen-year-olds—cynical physicians, too, and their lovably neurotic nurse life partners.
“How long does it take?” she asks, but she’s already scooting closer, holding out one hand, palm up, as if I’m going to take it out of her wrists.
I pull a sample kit and cleaning swab from the bag and set about cleaning the crook of her elbow instead. “Five minutes, max.” If I can get the damn line started. A good blood draw requires a good jab, something Caroline could do in her sleep. Not me—somewhere in the dusty old book of doctoring, someone decided white coats were above venipuncture, which naturally came right around to bite me in the ass when my practice shrank from being a fellow at ABQ General to being one of two people in a retrofitted RV. Thankfully, Caroline made me practice on her until I was at least serviceable once more.
Then again, she never had me practice when an ex-con was on approach. My hand flutters a bit with the butterfly needle, and Kai sees it. I clear my throat to draw her attention back to my face, say a prayer to whoever is listening, and ease into the vein. I act like it’s normal when I hit pay dirt on the first try. Pretenses must be made.
Dark blood shoots through the piping and spatters into the first vial. When it’s full, I swap in the second and manage not to turn their den into a murder scene. That’s when I hear the angry rumble of a big truck coming around the bend.
Kai jerks her arm, and I almost lose the rig. “You need to get the hell out of here.”
“Almost done,” I say. “Squeeze your fist a few times.”
She pumps a few times and shakes her head. Anxiety creeps over her like a heavy blanket, weighing her visibly. “You sure you parked far enough behind the rock tree? If he saw Grant’s truck—”
“Don’t worry about the truck.” I pop off the second vial and ease the needle out again under a cotton ball. I even prepped the Band-Aid for easy on. Caroline would be proud, but only if I manage not to come home black-and-blue.
I secure the samples and pop off my gloves, tossing them into the bag for good measure. She’s up and moving to the back before I can even close the bag.
“You should have a cookie or something. Take it easy—”
She snorts as if the idea is a joke. And maybe it is. She can’t exactly lie back on the couch with a cooling mask and a glass of wine and binge-watch shows, order take-out Chinese, and decompress. Kai has never known such things.
“I don’t know how you’re gonna get out, but you gotta get gone.”
I let her escort me out the back door, ducking under as I go. “Don’t worry about me. Thanks for allowing the draw. I’ll be in touch.”
She looks down at me pityingly then closes the door, as if to say, What’s the use? A pair of headlights cuts the night in the distance. The Bodrey trading post is at the top of the pass, set back in the fold of the hill. Under normal circumstances, I’d be backed up, trapped. But normal circumstances don’t apply when you have the crow totem I have.
Time to step back into the phone booth of oblivion.
I set my bag down carefully in the dark fringe of the dirt lot then reach into the worn leather pouch in my pocket and grip the crow around the smooth stone of its belly. I haven’t had to use it all that often since the Coyote, but my hand still fits around it like a glove, like it’s been waiting.
Reality snaps into a sepia night vision, and I can see for miles even as I drop out of sight. The world whips in a silent sandstorm, as if reality is constantly siphoning itself away but never disappearing. This is the thin place, the infinite crawl space between the land of the living and the land of the dead.
People aren’t meant to be here. That much becomes very obvious when the sting starts, a single pinpoint burn like a focused application of liquid nitrogen on a troublesome spot of skin—except deeper, in my soul. And the longer I stay, the more it spreads.
The thin place has its advantages, though. For one, I can drop out of sight of men like Hosteen Bodrey and his entourage, just now hopping out of a shiny extended-cab truck on huge tires. I look from the simple trading post back to the truck and try to do the math.
Either he stole it, or the bootlegging business must be booming.
Equally as beneficial, however, is the mile-long stride I get as long as I hold the crow. Distance—and time, for that matter—passes differently here. My working theory is that the closer one gets to death, the less things like distance and time matter.
A mere shuffle would take me right past them and to Grant’s truck—I could walk all the way back to Grant in a half step—but something stills me. Hosteen is speaking with deference to a man in the back of the cab. He’s holding out a hand and helping the man down. From what I know of Hosteen Bodrey, he doesn’t speak with deference to anybody. I’ve since learned that “Hosteen” is an honorific that people around the Arroyo use tongue in cheek when they talk about Hos Bodrey. Navajo humor works that way, from what I can understand. Hos took it regardless and owned it. Seems to be his modus operandi.
The sting isn’t too bad yet. Sometimes, I think the thin place takes a second to notice you’re there, so I take advantage and ease myself over their way for a closer look, taking care not to step right off the hill. The thin place wants to take you far away, so walking a few steps here and there is tricky. If Hos could see me, he’d likely think I was one of his bootleggers wandered in from the nearest still, too drunk to pick up my feet.
But he doesn’t, of course. He can’t.
Age is sometimes hard to tell with the Navajo—old men can seem young, and young men can seem old—but the man Hosteen helps down from the truck is a strange mix of both. If I had to guess, I’d put him at sixty, but a strong sixty, with long white hair and skin like oiled leather. They speak in Navajo. I’ve picked up a few phrases here and there over the years—enough to show gratitude, basically, and ask where it hurts. He’s asking about Kai.
The man is blind. That much is evident in the way he looks at the night sky with eyes closed, head softly seeking. His steps are slow but confident as Hos leads him inside.
I follow them to the front door. The burn is stronger now. The tips of my fingers are exhibiting the telltale signs of early frostbite, another charming aspect of the thin place, but I hold tight to the crow totem anyway.
A shuffle to the right takes me through the thin outer wall and back into the Bodrey outpost. Hosteen calls for Kai, and she comes around from the back as though she was watching over her mother all evening. He introduces the blind man in Navajo I can’t understand, tracing back the clans in a cadence reminiscent of the begats, and while Kai gives a polite bow at each, the smile she affects seems strained and stops short of her eyes.
Hosteen switches to English. “Speak your greeting, Kai. He can’t see you nodding.”
Kai clears her throat and stammers, “Welcome, uncle. You’ve traveled a long way. Let me get you some food and drink.”
The man smiles and responds in low, full English as he feels about for the seat behind him. “Call me Jacob. My people call me Jacob Dark Sky. But that is my singer’s name. And I have not sung for you yet.”
Kai looks sharply at Hosteen, who returns her gaze unflinchingly.
Jacob Dark Sky moves his head in a small tic, as if testing the air between them. His laugh is soft and gentle. “Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with a glass of water.”
“I hope you didn’t come all the way from California for nothing, Jacob,” Kai says. “I’ve already been to see the Arroyo singers. They’ve seen nothing wrong. Plus, we don’t have the money to hire a singer—”
“The Arroyo singers are old fools,” Hosteen says sharply. “And you wouldn’t say I’m overreacting if you saw what I see out there in the hills and the valleys. This isn’t just about you, Kai. This whole reservation is weak and getting weaker.”
Dark Sky holds up a hand, and brother and sister are stilled. His directionless smile cuts the tension between them. “I am sure your singers are not fools. But Hosteen was right to call for me. I am blind in one way, but I see in others. And what I see is a sickness on this place.”
Dark Sky reaches out in one fluid motion and picks up the black bear totem from the table with shocking accuracy. When he touches the stone, I see it change.
When I’m in the thin place, the crow totem glows, a bit like when someone puts their hand over a powerful flashlight and it shines through the skin. This is that times ten, like staring at snow reflecting sun. A swirling white burn knits itself around the totem, and for a moment, I’m so stunned that I almost drop my crow.
Thankfully, I gather myself in time to prevent myself appearing from thin air by the coffee table. The sepiascape never breaks. Kai and Hosteen never even blink. This white burn is as invisible in the living world as I am.
But Jacob Dark Sky turns his blind eyes my way.
I fully expect to be called out where I stand and told to step forth and explain myself. Instead, he sets the black bear gently back down on the table. The white burn fades until it disappears.
“A sickness,” he says again, nodding. “But of the spirit. I am sure of it.”
I don’t believe he can see me—at least not fully. His eyes still quest underneath the lids. But he senses something of me, more than any normal man should.
I’ve had just about enough of this on every level. The pain is getting acute, and that totem looks like it’s got Mona Lisa eyes. I shuffle out.
Back in the dark fringe, I let go of my crow. The warmth of the desert night settles over my shoulders like a blanket, and I gulp air as quietly as I can. I’m away from the post but can’t tell how closely anyone is listening. With any luck, they’ll think the whoosh pop was a car backfiring on the reservation road below.
