The Coyote Way, page 6
part #3 of Vanished Series
The crowd murmurs, hushed and low. I notice teenagers here too, standing with their parents. Most likely Crownrock students. This is definitely a neighborhood affair.
“Now it’s important to note that all three were discovered in remote locations. Not within the cities or even the settlements. We’ve doubled the officers on each shift, and they’re out patrolling Crownrock and the other towns right now, nonstop. This is a time to remain vigilant, not a time to panic. Normally we’d keep all this in the department, but recently everyone seems to be on edge and talking anyway, so we’re going around to head off rumors and calm some fears.”
“Is it a serial killer? One of our people?” someone shouts from the crowd.
Yokana flinches as if the thought physically twinges him. I’m sure he, and any number of the other old-timers here, think the idea of a Navajo killing another Navajo is basically tantamount to treason.
“What did I just say about not panicking? About rumors?” Yokana says. “Serial killer is about as loaded a word as my job’s got. I wouldn’t use that, no.”
If the NNPD found three bodies in quick succession, and they are in fact connected with Biligaana Bill, then they don’t need to worry about the killer being Navajo. The killer isn’t from this world at all. The way that Caroline squeezes my hand, like she’s on a rollercoaster ride about to drop, I know she wants to tell Yokana as much, just like me. Grant is pointedly not looking at us, as if he might give us away if he did. All of us want to say it. None of us can. At best they’d think we’re insane. At worst they’d think we’re involved. I called in an anonymous tip from just outside the canyon, and Chaco says he brushed our prints from the scene, but that wouldn’t matter if we start talking like we know what happened to Biligaana Bill.
“Three dead,” Caroline whispers to me, her lips brushing my ear, confusing my body. “Busy couple of nights for Ben.”
“Is the market still on?” comes another shout from the crowd.
“Yes. I want to be absolutely clear here,” Yokana says, holding up his hands. “The Native Market is on as planned. Our department is teaming up with the Santa Fe PD to boost security there and help keep an eye on our people. If you’ve participated in the Native Market, we urge you to do so again. It’s important that the Diné are represented.”
The faces I see are flat and unreadable in that uniquely Navajo way, but I see determination in the way heads nod. I think it would take a lot to shut down the Native Market, or even to postpone it. The market is a serious source of revenue and publicity for the rez, and not just for the Navajo either. Hundreds of tribes gather in Santa Fe. One of my first years at ABQ General I helped coordinate a medical tent for the market thinking I’d be helping out the rez. I spent seven straight hours giving water to fat white people who had too many margaritas and forgot they were at eight thousand feet. 150,000 people came that year. That’s a lot of water for a lot of sunburned tourists. I was sort of put off the whole experience for a while. I’d planned to go back and drink and shop on my own, maybe buy some art I definitely didn’t need, but then I met Caroline.
More people are shouting out questions now, but Yokana preempts them by saying he’s said his piece but will stick around for a while to speak with whomever wants to chat with him. I wish I had his dogged calm. A lot of it comes from his heritage, but a lot of it is learned. I need to work on that. I used to have it, but I think it’s left me. On the drive over here yesterday I was about ready to chuck myself out of the driver’s-side window listening to everyone’s thoughts on how to find our way back to the 387. We’ve got a coyote prowling the countryside that can change shapes, for crying out loud—the fact that I made a wrong turn or two means nothing in the long run, but we’re still at each other’s throats. This whole rez is on edge. It’s infectious.
Most of the crowd disperses. A few of the latecomers stick around to speak with Yokana in person. He addresses each of them in turn, quickly but warmly, shaking hands and patting backs. I turn to corral Grant so we can get back to the boat and talk this over, but he’s disappeared again. He does this more often, now. You’d think we have bars on the boat the way he scampers away whenever we park it somewhere and open the door.
“Did you see where Grant went?” I ask Caroline. She’s looking carefully at every single person in the room. Testing for smoke like a drug dog at the airport. It’s important, I know, but so is Grant. He’s our first charge, after all. I think Caroline senses my annoyance, because she focuses on me again.
“He’s around here somewhere,” she says, scanning the room for his smoke. She senses something, peers around a crowd of Navajo speaking to each other quietly in their rhythmic way, as if every word was already written and they were just reading it out loud to one another. I walk around them and stop. Grant is in the far corner of the gym, with the other kids, talking to a Navajo girl. A girl his age. And he’s smiling. I mean, he looks like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, but he’s smiling.
“Dr. Bennet, I thought that was you.” Yokana steps over my way after disengaging himself. “I wasn’t sure we’d ever see you again our way,” he says. He grasps my hand warmly, and although I know he doesn’t intend it, Yokana’s words hit me with a wave of guilt, as surely as if Young Me were standing in the corner, watching, shaking his head in disappointment.
“Are you in town for the market?” Yokana asks.
You were a tourist after all.
“No,” I say. “We’re… we’re back for a while.”
Yokana looks pleasantly surprised, and I feel a bit better. Young Me shuts up at least.
“We?” he asks.
“I’m with Caroline Adams. I’m not sure if you remember her. She worked the CHC too. And that one—” I point to where Grant has now thankfully put his hands in his pockets while he’s talking to the girl, instead of holding them out like claws. “He’s with us too. Checking out the school and all.”
Yokana nods. Thankfully doesn’t delve. I’ve always loved that about the Navajo. I disappear for five years and show up with a fourteen-year-old kid, and all I get is a placid nod.
“Crownrock High is a good place. Open enrollment. They’ll take him if he’s interested. It’s not very diverse, but that’s the rez for you. And you’ve never had a problem with that.”
It takes me several seconds to realize he thinks Grant wants to attend Crownrock High School. I look over at him again, surrounded by kids his age for once. Yokana is right. There’s only one other white kid that I can see. He’s watching Grant carefully.
“Dr. Bennet,” Yokana says, quietly drawing my attention again. “If you’re here for a time, I was wondering if you might do me a favor.” Suddenly he looks tired. As if he’s spent all his energy keeping his face together for the crowd, and now that they’ve mostly dispersed he’s drooping.
“Sure,” I say. “Name it.”
“We have three bodies at the CHC morgue that nobody can make heads or tails of, in terms of cause of death,” he says softly. “Maybe you could take a look at them.”
“Me? I’m not sure what I could do.”
“As strange as it might sound, I’m not all that surprised to see you here, Dr. Bennet. These cases, they give me the same type of feeling that I got with Dejooli and Ninepoint. Before they disappeared. Back when you were nearly killed. And if we don’t get it settled soon, it’s gonna attract the attention of Gallup, just like last time. Or something worse than Gallup. Maybe you’ll see something the morgue missed. You and Ms. Adams are quite… perceptive.”
I can’t tell how much he knows or believes about what happened the last time we were all at Chaco rez and the agents hit the hospital. Certainly not the whole of it, but maybe little parts. By Gallup he means the FBI. They’ve got a station there. Parsons and Douglas couldn’t be traced back to the FBI, but Yokana didn’t see what we saw. He was convinced they were federal operatives of some sort, and he doesn’t want their kind of trouble again. The way he says or something worse makes me wonder if he doesn’t sense a bit of what’s at work here now. He’s an old-school Navajo, after all. And a cop. That’s a double whammy.
“Sure. I’ll check it out.” I give him my phone number and tell him to call me to arrange a time. He nods again, takes a deep breath, and puts his face back on.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have two other towns to visit on this little tour, and then I’ve got to go try and make sure a hundred thousand tourists get what they pay for at the Native Market, and nothing more. Good seeing you, Dr. Bennet.”
He turns and makes his slow way to the exit, stopping here and there to say good-bye to everyone who greeted him.
A hundred thousand people. That’s a lot of bodies that could harbor our coyote shape-shifter. That’s a lot of potential for chaos that I don’t think it would pass up. My stomach sours, and I turn to Caroline. She’s watching people, but she catches my gaze, shakes her head. No skinwalker here. But still, I feel like it wanted us here. We followed its tracks here, after all. Maybe it wanted us to hear about the trouble it’s already causing. Maybe it wants us to think about what it could do if it had a real crowd to whip into a frenzy. Say, a crowd of over a hundred thousand people at the Native Market.
When we finally get Grant’s attention and take our leave, the afternoon has settled over Crownrock like a heavy blanket, and pinning it down along the edges are rows and rows of silent black crows.
Chapter 10
Caroline Adams
It’s three in the morning, and I’m making a list for us in case one of us gets snagged by the coyote and turns into a skinwalker, so we’ll know. I have two columns next to each of our names. The first is for the tell, the hint that we need to pick up on in order to realize that we’re no longer ourselves. The second column is tips for how to take us down, if it comes to that.
First, Grant. I was going to say watch out if he drops his accent, but he’s been doing that already. When we finally had to pull him away from the gaggle of kids he’d found at Crownrock High he was speaking slowly, carefully, making sure all the drawl was gone. He sounded like a politician. Devoid of accent. I suppose if he comes out dressed in any sort of color, or maybe if he were to ask either Owen or me how our day was, that would be major red- flag material. Very out of the ordinary.
How to take him down? Give him a hug. It paralyzes him. He hangs there like a sheet drying on the line.
Next, Owen. I’d know things were amiss if he wore his shirt two buttons down or untucked. Other than that, I suppose if I caught him dismantling his Trailer to Nowhere after nearly killing himself running an electrical line to it, I’d know he was a skinwalker. Or if his smoke ever stopped reaching for mine. If that ever happened, I’m not sure what I’d do. I’d be too shocked to even try to take him down.
As for me, it’s easy. If I ever get a good night’s sleep, you need to take me out back and shoot me because I am not in my right mind and am most likely a skinwalker. Worry and insomnia are the normal for me. I worry about Owen, about Grant, about how my new family can fit with Ben. All of it. Sometimes when Grant is quiet or moody I ask him what he’s thinking about and he says nothing. What the heck is that? How can you think of nothing? What’s that even like? Is that like what a cow thinks of? What I wouldn’t give to just go into cow mode when I’m up yet again in the middle of the night. It gets so bad sometimes that I even miss Big Hill’s moonshine. The stuff tasted like socks, but even a thimble of it would put me out for the count. I’d wake up feeling like poo, but sometimes it was worth it. Come to think of it, that’s how you can take me out if I’m a skinwalker. A shot of moonshine. Either that or take away my magazines. Or you could make me cold. I hate being cold. I’d just complain a lot and then be really easy to shoot.
I’m actually listing all this, by the way. Writing it all down in my journal under the thin blue light of my bedside lamp. Owen is sleeping softly next to me, one long arm wrapped under his pillow, the other tucked in to his chest. He doesn’t fit this bed. His feet hang over by a few inches, which would drive me nuts, but he’s never complained. He doesn’t complain about anything. Ever. Even when I can see it on him, in his smoke, that the Ben situation makes him feel like a fool. He’s outrageously in love with me. Every fiber of him. All he wants is the same in kind from me. And I do love him. Just not with every fiber. Some fibers are wrapped up elsewhere, and he knows it, and it makes him feel like a chump.
Owen thinks I’m obsessing over this book because it offers me a link to Ben’s world, and I want that connection because I want Ben. But it’s not like that. At least not completely. I’m not some love-struck tween. I know how long five years is. I know the life I chose. More and more I just want those fibers back. I want to close that chapter. And to do that I need to see Ben again. I need to speak with him. But Owen wouldn’t understand that, even if I found the guts to tell him, and the words came out the way I wanted them to.
What Owen does understand is that we need to figure out a way to stop these murders and corral this coyote. And for that, we need the book.
I think.
The truth is, I have no idea what’s in the book, and I’m no closer to figuring it out than I was when the agents gave it to me five years ago. It might be a detailed history of the coyote we seek, or step-by-step instructions to cross between the lands of the living and the dead like the coyote did, or maybe it’s a book of its favorite Crock-Pot recipes. Nobody knows. Not Chaco, not Ben, not Joey Flatwood or Big Hill. I’ve used microscopes and magnifying glasses. I’ve used blacklight and firelight and UV light. I put out an APB to the Circle for ideas and got a bunch of shrugs. The general consensus was don’t worry about it unless it starts causing trouble.
Now people are dying. We don’t have the luxury of blank pages anymore. If there’s any way the book can help us, I need to figure it out right now. So that’s what I’m gonna do.
I slowly sit up, my legs hanging off the bed. I ease open the flip lock on my built-in nightstand, I pull the book out from under the makeup and lotion and even a few condoms that I set on top of it to discourage Grant, or anyone else, from browsing. Not that it matters. Grant couldn’t care less about the book. He’s got a big bird that serves as his connection to the other side, if he wants it, but he’d rather listen to his music and play video games. He’s got other things on his mind. Most likely that Navajo girl he was gawking at over at the school. Basically all the condoms do is serve to remind me that I’m not having enough sex with Owen, or that I’m having too much sex with Owen for the wrong reasons. Did you know it’s possible to have too much sex and not enough at the same time? Neither did I! Then Ben and Owen happened.
I shove those thoughts out of my mind and flip through the book. Blank as always, but the pages have felt a little different ever since we crossed over to the rez. They feel heavier, like before we came they were your standard-issue paperback, and now they’re that fancy pressed paper chock-full of weird fibers that costs a fortune at the stationery store. I think it’s reacting to the coyote, being close to the thing, surrounded by its tracks that seem to stain the very air and refuse to go away.
Which got me thinking about the agents. They’ve got a few marks of their own that don’t seem to wash off, and I’m not just talking about the special mark Allen’s brunches have left on my heart. Or even the scars on his face, although they aren’t going anywhere. I’m talking about the searing marks they have on their palms, where they held the knife that ripped a hole through the veil. They hide them well. I mean, how many times do you look at someone’s palms, after all, but they’re there, and when you see it, you see it. The knife had some serious firepower behind it. And when they held it, they could also read the book. Maybe it’s a coincidence, maybe not, but it’s all I’ve got to go on.
Now, since the knife is gone forever and we’re immensely better off for it, I need to use the next best thing: my totem. The knife was made of the same vein of turquoise as the totems. In the past, I’ve only held the book while phasing in and out of the thin space. Once or twice I gave it a glance while travelling but saw nothing. This time, I’m betting things might be different if I stick out the cold burn of the place and really hunker down with my crow totem and refuse to quit.
I look over at Owen as I slide my totem pouch from its spot underneath my pillow. He doesn’t stir. He breathes softly, his lips barely parted. I loosen the pull on the worn leather bag, the first gift Owen ever gave me, and one that matches his own. I take a deep breath and tighten my grip on the book with one hand then reach inside the bag with the other.
The world snaps into a windblown sepia color around me where all that I see are faint outlines and shapes of the living world, like a rough-draft artist’s sketch. Owen’s own totem glows warmly beneath his pillow. In the next room I can see Grant sleeping splayed out like a ragdoll, the covers on the daybed askew, but the bell around his neck glints and shimmers with a drowsy power. It’s asleep now too, but it’s always waiting.
The pain is already starting, but I’ve gotten used to it by now. Living people like you and me aren’t supposed to hang out in this in-between space, neither fully dead nor fully alive. It’s unnatural, and our bodies rebel from it after a while. The stinging cold used to take my breath away instantly, but I’m not such a lightweight anymore. I’ve got the body to prove it too. The agents were right, my skin has this super-attractive midwinter coloring that seems to stick around no matter how many hours I lay out on the roof of the boat under the summer sun. Owen calls it Arctic chic.
