by Lukens, Mark
Begay pulled his Bronco up twenty feet away from the backs of the pickup trucks parked side-by-side near the front of the trailer. He shut the engine off, and he and Palmer got out of the truck at the same time.
“Joe Blackhorn!” Begay called out as he walked to the front of his Bronco. “I’m Captain Begay with the Navajo Tribal Police! We just want to ask you a few questions!”
No answer from the trailer. No sound at all except the freezing wind. Nobody came to the trailer door. Nobody peeked out the windows.
Everything was quiet, but then that silence was shattered when a barking German shepherd came bolting out from behind the trailer, running right towards them.
Palmer pulled his gun out of his holster, ready to shoot.
“Don’t!” Begay yelled and jumped in front of Palmer, staring at the approaching dog.
Begay yelled something in Navajo at the dog, a series of sharp and commanding words.
To Palmer’s amazement, the dog stopped in its tracks and stared at them. The snarling creature had become an adorable dog in a matter of seconds.
“He’s just scared,” Begay told Palmer without turning around to look at him, keeping his eyes on the dog the whole time. “He’s scared of something,” he said in an even lower voice. “I don’t think Blackhorn’s here.”
“Great,” Palmer said. A mist of his warm breath clouded up in front of his face as he said the word. “If this is even Joe Blackhorn’s place. Maybe Billy Nez tricked you again.”
Begay said something else in Navajo and the dog turned and ran towards the door of the trailer. Begay followed the dog.
Palmer followed Begay to the trailer.
The German shepherd hurried up the wood steps and waited at the door. Begay climbed the steps and stood beside the dog, knocking on the door.
No answer.
Begay waited a moment and then he twisted the doorhandle, testing to see if it was locked.
It wasn’t.
“What the hell are you doing?” Palmer hissed. He looked down at the German shepherd, expecting the dog to suddenly attack now that Begay was opening the door.
“I’m seeing if this is Joe Blackhorn’s trailer,” Begay answered simply.
“You can’t just … just go inside.”
“Of course I can,” Begay said. “Navajo leave their doors unlocked. We don’t steal from each other. If we need something, we ask and the other gives.”
“Well, in my world, we call this breaking and entering.”
“Stay out here if you want to,” Begay said.
After Begay opened the door all the way, the German shepherd darted inside like he was glad to get into the safety of the home. Begay didn’t try to keep the dog out.
Palmer sighed and looked around at the other structures in the distance. “I think I’ll take a look around out here,” he said.
“Suit yourself,” Begay said and entered the trailer, leaving the door wide open.
Palmer didn’t feel good about what Begay was doing. He just wanted to get away from the trailer and distance himself from the crime that was being committed. Begay could be ruining this whole case by entering a suspect’s home without a warrant.
He walked over to the two pickup trucks parked next to each other near the front of the trailer. He peeked in through the windows of each of the trucks but he didn’t see anything unusual.
He walked over to what looked like a small greenhouse. And sure enough it was loaded with plants on both sides of a wide aisle. It was still somewhat warm inside.
Next, Palmer checked out the hogan at the rear of the property. He wasn’t sure if a mud hut qualified as breaking and entering, but he pulled the wood door open anyway and peeked inside. He took a few steps inside the hogan. There was no furniture anywhere. The floor was dirt and there was a pit in the center of the hogan that was surrounded by a circle of rocks. The walls were constructed out of wood beams and filled in between with stones and mortar and straw. It was warm inside the hogan and there was the ghost of the smell of fires from the past in here.
The last place Palmer checked was the corral and the barn. Inside the barn he found stalls where two goats watched him. There were two other larger stalls, and a horse was in one of them. The other stall was empty.
“Horse is gone,” Begay said from behind Palmer.
Palmer whirled around, almost drawing his gun. He breathed out a sigh of relief. “You scared the shit out of me. I didn’t even hear you walk up.”
“Injun training,” Begay said.
Palmer ignored the man’s remark. “Anything in the trailer?”
Begay shook his head. “It’s Joe Blackhorn’s trailer,” he said, but didn’t offer proof of how he knew that. “He had some guests here. Looks like they had some breakfast and then left. There are some extra blankets and pillows in the living room.”
It was them, Palmer thought—had to be. Their stolen pickup truck was on the trail a few miles back and now this reclusive old man had entertained some guests.
“So they were here earlier and now they left,” Palmer said. “Where?”
“Someone took a horse,” Begay said, nodding at the empty stall in front of Palmer. “Looks like there’s space in the shed behind the trailer where vehicles used to be parked. Most likely four-wheelers. A lot of four-wheelers and dirt bikes out here.”
Palmer nodded. “So they left on a horse and on four-wheelers.” He looked beyond Begay and noticed that the German shepherd had followed the captain out here to the barn. The dog was sitting there watching them, like he was waiting to follow them wherever they went next.
Begay noticed that Palmer was looking at the dog. “Blackhorn’s got a doghouse for the dog behind the trailer,” he said, “but I don’t think he wants to stay there. He wants to follow us around. He’s scared of something here.”
Palmer nodded.
Begay walked past Palmer, entering the barn. The captain looked down at the dirt, studying the tracks left behind by the horse. He followed the tracks out of the barn and corral, and then to the shed behind the trailer. And then he followed all of those tracks towards the front of the trailer, and then he kept on walking past it.
Palmer followed Begay but he kept his distance, not wanting to unknowingly disturb any tracks. He’d probably already done some damage by walking around out here earlier.
The German shepherd stayed a few paces behind Palmer. He turned around and looked at the dog, holding the dog’s stare for a moment.
The dog growled at him, but he didn’t attack. He sat down on his haunches and refused to follow them any further.
“Don’t stare at him!” Begay called back over his shoulder without turning around.
Palmer turned back around from the dog and shook his head. He kept on walking, following Begay out into the desert.
Once they had walked a few hundred yards past Joe’s collection of structures, Palmer looked back at the dog. He had remained in the same place, just watching them.
Begay finally stopped walking and Palmer caught up to him.
“Dog’s afraid of where we’re going,” Begay said, as if Palmer had asked.
“Where are these tracks leading to?” Palmer could see the clear horse and four-wheeler tracks in the dirt now.
Begay pointed. “Over that ridge.”
“Yeah, I can see that. Is there somewhere specific they would be going to from here?”
Begay shrugged. “I don’t know. We can follow their trail as far as possible in my truck, but I have to assume that the trail gets too rough for a vehicle if they took four-wheelers and a horse. But I can get a lot farther in my truck than he could’ve gotten in his.”
“Why would Joe Blackhorn drive off into the desert with these three?”
Begay shrugged again. “He’s helping them.”
Here we go again, Palmer thought.
Begay looked at Palmer like he could read his mind. “This is the last chance,” Begay said. “They’ve gone somewhere out there to confro
nt the Ancient Enemy. If you want to stay here, I can go alone.”
Palmer shook his head, tiring of Begay’s constant warnings. “I don’t think the German shepherd would be too comfortable with me hanging around here with him.”
Begay didn’t laugh at Palmer’s joke. He turned around and started walking back towards Joe Blackhorn’s place.
Palmer fell in step beside him.
CHAPTER 68
The ghost town
“What did you mean by that?” Stella asked David. “What do you mean, you’ve been here before?”
David didn’t answer.
“You’ve been here with your parents?” Stella asked him.
David shook his head no, but it seemed like he was confused, deep in thought. He also looked like he was on the verge of tears. “I haven’t really been here before,” he said. “But at the same time, it feels like I’ve been here before.”
Stella looked at Joe for help.
“Remember when I told you about a man in 1891 named Jed Cartwright who found a boy named David?” Joe asked. “And I told you that the boy’s family was slaughtered when Jed found him.”
Cole and Stella nodded. David squeezed Stella’s hand even tighter.
“I told you that Jed and David went to a town and that those people were wiped out by the Darkwind … this is that town.”
David said that he’d been here before.
“Everyone in town was killed?” Cole asked.
Joe shrugged. “There are different stories, but many believe that a yataalii, a Navajo medicine man, was here in this town—a relative of Billy Nez’s clan—and he helped David close the door on the Ancient Enemy.”
“If he defeated it, then why is it back now?” Cole asked.
Joe shrugged again. “Maybe they didn’t succeed, or maybe they didn’t kill it but only managed to send it back to its world, and now, one hundred and twenty years later, it has come back. Or maybe this is a different Darkwind this time.”
Stella thought about the time of one hundred and twenty years—a person’s life span. Was David somehow the reincarnation of the David before him, and the David before that? Was he somehow related to this ancient being?
She didn’t want to think about that. David was just a boy, she told herself. Just a little boy who needed help.
The wind rocked the side of the church, the wood creaking even louder. The ceiling above them groaned in protest. A howl sounded in the distance. The coyotes were closer now … all of the animals were closer.
“Come, David,” Joe said. “We have to hurry. It’s almost here. You know that, don’t you?”
David nodded and he pulled his hand away from Stella’s grasp.
Stella knelt down and grabbed David’s shoulders gently before he turned to walk to Joe. She locked eyes with him. “We’re going to get through this,” she told him. “You’re strong enough to beat this evil. You understand me?”
He nodded.
“You listen to everything Joe tells you. But you have to believe in yourself … you have to believe that you can do this.”
“I’m scared,” David whispered.
“I know,” Stella answered, and she couldn’t stop the tears from falling now. “I know you’re scared, but you’re stronger than that monster. You can hurt it. You can send it back. No matter what happens … no matter what happens to us …” She glanced at Cole who nodded in agreement, and then she looked back at David. “No matter what happens, you just concentrate on sending that thing back through the doorway. Back to its own world.”
David nodded and hugged Stella fiercely. She hugged him back. She was so sorry David had to go through this, but she wasn’t going to tell him that right now. She wanted him to stay strong.
She let him go and she wiped at her eyes. “Go to Joe,” she whispered. “Do what he tells you to.”
*
Forty-five minutes later Joe had the symbols from David’s notebook painted onto David’s face, hands, and arms. The symbols looked like perfect replicas of the ones in the notebook. They looked almost like dark red tattoos on David’s skin.
Joe used the rest of the owl’s blood to paint a large circle on the wood floor after Cole and Stella had helped him sweep the debris out of the way. He’d painted more symbols inside and outside the line of the circle. David now stood alone in the middle of that circle as Joe danced around the outside of it, waving his carved wooden stick, rattling the bird claws, beads, and feathers, singing a prayer in a low voice.
Cole stood the farthest away from the circle. He had his gun in one gloved hand, his finger caressing the trigger, his eyes on the double doors at the front of the church in the distance.
Stella stood halfway between Cole and the circle. Her gun was still in the waistband of her jeans.
The wind had remained constant over the last thirty minutes, howling and screeching around the eaves of the church. The building creaked, the stained glass windows rattled in their frames, the whole building seemed to sway a little from some of the stronger gusts.
Shadows flew outside the stained glass windows … birds, buzzards, and bats. Some of them bumped into the glass, like they were testing its strength. A few of the birds were already beginning to peck at the pieces of stained glass.
The howls outside from the coyotes were closer now.
The Ancient Enemy was closer now.
Cole and Stella had barred the front doors shut as best they could with some old pieces of wood and two-by-fours. Cole had managed to brace them against the doors at angles, but he knew the pieces of wood wouldn’t keep that thing out when it finally came.
A moment later something pounded on the doors from outside.
Then another pounding.
And another one.
It was here …
CHAPTER 69
Captain Begay drove his Ford Bronco as far into the desert as the big knobby tires would allow. They had driven for almost forty minutes, traveling deeper and deeper into the desert. The trail was easy enough to follow even from his truck, but then the trail ran up to some narrow passageways through sheer cliffs of rock. No way to get the truck through there. They could’ve backtracked and tried to find a route around the groupings of rocks, but they might drive too far out of the way and lose the trail for good.
“We’ll have to walk from here,” Begay said.
Palmer didn’t argue.
“Take some water with you,” Begay said.
Palmer had taken a few nips from his bottle of vodka on their bumpy ride through the desert, trying not to spill any of it, but he left that behind and took Begay’s advice; he slipped a bottle of water down into his outside coat pocket. He zipped up his coat and slipped his gloves on. He wished he had a hat but he would just have to tough it out.
Begay went to the back of his truck and grabbed a small backpack that was obviously loaded with supplies. Palmer watched him as he rummaged through the pack like he was performing a last-minute check.
“What have you got in there?” Palmer asked him.
“Just some extra water and some other stuff,” Begay answered without looking at Palmer. He buckled the straps and slipped the backpack on. Then he grabbed the shotgun, unlocked the trigger guard and shut the hatchback.
And then they started walking.
Palmer wasn’t exactly out of shape, but he was no athlete either, and twenty minutes into the walk he was breathing a little heavier and the muscles in his legs and lower back were already burning. He glanced at the captain who walked beside him, but the big man seemed to be breathing normally, having no trouble with their hike through these rocks even though he was probably a hundred pounds heavier than Palmer was.
Begay didn’t talk on their walk, and Palmer was glad because he was probably too out-of-breath to answer.
The groupings of rocks gave way to a gradual dip down into the desert floor that was a sea of brush and shrubs, some of them thorny and sharp, with dozens of trails through them. Palmer followed Begay as he w
ound his way through the paths through the brush, following the beaten-down trails left behind from the four-wheelers and the horse. Palmer kept glancing down at his feet, looking for any rattlesnakes in the brush. The thought of all of those snake trails near the abandoned truck they had seen had gotten to him and he wondered how many thousands of rattlesnakes were out here where few humans ever walked.
Ten minutes later Begay stopped. The vegetation had thinned out, and even though the sand was packed down a little harder in this area, the trail from both the four-wheelers and the horse was still evident.
“Look at that,” Begay said.
Palmer saw it—a horse was trotting up to them.
“That must be their horse,” Palmer said.
Begay nodded and clicked his teeth. The horse came right up to him.
This guy has some kind of way with animals, Palmer thought. A regular Dr. Doolittle.
The captain whispered into the horse’s ear, stroking the animal’s flank gently. The horse looked jumpy, staring at Palmer with wild eyes. Begay patted the horse and whispered to her again. The horse took off towards the sea of brush, following the trail they had just left behind.
“Why is their horse coming back without them?” Palmer asked.
Begay didn’t answer. He started walking again.
Twenty minutes later Begay stopped at the edge of the brush, which opened up to an expanse of open desert. In the distance was a line of structures that looked like dark shapes on the horizon with the mountains beyond them. Palmer could tell the structures were man-made.
As they got closer to the structures, Palmer realized that they were buildings in a ghost town. He’d heard of ghost towns before, but he’d never really seen one in person.
“Do you know this place?” Palmer asked. His breathing was better, his lungs more used to their hike and the altitude now.
Begay shook his head. “I don’t come out this way much. Nobody does. A lot of this land is sacred Anasazi land. Many Navajo don’t go to these places.”
“But why would a town be built here? That looks like a …” Palmer didn’t know how to phrase it exactly.
