by Betty Webb
For my beverage, a server delivered a café au lait to the little corner table, although I noticed he brought Gabrielle a bottle of Evian.
“Is good?” Gabrielle asked, as I sampled the polenta and made a moaning sound.
“Is scrumptious.”
“Food is not only supposed to give life, it is one of those things which Elevates our senses, like a Beethoven symphony, a perfume by Chanel, a painting by a great master, or a caress by a gentle lover. Properly prepared food Elevates the soul.”
After gulping down another bite of portabella, I said, “You sound quite the sensualist, Gabrielle.”
“No one should be so foolish as to turn down the gifts of the senses.”
“If this is what you guys mean by Elevation, I’m all for it,” I said, attacking the Brie.
“Ah, here comes your good friend Chelsea. I will leave you two alone to talk, so that you can ease your mind about her welfare.”
With that, she pushed herself away from the table and wandered away to chat with other Kanati truth-seekers, apparently unconcerned about anything critical Chelsea might say re Elevated life on an old movie set.
“Damn that Harold,” Chelsea grumped, pulling up a chair. “Gabrielle told me he showed up here yesterday and tried to beat the crap out of Ernie, but Ernie’s tougher than he looks. Gabrielle came this close to calling the sheriff.” She used her thumb and forefinger to illustrate.
Like the rest of the Kanatians, she wore chinos and the standard logoed golf shirt. No headband, though.
“He’s worried about you, Chelsea.” But I was almost as worried about Harold as I was Chelsea. He hadn’t said anything about slugging the gate man, but I remembered seeing his skinned knuckles. Slugging someone these days, even when warranted, could get you locked up. And sued.
“Then tell him to stop worrying, Lena, and for God’s sake, make him stop sending people up here looking for me! I don’t want him interfering with what I’m working toward.”
“What exactly are you working toward? World peace?”
She gave me a sour look. “Let the Moonies worry about that, and good luck to them. As for me, I want to become Elevated.”
“Gabrielle keeps using that word, too, but I have no idea what it means.”
“It means living life on a higher plain.”
“Isn’t that what everyone is trying to do? But without all this…” I gestured toward the pictograph-covered teepee, visible through the lodge’s picture window “…without all this phony Indian hoo-hah. You’re a native Arizonan, Chelsea, and you know that the tribes don’t worship one homogenous God. The Apaches have Usen, the Pimas have Earth Doctor, and so on and so on. Each tribe walks its own unique path, and often their deities don’t even resemble each other.”
Rather than refute what she knew to be true, she turned up her surgically snubbed nose. “Don’t knock what you don’t understand.”
I suppressed a sigh. “Then help me understand. Those headbands, for instance. Some of the people here have them, and others, including you, don’t. And why do some headbands have only a few beads, but others are loaded with them? What’s up with that? Oh, and those log cabins and the teepee village. Do people actually live in those dinky little things?”
My questions earned me a lecture.
“We live in the place that matches our level of Elevation, just like you lived in a ‘dinky little’ one-bedroom apartment for fifteen years,” she replied, her tone snarky. “As for the headbands…”
As she explained it, the headbands designated a person’s status, or lack thereof, in the community. In keeping with the compound’s Cherokee pretensions (although she didn’t actually use that word), the number of beads ascended through the Cherokee numbering system. No headband meant you were sowo or tali, lowly recruits like herself. A plain headband meant you were tsoi, not quite so lowly, but beginning to move up. Four beads, and you were nvgi, well on the way to becoming Elevated. Near the end of the Elevation ladder, you could claim the title of sonela, or Highly Elevated One, such as Gabrielle and only a few others I had seen. Since sonela meant “nine” in Cherokee—as Chelsea explained—my interest was piqued.
“No number ten?”
Chelsea smiled. “That would be Adam, the Most Elevated One. And a couple of others.”
“I take it he runs this joint.”
“Nobody actually runs Kanati, Lena. We’re all equal here.”
“Then why the caste-denoting headbands?”
“None are so blind as those who will not see.”
I smiled at the attempted insult. “Nice to know you’ve kept up on your Bible studies, Chelsea.” Years earlier, her father, having given up on controlling his wild child, had sent her to an Anglican boarding school where daily Bible reading was part of the curriculum. It hadn’t worked. Only a few years later, as soon as she had come into the inheritance bequeathed by her mother, she left her Arts major in college to major in Street Life.
In an attempt to placate her, I said, “You know, I think I’d like to meet this Adam. He sounds like a special guy.”
“Adam only meets with the Highly Elevated.”
I couldn’t help myself. “That sounds pretty secretive.”
You ever meet the President of the United States?”
“No, but he’s on CNN all the time, talking up his agenda.”
“Reading from a prepared script.”
Well, she had me there. The U.S. of A’s Most Elevated One seldom spoke off the cuff, but whenever he did, uproar was certain to follow.
Chelsea crossed her arms over her augmented chest. “Thanks to big-mouth Harold accusing Kanati of being a cult, you’ve been given a skewed view of what’s going on here. If I wasn’t so busy, I’d show you around, not that it would change your mind.”
“Gabrielle’s already given me the guided tour.”
“Then you see? No one’s hiding anything. Honestly, Lena, this place is on the up and up. Granted, Kanati’s not the Anglicans or even the Buddhists, but the program works. Look at me, for instance. Do I look like I’m in withdrawal? Am I puking? Am I shaking? Am I huddled in a corner, clawing at my skin? After only a few weeks here I’m regaining my health, and becoming a productive member of society.” She stood up. “On that note, I need to get back to work. As for you, while I appreciate your concern, stop worrying about me. This is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. And tell Harold to back off. His codependency is embarrassing.”
With that, she walked back behind the serving line and began ladling out more cucumber canapés with lemon dill sauce.
And I’d missed my chance to ask her how much it cost to become Elevated.
Chapter Four
“If you want to hire a de-programmer, that’s up to you, Harold, but they’re expensive and can embroil you in serious legal difficulties. Like I said, Kanati doesn’t look all that cultish to me. It’s just another Arizona woo woo joint with Native American trappings.”
Yesterday, I had arrived back at Desert Investigations from my fact-finding drive to Kanati. By then, Sharona had closed her art gallery for the day and my calls to Harold had rolled over to voice mail. But he’d been waiting in front of Desert Investigations when Jimmy and I arrived this morning. When I’d told him Kanati didn’t seem all that dangerous, just expensive and goofy, he refused to listen.
“Just because something looks goofy doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous.” Too irate to sit down, he paced back and forth behind our big plate-glass window while he sipped at a cup of Jimmy’s Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. His shadow moved along with him in eerie pantomime, making a few passersby look at him in alarm. He ignored them. “I’m sick of white people—I don’t mean you, Lena—co-opting Indian culture. Wearing headbands, running around pretending to be Cherokee? Worshipping the White Buffalo? Oh, please. The Cherokees aren’t even one of the Southwestern tribes
. Their hunting grounds were in the Southeast until that damned Andrew Jackson made them walk the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma.”
None of this shocked me because white people had been co-opting Native American culture for years. What did shock me was Harold’s use of a curse word. Like most Indians, he rarely cursed.
“I’m on your side, Harold. Adam Arneault—you know, Kanati’s grand pooh bah—probably picked up the Cherokee stuff while he was living in Oklahoma.”
“But I’ll bet you didn’t see one Cherokee while you were in Kanati, did you?”
“Cherokees have better sense.”
Harold had come up with what he thought was a brilliant a plan to “rescue” Chelsea from the evil clutches of Kanati, and so far, nothing Jimmy nor I said was making an impact.
But I kept trying. “I’m telling you, Harold, I saw nothing alarming there, just a bunch of people walking around wearing ugly headbands. But they’re eating well and Chelsea looks healthier than I’ve ever seen her. And happy. Could you sit down, please? You’re making the tourists nervous. And I’m begging you, please forget this idea of using that deprogrammer.”
A friend of a friend had once used famed deprogrammer Clint Moran to “extract” his twenty-three-year-old daughter from the Children of the Universal Gods, a group in New Mexico led by a married couple who claimed to be from one of the planets in the Alpha Centauri star system. As someone with more than a passing interest in cults, I was familiar with the group, and while Harold talked, I was aware that he was glossing over several pertinent points. Point number one: at the time of the daughter’s “extraction,” the Children of the Universal Gods had yet to commit a crime, although they did later. Point number two: the “extracted” daughter was forced at gunpoint to spend a month in a mountain cabin with the deprogrammer and her father as the helpless subject of their anti-religious rants. Point number three: the father and the deprogrammer were eventually found guilty of kidnapping and torture—a stun gun was involved—and were sentenced to prison terms of several years. The daughter promptly returned to the Children of the Universal Gods, and was anxiously awaiting the return of the Alpha Centauri starship fleet to beam them all up, Scotty.
When I reminded Harold of this, he said, “I know, I know, but Clint Moran’s been released from prison. After learning a few hard lessons, he’s come up with a less extreme method.”
“Meaning he’s come up with a new word for kidnapping?”
“Stop being so cynical, Lena.”
Harold might as well have told me to stop breathing.
Jimmy, less of a cynic than I, asked the question I would have asked if I’d been less irritated. “How do you propose to pay for that Moran guy? I heard he charges several hundred a day for his services. You don’t have that kind of money.”
“I’d be paying for it in artwork.”
Jimmy groaned. “You’re talking thousands of dollars!”
“Chelsea’s worth it.”
It was my turn to groan. “The woman’s left you three times, Harold. Four, if you count this time. She wouldn’t do the same for you.”
In a voice hardly louder than a whisper, he replied, “I know.”
The rest of the day went more smoothly.
Between the time Harold left and we locked up for the evening, Desert Investigations closed three inventory theft cases: a costume jewelry store, an upscale steak house, and a retro clothing shop. We also located a deadbeat dad. The last case was the most satisfying, the deadbeat owing more than two hundred and forty thousand dollars to his four children. They were living with their three-jobs mom in an apartment in a sketchy Phoenix neighborhood while their father lolled on a La Jolla beach with his mistress. We’d done that one gratis.
“Think we have time for an evening ride?” Jimmy asked, as we finally headed back to the Rez.
I checked my watch. Five-thirty-five. The sun was flirting with the horizon, painting the desert an array of soft pinks and lavenders. Beautiful, but by the time we saddled up, it would be dark. “Why don’t we get up early tomorrow and ride before we head to work?”
“Sounds good to me.”
That was Jimmy, ever affable. When I woke up screaming in the middle of the night, he never minded, just held me close. The man was so patient, so loving, that by contrast, I often found myself wondering what I had to offer him in return. Damned little, it seemed. Love was a mystery.
Our evening remained peaceful until the ten o’clock news came on. After giving us the weather forecast—clear, low eighties tomorrow, breezes topped at ten miles per—local broadcast affiliate reporter Polly Yamaguchi led off with an update on the body found near Talking Stick. Yamaguchi looked perky in a pink dress with charcoal gray trim, but her demeanor was all seriousness.
“Sources tell us that the deceased woman found at the El Mesquite Business Park near Talking Stick had been dead for several days, but due to the low-hanging mesquite tree limb covering her body, its presence wasn’t noted until, ah, wildlife became attracted to the site. Preliminary autopsy results suggest the woman died of heart failure due to extreme malnutrition.” Yamaguchi, on the thin side herself, blinked several times before continuing. “She has not yet been identified, but an artist at the Medical Examiner’s office is currently preparing a sketch in hopes it will aid in her identification. Because of the condition of her body and clothing, authorities believe she may have been part of the Valley’s homeless population, and wandered into the area while searching for the homeless encampment a mile south on the Salt River Pima/Maricopa Reservation. We will give you updates as they come in.”
Polly’s expression morphed into a bright smile. “And now for some fun! My colleague, Chip Fonseca, is here to tell us about the Miss U.S.A. Model Teen Competition Finals being held at the Phoenix Convention Center this weekend. Are the girls excited, Chip? I know I am!”
The camera switched to a lineup of teenage girls, all as thin as Yamaguchi, some even thinner.
Then the screen went blank.
“Hey!”
Jimmy had the remote in his hand. “We don’t need to watch that dreck.”
I didn’t want to see that dreck, either, but since we were still in the early stages of establishing our own turf, I grabbed the remote and clicked the TV back on. A snub-nosed brunette was telling Steve Fonseca how honored she felt to have made it to the finals.
“Being crowned Miss U.S.A. Teen Model would be the most wonderful thing to ever happen to me in my whole life,” Miss Teen Model New Hampshire squeaked.
Jimmy shot me a look. “Your punishment for being grabby will be watching this in order to make a point.” Smirking, he decamped to the computer room, leaving me to learn more than I’d ever wanted about the difficulties of applying eyeliner while riding in a tour bus.
I decided making a point wasn’t worth it, so I clicked off the “news” program and joined Jimmy in the computer room. He had a topographical map up on his computer.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Flying the flag of territorial independence.”
“Smart mouth.” I gestured at the monitor. “That shape looks like the Pima Rez.”
“It should, because it is. I’m looking for the homeless encampment Yamaguchi was talking about.”
“Hardly a live feed you’ve got there.”
“We Pimas don’t have CCTV cameras stuck on every cactus. At least not yet, we don’t. She described the homeless encampment as being a mile south of Talking Stick, and from what I can see here, that would put it somewhere near Wolf Ramirez’s place. Except for a couple of arroyos, that’s flat terrain over there, and the horizon line is, what, something like ten miles away in that area? If there’s a homeless camp where Yamaguchi says it is, Wolf should be able to see it from his kitchen window. I’ll call him tomorrow and see if he knows anything.”
The next day was supposed to begin w
ith a short horseback ride across the desert, but when Jimmy and I entered the corral, we discovered Big Boy had lost a shoe. There being no point in calling the farrier at six a.m., Jimmy suggested I take Adila out alone.
“She’s more desperate for a run than he is,” he said. “Take your cell and handgun in case there’s any trouble.”
“Bad guys aren’t known for being early risers.”
“I wasn’t talking about bad guys, I was talking about wildlife. Wolf thinks he spotted a mountain lion near the Beeline Highway the other day.”
“Mountain lions don’t bother you unless you bother them.”
“Ever hear of rabies?”
That stopped me. A couple of aggressive coyotes had been shot in a Scottsdale subdivision the week earlier, and the subsequent autopsies confirmed both carried the rabies virus. When coyotes get rabies, they lose all fear of humans and other animals, and a nip from them could turn even a normally shy mountain lion into a human-stalker. This was a part of desert living the chamber of commerce never told you about.
After returning to the trailer and sliding my .38 into its holster and buckling it around my waist, I finished saddling Adila and headed out into the desert alone.
Riding a horse into the sunrise is a unique pleasure few people are lucky enough to experience. As the desert comes alive, your troubles recede. You feel the wind on your face, smell the sage and earth, hear the cardinal’s call, feel the rocking motion of your horse as she weaves between the blooming creosote bushes and mesquite. When you are this aware of your surroundings, you become less aware of yourself. It’s something like meditation, only better, because instead of escaping the world, you enter into it more fully.
For an hour, Adila and I were one with the awakening desert until I was jarred back into the mess we humans call life. As we cantered up a gentle rise, Adila shied at something that lay half-hidden behind a stand of barrel cactus. Once my mare had calmed, I urged her forward until I could more fully see the thing that had disturbed her.
