Manny turned to the displays situated around the room, each explaining the different types of petroglyphs adorning the face of the rock: zoomorphs, or animal-like figures, shared the rock face with human-like anthropomorphs, dating back ten-thousand years, thought to have been pecked and etched by Shoshone shamans during periods of spiritual consciousness. The oldest were outlines, and the later en toto peckings were filled-in figures, giving them a three-dimensional look.
“Let’s see those pictures again.”
Manny handed her the photos. She held them to the light while she played a magnifying glass over the faces. She handed them back and placed the glass back into the drawer. “It was definitely the old man.” She tapped Tony’s photo: “Kid had the same jaw. Same long braids. But I can’t be entirely sure if this was the same kid with him.”
Manny wanted to tell her Tony was no kid, if it was him. But then at her age, he reasoned, everyone looks like a kid.
She shook her head. “I just don’t know. Looks a lot like him, but that’s a pretty shitty picture.”
“Tell me about it. What do you remember about them?”
She pointed to the path leading to the petroglyphs. “They were gone a long time. Longer than most. Folks usually just show up and look around so they can go home and brag on how they experienced the petroglyphs. That old guy, he said he wanted to pray. I’m sure he did, as long as he was gone.”
“Must have been difficult praying with a busload of tourists walking around you.”
“The Japanese folks didn’t come until later. The old guy and the kid had been down there at the site for the better part of an hour before the tourists arrived. The Indians came back as soon as that horde ran down there to ogle. So, I’m going to read outside where it’s cool. Here.”
She handed Manny a map of the walking tour. “Take as long as you like. Not like anyone else is going to disturb you.”
Manny zipped his coat up and pulled his stocking cap out of his pocket. He waited until he was out of sight of the old lady before taking his pink scarf out and wrapping it around his neck. He unfolded the walking tour brochure as he started down the path leading to the glyphs etched and pecked on the dark rock cliff face.
He stopped at a marker, and turned his back to the wind, matching the brochure with the zoomorph etching. Horses of the style found elsewhere in the Big Horn Basin told Manny they were made no more than two hundred years ago. They’d been etched perhaps by Arapahos wandering into the territory of their Shoshone enemies, when horses were first introduced to many of the plains tribes. Arapahos warred with the Shoshone then, and their etchings on the face of the rocks with more ancient Shoshone peckings would nowadays be considered vandalism. Unfortunately, there was some contemporary defacement as well, where vandals had tagged the sacred site with their initials.
Manny moved several places down the trail and read the marker. Shoshone shamans who originally inhabited this part of the Big Horns would come to this spot, pray and receive a vision that they gave to the world in the form of peckings on the rock face. Part of those prayers, Manny was certain, was asking for protection from enemies drifting through, like the Crow. And the Lakota.
Manny passed by another etching and stopped in front of the montage of images as he read from the brochure: “A thunderbird, associated with power, two phallic male figures, and animal with a long tail and claw feet.” Manny held the brochure up to compare with the rock carvings.
A lightheadedness came over Manny, and he leaned on the marker post to steady himself as he studied the image to the right. The brochure said the image represented Lodge Boy. Stumper LaPierre, a Crow tribal policeman Manny worked with last year, had told him about that figure and its powerful implications for his people. The Lodge Boy image, representing the twin boys holding such power to the Crow, caused Manny to become dizzy, and he shook his head to clear it. Perhaps it was the Creator’s retaliation for Manny visiting the site as a tourist, rather than coming to pray in reverence at the visions ancient shamans shared by recording them in the rock face.
No, he finally concluded as he moved to other glyphs, he felt this way because of low blood sugar. He fished a Tanka Bar out of his pocket and bit off a corner. He immediately felt better, his head clearing, and he walked farther down the trail.
He’d finished the bar and pocketed the wrapper as he walked past another glyph. He paused when a voice inside him caused him to return to stand in front of the figure. He moved closer to the rock, the dizziness returning, and he reached out to steady himself. But there was nothing there to help him.
Manny swayed, staring at the anthropomorph figure with extended fingers clutching a long tether with blocks at its end. Manny’s knees buckled. He reached out to catch himself on the trail marker. Missed and dropped on his knees to the ground. His vision blurred. He rubbed his eyes. Yet he could not tear his eyes away from the figure. It clutched the tether that traversed a fissure in the rock, representing a chasm between this life and the next, Manny instinctively realized.
The figure flung the great burden on the end of its rope across the wide crack. It reeled the tether in, like it was luring Manny to cross the physical world into that world the figure inhabited: a dark world. A lonely world. A world that spanned the divide between the physical life and the spiritual life.
Manny buried his face in his hands, forcing himself to look away.
Yet he was drawn closer to the figure. A shaman. Perhaps a thousand years, perhaps ten thousand years old, speaking only to Manny. A shaman that now spoke as plainly as the old lady a moment ago. Warning him.
The figure began moving, undulating, tossing out the spirit-tether, whipping it back, waiting for someone on this side of life to pick it up. Long claws beckoned Manny to grab at the lifeline. Enticing him. Waiting for him to hold on to it for eternity.
He fought the urge to accept what was thrown at him, knowing he would not return to this world if he did. “Wakan Tanka, unsimalaye,” he cried out. But the Creator had no pity on Manny.
Tether whipped out. Reeled back in. Each time, it seemed, coming closer to Manny.
He clutched the small leather turtle dangling from a thong around his neck: his wopiye. He rarely thought of his medicine bundle. Until times such as this: times when he entered wakangle, his sacred state, his sun-blinded eyes mixing with the sweet odor of peji hota, the fragrant sage of his youth.
Manny was only aware in the periphery of his mind that his nagi wica was with him. His shadow man, the dark side every man possesses, struggled to pull Manny’s hand closer to the tether. Even as his hand reached out to grab it, Manny shook his head to clear his mind of the disturbance.
Then Johnny intruded into his thoughts, as if he cried out from the grave for Manny, and he envisioned the old man praying on this very spot.
Manny knelt where Johnny had knelt, his eyes transfixed on the figure that Manny’s eyes now were transfixed upon, while a shadow stood behind him, large rock raised overhead, poised to crush Johnny Apple’s skull.
“Nake nula waum welo!” Manny cried out that ancient Lakota warrior’s cry: I am ready for whatever takes place. “I am ready to die!” he yelled.
The figure on the rock turned his face toward him, Manny’s warning cries to Johnny choked somewhere deep in his throat.
The rock rose higher.
The arm began its fatal downward arc when—
Giggling and laughter erupted from the path.
The rock was dropped, the figure behind him vanished. Manny closed his eyes, his medicine bundle in his hand: Wakan Tanka, unsimalaye. The Japanese tourists bounding down the walking trail had interrupted Johnny’s murderer. Having concluded his prayers, Johnny had stood on shaky legs, saved by people he would never know. People he would never understand.
Manny opened his eyes. The figure in the rock, long tether connecting the spirit world to the land of the living, re
mained as the brochure described it, and the other Dinwoody figures surrounding it also appeared just as Manny had remembered before his vision overcame him. And he was once again alone with himself.
He tried standing, but his legs gave out and he sat on the sandy bank, staring at the rock man. He had been so close to sliding into that other world a moment ago. Manny shook his head again and fished another Tanka Bar from his pocket. Then shoved it back in.
He picked up the brochure he had dropped and stuffed it in his coat pocket. “Thank God we have facts to separate us from those superstitious people,” he said aloud.
But he had witnessed someone about to kill Johnny. The rock man showed him that. Manny had knelt where Johnny had knelt. Prayed where Johnny had prayed. And where his killer had been thwarted.
Manny cursed under his breath. Like all his other visions, it never helped him solve the crime he was working on. And he knew he couldn’t blame his blood sugar for this vision. He’d have to talk with Reuben about it.
Manny used the marker post to help him stand. He walked the remainder of the trail, feeling nothing except awe for the sacred people who had come to this place to record their visions.
He brushed the dirt from his trousers while he walked back to the picnic area. The old woman still sat reading her romance, half-frozen snot dripping from her hooked nose. She laid the book aside and waited until Manny sat across from her. “You look like shit.”
“I feel like shit.”
“You seen something down there, didn’t ya?”
“Just the glyphs.”
She shook her head, her brows coming together. Serious. “The old man denied it, too. People come through here now and again with the same look you got on your mug. Took a lot out of you, didn’t it?”
“How’d you know?”
“You hobbling up here like you just ran a three-legged race,” she said. “Or like you crapped your pants. But I don’t figure it’s neither one.” She lit her pipe and watched the wind carry the wisp of smoke away from the covered area. “The old boy looked the same way the other day, too. I thought he was gonna keel over with exhaustion. I’ll give you the same advice as I did him—since you’re this close—get yourself to the State Bath House there in Thermop. The hot springs will cure any aches you might have.”
“You say the old man went there?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know if he took my advice, but I gave it.”
“I might take you up on that as soon as I visit your bathroom.”
She motioned to the outdoor potty. Two mares, a paint and a sorrel, stood with their necks bent to the sink inside. “Looks like you’ll have to stay here until they’re finished. And you know how long ladies can take in the restroom.”
Chapter 27
The towering trees standing guard on either side of the road into Hot Springs State Park, planted by Shoshone Chief Washakie at the turn of the past century, were as magnificent in winter as they had been in the summer. Two years ago, Manny and Clara had vacationed here, taking in the mammoth museum and dinosaur dig a little way across town, the Shoshone-owned whitewater rafting trip down the Wind River, and of course the healing hot springs that gave Thermopolis its name. People flocked to the springs in the summer. But not in the off-season, and certainly not when it was a balmy ten degrees like it was now. Manny pulled into the empty parking lot in front of the Wyoming State Bath House and went inside.
“Better hurry if you want a dip in the pool, bud.” A middle-aged woman with arms bigger than Manny’s stood from behind the counter with a towel slung over one beefy shoulder. “We close in an hour. And I never eat supper late.”
“I’m not here for the baths.” Manny wanted to ask her about her Dick name tag, but instead he flipped open his ID case.
She looked at it and handed it back. “We don’t give police discounts here,” she eyed him suspiciously. “’Cause the State of Wyoming don’t charge anyway. Chief Washakie wanted it that way. Just be gone by closing time.”
“I’m just looking for information.” He took out a photo of Johnny that Brandi had given him and laid it on the counter. “Did this guy come in here last Tuesday?”
Dick glanced at the photo and returned to stacking towels behind the counter. “Sure, he was in here.”
“Alone?”
“Naw. Must have been his nephew come in with him.”
Manny was feeling the strain of the vision at Legend Rock and sat on the bench in front of the counter. “Why do you think it was his nephew?”
She leaned over and rested her elbows on the counter. “He said the old guy was his uncle.”
Manny dropped Tony’s booking photo onto the counter. “Is this him?”
She shrugged and turned away.
“Just look at it.”
Dick grabbed the picture. She took off her glasses and held the photo at arm’s length. “It could have been. This guy was Indian. We get a lot of Indians in here with long hair. They all look alike.” She flushed. “No offense.”
Manny waved the comment away. “So you’re not sure?”
She picked up the picture and held it to the light. Her eyes narrowed. “Looks like the SOB who cleaned the place out.”
“Explain.”
She rapped her knuckles on the drawer under the counter. “We keep cash here to make change. Not a lot, but by the end of the day we get a hundred bucks in here even in the off season. And some SOB—could have been this guy—cleaned us out.”
“No one was here when he stole the money?”
“Oh, someone was here all right: me. The old guy came in with his nephew—if that was his nephew—and headed right for the bath. He said he needed some relief in the worst way. And I’m sure he did, by the way he hobbled in here.”
“And the theft?” Manny asked.
“The young guy came out of the pool before the old man. He said it was too hot for him. I was cleaning the women’s locker room when the young one waltzed out of the men’s shower room. ‘There ain’t no towels left for my uncle,’ he told me. Well, I called bullshit on that. I stock them personally. But I took some in, just in case. There was towels, all right, but when I turned to come back out the door, it was jammed.
“I thought it was odd. We’ve never had problems the twenty years I’ve been here. But I waited for the old guy and the kid to come back to the locker room so I could get out. When closing time came and went, I figured something was up, so I called Lacy—she works the morning shift—at home on my cell. I told her the door was stuck. When she got here she found a broom handle stuck so it blocked the door.”
“And the two guys were gone?”
Dick nodded. “Along with all our loose bills. They left the change, like we were going to need it for a parking meter or something. Which we don’t even have here in Thermop.”
“Did you make a police report?”
“For what? I didn’t remember what the car looked like they pulled up in, except it was a fancy one, Lincoln or Caddy. And I didn’t recall what they even looked like. You guys . . . ”
“All look alike?” Manny smiled. Like all you wasicu look alike after a while.
“Anyways, all I had to go on were these.” She reached under the counter and grabbed a cardboard box overflowing with scarves, stocking hats, tee shirts, and a pair of whitey tighties. She rummaged under the pile and dropped a pair of silk socks on the counter. “I thought they were girls’ socks they were so tiny. I thought, what the hell would a woman be doing snaking around the men’s locker room, ’til I got to looking at ’em. They’re men’s socks, all right. And they weren’t there on the floor before those two came in that day.”
Manny stood and arched his back, a grimace passing his face.
“You look like you ought to take a soak.”
“I don’t have time—”
“Sure you do,” Dick
said, glancing at the clock. “You’re a federal employee. All you got is time. I still got some cleaning to do, so I’ll be open for a little while.”
“I don’t know.”
“The springs will do you good. People travel from all over to sit and soak. A lot of rehab work is done in that water. And you, Mister Agent, look like you need to be rehabbed.”
“But I didn’t bring any trunks.”
“We got them for rent.”
Manny checked the clock. “Do I have time?”
Dick nodded. “We limit the stay to twenty minutes, but there’s no one else soaking. I’ll let you know when I got to leave. It’ll do you a world of good.”
“I’ll do it,” he said at last.
Dick grinned and handed Manny a towel and trunks. “That’s two Washingtons.”
Manny fished into his pocket for the quarters.
“And sign in.” Dick slid a clipboard across the counter. The paper had a column for In Time and a column for Out Time.
“Did the two who took your money last week sign in and out?”
Dick nodded and flipped pages. Her finger ran the page until she stopped at two names. Johnny was written so it looked like an artist had spent hours, each letter a work of art. “I thought the old guy had such nice penmanship. Not like junior.” The name scrawled underneath would have been illegible even if water hadn’t been dripped on it.
“I’ll need to take this sheet,” Manny said.
“Suit yourself. Just as soon as you soak the aches out of you.”
Dick grabbed a bucket and mop and disappeared into the women’s locker room while Manny walked into the men’s. He unfolded the trunks and cringed: Speedos, in a lovely periwinkle color, and a size too small at that. But no one else was at the bath house to see him, so he changed into the rental trunks. Before going out to the mineral bath, he stood under the shower, letting the hot water cascade over his aching muscles and wash away the day’s grime.
Death Etched in Stone Page 18
