White Shell Woman

by James D. Doss

He twisted the hippo’s head, helped himself to several spoons of sugar. After the sweetener was stirred into the coffee, he had a taste. Strong enough to get up and walk.

  Amanda Silk seated herself and began to squint at an open ledger. It was bright blue, and appeared to be quite new. “I suppose you’ve heard about the Ute man’s body that Professor Perkins found on the site. A Mr. Santos.”

  Moon nodded. “I’ve heard.”

  She rubbed her pale hands together. “This is getting to be a creepy place. I can’t wait to see the last of it.”

  “I’m kinda surprised you’re still here.”

  “My work at Chimney Rock is important. But I’ll be done in a few days.” Taking up her fountain pen, the archaeologist proceeded to scratch meticulous entries onto the lined page. She would occasionally pause to sip at the tepid black coffee, or take a small bite from the stale sandwich. Crumbs fell onto the lapel of her robe.

  The Ute was comfortable with the silence.

  In the darkness, there was a sudden stirring. Without disturbing the brooding silence, a shadowy figure moved through the night. And like a great black moth, was drawn to that solitary pinprick of light on Ghost Wolf Mesa.

  When her sandwich was finally consumed, Amanda Silk swallowed the last gulp of black liquid from the stained china cup. She looked across the table at her guest. “So. What brings you to the mesa?”

  Moon leaned back in the chair. “Still haven’t worked out what happened to April Tavishuts. Thought maybe if I came up here again—walked around some…”

  She nodded. “I know what you mean. You want to get in touch with the atmosphere.”

  Atmosphere? “Yeah. Something like that.”

  The shadowy appearance moved across the parking lot on four legs. At the source of the light, it stood on two.

  Resting her elbows on the table, the archaeologist leaned forward. The muscles under her cheeks went taut, pulling a thin smile across pearly-white teeth. “You’ve got some trouble boiling in your brain. I can see it bubbling there behind your eyes.”

  Moon—who valued his privacy—half-closed his eyelids. “There’s always trouble someplace.” Amanda Silk was not an easy woman to trade stares with. The Ute looked over her head at a row of books on a small shelf. A tattered dictionary. Hiker’s Guide to Copper Canyon. Several novels. He was interrupted by a gasp. There was a startled look in the woman’s eyes. She was staring over his shoulder—at the window, where she’d pulled the curtains back. Moon turned to look, and saw nothing but a velvety-black portrait of night. “What is it?”

  Amanda Silk hurried past him, yanking the tiny cotton curtains across the pane. Her hands trembled. “Somebody was out there—looking in at us!” She shuddered. “It was a scary face. All wild-eyed—and ugly as original sin.”

  With a suddenness that raised him from his chair, the Ute recalled his sense of being followed to the mesa. If a man was interested in staying alive, he learned to pay attention to his hunches. And to ugly faces women saw in darkened windows. The trailer creaked and swayed as he took a single step to the door. As he stepped outside, the heavy revolver was ready in his hand. The small parking lot was washed in bright moonlight. Charlie Moon waited for his pupils to dilate.

  Aside from a fat raccoon scampering along a path among the ruins, there was no sign of life. Apart from the whisper of a breeze in the piñons, not the slightest sound. Moon holstered the sidearm.

  Amanda moved outside cautiously, looking around with large eyes. Satisfied that there was no immediate danger, the woman tugged urgently at Moon’s coat sleeve. “Did you see anything?”

  He shook his head.

  The archaeologist sucked in a deep breath, then exhaled. “I absolutely did see a face in the window—it was not my imagination.”

  “I believe you.”

  She cocked her head like an inquisitive spaniel. “You know something about what’s been going on up here, don’t you?”

  The Ute didn’t respond.

  “Tell me about it.”

  Moon felt the breeze touch his face. “I think April drove up here that evening, stopped her car, went to have a look at the pit-house ruin. Somebody was already here—digging. But I don’t think it was a pothunter.”

  It was hard, staring at this shadowy man. She looked away. “Do you know who it was?”

  “I have some notions.”

  Amanda Silk pushed her hands deep into the pockets of her robe. “So what do you intend to do?”

  Moon stared into the deepening purple twilight. On the Crag, smoky blue mists swirled over the temple ruins. Only a few steps away, a congregation of piñons stood like giant black mushrooms. They leaned slightly toward the Ute investigator, as if eagerly awaiting his reply to the archaeologist’s question. “Think I’ll go have a look at that pit house. The one where April’s body was found.”

  Amanda shuddered. “Why on earth would you want to go to that awful place?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe it’ll help me think of something.”

  She held her breath for a few heartbeats. “Then I’ll go with you.”

  “I don’t think that’d be a good idea—”

  “Well, I’m certainly not going to sit here in my trailer while some ugly-faced Peeping Tom is roaming around. Wait here while I get some proper clothes on.”

  Before Moon had an opportunity to press his objections, Amanda Silk was already inside her camper, slamming the aluminum door. While he waited, the Ute felt eyes staring holes in his back. He assured himself that this was a product of his imagination. Must be something about this place at night—made a man feel like a malevolent something was out there. Waiting for a chance to pounce. But that was foolishness.

  Despite the beams of creamy moonlight, their path was patched here and there by the blackest of shadows. The archaeologist—her thin frame now swallowed in a bulky canvas coat that hung to her ankles—stayed close by the Ute’s side.

  Moon found a small flashlight in his jacket pocket; he pressed the switch and swept the beam along the path.

  “No,” she rasped, “turn it off. If there’s somebody out there, it’ll make us just that much easier to follow.”

  To allay her fears, he pocketed the flashlight.

  And on they went, wending their way among piñon, juniper, bristly clumps of yucca spears.

  Amanda glanced uncertainly over her shoulder. I do! I feel somebody back there in the darkness, watching us. But she said nothing more to her companion about this uneasiness. Charlie Moon would just think I’m a silly woman. But ever since I saw that ugly face in the window, I’ve been in a terrible nervous state. What I need is a good night’s rest. And so she trudged on. But this morbid conviction would not depart from her: I will not live to see the sun come up.

  A few yards behind them, a pair of eyes watched. There was a low, menacing growl.

  In the patchwork of ivory moonlight and ebony shadows, the remains of the thousand-year-old pit house took on the character of a macabre mirage. Least real of all was the rectangular trench in the center of the crumbling ruin. Moon asked the archaeologist to stay put. The Ute investigator approached the rectangular trench where April’s corpse had been found. In the moonlight, the pit looked wider. And much longer. He squatted, looked in. There was nothing to see but blackness. Might be a yard deep. Or a bottomless pit.

  Amanda Silk stood close behind the Ute policeman, her cold hands jammed deep into the ample pockets of the long overcoat. By sheer force of will, she had managed to put away the nagging sense that—from somewhere in the inky darkness—a pair of brutish eyes stared at her. “It’s all nonsense,” she whispered. “There’s nothing out there. I’m just being silly…like Chicken Little.”

  Charlie Moon heard these mumblings. He was turning his head. “What did you say—”

  The sky fell on him.

  The Ute investigator regained a small portion of his consciousness. He found himself in a strange, cramped bed. Underneath was a mattress of cold, hard soil. Heavy sto
nes for a cover. A pungent scent of pine needles.

  His head seemed clamped in an iron vise. Someone was turning the screw.

  The least effort required an enormous expenditure of will and energy. He managed to open his eyes. There—just above him—sailing across velvet waves of a diamond-speckled sea was White Shell Woman, coolly aloof from the troubles of this world.

  What’s that? Something was hovering over him. He blinked, hoping to wash the specter away.

  It remained—a dark, amorphous shadow between his grave and the starry sky. In the center of this singular darkness, a Cyclops eye appeared…flickering with fire.

  The Ute tried to move. Could not. It’s over.

  The shadowy thing leaned toward him. The fluttering flame grew larger. Then, almost simultaneously, a guttural growl, a snapping of teeth—a gut-ripping shriek.

  God Almighty. Charlie Moon closed his eyes. Let it come.

  It came.

  THE JOURNEY

  The world was rapidly passing away—to become the fading memory of a receding dream.

  Now, he was enveloped by a cool, painless…nothingness.

  The thing was finished.

  Charlie Moon felt his soul slip from his body. As the spark lifts in the warm currents above waning campfire embers, so did his spirit rise from the dark, dank pit-house grave. He was as a fluff of eagle feather, carried aloft on the soft evening breeze.

  But he did not soar far above the sandstone forms of the Twin War Gods—or near those fiery remnants of exploded stars whence his very atoms had been assembled. Neither did he pass through myriad dancing, swirling galaxies, nor was he whisked through ephemeral worlds of curved space, twisted time, and manyfold dimensions. He was not destined to enter a parallel universe, if such strange places there be. He was infinitely beyond such inconsequential things.

  The Ute found himself in a misty twilight country, tucked between a cleft of hills. There were no horizons here. The sky—if there was a sky—was a swirl of colorless mists. He heard no hum of insect, no call from bird in flight. Stunted tree, mottled sky, flinty earth—parched grass—all was gray. He found a little-used path and made his way along it. Searching. If there were days or hours in this place, he could not find them. And so he walked. And walked.

  Precisely where it was supposed to end, the path terminated—at a railroad track. He kneeled to touch the rail. The steel was rusty from disuse.

  What do I do now?

  A shelf of speckled granite jutted from the hillside. He sat on it.

  A damp breeze swept over this netherworld. The sky was cleared of mists. And then the first touch of color—an enormous tangerine moon rose slowly, majestically, over the hills. He watched. And waited.

  Faraway up the tracks, a shrill steam whistle rose above the rhythmic clickety-clack of iron wheels on steel rails.

  Moon got up to watch it come—rounding a hillside, bathed in amber moonlight. A hulking great engine trailing a plume of black smoke and sixteen cobalt-blue coaches. Ninety miles an hour and not slowing. It’s going to pass me by.

  But great wheels—spitting red sparks—braked screechingly on the rusted rails.

  Cinders and ash sprinkled from the smokestack. A uniformed conductor opened a creaky coach door. The railroad official’s blue uniform was freshly laundered and ironed, his polished shoes glistened with moonlight. A billed cap decorated with gold braid perched on his head. The bewhiskered man gestured anxiously at the prospective passenger. “Don’t just stand there—get onboard!”

  The Ute gratefully accepted this gruff invitation.

  “Seat yourself,” the conductor instructed, “I’ll be back in a couple of shakes.” The uniformed man hurried away, glancing at an enormous pocket watch, muttering about timetables and schedules, how railroading was not one whit of what it used to be when he worked the L&N.

  The coach, like the conductor, was from an earlier time. Large rectangular windows were curtained in red velvet. The seats were upholstered in rich brown leather, polished from use, cracked with age. There was only one other passenger. The elderly man seated just across the aisle was outfitted in worn cowboy boots, a brown raincoat, and a slouch felt hat with a small blue feather stuck behind the band. Braids of snow-white hair sprouted from under the brim of the hat, spilling over the man’s shoulders like twin waterfalls. Moon’s fellow passenger looked oddly foreign. And yet familiar.

  Charlie Moon hesitated, then leaned toward the aisle. “Nahum Yaciiti—is that you?”

  A brief smile played at the corners of the Ute elder’s mouth; he glanced at the new arrival. “It’s me all right.”

  The old shepherd had disappeared years ago when a tornado touched down at his place on the banks of the Animas. Most of his small flock had perished. And though his body was never found, Moon had always supposed that Nahum’s corpse had been washed down the river, buried in a sandbar. A pious (but highly imaginative) Hispanic neighbor swore that she had seen his body spirited away by a band of angels. Some of the People believed this might be so—the man was known to be a Saint of God. The more sensible members of the tribe speculated that Nahum’s body had been taken away by his relatives for a traditional burial in the badlands east of Bondad. Any way you sliced the pie, this old man was supposed to be dead. And so am I. Or maybe this is a dream. But everything seems…solid. Real.

  The elder drummed his fingers on the varnished maple armrest. “Something on your mind, Charlie?”

  “Nahum, I don’t know where I am. Or what’s happening.”

  “You’re on the train. Headed for a destination.”

  “Where…” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  In any case, his inquiry was interrupted by the conductor’s sudden appearance from the rear coach. He offered Charlie Moon a broad, friendly smile. And an open palm. “Ticket please.”

  Moon searched his pockets. “I don’t seem to have one.”

  The conductor’s smile was replaced by a melancholy expression. “Sorry, sir. You got to have a ticket to ride the Blue Train.”

  “Well, I’d be glad to buy one, but I don’t seem to have any money on me…”

  “It’s all right,” Nahum said. He showed the conductor a sizable red rectangle. “Charlie’s ticket is prepaid.”

  The conductor’s smile was born anew. “Well, now—that is good news.” He reached for the ticket.

  Nahum withdrew the crimson rectangle. “I’ll be holding it for him.”

  “Oh—I see.” The conductor made a deferential nod to the shepherd, then turned to Moon. “Have a good journey, sir.” He pulled the watch from his pocket, flicked open the golden cover. “We’ll be pulling into the City at first light.”

  After the conductor had passed into a forward coach, Moon offered his companion a curious look. “Nahum, what’re you doing here?”

  The Ute elder turned away, peering out the window as if he could see all manner of fascinating things in the gathering darkness. “It’s unusual for one of our people to take the train. Most of ’em come by horse. Or they walk, or follow the white buffalo—or they just—” He chuckled at some private joke. “But you always were different.” He turned to smile across the aisle at the younger man. And answer his question. “I’m here to meet you.”

  “I’m glad to see you.” Moon was hesitant to ask the cardinal question. “But what am I doing here?”

  Nahum’s eyes widened in mock astonishment. “You don’t know?”

  Moon studied his hands, flexed his fingers. Nothing ghostly about them—they looked like genuine flesh and bone. “Guess maybe I do know.” Just don’t want to say it out loud.

  “Well?”

  “Last thing I remember, I couldn’t move. And somebody was standing over me. There was this little flame…” The next words were hard to get past his lips. “So I figure I’m…dead.” There—that wasn’t so hard to say. Moon frowned. “But I don’t feel dead.”

  Nahum considered this. “Neither do I.” There was a lengthy silence before the
Ute elder spoke. “We need to talk about some things.” And so the old man talked.

  The young man listened.

  Nahum Yaciiti told Charlie Moon about new things. For the former things were passed away.

  14

  The Twins said: “We have killed the Giant, Yietso.” First Man said: “No one can kill the Giant.”

  —Sandoval, Hastin Tlo’tsi hee

  THE JASMINE ROOM

  THE FOUNDER OF the clan had been the principle citizen of Granite Creek. Great-Grandpa Snyder had made his stake in those boisterous days when silver was king and ten thousand rowdy miners squandered their wages in two dozen saloons and twice as many brothels. After the precious metal was drained from the mountain’s veins—and the miners had departed to chase after other avaricious dreams—the Snyders remained. The family mansion, situated on the creek among a grove of cottonwoods, was home to a family comprised of assorted scoundrels, wastrels, lunatics, soldiers, politicians, scholars—even the occasional saint. There had been memorable parties in the palatial home, with orchestras and operas imported from St. Louis, New York, and Vienna. It had been a wild, sordid, violent, romantic era. But that was quite another time. Alas, all the eccentric characters of the Snyder clan are long since departed to their respective rewards. Nothing remains of them but photographs of solemn Victorian faces hung in heavy frames along the dim hallways. The gay character of their mansion is also a ghostly memory. The business conducted on the premises nowadays is of a decidedly serious nature.

  FBI Special Agent Stanley Newman entered the vast lobby that had once been a magnificent parlor. The gathering place held the largest crowd it had seen in more than a century. Several dozen members of the Southern Ute nation were under the domed ceiling. A congregation of elders was seated on rare and costly antique couches and chairs; a few were leaning slightly forward, as if ready to bolt should the owner of this uncomfortable furniture confront them. Younger Utes milled about, muttering among themselves in low voices. All now claimed some sort of kinship or friendship with Charlie Moon, though some of those present had been arrested by the former tribal policeman. Whether dealing with foul-mouthed drunk or tribal chairman, wife-beater or wide-eyed child, Moon had always been a fair man.