by Lakota Grace
We needed some serious plow activity on this side of the road, but they hadn’t arrived yet. The snow deadened the sounds, and there was just the steady whap-whap of windshield wipers. The headlights carved half circles of light ahead of us, and it appeared as though Rory steered by the reflective snowplow caution markers on the road’s edge.
I settled back in my unaccustomed passenger side of the vehicle. Rory was a good driver, and I’d not distract him by shouting the instructions screaming from the back of my brain. Five miles out of Kachina Subdivision, the snowplow and then the cinder trucks passed us, and we had a straight shot into town, past the exits to Northern Arizona University and then north on Highway 180 to the hospital.
Rory pulled up at the emergency entrance, and Armor and I piled out.
“I’ll park the car and meet up with you in a moment,” Rory said. “Go check on Ben.”
We hurried through the halls, our wet boots leaving divots of clumped snow as we followed directions to the ICU.
The head nurse at the information center blocked our way when we asked where Ben Yazzie was.
“Only family admitted to the ICU unit.”
“I’m his uncle,” Armor said.
“And you?” She pointed to me.
“She’s family, too,” Armor assured her and pushed me ahead of her.
The nurse gave me a knowing look and then passed us through. It was undoubtedly a lie she’d heard many times before.
There was a sheet drawn around a single bed at the end of the ward. We paused outside the curtain, not sure whether to look behind it.
Then a doctor emerged from the barricade. “Are you Ben Yazzie’s relatives?”
With my red hair and Armor’s grizzled appearance, we might not look much like the family of the dark-haired boy, that was for sure. But the doctor accepted Armor’s assurances and pulled us out into the hall.
“Ben had a close call, laying that bike down, but luckier than some we’ve had come in here. At least he was wearing a helmet. The young man is conscious, but he’s suffered a concussion. We want to keep him overnight for observation. You can go in for a few minutes, but then you’ll have to leave.”
That meant we'd have to spend the night in the emergency room lobby, but nobody was complaining if Ben was okay. We entered the room and walked behind the curtain. Ben was propped up in bed, a dazed look in his dark eyes.
“Armor, Peg, what are you doing here?” He recognized us. That was a good thing, surely.
“You were in an accident,” Armor said.
“I remember driving through Cottonwood and then turning onto I-17,” Ben said slowly.
“Nothing about what happened after that?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Where is Thorn?” I asked. “Is she all right?”
A snowstorm was raging outside, and Thorn Malone was on a Vision Quest in a Reservation secret place that only Ben knew.
“Thorn who?” he asked.
We were in trouble, big trouble.
CHAPTER 27
THORN MALONE awoke on the third day of her Vision Quest before dawn. She’d stirred once in the middle of the night to stoke the fire and then settled into an exhausted slumber. Without food, her energy waned and her thoughts were disturbed.
She dreamed, and in her dream, shadowy Old Ones visited her. They whispered in her ear, and she strained closer to listen. Three persons came, dressed in deerskins and the turquoise and red velvet of Navajo dress.
Their hair was dark and cropped ear length. One wore a black crow’s feather in his bangs, and it glistened in the firelight. Another dashed at her with a gourd rattle, laughing and shaking it over her head. Thorn drew back in fear. Throughout she heard the steady drumbeat and the chant, “Hey-ya, hey-ya.”
Then the oldest of the Elders, an old woman with a mahogany, lined face shook Thorn’s shoulder.
“Move,” she commanded. “Move.”
“No,” Thorn protested, “Let me sleep.” She was warm for the first time since the storm had started.
A loud thunderbolt cracked, and her body was roughly pushed. Thorn fell out of the cot onto the floor. The room was warm, intensely warm. In front of her, the door had blown open again, but near her, flames licked around the broken lantern chimney on the floor.
She’d lit the lantern to keep her company in the darkness, but its glass chimney lay shattered, pushed off the table by the wind. The fire licked the ancient log walls, the shreds of bark acting as wicks for the flames.
“Go. Now!” the voices hissed.
Thorn grabbed her jacket and shoes and ran for the door. Then she whirled and snatched up the old sheepskin and Ben’s notebook. As she dashed out the door, the roof collapsed in a whump of charred timbers.
Outside, stars and a half moon illumined the dark sky. The storm was over. Thorn stuffed the notebook inside her T-shirt and zipped her jacket closed. Hopping on one foot and then the other, she put on her shoes. Then she draped the sheepskin around her shoulders.
The snow was over a foot deep, drifted in places and glistening where drifts caught the light of the burning hogan. Thorn could never make it to the road, not in the dark, not with the path hidden in the snow. And yet she had to try. She would freeze to death if she stayed here.
Thorn turned her back to the flames and let her eyes adjust to the moonlight. In front of her was a single set of deer tracks, picking carefully between the deep drifts to the shallower spots. Thorn followed them. At the edge of the cliff, she paused.
How far was it to the bottom? The moon broke from behind lingering clouds, showing her the way. It had taken forever to climb the trail, but going down seemed quicker, with the path outlined in the snow.
She found signs. Here a twig, broken by the browsing deer. There, a boulder loomed like a sentinel warning her against a steep drop off beyond. At another bend, a fragment of dark cloth flapped in a slight breeze, marking the trail ahead, stopping her from wandering in the wrong direction.
Thorn fell and got a mouthful of snow. She blew on her hands, red and wet, trying to orient herself. A ghost light winked off a pine branch. When she reached the spot, a can lid nailed to the bark reflected the moonlight back to her, beckoning the way, step by step.
She stuck her hands in her pocket a moment for warmth and then saw her breath marking the air like dark fog. The day was getting lighter.
She reached level ground just as the sun came up over the ridge. Sunlight sparkled crystalline on the new snow, creating a new problem. Soon, her eyes blurred, making it hard to see. What had her dad told her? Be careful of the brightness. Snow blindness became an immediate threat, but she had to keep moving. She’d freeze if she didn’t. Thorn squinted and moved slower.
Once she stumbled, but felt someone behind her, righting her balance. When she turned, no one was there. She couldn’t see well, but she could hear. First the drip of a rivulet beneath the snow. Then the sound of cars ahead of her. She had to be close to the road, but could they see her?
It would be just her luck to find the road, only to get run over. She pushed the sheepskin off her shoulders, and her magenta jacket shown through like a blaze. With her foot she felt for the edge of the road and then dropped to her knees, unable to move any farther.
She heard the crunch of vehicle tires coming up the road, and she waved her hands in the air.
“Stop,” Thorn screamed. “Here, I’m here!”
There was a sound of a vehicle decelerating. A truck passed her, and then with a grinding of gears backed up on the snow-packed road. It stopped inches from her, the exhaust puffing. Thorn opened matter-encrusted eyes to see a Navajo woman, wearing blue jeans and a red-checkered shirt who bent over her.
“What are you doing out here in the snow? I almost hit you.” She enveloped Thorn in a big hug.
“My Auntie was right,” she said. “The Old Ones did find a lost one out here. Come on, I have warm coffee in the truck.”
Thorn stumbled after her. Inside t
he cab was an infant in a carrier, properly strapped in, and beside it, two small boys, their dark eyes wide with curiosity. The woman grabbed a thermos, poured a drink, and handed it to Thorn.
“My name’s Karleen Yazzie. I teach at Rough Rock School, but this morning I’m headed for Flagstaff. Time to make a bank deposit. Who are you?”
“Thorn Malone. Are you related to Ben Yazzie?”
The woman laughed. “Half the Rez has the last name of Yazzie. I’m probably a cousin twice removed if you go back that far. I’d need to know his clan affiliation. But how stupid is this person, leaving a bilagáana like you out here in the middle of the snow?”
“Ben’s not stupid!”
“Well, how come he left you here?” Karleen asked.
“I’m on a Vision Quest.”
“In the middle of this cold weather?”
Her tone seemed to indicate it wasn’t a very good idea. At this point, Thorn agreed with her.
“Did you see anything?” The woman’s eyes narrowed.
Thorn debated mentioning the Old Ones.
“I had a dream,” she said slowly. Surely that’s all it was.
“And help, I think, getting down the mountain.” Thorn turned and pointed at Black Mesa.
“Good.” Then the woman gestured to the pickup bed. “You’ll have to ride in back with Auntie and the dogs. I don’t trust the little boys back there on their own. Here, let me give you a hand up. The dogs are friendly. They won’t bite. Don’t worry about Auntie. She doesn’t bite, either. Doesn’t speak much English, so just smile and say yá’át’ééh. That means hello.”
Thorn scrambled into the bed of the pickup and crawled forward to the back of the cab. There a wizened old woman sat wrapped in a thick blanket. She was small, not much bigger than the dogs, and her face wrinkled with many decades of staring into the bright Navajo sun. She gestured for Thorn to sit beside her and offered part of the blanket.
Thorn pulled it close. She tried a tentative smile and said, “Ye-ta-hay.” She hoped that was close enough to what she had heard.
The old woman grinned back, showing a smile with several missing teeth. She offered a piece of flatbread she’d been chewing on, and Thorn didn’t need another invitation. She tore off a big hunk and then gave the remainder back to the old woman who nodded her approval.
“Called Fry Bread,” the woman grunted. “I fry in mutton fat. Good.” She rubbed her stomach and cackled. Then she poked the remaining scrap of bread back in a pocket of her old coat.
The dogs, smelling food, edged closer and the old woman kicked at them with a practiced gesture, snarling something in Navajo. The dogs quieted, and as the pickup gathered speed, they arranged themselves in a heap, with Thorn and the old woman in the center out of the wind draft.
Thorn sighed and chewed on the bread. Nothing had tasted so good in her life. She slumped against the back of the truck cab and snuggled closer to the old woman. As she moved, the pile of dogs shifted and leaned closer.
Thorn was warm, she was safe, and she was okay. She’d made it!
She dozed in a quiet dreamless sleep until they reached the outskirts of Flagstaff. The truck turned onto a side road and stopped at the emergency entrance to the Flagstaff Hospital.
The truck slid on the ice in the shadow of the building, then settled into grooves in the packed snow worn by the ambulance tires. Karleen yanked on the emergency brake and piled out of the truck with a shouted caution to her young boys to “watch the baby.”
The dogs awoke with an uproar, and Karleen yelled at them in the same guttural language the old woman had used. Then she helped Thorn across the slippery path and into the warm emergency room. Thorn recoiled. The sudden bright lights, the heat, the flat surfaces were too much after her wilderness stay.
“Karleen!” the charge nurse exclaimed, “you aren’t due here until tomorrow. Everything okay?”
“I’m fine. Brought you a present.”
Thorn was suddenly aware of her tattered appearance. She unwrapped the fleece and gave it to Karleen. I must smell like sheep, she thought.
Karleen hugged her firmly and then left without another word.
Two emergency room nurses gathered Thorn in and helped her walk to an examining room.
“You’re fortunate beyond words,” one of them said. “Karleen Yazzie is our eyes and ears on the Reservation. She’s got a doctorate degree, traveled the entire world, yet chooses to live there, says she can be of more benefit in her homeland.”
Sitting on the table in a flimsy hospital gown supplemented by several autoclave-warmed blankets, Thorn felt human again.
“I need a phone,” she croaked. “I want to call my dad.”
“Somebody here to see you first,” one nurse said.
“Hey-ya.” Ben Yazzie poked his head around the corner with a shy smile.
CHAPTER 28
COOPER DAVIS dumped some cat food in the dish for Sarge and poured a driver’s mug of coffee to take with him. He’d had a French Press at home that Gen had kept ready for him. He missed it and missed the relationship, too. But that was then, and this was now.
The office coffee was undrinkable, unless he was desperate, which usually happened about ten a.m., but at least he could start the day right with his own coffee, even if Gen wasn’t a part of his life now. And he needed a bracer after the wild drive up from Sedona yesterday.
He walked into the squad room, grunted at the clerk. He dropped his bulging briefcase by his desk and switched on his computer. The deadline had been missed for Thorn Malone’s return. He’d left several messages for Peg Quincy, but the woman hadn’t responded.
But enough was enough. Thorn Malone either appeared, or he was putting out an All-Points-Bulletin on her. He tried Quincy’s phone one last time.
She answered on the first ring. “We’re coming in.”
“Good. When?”
“Thorn is being treated for exposure at the Flagstaff Hospital, and her dad is driving up from their home in Cottonwood. We can meet at your office in a couple of hours.”
“Fine,” Cooper said shortly. “I’ll expect you then.”
How did I ever agree to this mixed up arrangement, he wondered.
Several hours later, Shepherd Malone was the first to walk in the door.
“Thorn here yet?” was all Malone said when he entered the conference room.
Cooper shook his head.
“My wife and I are divorced, but I have legal custody of my daughter. I’ll be sitting in on the interview,” Malone said.
He took the chair at the head of the table before Cooper could grab it, and sat there, his eyes blank, his body motionless. Like a guru or something. The hair on the back of Cooper’s neck rose. Who was this guy?
A few moments later, Peg Quincy arrived with Thorn Malone. The girl ran across the room to Malone.
“Dad, I’m so sorry. I was wrong!”
“No, it was me. I should have listened to you.”
He gave her a tight hug.
“Okay, let’s get this over with. I’m with you, honey.” He pulled a chair out next to him and gave her hand a squeeze. Her father smoothed her roughened hair in a gentle way.
There was another guy with Thorn, young, dark hair and eyes. It was the kid from the accident! Boyfriend? Quincy hadn’t mentioned one.
Cooper held up a hand as the boy tried to follow them into the conference room.
“Only family and officers allowed.”
The guy looked disappointed but gave Thorn a small, brown notebook, which she clutched as she entered the room, her eyes wild and staring.
Thorn’s face was red, sunburned, and she blinked at the bright lights. Her hands were nicked, and she had a butterfly Band-Aid over one eyebrow. This Vision Quest thing had been rough on her. For a moment, she reminded Cooper of his cat, Sarge.
Peg took the seat next to Cooper. She handed him a recorder.
“Secretary gave me this on the way in,” she whispered.
Cooper
clicked on the recorder. “Today’s date is…”
“A glass of water for my daughter before we start,” Malone said. His voice was deep, resonant.
Cooper clicked off the recorder, looked to Peg. She nodded and left the room, returning with water for both Malone and his daughter. Nothing for Cooper. He frowned and restarted the tape recorder.
He gave the date once more, stated the individuals present. No attorney, he noted to himself, and he planned to keep it that way. He nodded to the girl sitting across from him. “In your own words, please tell us what happened the day Jill Rustaine was murdered.”
The girl grabbed the glass of water, her hand shaking. Then she steadied it with her other hand to take a sip. She set the water down.
“My dad was in Phoenix for a conference, so Peg and I went for a hike in West Fork. We’d crossed the creek two or three times when Peg’s dog, Reckless, took off after something, and she went after him. I waited for a while, but when she didn’t return, I hiked farther on the trail. I figured they’d catch up.”
“Go ahead,” Cooper said.
“I was passed by a woman with a kid.”
“Description?”
“I don’t know. He was just a kid!”
“What next?” Cooper asked.
“Well I sat on a rock, waiting for Peg, but she didn’t show up, and I heard a noise in the underbrush and went to investigate.”
“You just took off.”
“I thought it was a deer. I wanted to get a picture.”
Here, her lower lip started to quiver. “I saw my boss, Jill Rustaine, just lying there. She had a knife in her chest, and there was blood everywhere.”
Her father put a quiet hand on her shoulder.
“Take your time, Thorn.”
“I panicked, I guess. I ran back to the path, screaming for Peg.”
“What about the knife?” Cooper asked.
“I don’t remember.”
“And your pack?”
