Land of Echoes

by Daniel Hecht

  "Of course," Julieta said at last. But she gave a tiny shake of her head, and the message in her eyes was clear: Everything but my secret. Peter Yellowhorse. My baby.

  Cree nodded. "Lynn, you already know how we're thinking of this. I'm sure it strikes you as bizarre. Do you think you can you ride with it despite your skepticism? Give our perspective a chance?"

  The nurse was sitting in a soft chair and seemed huddled in on herself, slumped, holding her knees or toying with the end of her braid. Her eyes rose to meet Cree's and the bronze speck sparkled. "You mean, the idea that Tommy's possessed?"

  "As I told you, I don't like the typical assumptions that come with the term, but that's about it, yeah. What do you think of that hypothesis?"

  Lynn directed her coy smile at Julieta. "I just work here. I'll do whatever I'm told. Frankly, having seen him when it's . . . on him, I don't find the idea such a stretch. Maybe being married into a Navajo family for sixteen years kind of wore down my skepticism. Possession—that's what a Navajo diagnostician would probably call it." She turned back to Cree. "As for confidentiality—" She made a lip-zipping gesture.

  Cree found she couldn't stay seated. She was too energized, impatient, frustrated. She got up to pace the room as she brought them up to date: "I saw Tommy at the hospital today. It's getting worse. Joseph kindly talked to them and they let me in as a consultant, so I have access to him. But I have no authority to treat or prescribe. The doctor in charge of his case has a tight psychological theory, but if Tommy doesn't improve he's also considering treating him for seizures, impulse control disorders, schizophrenia. Which means lots of drugs, lots of side effects, personality alteration, long-term hospitalization. I sure hate to see it go there. And I don't think it will work."

  Julieta's lips had narrowed, and though she didn't move, her aura changed, the resigned dignity turning shaky again as desperation rose beneath it. A mother's reaction, Cree thought.

  Cree continued, telling them about her pending meeting with Donny McCarty to explore the possibility that the entity was indeed the vengeful ex Julieta seemed so certain of. "Julieta, you've given me an impression of who Donny is and who Garrett was. Is there anything you can add that will help me when I talk to Donny?"

  Julieta thought about that and finally shook her head. "What you saw when we met Donny was pretty typical. How about you, Lynn? You had contact with the McCartys when your husband worked for them, right?"

  Lynn nodded and explained, "My Vernon worked as chief explosives engineer for McCarty for many years. He got to know them pretty well. Not down here, he worked at the Bloomfield mine, up near Farmington. And I ran the Bloomfield medical unit for a few years, so, yes, I saw both McCartys now and again."

  "Can you tell me anything about them?"

  Lynn shrugged. "I really don't know what might be helpful to you. I wouldn't know where to start."

  "How about beliefs? Was Garrett religious? Is Donny? Or superstitious at all?"

  "Garrett went to church, but I don't think he was really religious. I think he saw it as a useful way to network. Donny, he doesn't believe in much of anything, I don't think. Neither struck me as superstitious in the slightest. Pragmatists, both of them."

  "What would be Donny's reaction if I suggested, for example, that I'd heard his father's ghost haunted the mine?"

  Lynn chuckled. "Well, he'd get a kick out of it. He'd think you were a weak-brained female."

  Julieta nodded agreement. "And he'd think I had put you up to it to give him grief in some way. Or that you'd heard it from some superstitious Indian."

  Cree turned that over in her thoughts, trying to find a way to engage Donny, enlist his help. "So . . . what is his attitude toward Native Americans?"

  "Donny always treated Vern with respect," Lynn said immediately.

  "Patronizing," Julieta said. "Condescending. Navajos make up ninety percent of his workforce. He talks respectfully only because he doesn't want to alienate his labor pool and sometimes needs to swing favors with the tribal government. As for Garrett, he was pretty much an out-and-out racist."

  Lynn looked like she was biting her tongue but kept a little smile at the corners of her lips.

  Cree mentally filed it away as Joyce took notes. "Okay. If I can ask a favor, it's that you both ponder the issue. What can you tell me about Donny that will allow me to ask about his father, the circumstances of his father's death? And Lynn, please look back at every contact you've had with Tommy and tell me anything that you think might be helpful." They nodded.

  "Okay. Julieta, I can't work only on the premise that we're dealing with Garrett's ghost. There are other possibilities to consider. His . . . parents should be a high priority." Cree's eyebrows jumped; she had almost said adoptive parents. "Joyce, do you have anything on that?"

  "Only the basics so far. Car crash, spring of '97. Father was driving drunk. Both died at the scene. The accident was up near Tuba City. I'll keep looking into it, but if we want to consider one of the parents we'd have to ask ourselves, why would the revenant come here, two hundred miles away, and why now, six years later? I mean, if one of the parents' ghosts homed in on Tommy, why not at the Keedays' place, or his previous school, and much earlier?"

  Cree nodded. "Good questions. We'll look for more information in the coming days. In the meantime, there's another possibility you should know about, Julieta. I was very interested in Tommy's drawings of the cliff faces, so last night, Dr. Mayfield and I went out to the mesa to explore. You had a drawing class with him out there, didn't you? Out at the big ravine?"

  Julieta looked puzzled. "Yes. Why?"

  "And Tommy said he got a touch of sunstroke up there?"

  "Right. I'd forgotten. It didn't seem serious at all."

  "His drawings changed drastically after those sessions. And I had a powerful contact with an entity or entities there last night. I can't believe it's a coincidence. So I need to know the area's history better. Julieta, are you sure you can't tell me any more about it? Lynn, do you know anything?"

  Julieta shook her head. Lynn ventured, "Locally, I think it was once called Lost Goats Mesa. But I don't think it has a name now."

  Ed met Cree's eyes, and he smiled minutely: goats.

  " So—Joyce, I know you've got a lot on your plate, but can you add that in? Dig up some history for this area? Stories associated with the mesa or the old trading post? Who lived here, when, anything."

  Joyce had been taking notes on her pad, and looked up quickly. "I am all over it."

  "Ed will need to conduct a comprehensive test of the school's electrical system, particularly the boys' dorm and this building. The flickering of the lights might give us some clues. Julieta, can you put him in touch with your maintenance people so they can help? He'll need to look at the whole grid here—transformers, circuit breakers, incoming lines, everything."

  "Frank Nez is our chief physical plant man. I'll take you over to his shop when we're done here, but . . ."

  "I'll tell him it has something to do with state safety compliance," Ed put in.

  "Perfect." Cree had taken some notes on what she needed to accomplish at this meeting, and now she glanced down at her pad. "I've got two more items on my agenda. One, as I said, I had an important session with Tommy today. The good news is that, thanks to Joseph, Dr. Corcoran is letting me meet with the boy. And when I was there, I was increasingly able to feel it— as something distinct or separate from Tommy. Which means I'm on the road to identifying it."

  Julieta said haltingly, "And the bad news?"

  "I'm sorry, Julieta. The bad news is, this thing is progressing rapidly. It's taking him over, minute by minute. So far, he's been resisting it pretty well, and he can intentionally cooperate with people trying to help him. But I don't know how long that'll be the case. I think it's wearing him out." Julieta's face broke into lines of grief, and Cree went on quickly, "I didn't meet his grandparents, but on the off chance Tommy goes home, I'll need to have their approval to keep seeing him.
Julieta, that's an area where you can help. Speak to them, speak to Joseph. It would be good if Ed and I can rig him with the FMEEG, but the technology there can be intimidating—we'll need some persuasion on our side."

  Julieta was looking away, out the window at the empty western horizon, but she nodded.

  "Finally, I'll need to go out to the mesa again tonight. Ed or Joyce, it would be good to have one of you there with me." Cree faltered as she tried to explain to Julieta: "It . . . I sometimes have a hard time coming back. It helps to have someone remind me who I am. What world I'm in."

  Joyce gave her an approving nod.

  "So, with that," Cree said, "off we go. Into the fray, swords upraised, right? All for one and one for all."

  "And huzzah," Ed muttered. They all stood soberly and adjourned.

  30

  JOYCE WENT off to Window Rock to get a start with the archives at the Navajo History Museum before it closed for the day. Ed arranged to meet Cree at nine-thirty for a second trip to the ravine, then went with Julieta to meet the maintenance staff and get a tour of the electrical system's components in preparation for the exhaustive analysis he'd conduct tomorrow. Lynn was called to tend to a boy who had badly scraped both elbows playing basketball.

  Cree spent the evening resting and reading more of the materials Mason and Joyce had provided. It was disquieting stuff in more ways than one.

  From what she'd read so far, it was clear that most cases of "possession" from earlier eras were actually examples of clinically definable maladies. Many were obviously epilepsy or schizophrenia, but some were more likely DID, dissociative identity disorder, previously referred to as multiple personality disorder. The condition was believed to be caused by a combination of neurological predisposition and early childhood trauma so severe that the victim "quarantined" aspects of his or her personality, locking them away to escape the pain of coping with the trauma. Most people lived in some degree of forgetfulness or denial, but with DID victims the sequestered parts began to develop independently, to grow and articulate as complete, separate personalities that could emerge under the right triggering circumstances. The supposed "epidemic" of MPD during the 1980s had been discredited as a phenomenon largely created by unscrupulous therapists, but a number of cases, stretching back centuries, held up under scrutiny and made it clear that though very rare, the disorder was real.

  At the same time, the inverse was also true: To Cree's eyes, some of those now labeled as MPD/DID sufferers were clearly victims of invasion by a separate, roving, extracorporeal entity.

  Again, she had to admire the insight and courage of Mason's basic dictum: No theory of human psychology could be considered accurate or complete unless it accommodated the principle that mind is to some degree independent of brain or body and that the human personality is shaped by psychological and social influences that extend beyond the physical lifetime.

  Included in the papers Joyce had provided was one of Mason Ambrose's most famous monographs, published eighteen years ago as a slap in the face to the psychological status quo. Describing five specific, well-documented MPD case studies, he had challenged anyone to offer a single fact that was demonstrably inconsistent with the idea that the victims were in fact possessed by a distinct, externally originating entity. Despite their scorn, his detractors mustered only feeble efforts to refute the idea. Some psychologists had applauded the paper, assuming that Mason intended it only as an ironic argument against current diagnostic criteria for MPD, a way of saying that criteria that didn't permit ready refutation of such a wild theory had to be inadequate. Subsequent developments in the field had reinforced that view, and multiple personality disorder had been dropped from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.

  Cree, of course, knew that he'd meant it literally.

  Mason had relished the ongoing controversy. But now, rereading that first paper in the light of the bedside lamp in the ward room, with desert-dark windows on all three sides, Cree found herself deeply unsettled. Somehow it made the awful stuff more real—the biblical and medieval accounts and the quasi-religious or pseudomedical reports from the last ten centuries. In particular, she couldn't shake that damned woodcut image, the rearing saint above the contorted sufferer, the worm spewing and coiling. Maybe because it echoed too well Tommy's description of the maggots in the sheep.

  There was another perspective, Cree knew: the old faiths of the world, the nature religions and shamanic spiritual traditions, like that of the Navajo. For a moment she wished she wasn't so far from a library, then realized she had access to a knowledgeable source. She went to the nurse's office, dialed Paul's home number.

  "Hey."

  "Hey, yourself," Paul said. "I was hoping it was you."

  "You busy?"

  "Monday night. I'm busy trying to shed the accumulated stresses of a day of dealing with other people's intractable problems. I've got a tall, slim, sensuous companion named Beaujolais Nouveau who is, shall we say, helping me unwind."

  Cree heard a clink of glass, the sound of wine pouring. "Trying to make me jealous? It won't work. I'm calling for professional advice."

  "Is that so? I'm kissing her ruby lips even as we speak . . . mmmm." Paul was in a good mood; this obviously wasn't the first such kiss of the evening.

  "Okay, it's working, I'm jealous," Cree said sincerely. A sip of the good grape would be nice, maybe help ease the growing tension she felt. "Listen, I was thinking about a paper you told me you'd written. On the parallels between modern psychotherapy and shamanistic healing practices."

  "Aha."

  "I'm interested in . . . well, in possession. I've got a bunch of literature on the Christian/Satanic outlook, and some papers on the parallels between DID and possession. But I'd like to get some perspectives from other traditions."

  Paul was quiet for a moment. "So that's what you're dealing with there? Jesus. I hated the idea even when I didn't believe in ghosts. Now . . .Jesus. That sounds like a scary proposition for a . . . you know. A person like you, Cree."

  "It's a common diagnosis in the Navajo tradition. The entity is often the ghost of a dead ancestor. Is that typical?"

  "You know all this better than I do, Cree."

  "Indulge me. Refresh my memory."

  "It's universal. All over the world, every culture. All the old religions have the same basic idea. In a few traditions, you find some rough equivalent of the demonic entity, but that's rare. I always saw the ancestor thing as a useful metaphor. Struck me as full of resonances with modern psychotherapy—not so different from Freud putting you on the couch and asking about your mother. A way to cope constructively with our unresolved business with our forebears. But it's not always ancestors. The spirit can be any dead person close to the victim. A mother or father can become possessed by the ghost of a dead child. A widow or widower can be possessed by the dead spouse. It's often a blood relative, but not always—a murderer might be possessed by the spirit of his victim."

  "Always someone with a connection to the victim, though."

  "Yep. Unless it's a deity or nature spirit of some kind."

  "What kind of symptoms? Are they consistent in different cultures?"

  "Very. But if you want details . . . well, let me think. It's been a while, Cree." He took another sip of wine and breathed deeply once or twice. "Well, in Melanesia, the possessed person typically speaks in a strange voice, shows glaring eyes, twisting limbs, convulsing body, foam in the throat. The mana—that's the spirit of the dead person—overpowers the victim in fits or cycles, leaving him exhausted, almost comatose. Among the Alarsk Buryat of Siberia, the ancestral spirits are called utcha and manifest first in dreams, getting to the convulsions and strange voices only as they gain greater control. In Nepal, the Tamangs have a term, um . . . God, I used to know all this stuff . . . I'd impress my fellow grad students, those of the female persuasion, with it . . . uh, yeah, iha khoiba mayba. The term means, essentially, 'crazy possession.' As opposed to voluntary possession. Symptoms are typic
al, your basic convulsive shaking, incoherency, chaotic visions or hallucinations."

  "'Voluntary possession'?" The idea was appalling to Cree.

  "Oh, sure. For shamans, it's a sought-after state. The shaman surrenders to the spirit to get guidance from the dead. Sometimes the ghost gives him prophetic information—advice on what's going to happen, what people should or shouldn't do, warnings, and so on. Advice on how to heal people, how to settle their unresolved issues. I thought you'd know all about that—isn't that a lot like what you do?"

  She hadn't quite thought of it in those terms and wished he hadn't pointed it out. "Let's go back to the involuntary variety. What else? Why do the spirits return? The human type?"

  "That's variable. They often come back to seek redress or justice for wrongs. Or to punish the living for offenses—the Tibetan Book of the Dead has a ton of stuff on after-death retribution."

  "Terrific. Great."

  Paul heard the bleakness in her tone, tried to inject something more hopeful: "But, again, the dead may also have important information to convey. They may be trying to help."

  "How nice of them," Cree said acidly. Right now, it was hard to think of spirit invasion as anything but a form of rape.

  "Among the Tungas, for example—"

  "That's okay, Paul. I get the picture."

  "Of course, there are also animal spirits, they're often helping spirits, too. It—"

  "This one's human."

  "Okay." He was quiet for a minute as her mood really registered. "Do you have to get involved?"

  "I'm already 'involved.'"

  "And you're . . . at risk?"

  "No doubt."

  "You want to tell me what you're dealing with?"

  He sounded frustrated and worried, and she wanted to cheer him up. "I can't, Paul. Just be yourself. Who you are. And what you've told me is very helpful. This member of the female persuasion is very impressed."