The Blue Corn Murders

by Nancy Pickard

  “We’ll be passing this Talking Stick around”—Naomi held up something that Genia couldn’t see clearly in the darkness—“for each speaker to hold, and then to pass on to the next person.”

  “What is it?” someone called out.

  “An ear of blue corn,” Naomi said. “Because it connects us to the wisdom of those who have gone before us, and because it will no doubt be here long after we’re gone.” Her voice trembled on the last word, and as she finished her sentence it sounded as if she were holding back tears. “So it connects us to the wisdom of the future, too.”

  The director stopped and took several audibly shaky breaths.

  She pulled her serape closer around her shoulders, as if it represented her own composure that she was trying to collect. It was the music, Genia thought, it was the haunting music that had pulled such unexpected emotion from Naomi. Genia noticed that neither of the staff members on either side of the director looked at her or reached over to touch her. Jon Warren and Susan Van Sant seemed to be staring straight ahead, like seated statues whose heads wouldn’t turn. Couldn’t they hear her distress? Genia wondered. Why didn’t they reach out to comfort her? It was, instead, the woman named Lillian, who said in a concerned and hesitant voice, “Naomi?” and even started to get up from her chair.

  “It’s okay,” the director said, waving her back down. “Really. This part of the ritual always gets to me.” Quickly she went on, in a lilting tone of voice that reminded Genia of a parent trying too hard to convince children that nothing unusual had happened. “We usually select a theme for a Talking Circle, and I’d like to suggest a subject.” The firelight caught a telltale glistening in her eyes. “When your turn comes to speak, tell us your name, and then answer this question.” Her voice wavered again, and one more time she visibly pulled herself together. Softly, tenderly, she said:

  “Why have the Ancient People called you here?”

  Seven

  A sudden wind rustled the aspen leaves, filling the meadow with a sound eerily like clapping. Genia experienced the oddest sensation of being on a stage with an invisible audience watching, listening. Someone in the circle murmured a long drawn-out “ah,” for no apparent reason, but Genia felt it, too, an “ah” of anticipation and appreciation. She had the feeling that anything could happen in such a place as this.

  “Hello!”

  Unfortunately, the first word out of the mouth of the young scientist sounded chirpy and falsely jolly. It was, Genia thought, as if a grinning vaudeville performer had burst onto the scene of a serious drama. The young woman even waved the ear of corn at them, as if to distract their attention from melancholy Naomi and draw it firmly to her cheerful self. Below her blond pigtails she wore a plain white sweatshirt, jeans, and hiking boots. She sat straight against the back of her metal chair, her legs spread slightly apart with her knees sagging in and her feet pigeon-toed. Her posture gave her the appearance of an alert, self-assured child.

  “I’m Susan Van Sant, archaeologist and big game hunter.”

  She laughed when her reference to the mountain lion produced low chuckles. Once again the mood grew light and companionable. All seemed normal again. The breeze died down, and the clapping stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Genia leaned forward to listen with interest. It turned out that what the young scientist had to say was anything but superficial. She said it in a slight British accent, like someone who’d spent part of her childhood in England or been educated there.

  “The Ancient People called to me in a dream when I was ten years old. Honestly, this really happened. I dreamed I was a young woman living in a beautiful empty city that was built into a cliff at the top of a mountain. Mind you, at that age I had never heard of the cliff dwellers. In my dream I was making a great big red pot out of wet clay, and it formed and hardened in my hands, and then when it was finished, it disappeared. I was left holding nothing but air. I woke up crying. It was the oddest thing. So when we moved to America and I came across a picture of the Cliff Palace Ruins on Mesa Verde in a history book, I recognized my destiny.”

  Genia felt spellbound as she listened.

  “I had to find out what happened to the pot,” the archaeologist told them. “And so I’ve been looking ever since.”

  There was a long moment of appreciative silence, and then the young woman next to Genia whispered, simply, “Wow.” That was Genia’s feeling exactly. She was rather glad she wasn’t the one who had to speak next. In fact, the next woman took the ear of corn and started out by saying, “That’s a tough act to follow.”

  This woman’s eyeglass lenses glittered in the firelight.

  Everything about her appeared ordinary—brownish hair worn in a short, straight, and simple bowl cut, a square and plain face, a short, stocky body attired in a dark jacket and trousers. Then she spoke. From the first word, her voice flowed out into the circle with extraordinary low-pitched resonance; her enunciation was as precise as that of an actress. Genia found herself reminded of the theater again, and of certain special roles: Lady Macbeth, Hamlet’s mother, Medea, all dangerous women adept at disguising their power. And, she thought wryly, the plain face of a nondescript, middle-aged female could be one of the best disguises of all.

  “My name’s Judith Belove—Judy—and I’m here with my friend Teri Fox. Uh—” She turned her face toward the woman sitting beside her, as if for confirmation of what to say next. “We’re both high school teachers—I teach English and drama—and we’re playing hooky from district meetings.” A few other women laughed understandingly. Genia, who had never taught anything except games and cooking to her own children, felt mesmerized by the lovely deep voice. Surely this woman could tame the wildest mountain lion, or teenager.

  Judith Belove turned again to her friend Teri. “Why are we here?” she said humorously, but then she faced the group and said seriously, “We’re here—at least I am—because I’m fifty-one years old, and when all of my friends were hanging out in the Haight, I was getting married and working and raising kids. I guess you could say I missed the sixties. So Teri and I, we’re making up for lost time. Last year we hooked up with a protest march to Washington, D.C., and a couple of months ago we attended the first rock concert in our lives.”

  The firelight captured a grin on her plain square face.

  “It was the Rolling Stones, who are even older than we are. And now”—she paused, and Genia saw her chew for a moment on her lower lip—“I guess you could say we’re doing nature. We thought about signing up for a dig, but Teri doesn’t like to get dirt under her fingernails.”

  Soft laughter circled the fire.

  It seemed to Genia that for all the assurance of that remarkable voice, the woman seemed nervous, as most people are—even actresses—when they have to speak extemporaneously in front of strangers. Judith kept shifting the ear of corn from her right hand to her left, then back again.

  “I never really thought about anybody ‘calling’ me here, but maybe they did, just because the places where they lived are so dramatic. Like God was the set designer. I’ve always thought those cliff dwellings would make perfect stages for Shakespeare. Imagine Hamlet sneaking around among those ruins! Think of his father’s ghost appearing at the top of one of those towers. I think I’d have Ophelia throw herself off the edge, provided I could figure out a way to catch her, of course.”

  She trailed off, to the sounds of quiet amusement from her audience.

  When Genia had first glanced at Judith Belove, she had seen only an ordinary middle-aged woman; now she imagined flowing purple robes and a glittering crown transforming the drama teacher into a compelling stage presence. She didn’t think she could ever bring herself to call the woman by the diminutive “Judy.” This was a full-fledged Judith if ever there was one.

  The teacher placed the ear of blue corn into the waiting hands of her friend, who was also the only one of color among the group.

  Teri Fox. Her complexion was so dark, it was difficult to see her features
clearly in the surrounding darkness, but Genia recalled earlier seeing stylishly short and curly graying black hair, vivid red lips, and wide expressive eyes of an unexpectedly light hazel color, like caramel drops in a chocolate cookie. She was short, like her friend, but more gracefully constructed, with a thinner, more conventionally feminine appearance. Her voice was lighter than Judith’s, too, softer and less resonant, so that Genia had to lean forward slightly to hear her, but nevertheless it had the crisp, efficient tone of a longtime teacher. “I can’t say I heard the call of the wild, like Judy did. I’ll tell you the truth: I don’t know exactly why I’m here, except that anything beats faculty meetings. I teach biology to high school sophomores and chemistry to the juniors, and I couldn’t begin to guess what that has to do with Ancient People. I’m not athletic, and I’m not really looking forward to these long hikes. And I really do just hate to get sweaty and dirty, and I’d much prefer to have my own private shower and room service.”

  The litany might have sounded complaining, but she said it with such self-deprecating good humor that the others laughed. Genia did wonder why in the world such a woman would allow herself to be dragged along on this expensive outdoor adventure.

  “I don’t think the Ancient People called me,” Teri Fox said. “I think they called Judy, and I just happened to pick up the phone!”

  There was loud laughter at that.

  She passed the corn to the next woman, seated to Genia’s right. Now that Genia knew the archaeologist wasn’t really as young as she looked, it was obvious that this next woman was the baby of the group, probably no more than twenty-five from the looks of her. Even in the darkness, she made a startling contrast to Teri Fox’s extreme darkness, for she was as fair and blond as a Nordic princess. In truth, she was attired more like an Indian princess. Genia had already taken note of the beaded headband that held the long blond hair off the pretty face, the fringed leather jacket, the dangling turquoise earrings, fringed leather pants, and even beaded moccasins.

  “I’m Gabriella Russell,” she said in a voice so whispery that Genia wondered if the people across the crackling fire could hear it. “Although I prefer to be called by my aboriginal name—Gabbling Brook—which I received in a sweat lodge ceremony. And I’m here for the third time, because I just love and respect the original Americans so very much. I just think they’re so wise, and we could learn so much from how they treat Mother Earth and Father Sky.”

  The woman on Genia’s left, a participant who had said virtually nothing thus far, suddenly leaned over and murmured cynically in Genia’s ear: “And Brother Cloud and Sister Sun?”

  The young woman who wanted to be called Gabbling Brook raised her arms and opened her palms toward the moon, so the long fringe on the arms of her jacket swayed. Raising her voice shrilly, she proclaimed, “I have heard them calling, the Ancient Ones! They have called to me in sorrow! They have called in dire warning to us all! They have called, and I will answer!”

  Into Genia’s left ear came the words “Repent, sinners!”

  Genia glanced at—Gabbling Brook—and saw that her eyes were closed as she lowered her arms slowly. That was just as well, Genia decided, because the firelight revealed that the archaeologist was carefully studying her own fingernails, and the assistant director was trying to hide a smirk, and there was a look of forced empathy even on the director’s face. The truth was, the girl’s earnest sincerity seemed to be making everybody cringe. Even Genia found herself thinking in dismay, Oh, heavens, do I really have to call her Gabbling Brook? A name that might have seemed poetically apposite for a genuine Indian sounded more than a little silly on a blond princess.

  Suddenly Genia felt the ear of corn thrust into her own hands.

  She found herself stroking the husks, so smoothly ridged and dry. She touched the kernels inside—so miraculous really, when you stopped and thought about it. She loved corn in practically any form, from popped to creamed to chowder to bread. She was surprised to feel her heart pounding; she stroked the ear of corn some more in an attempt to calm herself. It went against her nature to reveal her innermost thoughts blindly to strangers; by habit, she was more reserved than that, good at asking questions that encouraged other people to talk—and that at the same time allowed her to remain unobtrusively quiet. But she thought for a moment about those bits of pot, buried so long and so deep.…

  “My name is Eugenia Potter, but I go by Genia.”

  She told them about the exciting discovery of the pot shards and the fragment of colored seashell on her ranchland. “I feel as if some Ancient People have called on me quite directly to get to know them, and to honor their history and their memory. That’s why I’m here.” It didn’t sound very impressive even to her own ears, so she was surprised to see in the firelight that faces smiled at her and looked interested in her little story.

  Feeling relieved to have finished her turn, she gave the corn to the woman on her left. Genia felt startled when the woman took it and then tossed it casually into the air and then caught it again. After so much sincerity, Genia thought wryly, the insouciant gesture seemed nearly sacrilegious.

  This woman was wiry, athletic-looking, and thirtyish, with dark brown hair cut short and close to her scalp and big hoop earrings and stylish outdoor clothing that looked fresh out of an expensive catalog. Throughout the ceremony she had sat with her right foot propped on her left knee, slouched down on the metal chair as if she were bored or uncomfortable, with her hands in her pockets.

  “Madeline Rose,” she said, sounding amused. “I go by Madeline,” she then announced, leaving the unmistakable impression that she was making fun of the women who’d preceded her: Judith, Gabbling Brook, and Genia. “And I pass.”

  She dropped the corn into the lap of the next person in the circle, the silver-haired woman named Lillian.

  “Oh!” exclaimed Lillian, obviously taken by surprise. “Well, all right. Madeline.” A wry tone crept into her own voice, as if to make it clear she could dish it out as well as Madeline Rose could. “I’m Lillian Kleberg, and I’ll answer to anything except Get Out of the Way You Old Lady! I have to admit I didn’t expect—I wasn’t ready …” She cocked her head, as if she were trying to hear something faint. Genia expected her to say something tart and amusing, the voice of experience in Medicine Wheel excursions.

  But Lillian Kleberg sighed and said, “You talk about hearing a call from the Ancient Ones? I wish they’d call me. I’d go.” She paused. The quiet was deep around them all. “But first I’d ask them, how could they walk away from their own lives and never look back? I wish …”

  Suddenly, with an unexpectedness that left Genia feeling shaken, the lovely silver hair began to bob in the firelight, and it became obvious that Lillian Kleberg was weeping.

  “I wish”—she sobbed—“I wish I could do that, too.”

  For a moment they all seemed paralyzed.

  Then Naomi O’Neal moved quickly, hurrying around the campfire to crouch in front of the older woman. Naomi wrapped her in an embrace and began murmuring to her. Everyone else still sat frozen, although Genia saw the other two staff members exchange glances. Then Susan Van Sant, the archaeologist, came over to the huddled pair. She exchanged a few whispered words with them, then helped Lillian to her feet. With one arm around her, Susan led Lillian out of the circle and walked away with her toward the lodge.

  Now there were three empty chairs instead of just one.

  The wind blew through the aspens again, but the clapping of the leaves sounded cruel this time, ironic and detached, like a theater critic insulting a poorly acted play. Lillian’s sobs had seemed heartfelt and poignantly authentic to Genia; it hadn’t seemed like a performance at all. She wondered what the others, particularly the cynical Madeline Rose, had made of it.

  Naomi O’Neal resumed her seat but said nothing about what had just transpired. She had a look of ambivalence on her face, as if she were trying to decide whether to offer some explanation. Finally, instead of explaining
, she held up her right hand to display the ear of corn she held in it. They were still deep within the Talking Circle, she seemed to be saying, and so they would honor the ritual through to the end. Because the chair next to Lillian was the original empty one, Naomi handed the blue corn to her assitant director.

  “My name’s Jon Warren,” he said. Late thirties, Genia guessed. She thought he might be the amusing fellow she’d spoken to on the phone. He had thick sandy-colored hair that brushed the collar of his yellow turtleneck sweater. His bushy but neatly trimmed beard and mustache were of a sort that adorned many male faces west of the Rockies. They looked like good protection againt the cold, Genia thought, not to mention giving their owners an attractively rugged appearance. Broad shouldered and taller, even sitting down, than all of the women there, he contributed a strong masculine presence. “As Naomi said, I’m the assistant director around here. The Ancient One I hear calling me all the time is Naomi, because she’s ten years older than me.” An explosion of laughter greeted that jibe, as if they were all grateful to be released from the emotion of Lillian’s exit. His boss laughed louder than anybody else. “ ‘Jon do this,’ she calls,” he continued, to more laughter. “ ‘Jon do that.’ And I say, ‘Yes, oh, Ancient One.’ ” The firelight caught a glint of the wide grin on his face as he passed the corn back to the woman he was kidding. Naomi took it and mimed bonking him on top of the head with it. Genia admired the way he had managed to defuse the tension, but she also noticed that he hadn’t really told them much about himself.

  Naomi allowed the hilarity to die down, and then she said into the rather comfortable silence that ensued, “Thank you. We’re so glad you’re here. We hope you have a wonderful time. I think Bingo left out the remaining gingerbread cake from supper, so help yourselves, if there’s any leftover. We do have sixteen teenagers on the grounds, so I won’t guarantee there’s any food left anywhere in the county.