Rook & Tooth and Claw

by Graham Masterton

  Mark came up to him, wearing a baggy faded pair of plaid Bermuda shorts and a Delco/Bose T-shirt, which his father had probably been given for free. “Hey, Mr Rook. I want to thank you for this. This is the best time I ever had in my life.”

  “I hope so, Mark.”

  “You seem like you’re down, Mr Rook, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “Well, it’s Susan – Ms Randall. She had an asthma attack and she had to go on back home.”

  Mark said, “You like her, don’t you, Mr Rook? I’ve seen you looking at her. You really like her.”

  It was the hardest thing in the world for Jim to smile, but he put his arm around Mark’s shoulders and said, “Yes, I really like her.”

  They walked together to the Inn’s cafeteria. There was a pungent smell of fresh coffee and muffins, and a severe-looking Navajo woman in a long print dress was serving out platefuls of bacon and eggs and pancakes. Jim and Mark sat down by the window. Outside, Jim could see a hazy spiral of smoke still drifting upward, and he thought to himself, that’s the last of Susan’s spirit, rising into the sky.

  Mark was fiddling with the sugar and the Sweet’n’Lo. “You know something, Mr Rook, before I met you, I never knew half of the feelings that I had inside me. You know what I mean? I always thought that poetry sucked. But the way you teach it, it’s like you can understand what it means. It’s like your own feelings, put down on paper. And there’s something else you showed me, too. There’s a whole wide world outside of Santa Monica. I mean not just Arizona, but all of those places that people write about, like France, and Russia, and who knows where.

  “Like, if you live on this planet, you have to know where you live, because once you know where you live, you know who you are.”

  He paused, and then he said, “You’re friends with Ms Randall. Do you think she could maybe take a little time to teach me some geography? You know, just to orient myself.”

  The severe-looking Navajo woman had arrived at Jim’s elbow. “Coffee?” she demanded. “Juice?”

  Jim looked at Mark and said, “I’ll talk to Ms Randall about it when we get back to LA, OK? I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.” The words felt like ashes in his mouth, Susan’s ashes.

  He sat and sipped a cup of black coffee while Mark enthusiastically dug into a plateful of eggs and bacon and hash browns. He didn’t look out of the window again. He didn’t want to see the smoke. He didn’t want to think that he would never see Susan again, as long as he lived.

  The morning was glaring and dusty as they drove across the high plateau toward Fort Defiance. John Three Names did most of the talking, telling them all about the history and the culture of the Navajo people.

  “The Navajo weren’t a ‘tribe’ as such, back in the old days. The basic unit of economic support was the biological family – a man, his wife and their unmarried children. Each family lived in its own fork-stick house, or hogan.

  “You’d see a few hogans loosely grouped together, because some of their daily tasks needed more than the members of one family could manage. Quite a few of the men used to have more than one wife, or else they’d marry sisters.”

  “I can’t see any Navajo wanting to marry my sisters,” put in Mark. “They never stop talking about lipstick and clothes and boys and who’s cool and who’s a dweeb.”

  John Three Names said, “A Navajo husband would have great authority over his wives. If they displeased him, he would thrash them.”

  “Is that a violation of women’s rights, or what?” said Sharon. “If my boyfriend ever tried that, I’d break his arms.”

  “You’re not in Los Angeles any longer,” John Three Names reminded her. “This is a people who go back thousands of years, before white men or black men were even dreamed of. This is a land that used to be a land of great magic. Most of that magic has gone now, but not all.”

  With that, he gave Jim a meaningful glance.

  Sharon was chatty and inquisitive all the way. Mark came up with one or two subliminal jokes. But Catherine remained silent, staring out at the reddish-colored mountains.

  “Are you all right?” Jim asked her.

  She gave him a quick, humourless smile. “I think so. I just want today to be over.”

  Not too damn soon, thought Jim. This could be my very last day on earth.

  They reached a trailer park with a wooden sign over the entrance that read Meadow Between Rocks Homes. John Three Names turned into it, and drove slowly past the trailers that lined the main strip on either side. Most trailers had their own small gardens, with herbs and vegetables and flowers. Small children ran around everywhere, chased by yapping brindled dogs. As they passed, a woman lifted her washing to the line that was tied to the side of her trailer, and her eyes caught Jim’s with such steady familiarity that he felt as if she had been expecting him.

  About two-thirds of the way along the main strip, John Three Names drew the Galaxy to a stop outside one of the larger trailers. There were seven or eight cars and trucks parked outside it already, and a small crowd of people gathered around it. Young families in freshly-washed jeans and plaid shirts – older men and women in traditional costumes. A barbecue had been set up behind the trailer, as well as two long trestle tables.

  As they climbed out of the Galaxy, John Three Names was approached by a tall, smiling man carrying a small baby in his arms. “Jim,” said John Three Names, “I want you to meet my cousin Dan. And this little fellow here is the reason for all of today’s celebrations.”

  “I’m real glad you could make it,” said Dan, ushering them up the steps and into the trailer. Although it was quite large, it was already crowded with neighbors and friends and relatives. Dan’s wife Minnie passed them cans of beer and they all stood jostling each other in the kitchen section.

  “Tell me about the first laugh ceremony,” said Jim, tickling the baby under the chin. The baby chuckled and wildly pedalled his arms and legs.

  Dan smiled. “When he made man, the Great Spirit gave man two gifts, life and laughter. Animals have life, but no animal laughs. Laughter is what makes man human. Laughter is what makes man closer to the Great Spirit. Every day that a man fails to laugh, he takes one day’s journey further away from his spiritual birthplace.

  “Today we celebrate my son’s arrival in the human race, and his joining together with the spirits.”

  John Three Names said, “Unfortunately, Dan, we won’t be able to stay for very long.”

  “After you’ve driven so far? You can’t be serious!”

  “Actually, we came here on other business,” said John Three Names, pressing himself back against the kitchen cabinet as a very generously-proportioned woman in a fringed buckskin dress pushed her way past him. “We came to see Dog Brother.”

  “Dog Brother? What business do you have with Dog Brother?”

  “Family business.”

  “Not to do with—?” said Dan, nodding his head toward Catherine.

  John Three Names nodded. “He refuses to let her go. He says that a bargain was struck, and a bargain must be honoured.”

  “I warned Henry at the time,” said Dan. “I warned him but he wouldn’t listen. He was crazy with worry for his wife. He said, ‘Don’t worry, when the time comes for Catherine to go to him, I’ll take her away, and Dog Brother will never find her.’ I told him that Dog Brother would always find her, wherever she went.

  “Henry didn’t seem to understand that Dog Brother himself could have given his wife the cancer.”

  “Excuse me,” said Jim. “You may be able to give people the ’flu but you can’t give them cancer.”

  Dan looked at him as if he had just said something spectacularly stupid. “This is Dog Brother we’re talking about here.”

  “So? He’s only a man.”

  “You’re going to see him, too? A white man?”

  “Sure. That’s why I’m here. Henry asked me to try to buy him off. A hefty payment in stocks and bonds in place of Catherine.”

  Dan sho
ok his head and kept on shaking it. “Are you crazy? Do you think he’ll really give up Catherine in return for money? You don’t know what kind of individual you’re dealing with here.”

  John Three Names laid a hand on Dan’s shoulder. “Come on, Dan. Let’s not get alarmist here. Most of what people say about Dog Brother is superstition, hearsay. He’s just an ordinary guy.”

  “So why do people go to him when they want somebody cured of cancer?”

  “Dan – everything’s going to be fine. Everything’s going to work out. We’ll go see Dog Brother, and then maybe we’ll be back in time for the prayers.”

  “You’ll need them, believe me,” Dan told him.

  Chapter Seven

  Toward the end of the main strip, the trailers began to look shabbier and more weatherbeaten. Some had half-collapsed verandahs built onto them. Others had scabby tarpaper roofs. In place of the meticulously-tended vegetable beds there was nothing but scrub-grass and dust and all of that indescribable detritus that seems to collect around trailer-parks as if they were some kind of Sargasso Sea of useless junk. Heavy, rusty objects that had no apparent purpose whatsoever. Car seats, right in the middle of nowhere at all. Heaps of worn-out tyres.

  The neat lines of trailers began to straggle, and then there were long gaps in between them. Outside one of them, its windows bedecked with filthy net curtains, a handpainted sign said, Keep Away. Owner Has Gun & Itchy Trigger Finger. A dog was tearing at a dead buzzard.

  At the very end of the strip, parked askew to all the rest of the homes, was a large black-painted trailer with blacked-out windows. The heat shuddered from its roof, distorting the distant vermilion mountains behind it. There were empty cans and automobile parts strewn all around it, as well as a stack of what looked like old newspapers gummed together with some black substance like tar. Whatever it was, a host of flies were crawling all over it.

  Not far away, an old blue Buick Electra was shaded under a single tree, while high above, two buzzards lazily circled in the flawless sky.

  John Three Names stopped the Galaxy at a respectful distance. Immediately, two black Dobermanns got up from the grass in which they had been lying and pricked up their ears. Jim was relieved to see that they were both chained to one of the trailer’s rear wheels.

  “This is where Dog Brother lives,” said John Three Names. “From now on, we should take this very, very easy.”

  “What do we do if he’s not home?” asked Mark.

  “Oh, he’ll be home. He’s always home.”

  Jim said, “OK, then. Let’s screw our courage to the sticking-place.”

  “Let’s screw what?” frowned Mark.

  “Shakespeare, Mark. Macbeth. You should have read it.”

  “I did. I remember ‘out damned spot.’ The first time I read it I thought he meant, like, zit.”

  Sharon clucked her disapproval. “I’ll tell you something, Foley. I used to think that I was stupid till I met you. Then I graduated to genius overnight.”

  John Three Names said, “I’d better go first, then you and Catherine can follow. But don’t worry: Dog Brother isn’t especially prejudiced against whites. He hates everybody equally.”

  “What shall we do?” asked Sharon.

  “Just stay in the car for a while, if you don’t mind. You can leave the motor running to keep the air con on.”

  “Hmph,” said Sharon. She was very strong-willed and she didn’t like being left out of the action, whatever it was.

  John Three Names led the way across the dust toward the trailer. The Dobermanns twitched and quivered and strained at their chains. They looked as if they were ready to rush over and take a leg apiece, but they didn’t bark. John Three Names climbed the steps to the trailer’s door. There was a knocker on it, with a face like a snarling wolf. John Three Names gave three cautious knocks, and then waited.

  Jim shaded his eyes. “It’s odd how Dog Brother’s trailer is set at an angle from all the others,” he remarked.

  Catherine said, “His door faces east, where the demons come from.”

  “I thought that Native Americans avoided doing that.”

  “Dog Brother is different, Mr Rook. Dog Brother positively welcomes them.”

  After a while, John Three Names knocked again. There was a long paused, and then the trailer door swung open, on its own. Inside, Jim could see nothing but pitch-blackness. No sign of Dog Brother. No sign of anything at all. He suddenly began to feel alarmed, and he could sense his pulse-rate quickening. Just remember what the Indians used to say, he told himself. “Today will be a good day to die.”

  John Three Names peered inside the trailer, then turned back and beckoned Jim and Catherine to come closer. “It’s OK, I guess.”

  Catherine suddenly snatched hold of Jim’s hand. She was startlingly cold, and she was trembling. He looked at her and her face was as white as paper.

  “Listen,” he said, “you don’t have to go through with this if you don’t want to. Nobody’s going to force you, least of all me. All we’re going to do is see if we can’t persuade this Dog Brother guy to forget your father’s promise.”

  “I don’t know – I don’t know if I can do this,” Catherine gasped. “I don’t know if I can face him. I want to see him. I really want to see him. Don’t you understand me, I’m burning to see him – but I don’t know – I’m afraid of him – I’m so afraid of him, Mr Rook – and I’m so afraid of myself.”

  Jim put his arm around her. “Do you want to turn around and go back to LA? I don’t mind. I don’t know what will happen if you do. I guess this whole problem is going to stay unresolved, and your brothers are going to stay in prison. But you have to think about you. Otherwise, the way I see it, this whole mess is going to go on being a mess, and more people are going to get hurt.”

  Catherine stared at him. “Ms Randall – did she get hurt?”

  “What makes you say that? She had asthma, that’s all.”

  “No she didn’t. She got hurt, didn’t she? She got hurt!”

  “Catherine—”

  “You can’t say she didn’t because I saw it! I’m sure that I saw it! I saw her fall to the ground!”

  John Three Names called, “Are you coming or not? He’s waiting for you.”

  “So what do you think?” Jim asked Catherine. “Are you coming inside or not?”

  Catherine’s eyes were filled with tears. “I saw her fall and it was all my fault. I saw her fall and I was glad that she fell, I don’t know why.”

  Her confusion was almost total. Her eyes were unfocused, and her movements were abrupt and jerky. What was more, Jim was sure that he could see the shadow beginning to form around her – dim, blotchy traces of darkness that clung in the air like bloodclots.

  “Jim!” called John Three Names.

  “Catherine, you can say no if you want to,” Jim repeated. “Just say the word, and we’re out of here.”

  “I can’t,” she said, and her voice was suddenly deep and harsh. “A promise is a promise. An oath is an oath.”

  With that, she began to walk stiffly toward the trailer. Jim called, “Catherine!” but she mounted the steps and disappeared into the darkness. John Three Names beckoned Jim yet again, and said, “Come on, Jim. This is the only way.”

  Jim looked back at the Galaxy, where Sharon and Mark were waiting for him. Then he took a deep breath and walked up to the trailer. “It’s all right, Jim,” said John Three Names, holding out his hand. “He’s agreed to talk to you, even if you are white.”

  Jim peered into the darkness. An odd smell was wafting out of the trailer. It reminded Jim of stale sweat and dogs, but there was another fragrance mixed up in it, too – a fragrance like burning leaves, and woods, and long fall days, and leather for some reason, the smell of a leather watchstrap that you’ve worn too long.

  “Go ahead,” said John Three Names, and Jim took a step into the darkness. It was a heavy black sheet, hung over the doorway so that the light couldn’t penetrate. Inside,
the trailer was painted as black as it was on the outside, with black-upholstered furniture, and it was lit only by tiny lamps with bulbs no bigger than beads.

  Catherine was already seated on one of the couches, her hands held across her chest in her familiar ‘parachute-jump’ position, her hair shining in the lamplight. She was facing a tall, thin man who was sitting cross-legged in a large antique chair with faded, gilded arms, and a seat that must once have been the finest midnight-black velvet, but which was now reduced to a faded collection of grey strings.

  The man was naked to the waist, and his body was very lean and muscular, with no excess fat at all. Both of his nipples were pierced and hung with various beads and bird’s-wings. He had long black hair that draped over his shoulders. His eyes were concealed behind small spectacles with yellow lenses. His face was hard and angled and vulpine, as if his great-great-grandfather might have been a wolf, but he was handsome, too, in a very primitive way. He wore a tight pair of black leather britches, half-unlaced at the front.

  “Jim … this is Dog Brother,” said John Three Names. “Dog Brother … this is Jim Rook.”

  “You are the one who sees?” asked Dog Brother. He spoke slowly and harshly, as if he weren’t used to making much conversation.

  “I guess you could call me that,” said Jim. “And you … you’re the one who puts hexes on people?”

  “Jim—” John cautioned him.

  “No, no. That’s the whole reason I’m here,” said Jim. “I’ve come here to prevent any further killings by this spirit-beast of yours.”

  Dog Brother lifted his right hand. On the palm of it was tattooed a picture of the dark, bear-like creature that had attacked Susan back at Window Rock. “You are a wise man, for a white. Not many Navajos still believe in spirit-beasts these days, let alone whites.”

  “I believe in it because I’ve seen it.”

  “You’ve actually seen it with your own eyes? Do you want to tell me what it looks like?”