by Mark Lukens
Palmer stared out at the end of the driveway as he listened to Klein drone on. He watched his breath mist up in front of his face.
Palmer instructed Klein to remain at the dig site and got a groan from the agent who wanted to team up with Palmer, and then he finally got Klein off the phone.
His next phone call was to the forensics offices in Albuquerque to see if they’d gotten anywhere. Most of the team wasn’t there this early, having worked late into the night, but Susan Dorsett, the woman he’d talked to at David’s parents’ house, talked to him for a few moments on the phone.
“I only have a few minutes,” she warned him. “I’m really busy.”
Palmer asked her some quick questions.
No, she hadn’t discovered anything new. No, there was still not a shred of DNA evidence found on the bodies. No, they hadn’t gotten any further in this investigation.
“How am I supposed to put this in the report?” Susan finally asked Palmer.
Palmer didn’t have an answer for her, and he really didn’t think she was expecting one from him.
He told her that he would get back with her later in the day, that he had something to work on right now. She seemed relieved to get off the phone.
Palmer looked at his cell phone in his hand. He needed to call Cardenelli, but he decided that he would put that call off as long as he could. Instead, Palmer called the forensics team up in Colorado. He got someone named Ben on the phone.
The forensics team in Colorado was just as baffled as Susan and her team was down here in New Mexico.
“One of the people in Nora Conrad’s house was her husband,” Ben said.
Palmer remembered the sheriff up there saying that the dead man on the floor with the bullet hole in his head was the woman’s husband, the girl’s father, and that he had been dead for at least six months.
And Ben verified that now. “Why would someone bring a dead man there and then put a bullet in his head?”
Again, Palmer didn’t have answers for the man. “What about the bodies from the hotel?”
“It just gets more and more bizarre,” Ben said. He was breathing hard into the phone. He sounded overweight. “One of the victims …” He sounded like he was looking something up real quick—Palmer heard the sound of the clicking keys of a keyboard. “A Travis Conrad, son of the dead guy in the house, was definitely run over by a vehicle. But the other two … one was twisted completely around, his spine snapped in several places, muscles torn, ribs smashed to pieces, organs practically liquefied.”
Palmer just nodded and rubbed at his temple with his other hand.
“And the other one … it looks like he came out of a garbage compactor. I don’t know how anyone … how a person could possibly do this to other human beings without some kind of high-powered machinery being involved.”
Palmer sighed into the phone. “I know this is a strange one,” he said. “Did you find any kind of evidence on the victims? Some hair samples, skin, blood … anything?”
“Nope. Nothing. Not one bit of DNA evidence at all. It was like these people were mangled without even being touched.”
“Okay,” Palmer said. He was ready to hang up now. This was getting nowhere.
Begay stepped out of his house and closed the front door with a thump.
“I gotta go. Thanks.” Palmer hung up his phone and met the big captain by his Ford Bronco.
Begay got in his truck and hit the button to unlock the passenger door for Palmer.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Joe Blackhorn’s property
An hour after the sun was up everyone was awake inside of Joe Blackhorn’s trailer.
Joe made a quick breakfast of eggs, some kind of shredded meat, and a fried mixture of potatoes, peppers, onions, and tomatoes.
David picked at his food, but he drank two glasses of juice. He brightened when Stella gave him the spiral bound notebook and the pen.
“Remember when you drew those symbols in the notebook at the cabin?”
David nodded.
“Do you think you could draw those again?” she asked as she opened the notebook up and folded the cover back to reveal the first blank page.
David nodded. He took the notebook and went to the couch, curling up on it, his eyes on the paper, his hand clutching the pen, already drawing furiously.
Stella watched David for a moment. She felt like crying while she watched him and she wasn’t exactly sure why. He seemed like such a normal boy at this moment, just a boy doodling in a book. But there was nothing normal about David, and nothing normal about what they had been through. Maybe the trauma was catching up to her; maybe she was finally having a breakdown.
Joe and Cole cleaned up the kitchen. Stella went in there to help, wiping the small wood table down.
The wind outside was picking up again, gusts shaking the trailer slightly. But there had been no attacks through the night. No army of animals and other creatures stood guard on the ridge in the distance. No dead person had stumbled across the desert and up to their door, waiting outside for them, calling them and asking for things.
“Why hasn’t it attacked?” Cole asked as he put the plates in the cabinet.
“I think it might be building its strength back up,” Joe said. “Kind of like we’re all doing. Maybe it needs to rest like we do. What it did last night—with all of those snakes and spiders and other animals—that must’ve taken a lot of energy.” He shrugged. “Or maybe it’s planning its next attack. I don’t know. All I can do is guess.”
“Does David know?” Cole asked in a low voice.
They all glanced at the living room. If David was listening to their conversation, he didn’t show it; he was still concentrating on the ancient language that he was scribbling down on the notebook paper. Joe’s dog was sitting near David, watching him draw.
“I don’t know,” Joe said in an even lower voice, almost a whisper. “I think he knows when it’s close.”
Stella remembered when they were back in the cabin—David always knew when Frank was out in the snow waiting for them.
“So what now?” Cole asked again. “That thing out there isn’t going to rest forever. Do we go to this … this place you were talking about?”
Joe nodded. “We need to go soon.”
“How soon?” Cole asked. “If we wait too long, then the four wheelers won’t work. It will destroy them just like it disabled our truck when you picked us up … and just like it destroyed the engines of the trucks at the cabin. And it will probably kill your horses.”
Joe nodded like he had already considered those possibilities.
“David has to be ready,” Stella said and looked at Joe. “We can’t put him in front of the Ancient Enemy until he’s ready.”
“It’s true he needs to be ready,” Joe said, “but Cole is right. We need to hurry.”
“I’d be surprised if the horses aren’t already dead,” Cole mumbled, “and the four wheelers and all the other vehicles out there trashed.”
“Yes, but we can’t rush David into this,” Stella said. “If we don’t get this right …”
“But we have to bring David to the place where he can fight it the best,” Joe insisted. “We have to take him to the place where he has the best chance of defeating the Darkwind … killing it, or at least sending it back to where it came from. And we do need to hurry.”
“So when are we going?” Cole asked.
“Today,” Joe said like he’d just made up his mind. His face was set in a grim expression like he wasn’t going to change his mind.
“Today?” Stella said, not hiding her surprise and horror.
“He’s right,” Cole told Stella. “We need to do this before we’re trapped here. You know what will happen if we’re trapped here.”
Stella sighed and glanced back at David.
David still hadn’t looked their way; he was still concentrating on his notebook, seemingly in his own world right now.
“You two need to understand
something,” Joe said.
Stella and Cole looked at Joe again.
“This journey we’ll be taking will be dangerous. David will offer some protection, but when the Darkwind is strong again it will attack and all of us may not survive.”
Both Cole and Stella nodded … they understood.
Joe smiled at him. “But I’m going to bring along some things that can help us. Some things to help give us an edge.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Special Agent Palmer rode with Captain Begay in his jacked-up Ford Bronco as they drove down a strip of pavement that seemed to run on forever through the rocks and sandy hills.
They had been driving for hours, and they had already stopped to talk to a few people. Begay had gone into homes and buildings on his own, asking Palmer to wait in the truck. Through the morning Begay had questioned several people about where Billy Nez was. Palmer was sure that bargains had been made by Begay to find Billy’s whereabouts … and he was sure that threats had been made, too.
Close to eleven o’clock, Begay left a stucco-covered adobe building where some men milled about outside. Palmer wasn’t sure what kind of place this was, but he’d waited in Begay’s truck for twenty minutes while Begay talked to some of the men inside.
Once Begay got back in the truck, his expression gave nothing away. He stared ahead with the mirrored sunglasses still on his face. He put the truck in reverse (he’d left it running for Palmer while he’d been inside to keep the heat on) and backed up to leave the dirt parking area.
Obviously Begay wasn’t going to volunteer any information.
“Well?” Palmer finally asked.
“He told me where to find Billy,” was all Begay said. It even sounded like he was angry about having to tell Palmer that much.
Palmer knew Begay wasn’t happy that he had insisted on riding with him instead of following him around all day in his rental car. Palmer had given up trying to memorize the map and the crisscrossing of the roads out here on the Big Reservation. This reservation was huge—fifteen thousand square miles: the size of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts put together. He knew it would’ve only been a matter of time before Begay ditched him and then Palmer would’ve been hopelessly lost out here in these badlands. It was amazing to Palmer how remote some of these places were, and the GPS and reception on his cell phone were spotty at best. So he had decided to ride with Captain Begay whether the man liked it or not.
• • •
Hours later, they drove down a long rutted trail through the brush and rocks, and then down a steep decline towards a large stand of trees with a creek running through them. Mountains rose up sharply in the distance. It was as beautiful as it was foreboding, Palmer thought.
Ten minutes later they pulled up to a group of trailers. Palmer thought the place looked like some kind of refugee camp. The trailers were rusted-out hulks with debris piled all around them. Abandoned junked cars and car parts hid in the weeds and scrub brush. A clothesline full of clothes was set up right in the front yard above a scattering of children’s toys.
A pregnant woman holding a baby came to the front door of the trailer, the door barely hanging on by its hinges. A curious three year old dressed in an oversized sweatshirt and baggy pants stood beside the woman on the untrustworthy wood deck in front of the door.
A scruffy-looking dog poked its head out of a doghouse that looked like it had been constructed from petrified wood. The dog didn’t even bark at them, it just stared at them with large eyes.
“Is this where Billy Nez lives?” Palmer asked as Begay parked the truck and turned off the engine.
“No.”
Palmer didn’t expect Begay to expound.
Begay got out of the truck and Palmer opened his door and stepped out into the cold. One thing was for sure, he wasn’t staying in the truck anymore.
“Ya-tah,” Begay said to the woman as he walked towards the trailers that sat nose to nose in the distance.
The young woman hadn’t made any kind of movement to come down and greet them.
Palmer watched as Begay made some kind of hand gesture to the woman. “Ya-tah,” he said again.
“Ya-tah-hay,” the woman finally answered in a low voice. She made a half-hearted gesture of her own back to Begay.
Begay said something in Navajo to the woman.
She just nodded her head towards the trees and the creek off in the distance.
“He’s that way,” Begay said to Palmer and he was already walking towards the trees.
It was a five minute trek through the woods that lined the stream. Then they came to a squat dome of a structure that was covered with mud and grass. Not too far away from the mud hut, a fire was crackling inside a pit in the ground that was surrounded by rocks. Palmer noticed that there were rocks in the fire too.
“Wait out here,” Begay said as he walked towards a flap that served as a door to the hut.
Palmer thought about arguing.
“Sacred ceremony inside,” Begay said over his shoulder as if he sensed that Palmer was going to debate his request. He took off his coat before entering the hut, laying it down neatly over a large flat rock.
Palmer just nodded and sighed. He thought Begay had come here to arrest Billy Nez, not hang out with him inside some sweat lodge. Obviously obstruction of justice was a petty crime out here in these parts. Palmer hoped Begay would at least get the information they needed.
• • •
Begay pulled the flap back from the mud-covered hut and entered the dark steamy interior.
Billy Nez sat on a small colorful rug that was spread out on the hard-packed dirt floor on the opposite side of the hut. Billy was nearly naked, only wearing a loincloth. His skin was shiny with perspiration and his long dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail. He used to be a muscular man long ago, but now what muscles he had left sagged on his old man’s body. The wrinkles were deep lines etched into his brown face.
Begay noticed that there was a similar woven rug spread out on the floor not too far away from the flap—an invitation for him to sit down, Begay guessed. And in between the two rugs was a pit dug into the dirt floor which was filled with hot rocks and burning kindling. The meager amount of smoke the fire put out drifted up towards the hole in the middle of the ceiling at the top of the dome.
Begay unbuttoned his shirt a little and rolled up the sleeves to his elbows. He sat down cross-legged on the small woven rug. It was already so hot inside the hut—a stark contrast with the bitterly cold air outside.
“Did you come here to arrest me?” Billy asked in Navajo.
“Depends,” Begay answered in Navajo. He was sure Palmer had stayed close enough to the hut to listen to their conversation; he might even be right outside the flap. But he wouldn’t understand any of it.
“I have an FBI agent with me,” Begay said. “He’s waiting outside right now.”
Billy nodded, but he didn’t seem alarmed. He seemed like a man who felt righteous in his innocence. He didn’t ask what he was being hassled about. He didn’t try to run when they had shown up. He wasn’t drunk right now or belligerent. These were all plusses in Begay’s book, all good marks in favor of Billy Nez, and Begay would return the favor by hearing the man out.
“You tricked us,” Begay said when he realized Billy Nez was in no hurry to begin the conversation. “The map Alice Newcastle gave us led to an abandoned house.”
“I gave Alice the wrong map because I knew she would break her word and call the police. It doesn’t matter how long she has lived here on this land with us, she will never be one of us. She will never truly understand our ways.”
Begay sighed. He didn’t want to get off track into some philosophical conversation with Billy right now. “Alice called us because it was the right thing to do. Those three are wanted by the law.”
“One is only a boy.”
“Yes, but the man they are traveling with is a suspect in at least twenty-one murders, two stolen vehicles, and
one bank robbery. You’re helping a possible criminal.”
“Sometimes you must overlook some bad to find the greater good.”
“And you think twenty-one murders is only a little bad?”
“I don’t believe your suspect murdered those people.”
Begay nodded. “And who did?”
“You know who murdered those people. You know what murdered them.”
Begay didn’t respond.
Billy Nez ladled some water from a wooden bucket near him and drenched the hot rocks. The rocks hissed when the water hit them, steam rising up instantly.
“It has happened before,” Billy said when he put the wooden ladle back into the bucket of water. “The chindi is back and it wants things.”
“Chindi?” Begay asked, surprised that Billy was using the Navajo word for ghost.
“Chindi,” Billy repeated. “Or yenaldooshi—skinwalkers. Darkwind. Anasazi, Ancient Enemy. Whatever you want to call it. But it’s here again. What happened to that boy’s parents and what happened to those belegana scientists in that cave, you know there is no rational explanation for that.”
“So you led those three where? Right to the chindi?”
“No. I led them to someone who can help them.”
“Who?” Begay asked.
“A yataalii—a true medicine man.”
“What’s his name?” Begay asked. “Joe Blackhorn?”
If Billy was surprised that Begay already knew they had gone to find Joe Blackhorn, he didn’t show it.
“We know that’s where you sent them. But we just don’t know where to find Joe Blackhorn. I need to find those three before something else happens. I need to help David.”
“The boy is pursued by the Darkwind. Only he can drive it away again.”
