“I already tried talking to Uncle Rex about this thing,” Heath said. “He completely dismissed it.”
“So tell us what you know, Tara. Please?” Mrs. Lujan said.
Tara closed her eyes and shook her head, as if she could shake out the elusive memory. “It begins with the spirit of the great hawks. The great white hawk and the great black hawk, who both wanted to claim the sky for their own.
“Even though the sky was vast, neither hawk wanted to share it, and so the two winged spirits went to war. They fought day and night, never resting, each testing the endurance and strength of the other, until one day the black hawk spirit fell to the earth, exhausted and defeated. The white hawk spirit proclaimed its victory, singing its own praises across the sky and shaming the black hawk in front of all the other spirits.
“The black hawk was humiliated and tried to hide its shame by shedding its feathers, losing its beak, and growing scales, fangs, and talons instead. It also cursed the white hawk and vowed revenge, telling its rival that it would wait for the day when the white hawk would eventually land; then it would kill the white bird, shredding it to pieces with its talons and teeth. But the white hawk spirit just laughed and rode the air currents day after day, staying up so long that it eventually became part of the great sky spirit, mingling its white feathers with the blue to become the clouds. The black hawk spirit continued to prowl the earth, waiting for the day when the white hawk might take up its old form again and come down to the ground. While the black hawk spirit waited, it feasted on the flesh of the living, leaving behind its trademark three-talon mark so all would know its power.”
I raised my chin and looked to the heavens. The beautiful blue sky held just a few thin stratus clouds overhead, and I could see how the legend might’ve been born and how ancient tribes might’ve explained to one another when one of their own went missing and was never seen again.
I eyed Heath and I could tell he had never heard the legend before. “So,” I said, wondering if I was just pointing out the obvious, “if I’m extrapolating correctly, you Whitefeathers were named after this white hawk spirit, am I right?”
Mrs. Lujan smiled. “In a way,” she said. “But I believe the legend does play a role. When my ancestors were pushed onto the reservation territories by the whites, my great-great-grandfather fought to establish our tribe, the Zantos, on the land we still hold. There was some bad blood between my great-great-grandfather and a neighboring tribe, the Zitas—something about our tribe getting the more fertile hunting grounds—and in an effort to make peace, my ancestor agreed to marry a woman from the Zitas.
“Well, the Zitas were still bitter about the Zantos having the better land, so they sent their meekest, most sickly woman over to be the bride, hoping she might die while in my ancestor’s care so that the Zitas could make the claim that he had neglected her, and the tribes would then go to war. My great-great-grandfather knew that the rival tribe had more warriors on hand, and would likely win in battle, so he took great pains to nurse and care for this woman, and because of his attentions and efforts my ancestor saw what a lovely and kind woman his new bride was, and she saw the same in him. The pair grew to love each other deeply and her health improved.
“When the new bride conceived, everyone thought the rivalry between the two tribes would come to an end and the baby would unite the Zantos and the Zitas once and for all, but during her pregnancy, my ancestor’s wife suffered poor health again and she began to weaken under the strain of carrying a child. Then she went into labor too early to be good for the baby and the tribal midwife said that my ancestor’s wife would likely die during childbirth along with the baby.
“My great-great-grandfather was beside himself with worry and grief and he went off into the hills to consult with the sky spirit, begging the great and powerful spirit to intervene.
“While he was praying, word came to him that his wife’s condition had worsened, and that he needed to come back to his home if only to say good-bye. With a heavy heart my ancestor began his journey home, but after taking only a few steps, he saw a large white feather on the ground right in his path. He knew it was a sign from the sky spirit and he brought it back to his wife, telling her she would not die, that the sky spirit had shown favor upon her and their child.
“Sure enough, the woman, my great-great-grandmother, did live through the labor and she gave birth to a healthy baby boy with a head full of black hair and one shock of white along the temple as a symbol of his fortitude and strength, bestowed upon him by the great sky spirit. Everyone thought the white streak would go away with time, but instead, it remained and during his naming ceremony when he was two years old, my great-grandfather was named Whitefeather. This was in the mid-eighteen-hundreds, and eventually this name became the one our family took for its surname.”
I thought on that a moment. “So, the white hawk has come to earth,” I said.
Mrs. Lujan and Heath looked at me quizzically.
“Yeah,” Gilley said, catching on. “According to the first legend, the black hawk was going to get its revenge as soon as the white hawk landed. The white hawk didn’t land, but if a child was born and said to be of the white hawk’s spirit, then the black hawk demon could just take its revenge out on you Whitefeathers.”
“But why now?” Heath asked. “I mean, why would the spirit of the black hawk wait all this time to come after our family? My great-great-grandfather was born in eighteen sixty. Why would the black hawk spirit—if that really is what attacked Uncle Milton—only show up now?”
“Maybe it was asleep,” Gilley suggested. “You know, lying dormant until the time was right. Like that witch we dealt with in Scotland.”
Heath shook his head. “But that still doesn’t answer my question, Gil. I mean, what happened that the black hawk’s spirit wanted to come after us now? The Whitefeathers have been around for a hundred and fifty years. What caused it to suddenly wake up and start attacking us?”
“Maybe it got tired of sleeping?” Gilley suggested.
“Or,” I said, thinking back on that encounter with the witch, “maybe, someone else woke it up.”
Heath, his mother, and Tara all looked at me with the same penetrating gaze. “We need to find out more about the black hawk spirit and the demon it turned into,” Heath said.
“And,” added his mother, “we should also tell your uncles what really happened at Milton’s cabin.”
“They won’t listen,” Heath said. “Ma, I already tried to tell them about your dad and his warning through M. J.”
“Let me try,” she said. “Maybe I can talk some sense into them.”
“You’ve been trying to talk some sense into them for twenty-five years,” Heath reminded her.
“What happened between you four siblings anyway?” Gil asked Mrs. Lujan.
Tara’s eyes widened and she made a point of looking at her watch. “I’d better get to weeding my garden,” she said, moving off quickly.
Gil poked his fork into what remained of my snack and eyed Mrs. Lujan expectantly.
“It’s a long story,” she told him with a sigh.
Gilley leaned forward, unperturbed by the gentle rebuff. “I’m all ears,” he said. I could’ve swatted him.
Mrs. Lujan twisted the wedding band on her ring finger and made eye contact with Heath, as if asking him if he was okay with airing out the family’s dirty laundry. I had the feeling he knew the story well, but hadn’t shared it with us out of respect for his mom.
In answer to her silent question, though, Heath merely shrugged and gave her a nod of encouragement. “When Heath was very young,” she began, “his father and I weren’t getting along so well. Mark Whitefeather was a man of high standing in our tribe, and he was my brother Vernon’s best friend.”
“Hold on,” Gil said, raising his hand. “Your husband’s last name was Whitefeather too?”
Mrs. Lujan nodded. “Our grandfathers were twins,” she said. “So we were second cousins. Second-cousi
n marriages are pretty common in our tribe,” she added.
Gil nodded and got back to his sweets.
“Anyway, as I was saying, Mark was well respected by the leaders of the other Pueblo tribes too. Everyone thought we were the perfect couple and in public we did appear to be that, but privately, Mark was not a nice man to live with. . . .”
Mrs. Lujan’s voice faded and her eyes held a faraway strained cast—as if she was remembering things she didn’t want to. “I found solace in my work,” she said, pointing to the fountain in the middle of the garden. “And I also found solace in the arms of another man outside of our tribe.”
My eyes drifted to Heath. His body language suggested that he wasn’t exactly comfortable with the story, but was doing his best not to appear judgmental toward his mother.
“Mark found out about my affair,” Mrs. Lujan continued. “We argued. He punched me, broke my jaw, and I left him that very night. I got Heath out of bed, wrapped him in a blanket, took a few of our belongings, got into my truck, and I left.”
“Where’d you go?” Gilley asked, pulling my plate over so that he could polish off the cake crumbs.
Mrs. Lujan fiddled with her wedding ring again. “At first I went to my brother Vernon’s house. Dad and Milton were away on a hunting trip, or I probably would’ve ended up there. I could barely talk because my jaw was so swollen, but I managed to tell Vernon what’d happened. He told me that Mark had every right to hit me, that I had disgraced the tribe with my affair. He said that he’d been the one who’d seen me with my lover, and he’d told Mark. He said that most of the tribe knew too, and they were all going to take Mark’s side. He thought I’d gotten what I deserved.”
I felt my face twist with anger. That a brother would betray his own sister like that really bothered me. From the looks of the scowl on Heath’s face, it seemed it hugely bothered him too.
“What’d you do?” Gilley said, his voice a little breathless.
“I gave him the finger, grabbed Heath, and walked out,” Mrs. Lujan said. “Then I went to my workshop, collected all of my creations, and we came here to Tara’s. I traded her that fountain for a place to stay until I got on my feet, and I never went back to the Pueblo.”
“Did you report the assault, though?” I asked. I knew I was treading on thin ice here, but I don’t tolerate domestic violence.
Mrs. Lujan’s eyes cut to her son, and Heath turned away. Uh-oh. “There was no need,” she said to me. “Mark killed himself the day after I left.”
The table fell silent. I didn’t know what to say. “That sucks,” Gil finally said, which wasn’t exactly the sentiment I wished he’d expressed, but at least it broke the tension a little.
“My brother Vern never forgave me,” Mrs. Lujan said. “Neither did the tribe. Even my father and my brother Milton stood against me for a time. It was a very dark period in my life and it only got worse when I met and married my Frank.”
“Was he the man your brother caught you with?” Gilley asked. Again, I wanted to slap him.
Mrs. Lujan laughed. “No. That man was Tara’s cousin. He was kind of a wild child and nothing but an escape for me. After I left the Pueblo and he learned I was living here with my son, he didn’t come sniffing around much. Which was fine by me, because after Mark died, I wanted nothing to do with men. Then, a few years later, Frank came along and changed my mind.”
Mrs. Lujan smiled fondly at the memory of her late husband, and I noticed Heath did too. Frank must have been a wonderful man.
“So the tribe still holds a grudge?” I asked. I couldn’t believe that after so many years Mrs. Lujan’s family wouldn’t forgive her.
“Yes,” she told me. “A lot of them go out of their way to avoid me when they can. My leaving was hard on them too,” she added with more generosity than I would’ve had. “I was the only artist trained by my great-aunt in the way of the special firing that makes the glaze on that fountain shimmer and sparkle. It’s what made her pottery so valuable, and our tribe has watched as other tribes have prospered for their artists’ work. The remaining Zanto artists haven’t had as much success as they could have if I’d stayed.
“Still, I did well enough on my own to support Heath and me, until Frank came along and took care of us. And then I stopped throwing pottery nearly altogether. The tribe saw that as a very selfish act on my part. Plus, they always did suspect me of taking the family urn the night I left. But I didn’t. It was there on the shelf when I took all the other pieces that rightfully belonged to me.”
Gil turned to me and mouthed, “Family urn?”
“Later,” I whispered, and focused back on Heath’s mother. “Why did you stop throwing pottery?” I asked, looking again at the beautiful fountain. “I mean, when you can create something that amazing, why would you ever want to stop?”
Mrs. Lujan’s lips pressed together and she held up her hands. They were knotted with arthritis. “My hands aren’t what they used to be,” she admitted.
Heath frowned. “I’ve seen you play with some clay, though. And every time you did make something new, it always sold right away.”
Mrs. Lujan sighed and there was a lot of sadness in it. “I just don’t have much will to create these days,” she admitted. “Not since my Frank died.”
The edge of my energy suddenly tingled and my mind started to fill with an image of the Rolling Stones, but specifically the lead singer. “Does Mick Jagger mean anything to you?” I asked her curiously.
Mrs. Lujan’s eyes went wide. “Yes!” she said. “Frank was a huge fan of the Stones and he won a contest once where he’d had a picture taken with Mick just before a concert. That picture hung in Frank’s office right above his desk.” Mrs. Lujan’s eyes misted a little. “Is my Frank here?” she asked shyly.
“He is,” I said with a knowing smile, before someone else entered my energy. I almost didn’t mention it, but he was so insistent. “Mark’s here too.”
Mrs. Lujan bit her lip, but Heath lifted his eyes to me. “My dad?” he asked.
I nodded.
“He’s never come through before,” he said. “Are you sure it’s him?”
I closed my eyes and focused on the male energy hovering in the background. I nearly smiled when another rock band image took shape in my mind. “He’s showing me a Rush T-shirt,” I said.
Mrs. Lujan gasped, but then she clapped her hands and gave a playful slap to Heath’s shoulder. “That’s all your father ever wore!” she exclaimed. “He loved that band and always had one of their T-shirts on.”
“Did they come jamming in together?” Gil asked me with a sly smile.
I laughed. “You know how it goes. One spirit pushes a theme to get my attention and another one jumps on it too.”
But then Heath’s father showed me another series of images and I couldn’t quite understand it. “What’s the deal with his grave site?” I asked. “Was he moved after he was buried or something?”
Mrs. Lujan was openly crying now. “No,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “He wasn’t moved, but he wasn’t buried on Pueblo land. Mark committed suicide, and in doing that, he dishonored our tribe, so he was denied a burial in the Zanto burial grounds. Instead, he was laid to rest at a regular cemetery in Santa Fe.”
I squinted at her. “Did you recently put flowers on his grave?”
Heath shot his mother a surprised look, but she held my gaze. “Yes. Several weeks ago, right before I went to visit Evelyn in Phoenix, I stopped by and put some flowers there. It was the first time I’d been to his grave since his funeral.”
“He’s thanking you,” I said, adding, “And he’s also apologizing. I get the feeling he’s apologizing for a lot of stuff, not just the fight you two had.”
Mrs. Lujan nodded, but she didn’t say anything more.
I turned to Heath. “Your dad says you should check on your house. He thinks there might be a plumbing issue.”
“Plumbing issue?”
My brow furrowed. “Plumbing and elec
trical,” I said. “I keep seeing sparks and water.”
Heath groaned. “That’s never good. I’ll call my lazy cousin and schedule a meeting at the house. He’s got some explaining to do about why it’s taking so long anyway.”
“Never hire family,” Gilley said.
With that, Mrs. Lujan got up. “Let’s go, you three,” she said. “I have some tough phone calls to make if I’m going to get access to the library to look up the history of this black hawk demon.”
When we got back in the Durango, Mrs. Lujan called her brothers. She started with Vernon, making sure to let him know that she was coming to Milton and Beverly’s funeral and that he couldn’t keep her away. Their discussion quickly grew heated. I could hear his raised voice through the receiver and then the call ended so abruptly that I knew he’d hung up on her. Undaunted, Heath’s mother called her other brother, and that conversation was a bit more civil.
From what I could determine, Rex was going to meet us at Heath’s house along with his son, Ray, who I understood was the elusive cousin Heath was trying to pin down for the completion of the construction on the house.
I was a little anxious to see where Heath lived. He had a good eye for architecture and I wasn’t disappointed when we wound our way through the hills to the west side of Santa Fe into a sparsely populated neighborhood with terrific views. Nearly at the top of one large hill Heath made a right turn into the drive and we arrived at a dark brown stucco adobe-style home with a big picture window next to the entrance and a beautiful antique-looking front door complete with large brass knocker.
“Nice!” Gil whispered, echoing my thoughts exactly.
We got out just as another vehicle pulled in behind us. I recognized Rex, but the young wiry man on the driver’s side was new to me. “Cuz!” he said, clasping Heath’s hand and pulling Heath toward him in that manly half hug, half handshake that guys do. “How’s Hollywood, bro?”
“Wouldn’t know, bro,” Heath told him. “I’ve been in Europe for the past couple of months.”
Ghoul Interrupted: A Ghost Hunter Mystery Page 11
