Ancient Blood

by R. Allen Chappell

  “Fine,” the professor said, “we’ll set up camp today and be ready to start on the kiva tomorrow morning, early. It may take a few hours to open things up and do the initial ‘in situ’ photos. I would think noon should be about right.”

  Thomas was not quite sure why he asked Aida if he might borrow the saddle gun from the living room gun cabinet. Such venerable lever-action Winchesters had been the steady companion of horsemen in that country for over a hundred years, and still were deeply embedded in the Western psyche.

  Aida opened the cabinet with the key (which is nearly always to be found on the top edge of a gun cabinet). She levered open the receiver to check that it was unloaded, then took down a box of 30-30 cartridges and passed them to Thomas. “My husband had the habit of leaving his guns loaded—it was just the two of us here and really didn’t matter back then. Now, with the children, I try to see that doesn’t happen.”

  Thomas took a handful of the rounds and handed back the box. “Can’t hurt to have this along,” was all he said.

  Aida gave Thomas a significant glance and nodded, “I guess we might need it should a horse break a leg, or some such a business.”

  Both Aida and Thomas were strong riders, and in the cool morning air struck a beeline for the high ridge behind the ranch. They held their horses to a ground-eating lope for the first half mile, taking the edge off their mounts and gaining some high ground while they were fresh.

  Aida and the children had just moved the cows to new pasture the week before, and she wanted to make sure their calves were doing all right in the somewhat rougher cedar breaks.

  They passed through the last gate into what once had been the Buck ranch. The Buck clan had held that property since before Aida could remember, and they had been a thorn in the side of her family the entire time. The Ute family’s former parcels were all part of her ranch now, and she took some satisfaction in the knowledge the former inhabitants were all either dead or had moved away. Her new holdings were finally recovering from the neglect inflicted by those previous stewards.

  As they angled along the top of the ridge, Thomas pulled up to let the horses blow, and they got off to check their cinches. Aida gazed into the distance as she tightened the latigo. Far down valley she studied Hiram Buck’s nephew’s old trailer house. George Jim had been the craziest of the Buck family and ultimately the cause of both Hiram’s and his own death. They had shot each other to death right there in that very yard.

  Thomas scrutinized the decrepit trailer as well. “Do you see what I see?” he asked, shading his eyes against the midmorning glare.

  “Yep.” Aida flipped the stirrup down and moved the saddle horn back and forth a time or two to check the girth. “Smoke coming out of the chimney. Looks like someone’s using the old place. Now who do you suppose that might be?” She didn’t seem particularly concerned, and swung into the saddle in one smooth motion. “I expect we ought to drop by and see what that’s about.”

  Thomas mounted and pushed the big paint horse ahead of Aida’s roan. “Ira Buck,” he murmured, and undid the tie string on his gun scabbard.

  ~~~~~~

  Tanya Griggs was lying on the couch with her arm in a sling, watching young Caleb Begay channel surfing Aida’s big, old-fashioned TV. Ida Marie lolled in the easy chair, directing her brother in the operation.

  Tanya watched the children with a slowly surfacing grin. She could see Thomas Begay written all over the boy, but the girl must resemble her mother, though that was rare in her experience. Usually girls took after their fathers, and boys just as often looked more like their mothers.

  Bob Mills called in from the kitchen just as the phone rang. “What does everyone want for breakfast?” He picked up the phone in the outer hall and disappeared the way he had come. When he came back, he wore an odd expression. “That was the sheriffs office. They’ve picked up your father but are still looking for your mother. Steven’s not talking; just asked for a lawyer and clammed up. The Sheriff called to give Aida a heads up. Said Steven was apprehended alone, in Moab, at an RV park.

  Tanya, wincing at the pain, came upright on the couch with a startled expression. “Poor dad. He never wanted any part of this,” she cried. “It was my mother that forced him into it.”

  Bob moved to the couch and put an arm around her. “I know. I’m sure that will come out in time.” Bob’s own father was an attorney and had urged him to go into law as well. He had grown up with the law. “Perhaps he will turn state’s evidence. It might keep him out of prison.” He sighed. “Though I don’t really see any such help for your mother.”

  “I don’t care about my mother,” Tanya snapped, “She made her decision a long time ago. I don’t think our tribal elders have any idea what she’s been doing.” She raised her head and cast Bob a wounded glance. “I have to do something for my father.”

  When the children turned from the television and began taking notice of their conversation, Bob lowered his voice. Ida Marie was especially mindful of the distress in Tanya’s voice. It had not been that long that she and Caleb had themselves suffered separation from their own father. The girl was still of a suspicious nature, and alert to any possible threat.

  “You are in no shape to go anywhere.” Bob chose his words very carefully now and spoke them in a calm and deliberate fashion, “Your father hasn’t even been charged as yet. The D.A. told the Sheriff he needed more time to put everything together—probably waiting for more arrests.” Bob was kind, but firm, and Tanya could see her work was cut out for her, should she intend to convince him otherwise.

  “I need to go to my father,” Tanya said quietly, and drew within herself, as her people sometimes do when put upon. Nonetheless, Bob could see the wheels beginning to turn. He thought he saw something in this Hopi girl, something that might eventually come in handy.

  ~~~~~~

  Charlie Yazzie was not ordinarily one to feel any sort of trepidation around Anasazi ruins, but this little village in Aida’s canyon was somehow different. Harley felt it too, even more in fact. Professor Custer said that was probably because these ruins had not had the spirit sucked out of them by a constant stream of tourists, pothunters, and curiosity seekers. When Charlie thought about it, he could see the truth in that. The more accessible ruins did seem sort of ‘lifeless.’ This place was different, almost as though one might, at any moment, look up and see the ancients trooping back up the canyon to once again bring life to the land. Still, the professor might be joking, and so he kept his thoughts to himself.

  Harley was clearly uncomfortable, and this talk of ancients and their chindi did not set well with him. That was the thing about chindi, he thought, they didn’t grow old, they never went away, and even after a thousand years they might jump up and bite you on the ass.

  George Custer told Harley the Anasazi, unlike the Navajo, liked to keep their dead near them, often burying them under the floors of their houses and in abandoned rooms. This was a bit of Pueblo culture the Navajo never acquired. It was in direct contradiction to beliefs the Dinè had formed over many thousands of years. In those hard times in the North, their Athabaskan forebears were a wandering people and could not always take their old and weak with them. The welfare of the many took precedence over that of the few.

  This abhorrence of death might have been related to the sorrow and guilt brought about by abandoning their loved ones. The belief in chindi, or bad spirits, was deeply ingrained by the time they evolved into the Navajo. Some anthropologists thought these beliefs most likely developed as a mechanism to assuage sorrow and guilt. This defensive device may even have led to the custom of not speaking of the dead (or even mentioning their names). Calling a living person by his name, in his presence, might somehow identify him to a lurking chindí. This last, might well have been the reason for the many name changes once common among the people.

  By noon the men had removed the slabs over the kiva entrance, and the bulk of the photo work had been done. George Custer thought they would wai
t for Aida and Thomas before he explained the significance of the findings.

  Harley went down to the camp and started lunch, which in his view needn’t be anything complicated. With the mandatory pot of coffee ready for the fire and sandwich makings laid out, he yelled over his shoulder for Charlie and the professor to come down and eat. As he bent to place the coffee on the grill, he suddenly straightened and looked to the scraggly line of sage above the alcove. Something had caught his eye. Just a flash, but—something. His first thought was that it might be Thomas and Aida but ruled that out after watching only a moment. They were coming horseback and would be easy to see when they broke over the horizon. And he doubted they would come in that way. It was a good distance to where they could work the horses off the rim to canyon floor. It could, of course, be just an old sardine can catching the sun exactly right.

  Still, there was some little thing at the back edge of Harley’s mind that didn’t sit right. He slowly turned and saw Ira Buck with a rifle lying across the hood of Charlie’s truck, gingerly resting the barrel on his bandaged, but useless right hand.

  ~~~~~~

  Charlie peeked through a thin slot in the wall of the stone dwelling. The professor was just beside him, flattened against the inner wall. Both men had been hunkered down in the room, examining a potsherd of unusual design; just killing time until Thomas and Aida arrived. Charlie only looked out the little port when he heard Harley yell something about lunch. At first everything seemed as it should, but just as he glanced at his truck he saw Ira Buck’s head easing up over the hood and watched, transfixed, as he slid his rifle into place. If they had still been down near the kiva he’d have been at the wrong angle to see the truck at all. He motioned to the professor to stay away from the little T-shaped doorway. Something told him Ira Buck was not alone.

  Down at the camp Ira leered at Harley, “You still got my shotgun, fat boy?” He looked like he’d been holed up in a bear’s den. His long, matted hair was full of little sticks and grass. The grimy bandage, soaked through with dried blood, appeared not to have been changed in days. His swollen left eye twitched and drizzled a green-tinged fluid down his cheek.

  Harley glanced at the ruins but couldn’t see the professor or Charlie. Maybe they had gone into one of the little rooms behind the kiva… or maybe they…

  “Don’chu worry ’bout your friends, little man.” Ira blinked to clear his vision and glanced at the ruins. “I know they’re up there somewhere. They’ll be back down here bye an bye—that is, if they make it this far.”

  Now the flash of light from the rim made sense, and Harley didn’t bother to look again.

  He carefully set the coffee pot on the grill and considered Ira; ignoring the question about the shotgun. “I would guess that is Ted Altman then… up there on ta rim?”

  Ira’s chortle turned to a hacking cough, “I would hope not.” He frowned, “I shot ’im yesterday, an’ when I shoot ’em they stay shot.” He motioned Harley away from the fire. “That was a fancy Indian, that Ted Altman was. Talked purty too. I thought Myra might be taken in by ‘im, there for awhile.” His wide face turned ugly, “She wasn’t though, not when she heard her daughter had been snake bit.” The Ute occasionally jerked his head as though warding off a fly, but there was no fly. It was plain his hand was in a state of corruption, his forearm grotesquely swollen and discolored. The fever was on him, causing Ira to babble. Harley let him ramble on.

  Ira wiped his weeping left eye on his shoulder. “That snake hadn’t been meant for Myra’s daughter at all. Ted Altman was supposed to leave it in George Custer’s tent. But, I guess Ted Altman had his own ideas where that snake should be put.”

  “Now, ’bout that shotgun—my brother’s gun. Our niece gimme those guns after that li’l shootout last year. You could say it’s my inheritance.” Ira grimaced and seemed to have trouble focusing on Harley. He moved his head forward and back, and squinted, as though to see him better. “I’d hate to lose that scattergun, these guns are about all I got left.” He coughed deep in his chest, a rough, grating sound allowing Harley to think he might have a chance.

  The shotgun in question was just beside the woodpile and Harley had thrown his jacket over it as he chopped firewood. It was only a few feet away, but, of course, it doesn’t take long to pull a trigger.

  “So, who is that up on the rim?” Harley boldly asked, “Sounds to me like you are runn’n out of people.” He carefully calculated the distance to the woodpile and inched backward in that direction, hands in the air, as though frightened—which he was fast becoming.

  “Don’ worry yourself ‘bout who’s up on the rim, we got ’nough people left. Don’ you worry ‘bout that, little man.”

  ~~~~~~

  Thomas was the first one through the door of George Jim’s old trailer house, rifle cocked and ready. They had watched from the corner of a pig shed long enough to believe either no one was there, or they were asleep.

  Thomas thought it best they just ease up on the porch and surprise whoever might be inside. He motioned Aida back and then burst through the door. The trailer was dark and dirty, heavy with the fetid odor of rot and neglect. On top of that, there floated just a whisper of death. Toward the back bedroom, Ted Altman was tied to a chair with a neat little hole in the middle of his forehead and just a trickle of dried blood coursing down his nose.

  Aida pushed her way past Thomas and, wide eyed, regarded the dead man. She remembered him from George Custer’s entourage in her front yard. “I wonder what he did to end up like this?” she thought out loud. Aida was a strong woman and led a hard life in rough country. She knew death was only a heartbeat away for all living things. “I expect it don’t take much to wind up dead with these people.”

  Thomas covered his nose and moved past the dead man, again motioning Aida back. He checked out the rear bedroom which was a filthy, airless clutter, and turned, again almost bumping into Aida, who had once more ignored him and stood staring, shaking her head at the room.

  “Aida, you don’t need to see all this. You should have stayed outside.”

  “I’m tired of people telling me what I need or don’t need to see. This is my place now, and I’ll see what there is to see,” Aida covered her own nose as she passed back by Ted Altman.

  Thomas could see Aida was rattled and trying her best not to show it. “Judging from the breakfast table in there, two, maybe three people were here. One’s dead, I think since yesterday, which leaves maybe two. The stove’s not even cold yet. I expect we just missed them.”

  Aida nodded. “Looks like they ate breakfast right in front of the dead man. It takes a certain kind of people to do that.” She shook her head, held her nose, and moved toward the door. She needed some air. Outside, the two agreed whoever had been there couldn’t have gone far. “I would guess we just missed them,” she said echoing Thomas, which caused him to look away and raise an eyebrow.

  “How far is it to the ruins, as the crow flies?” Thomas thought he knew now what was going down. There was really no other reason for these people to be out here.

  “Not far, maybe an hour horseback.” Aida calculated the distance by vehicle as well and knew it to be a good bit farther around by any sort of road, “We won’t be far behind going cross-country—if the horses hold out.”

  ~~~~~~

  Myra Griggs crouched beside a scrub oak not much taller than she, and surveyed the canyon floor through a low screen of sagebrush. She could see Ira Buck, clearly in control of the situation, but how pitiful he looked down there now. The hulking, ill-mannered Ute had always disgusted her. But even from the moment they first met she knew he would someday be useful. Even after she married Steven Griggs, Ira still doted on her, convinced they were somehow still connected, even though Myra treated him badly time after time. Her husband warned her the man was not right in the head and that she should be firmer in her rejection. He did not confront the big Ute himself, of course, as he knew that could not end well.

  Myra had
been a member of AFPAC since her university days and recruited Ira Buck shortly after they first met at the archaeological survey of Aida’s ranch. She convinced the slow-thinking Ute he should become a part of the ‘movement’ and stand up for Indian rights. It was the right thing to do, she told him. He had the ability to make a real difference, she said. Ira had participated in only a few rallies and just two protests over the years, and then only at Myra’s personal request.

  Ira Buck had proven useful, and when she had called him only the month before, he had again been willing to meet with her and her friends in the Indian rights movement.

  Myra looked down at the bolt-action .270 that once belonged to Ira’s nephew George Jim. It had already killed two people, or so she was told. She herself was a good shot and had often hunted with her brothers. That was before the two had gone off to war and gotten themselves killed. She had actually been a better shot than either of them. Certainly, she was not the equal of sharpshooter George Jim, but she was good enough.

  She tried to put everything else out of her mind and remain calm. Still she seethed. Steven had run off like a yellow dog when the going got rough, and was probably back in their camper in Moab right now, fretfully awaiting her return. Their daughter, Tanya, bitten by the snake, had been the final straw for him. He had never wanted to go along with any of this. It was only her own strong will that kept him in.

  Neva Travis was no better. Neva lost her nerve right after she set off the explosion. Ted Altman had placed the charge the day before and had almost been caught by Tanya. This was the trouble with white people in an Indian cause—most didn’t have the courage of their convictions. She would deal with Neva, and Steven, too, when this was all over. She had thought her husband would somehow find the strength to see this thing through. She should have known better.