Three Sisters

by James D. Doss

  At the Smith’s Supermarket parking lot, Kydmann helped the elderly woman from the pickup, tipped his white cowboy hat, allowed as how he would wait outside.

  Inside the cavernous store, Daisy insisted on pushing the cart, which served as a suitable walker for her. Up and down the aisles they went, Sarah picking up a box of this, a carton of that, a bottle or jar of something else, and all went well until they arrived at the display of jams and jellies.

  “Oh—there’s not any left.”

  Daisy Perika, who had been musing about something or other, looked up. “Any what?”

  The disappointed girl pointed at an empty space. “Honey.”

  The Ute woman could see a multitude of plastic bottles shaped like cute little bear cubs. “There’s plenty of honey.”

  “Charlie Moon likes the Tule Creek kind.” Sarah added a further tidbit of information: “It comes from Texas.”

  “Texas, huh?” Every man she’d ever met from that state called her “ma’am.” Daisy pointed at the shelf. “Honey is honey and my nephew’s a big gourd head. Get him some of that Sugar Bear kind—he won’t know the difference.”

  Sarah would not give an inch. “Charlie made out the list himself, and right here it says ‘Tule Creek.’” As evidence, she held the piece of paper in front of Daisy’s face.

  With a rude swipe of her hand, the old woman brushed it away. “If he’s too good for Sugar Bear, then let him do without.”

  The prospect of failing to bring home the proper brand of bee-processed nectar appalled the youthful shopper. “Maybe Mr. Kydmann will take us to another store.”

  Without a doubt, Mr. Kydmann would have. And if he had, perhaps Sarah would have found those one-and-a-half-pound jars produced by swarms of busy Lone Star bees who reside within the Tule Creek Apiary in Tulia, Texas. But as it turned out, a trip to another food store would not be necessary.

  When Daisy turned the cart into aisle 9, she collided with another such vehicle, which was pushed by someone she recognized.

  “Beatrice,” Daisy said, for that was the white woman’s name.

  Andrew Turner’s wife smiled. “Why, hello.” I should know who she is. Oh, of course…“You’re Charlie Moon’s aunt!”

  “Thanks. But I already knew that.”

  Bea blushed. “You’re his aunt…Pansy.”

  “Daisy.”

  “Of course. Cassie’s Navajo friend.”

  “I’m a Ute.”

  “Oh. So sorry.”

  “Not me. I’d rather be the sorriest Ute that ever lived than Queen of the Navajos.”

  Beatrice tried small talk: “So—what brings you here?”

  “Shopping for food, just like you white people.” Daisy’s grin was cruel. “When us Utes can’t find a deer or turkey to shoot an arrow at, we come to the grocery store and buy us a few pounds of hamburger meat.”

  To relieve the growing tension, Sarah intervened. “We wanted to buy some honey, but they were all out of the kind Charlie Moon likes.”

  “That is probably my fault.” Beatrice reached into her shopping cart, removed a jar of amber stuff. “Is this brand you were looking for?”

  Sarah nodded.

  “I have plenty. Please take this one.” She placed it into Daisy’s cart.

  “Oh, thank you so much!” The girl hesitated, then blurted it out: “Actually, we needed two jars.”

  Though her perfectly trimmed left brow arched by almost a full millimeter, Beatrice transferred another container to the other cart. Breeding will tell.

  Daisy, who had been inspecting the contents of the white woman’s shopping cart, raised her gaze to the pale, pretty face. “How’s your husband getting along?”

  So—the mercurial old witch has decided to be civil. “It is so kind of you to ask. I am happy to report that Andrew is much improved. So much so that he will be coming home from the hospital tomorrow.” I must make my escape before she turns nasty again. Beatrice nodded at the wrinkled woman, smiled at the thin little girl. “If you will excuse me now, I must be off. So much to do, you know—and so little time.”

  Sarah picked up the jars of honey, held them against her thin chest. “She’s a very nice lady.”

  Daisy barely suppressed a snort. “What’s next on your list?”

  “Pie mix,” Sarah said. “I wonder if they have cherry.”

  “Charlie likes cherry pies.” The old woman was watching Beatrice Spencer head toward the produce section. “But don’t buy any of that fancy filling. What you want is some canned cherries and…”

  The teenager stared at the old woman, who seemed to have drifted off to another place. “Aunt Daisy?”

  No response. Charlie’s aunt was far away. And so very close to that tantalizing information concealed in her troubled mind. But the coy memory was like one of Charlie Moon’s annoying cowboys, who trailed only a few paces behind Daisy—but just barely out of sight. What was it that little Astrid Spencer had eaten that made her so sick—a piece of pie? No, I don’t think so. It was maddening. Enough to make a person want to throw a rock and break something.

  Forty-Nine

  The Dreamtime

  After telling Charlie Moon good night and reminding Sarah Frank that she shouldn’t stay up too late, Daisy plodded off to her bedroom. The weary woman undressed, pulled on a warm flannel nightgown, took a sip from a glass of cold well-water, seated her shrunken frame in a padded armchair, turned off the lamp by her bed, closed her eyes, sat listening to the night. Little squeaks and creaks as the big log house cooled down. A rushing sound as someone turned on a kitchen-sink faucet. A soft humming as the well pump switched on to fill the tank—a thump as a pressure sensor shut off the pump at forty-eight pounds per square inch. Down at the barn, a restless horse kicked in its stall. In the bunkhouse, a cowboy strummed an off-tune guitar, howled out a Mexican ballad about a vaquero who’d knifed a faithless wife. Up on Pine Knob, a coyote joined in with a mournful chorus. As she enjoyed this peaceful interlude in the darkness, the tribal elder drifted off into her thoughts. The green chili posole with lamb we had for supper sure was tasty. And that meeting with Beatrice Spencer in the supermarket was interesting. She frowned at the darkness. And something Sarah said almost reminded me of something but I can’t quite figure out what.

  Feeling the heavy approach of sleep, she got up from the chair, into bed, pulled the quilt up to her chin, began her nightly prayers (mainly a list of names of those who needed healings and other tender mercies), yawned, lost her place, started up again with a mention of Louise-Marie LaForte, her French-Canadian friend in Ignacio, who had been a widow for almost forty years. Daisy reminded God that Louise-Marie was frail and could use some help with her arthritic joints. An afterthought: It would also be nice if some thoughtful neighbor would get Louise-Marie’s Oldsmobile up and running again, so she could go places old women need to go to, like the supermarket and the drugstore and the post office and church. The kindhearted petitioner did not bother to mention the fact that it would also be nice if Louise-Marie was able to drive Daisy someplace now and again. God, she suspected, was unlikely to respond to her request if He detected the least hint of a selfish motive.

  Another yawn. Where was I in my prayers? Oh, yes. Now I remem—

  But the memory came too late. Daisy Perika had drifted off to sleep.

  And perchance, to dream.

  Which she did.

  It was probably not a coincidence that the subject of her prayers appeared in her night-vision. Louise-Marie was standing at a long table, ladling out her homemade punch to hordes of squealing, laughing children. What was this—a church picnic? No. Daisy was in a large, freshly mown, grassy field by the river. But which river? Not the rocky Piedra, which flowed through the eastern edge of the Southern Ute reservation. And not the Los Piños, which coursed its way through the central portion of the res, watering Ignacio along the way. This stream (she could tell by the dark-green tint, the telltale scent of curly-leaf mint) was the Rio de las Ánimas Perdida
s—the River of Lost Souls. And over yonder, maybe a mile away, was the Strater Hotel. This grassy park was in Durango, where they had held the arts-and-crafts fair some thirty years ago.

  As Daisy watched the scene unfold, two well-dressed little white girls, one with golden curls, the other with straight-combed, raven-black locks, approached the punch bowl to accept plastic cups of the bloodred concoction from Louise-Marie’s ladle. They turned to go and then—as if it were a generous afterthought—requested a third cup. “It’s for our sister,” Black Hair (Cassandra) said. With an angelic expression, Blondie (Beatrice) added, “She’s awfully thirsty.”

  “I bet you just want the extra punch for yourselves.” The good-natured lady with the ladle put on a suspicious expression. “How do I know you’ve even got another sister?”

  This unexpected question produced puzzled looks.

  Louise-Marie continued her game: “Does this thirsty sister have a name?”

  “Oh, yes,” the blond one said. The dark-haired little beauty added, “Astrid.” The other sister said, “Astrid is our little sister.”

  “Well why don’t little Astrid come and get her own punch?”

  Beatrice: “Astrid never goes anywhere.”

  Cassandra: “Astrid’s a little sissy—she whines and hangs on to Daddy’s coattails.” The elder sisters glanced at each other, giggled.

  Louise-Marie doled out the third cup of punch, and the pretty little matukach girls departed.

  Daisy Perika watched them go. And after a moment or so, heard a big commotion. Her feet just above the grass, the unseen dreamer glided toward the disturbance. The first thing she saw—and heard—was a familiar figure. Old man Joe Spencer. He was holding a tiny girl in his arms, speaking through clenched teeth to his older daughters. “You foolish, foolish children—what were you trying to do—kill your little sister!”

  Beatrice and Cassandra were shaking their heads. Both of them said, “No, no, Daddy—we forgot…we forgot….”

  The visionary understood that now, and for some years to come, all would be well. No one had killed the little girl. Little Astrid was not dead. Not yet. Not here in the Dreamtime.

  Daisy Perika awakened with a start that almost stopped her heart, sat upright in bed, put her feet on the floor. She thought she had things figured out. But I need to be sure. Switching the lamp on, she reached for the telephone, dialed the number she knew as well as the one on her Social Security card.

  After eight rings, a sleepy voice: “Who’s calling?”

  The Ute elder snapped at her French-Canadian friend on the other end, “It’s me.”

  “Oh, my—Daisy? You hardly ever call me this late at night—is something wrong?”

  Daisy nodded. “Yes. I think so.”

  The elderly white woman in Ignacio was well acquainted with two kinds of trouble—illness and death. “Are you sick? Has somebody died?”

  “I’m not sick.” But somebody has died. “I need to ask you about something that happened about thirty years ago. It’s was at that art show in Durango—where the children brought their watercolor paintings and little things they made out of clay and whatnot.”

  “Why I recall that. I used to go there almost every year.”

  Now the Big Question. “Louise-Marie, do you remember what you did there?” Daisy held her breath.

  “Why I provided the punch—you ought to remember that.”

  The Ute elder exhaled, took another deep breath. “D’you remember the time when that little white girl passed out?”

  A dead silence.

  “Louise-Marie—are you still there.”

  “Yes I am.”

  “Then why didn’t you answer me?”

  “Because I don’t like to think about bad things. Or talk about them.”

  Silly old white woman. “So you do remember.”

  “Of course I do, Daisy. That poor little girl—they said she came very close to dying.” A pause, while Louise-Marie found the little-used muscles to assemble a scowl. “Her father blamed her sisters—and my punch!”

  Now the Really Big Question. “Louise-Marie—I know it’s been an awful long time ago—but do you recall what was in that punch?”

  “Well of course I do. I made it the same way every year.”

  Another silence.

  “Would you mind telling me?”

  A sniff. Then: “It’s a secret recipe.”

  Daisy thumped her fist on the bedside table. “Listen to me—this is important. Really important.”

  “Well…I don’t know if I should. My mother taught me how to make it. And her mother taught her. And all the way back.”

  Daisy barely suppressed a snort. “I promise not to tell a living soul.” Not unless I absolutely have to.

  “Well, okay then.” Not without misgivings, Louise-

  Marie revealed the top-secret recipe for Glorious Summer Punch to her Ute friend.

  Daisy Perika did not sleep another wink that night. In the darkness, she was beginning to see a little speck of light. As the small hours grew larger, the speck became a candle flame. As a bloodred sunflower bloomed over the Buckhorn Range, the Full Truth dawned upon the tribal elder. But knowing wasn’t enough—how could she put her knowledge to work? Especially when the person she needed to manipulate was Charlie Moon, who believed his aged aunt was way over on yonder side of that well-known hill. The big gourd head!

  Fifty

  A Fine Morning at the Columbine

  By the time Daisy Perika had grunted and groaned her way out of bed, hobbled into the headquarters kitchen, made a pot of brackish coffee, downed half a cup—Charlie Moon was already “up-and-at-’em.” Sarah Frank was following the tall, lean man around like a restless puppy, pleading that he let her make the bacon-and-egg, biscuit-and-gravy breakfast, which he did. By the time the day’s first meal (watery eggs and half-cooked bacon, excellent biscuits and passable brown gravy) was on the table, foreman Pete Bushman was bam-bamming his fist on the kitchen door, tipping his droopy-brimmed cowboy hat at “the ladies,” getting the day’s marching orders from the boss, who wanted two men sent to repair a break in the fence north of Pine Knob. While Moon was helping Sarah wash the breakfast dishes, Scott Parris showed up, finished off a cup of leftover coffee, all the while chatting excitedly with his Ute friend about their plans for an all-night fishing campout at Lake Jessie, which was just behind the spruce-forested ridge, set like an emerald in the flowered dress of the rolling high-country prairie.

  In Parris’s view—and he was an angler who knew how to tie flies and tell fisherman lies—a red woolly-popper would be just the thing. Those twenty-inch rainbows would not be able to resist such a delicacy.

  The Ute did not bother to voice his well-known opinion, which was that what sensible fish liked in any season was raw meat. Wriggly red worms. Succulent chunks of beef liver.

  Daisy suggested crickets.

  When the fisherman turned an ear to listen to the tribal elder’s sage counsel, she allowed as how the fat black insects must be tied to the hook. With a hank of brown horsehair if a person had some handy. But don’t run a hook through it. Injure a cricket and your gums will bleed, your eyes will cross, and your bowels will—Well, never mind that.

  Scott Parris assured Daisy that if a cricket happened by he would give it a try. And though he could not assure her that he would use brown horsehair to affix it to the barbed instrument, he promised not to impale the creature.

  Pete Bushman returned to inform the boss that four steers were “down in the west pasture with a fever, an’ one of ’em’s got a big sore on his lip.” The animals were not yet dead, but (so the self-educated PhD in cow-ology opined) they would certainly be among the deceased before sundown. “I sure hope it ain’t the hoof-and-mouth—that’d wipe us out for sure. But don’t worry, I already called the vet’nary doc to come have a look. He said he might get here tomorrow. Or the day after.” As if this were not enough, the foreman (noting the presence of the local chief of police) was
reminded of what he had disremembered to report during his earlier visit—that three of the cowboys were being detained in cramped quarters at Granite Creek PD.

  Scott Parris, who had intended to delay the bad news for at least an hour or two, verified the truth of this report. By eyewitness accounts, apparently after two or three six-packs too many, one of those bowlegged rascals had driven the GMC Columbine flatbed truck through the window of Little Bennie’s Bar and Grill. The other two had come along for the joyride. There was no apparent motive, aside from the fact that Little Bennie had, in a fit of pique over an unpaid bar bill and several unwarranted insults, laid a pool cue across the skull of Six-Toes, who happened to be the Columbine employee behind the wheel when the flatbed went through Bennie’s plate glass window, which would probably cost at least a thousand dollars to replace. Which, since he ran a rough joint, was well under the deductible on Bennie’s insurance policy.

  As Moon was attempting to learn more details, Sarah Frank dropped a heavy crockery platter, which did not break. But it did land on her big toe and she let out a terrific yowl.

  Sidewinder apparently admired the sound of her wail. The quirky Columbine hound joined in to provide a high-pitched accompaniment. It was, a passing bunkhouse critic would later assert to his comrades, “a memorable piece of disharmony.”

  It was also a run-of-the-mill morning within the boundaries of Charlie Moon’s grassy kingdom.

  There was much more during the next few hours, but let us skip over these equally interesting incidents and cut right to the chase. Fast forward to half past four in the afternoon.

  On the west side of the two-story log house, on the wraparound porch, we find Scott Parris and Charlie Moon. The men are seated on a redwood bench, watching fuzzy shadows try to pull themselves loose from cottonwood trees, horse barns, and fence posts. Parris, who has already forgotten about crickets, is putting the final touches on a handmade red woolly-popper. The Ute, who appears to be doing nothing at all except staring off into the distance, is thinking about four valuable purebred Herefords that are ailing. I wonder what’s wrong with ’em. Hope it’s nothing contagious. And about three cowboys and a broken window. I’ll go in tomorrow, see what I can work out with Bennie. I’ll give the boys a few days to get stone-cold sober and consider the error of their ways, then I’ll bail ’em out. But this is the end of the line for Six-Toes. I should’ve sent that beer-sponge packing years ago.