The Nora Abbott Mystery series Box Set

by Shannon Baker

  It happened two more times before the first hint of dawn penciled the horizon. Each time Nora clutched the blanket to her and stared at the front door, expecting Alex to break it down and kill her. But the attacks broke off abruptly and eventually, she dozed.

  With a shaking hand, Nora eased the doorknob and creaked open the door. She imagined Alex on the other side, ready to wring the life from her. But no one stood outside.

  Nora crept from the house, sure there would be a pile of loose debris and rocks from last night’s assault. But the dirt surface in front of the house sat empty. She climbed a low stone wall and worked her way up another ancient building until she surveyed the roof. No rocks. No pebbles. Just a flat roof.

  The sun slept below the horizon casting enough light to convince her the morning would arrive. She had to get out of this place before Alex, or someone like him, killed her and tossed her somewhere in the wilderness never to be found. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, at least if Nora were gone, her mother would be safe. That was assuming Abigail recovered from the blast.

  But if Nora never made it back to Flagstaff, would Heather warn Abigail about Barrett? Her empty gut clenched at the image of Big Elk’s surprised eyes, his last gurgle, all that blood.

  Nora ached with worry for Abigail and Charlie. Maybe she couldn’t make a difference if she were at the hospital. But she needed to be there.

  As soon as she saw her mother was okay, she’d report Big Elk’s murder and get Barrett locked up.

  Nora barely discerned a footfall, a tiny scratch of sand on rock. Her heart leapt up her throat and she swallowed it, fearing she’d look down and see Alex with a hatchet ready to chop her into bits.

  But that’s not what made the noise.

  Standing below her was the little kachina man. What had Heather called him? Nakwaiyamtewa? He looked up and his calm, deep eyes searched hers. Without a word, he walked away. He made no sound and Nora suspected he purposely made the earlier noise to get her attention.

  Like a kitten in a tree, Nora found climbing down much tougher than climbing up. She searched for each foothold and eventually got low enough to drop the rest of the way. Her landing in the dawn sounded like a buffalo stampede.

  She hurried after the little man. As if he’d been waiting for her, she caught sight of him as he rounded the corner in what appeared to be an alley. Although she saw newer buildings in the first village yesterday, some made of cinder block, some framed and covered with cheap government siding, this village consisted of stone structures snugged closely together. It felt ancient and primitive.

  The little man continued toward the edge of the mesa at his calm pace, limping a bit on his left foot. She shouldn’t go out there. Maybe it was a trap and Alex waited to jump out and shove her off. But then, the little man had saved her before. He never made her feel threatened, a little freaked out, but not in danger.

  She wondered if she was acting like the stupid waifs in the black and white horror movies, stepping up to the attic in the dead of night while Count Dracula waited in delight. But she felt compelled to follow.

  The sun inched toward the horizon, taking the chill off the frightening night.

  The little man stopped at the edge of the mesa. He reached into a small leather pouch hanging around his neck and brought out his thumb and forefinger pinched together. In a quiet voice he made strange noises.

  Sure, he would probably say he sang, and it did have a certain rhythm, but Native American songs never really sounded like music to Nora. His voice wavered with age and he dipped his head to the east. Just then, the sun burst in surprising warmth and fire over the horizon. He held out his hand and let whatever he held in his fingers loose into the calm air. It looked like a fine dust.

  Tears sprang to Nora’s eyes. She might not understand what he said or all the implications, but she knew he prayed with thankfulness for the new day. It didn’t matter to whom he addressed the prayers, the gratitude and beauty of the dawn seeped into Nora’s heart.

  He motioned her forward.

  Nora obeyed without worrying about how close to the edge she stood.

  He held out the pouch and nodded to her, indicating she take whatever it contained.

  She reached inside, felt a rough powder and pulled out what looked like a pinch of crushed corn.

  The little man did the same. He sang again in a quiet voice and tossed his pinch toward the sun. His eyes urged her to her own prayer.

  His eloquence, though she didn’t know his words, made her feel like a galumphing elephant. Stiff with embarrassment at her inability to say a simple prayer of thanks, she felt her face grow red.

  The little man began his song again. The quiet bleating of his old voice sounded like a lullaby.

  Nora’s tears flowed, melting her reserve. She longed to sing, to offer thanks for another day. But she didn’t know who to thank.

  What was she so damned thankful for, anyway? Another sunrise and a chance for whoever wanted her dead to succeed. A day of painful recovery, at best, for her mother. The first day of the rest of her life fighting battles alone.

  “What are you doing here?” Benny’s voice made her jump. She spun around to see him frowning at her.

  Her mind felt muddled and she realized the old man’s song ended. “I came out here with him.”

  “Who?”

  Of course the little kachina man didn’t stand next to her. Obviously, Benny hadn’t seen or heard him singing.

  Remember when the most horrendous thing I could imagine was Scott having an affair? Now her life revolved around murder, terrorists, mothers in hospitals, and some ancient Indian chief, kikmongwi, only she could see.

  “What are you doing here?” she said instead, to turn the challenge around.

  He stepped beside her. “Offering my morning prayers.”

  She stood next to him as he took a pinch of corn from a pouch he carried. He ignored her and sang his song, bowing and tossing his offering over the mesa. He sang faster and louder and without the holy feel of the older man, but it felt like church, all the same.

  He finished and stood straight.

  Nora bowed her head slightly and let go of the corn she’d taken from the little kachina man’s pouch.

  Benny eyed her curiously.

  She lifted her chin. “Nakwaiyamtewa gave it to me.” She waited for his reaction.

  He nodded, not looking the least surprised. “That’s good.”

  Dirty and sore, Nora faced the warmth of the sun. “Someone waged a war of terror on me last night.”

  Benny laughed. “How is that?”

  Maybe it sounded funny to him but he hadn’t sat through hours expecting to be murdered any minute. “Probably Alex trying to scare me and he succeeded.”

  A glint of humor showed in Benny’s eyes. “What exactly did Alex do?”

  “He threw rocks at the windows and roof.”

  “Rocks?”

  Anger and embarrassment heated her face like the sun. “Big rocks. Boulders from the sound of them.”

  Benny raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t see any boulders when I walked by the house.”

  Infuriating, rational man. “I don’t know what happen. He must have cleaned them up.”

  It sounded lame to her but what other explanation was there? He’d attacked her four times, that wasn’t something a wild imagination conjured up.

  Finally Benny seemed to take her seriously. “I wondered if they would come visit you.”

  “Who?”

  “The kachinas.”

  “Funny.”

  “I’m serious. This house is on one of the energy lines. The highways of the spirits. You aren’t the only one to hear them.”

  She gave him a skeptical look.

  “Just because you don’t believe it don’t mean it doesn’t exist. There are certain lines of spiritual power that run across the world. One happens to pass through where that house sits. Lots of people hear the spirits when they pass. Even a few white ones.�
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  “You had me stay there on purpose.”

  “I wondered if they’d pass by.”

  She didn’t believe him, of course. The idea of kachinas or any other spirits knocking on the house was ludicrous. There had to be another explanation. But who could have done it and where did the boulders go?

  Benny meandered down the path.

  Day or night, the village, with its crumbling and ancient buildings felt creepy. She trotted to catch up. “Where are you going?”

  He didn’t look at her. “Breakfast.”

  In normal life she wouldn’t be the least bit curious about his prayer or what it might mean. But normal life ended with Scott’s death and spiraled into Bizarro Land since then. Her mother lay in a hospital nearly two hundred miles away, murder du jour served as the main fare, and last night, spirits from some other world played Bowling for Sanity on the roof.

  “What did you say over there? To the Creator or whatever?” Okay, that was the epitome of rude. Heart-stopping fear caused her to lose the manners Abigail had tortured into her.

  “I thanked the Creator for another day and gave him some corn meal. I said, ‘It is your way to live the simple life, which is everlasting and we will follow. I ask that you speak through me with prayers for all the people. We shall reclaim the land for you.’”

  “Yay for the simple life of hoping the generator holds out.”

  A smile touched Benny’s lips. “If the rest of the world faced disaster and there was no electricity or running water, they would perish. Here, we would go on as usual.”

  “You’ve got all this talk about keeping the old ways and ceremonies and poverty that, for some reason, balances the world. It’s as illogical as one man’s death accounting for the sin of mankind. Where is the proof that would make any of this reasonable?”

  They crossed the plaza, less menacing in the morning light and more third world without a dance crowd filling it. He held the door of his house open for her. “You want proof as obvious to your senses as this door is to touch. I think maybe you need to expand your perceptions and develop new senses.”

  She couldn’t come up with a polite response and blowing air through her lips while rolling her eyes would be wrong.

  The blanket sat folded on the back of the couch. “Where is Heather?”

  Benny’s face showed no emotion. “She left.”

  A tide of salty anxiety surged into Nora. Without Heather, she was a prisoner on the rez. “How will I get to Flagstaff?”

  “I can give you a ride.” Benny opened a cupboard and pulled out two granola bars. He handed one to Nora. At least breakfast wouldn’t be a painfully slow-cooked meal.

  “Let’s go.” She hurried out the door, hoping to get Benny moving.

  He drifted into the daylight of the plaza and stopped, his face to the sun. “You’ve heard of the Anasazi?”

  Who blew up my apartment? Barrett? One of Big Elk’s followers? What did Alex have to do with any of it? Was Cole a good guy or Barrett’s henchman?

  Benny stopped talking and waited for an answer.

  She backtracked to his question. “The Anasazi are the cliff dwellers. The people at Mesa Verde and Walnut Canyon. They disappeared and no one knows what happened to them, right?”

  He stretched as if urgency didn’t thunder in Nora’s blood. “It isn’t a mystery to us. We are the ancient ones. They didn’t just happen to disappear in 1100 A.D. like the archeologists say. Each of our clans was instructed to migrate and we did. For centuries we wandered over this country, up to the glaciers, down to South America. We left our history etched in stones along the way. We left our broken pottery and homes made of stones and mud. When we reached the mesas, clan by clan, we settled in the place chosen for us.”

  She took several steps and waited for him to meander in her direction. “If you’re a chosen people, why would you get this hard country where you can barely survive?”

  “This is the center of the world. All life depends on what happens here.”

  By the time he plodded to his vehicle and drove at an idle down the mesa, Nora would need a walker and adult diapers and her mother would be dust.

  “Many of our young people are not keeping to the Hopi way. They want all the material things of the white man and it’s causing disturbances.”

  Nora nodded and hoped she looked thoughtful. She’d get a ride out of here sooner if she didn’t irritate Benny.

  “Now Mother Earth is in pain. McCreary is taking her guts for money. Coal is her liver and uranium is her heart.” They walked out of the plaza to the alley.

  It felt like her skin stretched too tight for all the anxiety popping inside her. Benny’s molasses pace made her want to scream. “You’re against mining on the rez?”

  He nodded. “Don’t matter what McCreary says or how clean it is or how many jobs and royalties it will bring. Would you cut out your mother’s guts for money?”

  Barrett seemed to be involved in everything. Snowmaking and uranium mining. Other than both being damaging to the religious sentiments of the Native Americans, what did they have in common?

  Benny’s old Ford pickup used to be white. Now it was tied-dyed with waves of rust and dirt. Bright Indian blankets covered the bench seat that broke down toward the door. A large crack split the dash, showing yellowed foam rubber filler. Enough dirt accumulated on the floor he could probably plant a garden.

  Despite seeming like an odyssey, they eventually made it down the mesa and a few miles south on the highway. Benny turned onto a trail hidden by tall summer grasses.

  Worry twanged through Nora like an out of tune ukulele. A Hopi shortcut didn’t seem like something that would get her to Flagstaff quicker. “Where are we going?”

  Benny didn’t look at her but maneuvered the truck down the bumpy trail. “I have to see to my corn.”

  “I have to get to the hospital!”

  Benny shrugged.

  “What about my mother?” She had to protect Abigail from Barrett.

  Benny braked the pickup and got out. He headed to the side of the road beyond the tall weeds and started singing in Hopi. His low guttural consonants made a beautiful ringing on the desert floor.

  Nora jumped out and ran to him. “Please. I’ve got to get to my mother.”

  He stopped singing and turned to her. “All your worry and impatience won’t make your mother well. Let go of your stress and listen to Mother Earth.” He continued on his way.

  Arguing didn’t turn Benny back to the pickup. And his stubbornness didn’t halt her arguing. She followed, topped the ridge still making her case and stopped, amazed. In the dry desert, surrounded by hills of sand and scruffy weeds, Benny’s cornfield grew lush and green.

  He turned to her. “Do you know why I sing to the corn?”

  She shook her head.

  “The corn is like children. I sing to the seeds when I plant them. I sing when I tend them, bringing water or thinning the weak plants. That way, they learn my voice. They will grow toward it, wanting to please me the way a child would.”

  Nora wondered if she finally suffered the effects of too much stress. Benny’s mystical gumbo sounded logical. “How do you get the corn to grow with no water?”

  He smiled proudly at the bushy plants, so different from the endless fields of corn encompassing all of Nebraska and Iowa. “The cloud people have been good to me this year. They have given enough rain but not too much to flood the young plants.”

  “Why do you plant them spread out like this and not in straight rows?”

  He reached down and pulled a weed growing close to one of the leafy stalks. “I don’t use a tractor so there is no need to make straight rows. And spacing the corn like this confuses the cloud people. When you plant in rows all close together, the cloud people know where the corn is and they rain and leave quickly. But when you plant like this, the cloud people must look around and they stay over the field longer, giving more rain.”

  Cloud people—really? But he spoke as
if he believed it and she didn’t think he was a stupid man.

  He focused on her. “We’ve been growing corn here for a thousand years. The cloud people live on the sacred peaks. If you destroy their home, there will be no rain for my corn.”

  “You don’t really believe this, do you?”

  He walked between the plants, touching their leaves in a loving caress. “Hopi have a respect for life and trust in the Creator. We were told that white men would come and try to take away our lands. But if we cling to the ancient ways we will prevail.”

  “Seems like you could grow more corn if you used a tractor or irrigation sprinkler. Why would your spirits want you to do everything the hard way?”

  Benny straightened and brushed his hands together. “Making things hard prepares us for what may happen. Like a runner practices every day, building strength and endurance so he can run the marathon, we Hopi live a meager and hard life so we’re ready to survive when the time comes.”

  He handed her a stick about a foot long and thick as a broom handle. He reached into his pocket and brought out a small plastic bag of corn seeds. “You stay here and plant these seeds over there.” He pointed to a sandy spot next to the outer corn plants.

  Nora’s frustration boiled over. “I can’t plant seeds when my mother is lying in a hospital and I don’t know how she is.”

  He nodded. “I have to tend to another field then I’ll take you to Flagstaff. You plant the seeds and if you can, sing to them.”

  “I don’t have time to plant corn.”

  He shook his head. “I won’t tell you what to do, that isn’t the Hopi way. But I urge you to plant these seeds. Do something good for Mother Earth and it will go well for your mother.”

  “Like a prayer?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Like a prayer.”

  She dropped the stick. “I don’t believe in prayer.”

  Benny started walking toward a low hill, presumably to another cornfield. “Since you’ve got nothing to do until I’m done you might as well plant the corn. No one is around to hear you so go ahead and sing to the seeds. It will help them grow.”