“It’s possible,” Mya put in.
“There’s a problem with that,” he sighed. “There were no signs of toxins found in their blood.”
Donny brought the coffee pot to the table and gave Mya a warm up. “Thanks,” she said, trying to force a smile.
“The people believe that when there is an unexplained death, the skinwalkers are behind it.”
“So because it was near Red Canyon, everyone thought the Metzgers killed that family?” she surmised.
“Well there’s that,” he admitted. “There was also a dispute going on between the Metzgers and the dead family over grazing land.”
“So you think this is some kind of revenge killing?” she asked.
Donny shrugged. “It’s possible.”
“What about the victim from Chinle? Was he part of this dispute too?” Mya wanted to know.
“No … but there is reason to believe that he was a skinwalker. When his body was discovered, he was naked … and there was an animal skin nearby.”
Mya already knew this much. “I kind of thought it was more of a ritualistic killing. That’s why I’ve been saying the same person is behind both murders.”
Donny stared at her with mild interest, but suddenly his gaze went to the window. At first Mya wasn’t sure what had gotten his attention; then she heard it too. It was a sharp - piercing sound, like a cat’s claws scraping against metal.
Donny’s eyes darted back to Mya. His manner had changed dramatically; now she sensed fear.
“It’s bad to talk about the skinwalkers. It draws them to you.”
“You can’t be serious.” Now Mya was convinced he was just trying to scare her.
Donny got up from the table and went to the front door.
“Shouldn’t you take a gun with you?” she asked.
“If it’s a skinwalker, a gun won’t do you any good. And by the way … if you want to stay alive … don’t you be going outside at night to check on noises,” he warned before opening the door.
Mya left her seat and followed him to the door, watching as he inspected the exterior of his mobile home. A moment later he was back. “I can’t find anything.”
“So you think it was a skinwalker?” she asked, though she didn’t believe for a minute that a skinwalker had made the noise they heard outside.
“If it was … it will tire and go away after awhile.”
Mya sat back down before asking, “How would a skinwalker even know if you were talking about them?”
Donny heaved his frame back into the seat across from her. “They can read minds and know when people are talking about them. I told you … they are evil spirits.”
Mya shook her head, trying hard not to smile. “Okay, but if the Metzgers are skinwalkers, the guys on the motorcycles must not be.”
Again that featureless mask slid over his face. She found it odd that he would be willing to talk about the skinwalkers, but not the bikers. Sensing that he was trying to find a way to get out of answering her, she decided to come right to the point.
“I know it was one of those guys that helped me after the accident. He has silver - gray eyes.”
Donny started drumming his fingers across the table. Mya noticed that every time the subject came up, he seemed to get very agitated. Finally he let out a deep breath and told her what she wanted to know.
“His name is David Bray. He’s not Dineh. The guys you saw are Sinapu. They are a small group of Indians that live in a village near the Mesa Verde ruins.”
“Why are they on the Navajo reservation if they are not Navajo? Sinapu doesn’t sound anything like Navajo.” she added.
“Their name comes from a Ute word, but they are not Ute either,” he told her before taking another drink of his now cold coffee.
She noticed that he was no longer tense, and this made her nervous. Mya was sure that if she were asking the right questions, he would show a lot more unease than he was.
“If they are not Navajo and they are not Ute … what are they?”
Donny shrugged. “It could be they are what is left of the Anasazi, but no one knows for sure where they came from. The Sinapu keep to themselves, and they don’t like strangers. All I know is that they’ve always been here.”
“Have you questioned them about Ben Metzger?” she asked.
Donny shook his head, but offered no explanation as to why they hadn’t been questioned.
“I’ll do it,” she offered. Not only was Mya convinced that they should be questioned about Ben, but she also had some personal reasons for wanting to talk to them. She had an almost uncontrollable urge to see the guy with the silver eyes again.
Donny laughed out loud. “You can’t be for real!”
“Why not?” Mya didn’t see anything funny about it. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t ask questions, the same as he could.
He grew serious, and by the look on his face, Mya was sure he was about to tell her something of some significant, but he just said, “Because it’s dangerous. I told you … they don’t like outsiders.”
“Is that why they haven’t been questioned?” Mya was glaring at him. “To tell you the truth, that sounds like a pretty flimsy excuse to me.”
“You really don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered.
Mya gave up. It was clear that Donny wasn’t about to cough up any further information.
Mya stood. “Thanks for dinner.”
“I’ll walk you to your trailer,” he offered.
She was going to protest, but then she remembered the noise they’d heard.
It was only a short walk and they were there in less than a minute.
“Thanks again for dinner,” she told him before stepping through the trailer door.
“I’m going to work tomorrow, but seeing how it is Saturday … you might as well stay here and get some rest,” Donny suggested.
Mya leaned her shoulder against the doorframe. “Maybe I’ll get out and do some exploring tomorrow.”
“Just don’t go snooping around where you shouldn’t,” he warned.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Mya smiled, but made no such promise. She was going to talk to David Bray, with or without his permission.
Chapter Five
Some people believe that dreams are a doorway into the subconscious, or that they are windows to another place and another time, even another reality. If not for her dream that night, Mya may have gone through the summer in blissful ignorance of the truth. She may never have made the discovery that would change her life forever.
It was nighttime, but it wasn’t really dark. The light of the full moon painted the landscape silver, making it appear almost magical. In her dream she was young - maybe seven or eight. She knew this because when she looked down at her feet, she was wearing her princess slippers. They had been a gift for her seventh birthday.
Her pastel pink slippers were now covered with the red-brown dust of the desert. As she moved through the tall brush, her long hair kept catching on wiry branches and she would have to stop to work it free. Mya wasn’t making a lot of progress, but that’s how it is in dreams. You can walk and walk, but never reach your destination, or even know what that destination is.
Unlike most dreams that are little more that a tangled mass of pictures passing through the mind, this dream was different. This dream seemed so real. Mya was aware that she was dreaming, but she had no control over the dream.
With her slippers and nightgown full of dirt and weeds, she kept walking. In the distance she heard a chorus of wolves howling at the moon. This didn’t bother her too much; the animals were far away.
Not that it mattered. Her legs would have continued to carry her to some unknown destination. Regardless of the terror that had begun to wrap its fingers around her heart, Mya was compelled to keep moving.
The dream faded into another. Now she was lying on an earthen floor. She knew this because of the sharp rocks that were jabbing through her nightgown to cut into her back and leg
s. The flames of a nearby fire eerily illuminated the faces that hovered above her.
It was those faces that terrified her. They were painted a ghostly white with black around their eyes and mouths.
To Mya they looked like grinning skulls. They were singing in a language that she didn’t understand, and this made her feel even more afraid.
The skull men began dancing around her, and as they danced there was someone sprinkling a white powder on her. The powder burned her skin and she felt as if she were on fire.
The fear she had been feeling now turned to mind numbing terror. Mya was certain that the grinning skulls were going to kill her. She was kicking and thrashing at them - trying to get away, but it was futile. Whenever she would try to get to her feet, one of them would push her back to the ground.
She could barely hear her own screams over the beat of the drum and the bizarre words of the singers. There were flashes of colorful feathers and strange costumes, but she was too frightened to focus on anything that she was seeing. In her young mind, the dancing skull men were death in the flesh, and their bony fingers were reaching out to drag her into oblivion.
Then it all changed. Now she was in a truck. She was trembling, but was trying to fight off the residue of fear that clung to her. The man driving the truck was trying to comfort her with soothing words. He was very old - older than anyone she’d ever seen. His long - gray hair was so thin that she could see the skin of his scalp beneath it.
Mya reached up to wipe the tears away that were spilling from her eyes, leaving streaks of wet dirt across her cheeks.
“Who are you?” Her voice quivered as she spoke.
“Old Man,” he answered.
“That’s not a name.”
“That’s who I’ve always been,” he told her.
The dream began to fade, though she could still hear the old man’s voice, his words were more like whispers now.
* * *
In the light of day, her dream seemed less terrifying, but no less profound. All morning she’d been going over the dream - trying to make sense out of it. It had been too vivid to be the simple rumblings of her subconscious.
Mya stared down at the dry toast and boiled eggs on her plate. In an attempt to lose a couple of inches from her waist, she had made this her usual weekend breakfast for the past month. She was typically starving in the morning, but today she wasn’t hungry at all.
Her lack of appetite was partly due to the unappealing meal, but it was more than that. It was her life in general. Everything about her life was too predictable, from her weekend breakfast to the clothes she wore. She was in a rut, but then her life had always been like that. Mya was beginning to realize that she was a slave to routine and a dull routine at that.
But that wasn’t completely true, at least not lately. Her routine had changed a lot since coming to Arizona, but that might be exactly why she was beginning to realize that her life - up to that point - had been dull and uneventful.
The dream was one indication that her life was starting to change, but maybe not for the better. Again she wondered if the dream had been some quirk of her self conscious, or if it was something else.
Glancing at the little clock that hung over her stove, she noticed that it was already 9:00 AM.
Mya picked up the little black mobile phone that sat next to her plate and dialed her mother’s number. It rang only a couple of times before Joan Begay picked up.
“Hi baby girl … how you feeling?”
“Hmm … okay I guess.” Mya didn’t sound too convincing, even to herself.
“You don’t sound so chipper this morning.”
“I’m okay. I just wanted to thank you for the flowers and find out how everything is going there. The roses and daisies were great.” Mya hoped that talking about the flowers would be enough to change the subject. If they stayed on topic, her mother would spend the next half hour asking her if she’d been running a fever, if she’d been eating right and just about anything she could think to ask. Her mother was still fishing for a reason that would justify Mya cutting her trip short.
From day one, Joan Begay had been dead set against her daughter working in Window Rock. At the time Mya had believed it was because her mom was being over protective, but now she wasn’t so sure.
Mya could hear water running in the background and knew her mother was in the middle of doing the morning dishes.
“Roses!” Joan exclaimed. “We only sent Daisies. The roses must be from someone else.”
Mya was startled by this revelation. If the flowers hadn’t been from her mom, then who sent them?
She wasn’t prepared to get into a big discussion with her mom about it so she just said, “Oh yeah, the Daisies were great. So how’s everything back home?”
“Things are the same as always here; Steve’s out back … beating the car with his wrench. I just can’t understand why he don’t give it up and take the piece of junk to a mechanic.”
“How is Nanook doing,” Mya asked.
Nanook was her husky. She’d really wanted to bring the dog with her, but her mother had convinced her that Nanook would be better off at home.
Joan had turned off the water and now it was much easier to hear her. “She seemed really nervous last night and ran off again. I think she’s looking for you,”
Mya’s heart sank. If anything happened to Nanook, she would never be able to forgive herself. She should never have left her. Every time she thought of the dog, she would see Nanook’s sad eyes watching her as she drove away. As far as Nanook was concerned, Mya had abandoned her.
“Maybe I should come back and get her.” Mya suggested.
“No … you’ll be busy and she would just get lonely,” Joan reasoned. “You’ll be back at the end of the summer anyway.”
Mom was right. Making a trip home right now would cost too much, and besides - she’d be home soon enough.
“Mom …” The words were on her tongue, but still she hesitated. Suddenly Mya wasn’t so sure she wanted to know the answer to what she was about to ask.
“Yeah … what is it?”
Finally Mya managed to spit out the question that had been nagging at her all morning. “Have I ever been here before? Did we come here when I was little?”
Her mother was so quiet that Mya couldn’t even hear her breathe. She began to wonder if the call had been dropped. “Mom, are you there?”
“What’s wrong? What’s happened?” Joan’s voice was full of agitation.
“I have been here before … haven’t I?” Mya’s hands began to shake. Deep down, she knew there was something about this conversation that would catapult her life into uncharted territory.
Her mother let out a deep sigh. “Yes, you’ve been there before. It was when you were seven.”
“Why don’t I remember it?” Mya asked. She found it strange that she had no memory of it. She could remember back to the day she started kindergarten; there were even bits and pieces of memory before that, but she could not recall ever being in Arizona.
“This is probably not a conversation that we should have over the phone,” Joan told her.
Mya noticed that her mother seemed to pick her words a little too carefully, and this worried her. Her mom was stalling - trying to pacify Mya without giving away too much information.
“Mom, what’s going on? Why are you acting like it is some kind of big secret?”
“It’s not a secret … it’s just a sensitive subject. That’s all.”
Mya started to ask another question but her mother cut her off. “There’s someone at the door. We’ll have to talk about this later.”
“Okay,” Mya sighed.
“Love you. Are you sure everything is okay?” Joan asked again.
“Yes I’m fine. Love you too mom,” Mya said before ending the call.
There was no longer any doubt in her mind that the dream had been some kind of flashback - bits and pieces of memory that she’d lost somehow. Mya concluded that whate
ver happened the last time she was here, must have been traumatic enough that she repressed the memory.
Her mother had been livid with Steve when she’d discovered that he’d arranged for Mya to work in Window Rock over the summer. In the weeks before Mya left home, her mother had been on her constantly - trying to talk her into changing plans. Though her mom had been adamant in her belief that working in Arizona for the summer was a bad idea, she could never give Mya a reason. Now it made a lot more sense. Her mother was afraid of something.
Now Mya was faced with another mystery. Who had sent her the roses? She didn’t even know anyone in Arizona, except for Donny.
Without taking more than a couple bites of her breakfast, Mya scraped it into the trash and washed the dishes.
She planned to question Donny and find out what he knew about her last visit to Arizona, but he probably wouldn’t be home for hours. Mya’s thoughts turned to the Sinapu. She couldn’t go out there and talk to the bikers in any official capacity. Donny had basically forbidden her from doing this and she didn’t want to take any chances and get fired, but she really wanted to talk to them, especially David Bray.
Mya realized that she couldn’t question David Bray about the Metzger case, but what she could do was thank him for his help after her accident. If she took a little drive and just happened to come across the village - well it wasn’t as if she didn’t have a legitimate reason to talk with him.
With her mind made up, Mya went to her closet to find something to wear. Today she’d break her routine and dress differently. Instead of jeans and a T-shirt, she put on a pair of cut off shorts and a blue tank top. She liked the way it deepened the blue in her eyes. After running a brush through her long hair, she made the last minute decision to leave it loose instead of binding it in a ponytail. Though the thought was a little vain, today she wanted to look and feel attractive. If she didn’t look dumpy, she’d have far more self-confidence. Mya had a feeling she was going to need all the self-confidence she could get to deal with the mysterious Sinapu.
Bad Moon Rising - Paranormal Romance Page 4
