by Aimée Thurlo
“The way he moved, he’s a vampire. He must have heard me moving to get a sight line on Muller, and ran down to outflank me. That’s when he came across you unexpectedly.”
She nodded. “I saw him before he saw me, but he still managed to get off the first shot. Fortunately he missed, and I didn’t.”
They waited a few minutes, then she whispered, “Will Muller come looking for us now?”
“Maybe. His crewman may be out of commission for an hour or more, if he was critically hit. Muller may choose to watch over him instead. With them both being vampires, they’ll have the advantage, especially now that they know what they’re facing. Muller will know he hit me when he spots the blood.”
“In the dark? Oh, right. Then maybe we should try to put more distance between us, if you can move.”
“Good idea. I shot out a tire in their van so if they plan on getting out of here before morning, they have to fix the flat before it gets light. That means they only have about an hour to look for us. If we can avoid Muller until then, he and his partner will have to hole up somewhere, either in the hogan or in the van.”
“Why don’t we go after them now? The odds will be better, with the vampire I shot having to heal himself before he can make a move. Muller will be watching for us, but at least there’s just one of them operational now.” Diane stood up and looked at Lee.
“No, I’m not fully functional now and his vision is much better than yours. With the rifle, he’ll have a tremendous advantage. We need to get far enough away so they’ll run out of time looking for us. Let’s get moving.” Lee didn’t look at Diane, afraid he’d give himself away. He’d lost Annie because he’d gotten complacent. It wasn’t going to happen to Diane. He didn’t want anything to happen to her, and if they went after Muller now, the German would be in a good defensive position and could pick them both off.
His shattered upper arm was starting to heal now, from the inside out, and it hurt like hell. Lee was a pretty good pistol shot even with his left hand, but the odds were too close to make an attack. They’d have to be careful if they wanted to live through the night.
Lee and Diane walked quickly downhill, picking a route diagonal to the hillside and away from where the car was parked. Lee was no longer leaving a blood trail, but they didn’t want to ruin their chances of getting away later by vehicle, and the best way of keeping Muller and the other vampire from finding the ear was by leading them away from it.
“How long do you think it’ll take before the one I shot is conscious and able to defend himself?” Diane whispered as they hiked quickly across a sandstone outcropping, hoping to conceal their tracks for a while.
“Do you think his wounds would have been fatal if he’d been human?”
“Without immediate medical care, probably. That’s just a guess. I hit him solidly twice in the upper torso.”
“Muller could probably leave him within a half hour then. I’m healing up now, I can feel it, but it sounds like he was hurt a lot more than me. But if Muller decided to just hide the man somewhere, he could be coming now.”
“Then let’s go straight downhill. The closer we get to the highway, the less likely Muller is to take action where he could be seen. And we can make better time.” Diane grabbed his left forearm, and pulled him in the direction she was headed.
“Let’s pick up the pace.” She broke from a quick walk into a jog, and he did the same. “I could run downhill forever.”
For another ten minutes they jogged along, not looking back, and eventually came upon a shallow stream less than six feet wide, running across the hillside, winding downhill. Diane stopped, and Lee came up beside her.
“The bottom is pretty rocky, we can hide our tracks by wading awhile,” Lee suggested, looking back uphill, but not seeing any movement among the trees.
“Upstream or down?”
Lee thought about it a second. “We can make the quickest time running downstream, so that would be the most logical choice. Muller is smart, so he might think we’d go the opposite to throw him off.”
“Upstream? So we really go downstream anyway, at least there’s the advantage of making better time.” Diane thought about it for a second. “And Muller would do the same. So we go upstream after all.”
“Okay. Trying to outthink an outthinker always has me flipping a coin. Let’s go upstream. Move slowly at first, then we can pick up speed later.” He stepped into the water, and it was ice-cold. Diane had done the same, and she’d gasped.
“Like playing in iced tea,” she muttered, and began to pick her way carefully upstream. She slipped and nearly fell in, but he caught and hung on to her until she was steady again.
“Let me lead. I can see the bottom, and you can’t.” Lee let go of her and stepped ahead, making sure to push his feet forward rather than picking them up, avoiding noisy splashing.
The stream curved gently uphill, and he got the idea that the local Navajos had adjusted its bed over the years to slow down the flow, which would make it less vulnerable to erosional effects. The route took them in a direction that put them closer to the car, and that might be an advantage when sunrise approached. He looked over at the eastern horizon, hoping he was wrong and it would look brighter. But a vampire knew sunrise and sunsets almost by instinct, and Lee knew even before checking his watch that daybreak was still some time away.
“Put your pistol away,” he whispered.
“Why? I won’t drop it even it I fall,” she whispered back.
“Someone is ahead, and he doesn’t look like an enemy. Just trust me,” Lee whispered. He remembered that a hataalii lived in the area. Though he’d never met the man, he’d heard that he was well respected.
They continued up the stream, barely stirring the frigid melt waters that originated in snowpack way up in the Cibola National Forest. Lee’s feet were numb, and he admired Diane for sticking with his chosen route without complaint.
“Yáat’ééh, hataalii,” Lee said softly as they both got close enough to see the middle-aged Navajo man standing beside a pine tree less than ten feet from the stream. Lee had seen him clearly a minute ago, and recognized the Navajo man’s long hair and sweatband as signs that usually identified the traditional Dineh. The leather pouch at his belt, the handmade knife in his belt, and the blue color of his sweatband suggested he was also a hataalii, or medicine man. There was a familiar look to the man’s face as well as he scrutinized Lee carefully.
“I don’t know you, stranger,” the Navajo man said softly, “and there is something not right happening out here in the darkness. Are you here to harm me?”
“No, sir. The Anglo world knows me as Leo Hawk—Patrolman Hawk of the New Mexico state police. May I show you my badge?” Lee waited for a response, accepting the lapse into Indian time despite the need for fast action. Showing patience was a necessary sign of respect, especially to a medicine man. If they wanted this man’s help, they’d need to play by his rules.
Lee reached into his jacket pocket, and brought out his gold shield, now clipped to a leather holder.
“Can’t see it that well in the dark, Officer, but I’ve heard your name, and that you have patrolled the highways here and on the Navajo Nation up by Shiprock,” the man said. “Why don’t you come out of that water now? You must be freezing.”
Lee grabbed Diane’s hand and helped her climb up onto dry ground. She was shivering from the cold. “Thank you, sir,” she said to the medicine man. “We’re sorry to disturb you.” Diane could see a hogan not far away.
“Let’s get inside. From your expression, it looks like you’re being hunted, especially when you’re walking in such a cold stream to hide your tracks.” The medicine man shrugged, then reached around the tree and retrieved a lever-action .30-30 rifle he’d propped there, out of sight.
None of them spoke as they walked quickly down to the hogan. Another hundred feet beyond the eight-sided structure was a small wood-frame house with a light on in one of the rooms. Lee knew that this was
the source of the light they’d seen not long after leaving the car.
The medicine man stood beside the entrance a moment, took something out of his medicine pouch that Lee suspected was corn popifionllen, and softly said a blessing over his medicine hogan. Then he turned and blessed both of them, surprising Diane, who said nothing. After that, he held back the blanket, and motioned the two of them inside. A small piñon fire crackled in the fire pit of the medicine hogan, and in the glow, the notched and carefully positioned logs that comprised the eight-sided traditional structure were prominent.
Lee waited to be asked to sit, and Diane just stood there, looking around. It was obviously her first look inside any form of hogan, much less one of a medicine man. From what Lee knew, this was an uncharacteristic privilege for the hataalii to offer a woman stranger, particularly a bilagánna—white woman.
“Sit here by the fire and warm your feet,” he said to Diane, gesturing to a spot on the south side, traditionally “belonging” to the women. She took the opportunity to sit down on a sheepskin and direct her feet toward the coals. Lee noticed that she kept looking to her right, toward the entrance, which was covered only by the heavy blanket, and she kept her hand close to her pistol, now under her jacket in its holster.
“You are protecting this Anglo woman, I suspect,” the hataalii said, this time in Navajo, motioning for Lee to sit at the north side of the fire. “Someone is after you, and you’ve been wounded. I heard many shots about an hour ago, not long after two vehicles went up toward the killed hogan where my old uncle once lived.”
The medicine man glanced at Diane, then back at Lee. His attention seemed to center on the large amount of blood that had caked on Lee’s upper arm.
Lee’s eyes must have given away his reaction to the mention of the old hogan, the one Bowlegs had constructed late in the forties after a patient had died in his original structure. He nodded, and answered back in Navajo. “The two men from the van are dangerous killers out to do harm. If they find us here, they won’t spare any of our lives. If you wish, we’ll leave.”
The man was listening to Lee, but his eyes were fixed on his wound. His words were in English now. “If that’s your blood, you shouldn’t even be able to walk. Yet you hold your arm as if healed already.” The hataalii looked at Lee, up and down, then thought about it for a moment before speaking.
“The one who once lived at the hogan up the hill. My uncle. Do you know what he was called?”
Lee nodded, suddenly suspecting old Bowlegs had taught his nephew the ways of the medicine man, and even shared his knowledge about night walkers. The man was still studying Lee’s shoulder, which was nearly healed, and he’d taken a step back, reaching for his medicine pouch. He took out a small fetish, perhaps his ward against evil.
Lee responded in English. “I’m a friend, and I think your uncle may have told you about me, and that time many years ago, when the Germans were our enemies. Your relative was called Bowlegs, and he did much to help me that night.” Lee smiled at Diane, who was looking back and forth between the two men curiously, but obviously relieved that she was able to understand what was being said.
“I was told about a state policeman who’d come to him after being contaminated by the blood of those called walkers of the night. My uncle had done all he could, and protected that man from the curse of the sun, though not completely. Arc you that man? Tell me what he was named.” The medicine man was agitated now, practically shaking with excitement.
“Your uncle was very kind, though he shook like you do now at first. But walkers of the night, like most men, are good or evil from their hearts, not from this affliction. As I said before, you have nothing to fear from me, or from my companion. I was called Lee Nez at that time, but I’ve had many names since that night in 1945. Did your uncle find the rations I left for him?” Lee recalled the case of C rations he’d set off the truck for the man.
“He did. Bowlegs shared it with my mother and my brothers and sisters. We lived closer to Fort Wingate, just north of the railroad tracks. My uncle only spoke of you one time, and that was years later when he was telling how to counter the affliction, and how to fight night walkers who were bad men.” He smiled for the first time.
“I’m called John Buck by the state of New Mexico, though many of the Dineh around here follow the Way and don’t use names that much.” He nodded to Diane. “You have been blessed with the protection of a powerful man/creature. Are you a policewoman, miss?”
Diane nodded. “Diane Lopez.” She brought out her shield.
John Buck’s eyebrows rose. “I didn’t know the FBI believed in night walkers.”
“I didn’t at first. Sometimes you have to see something to believe it. Like you did tonight.” She smiled weakly, then turned to Lee. “Are you ready to travel now? I’ve warmed up and we shouldn’t hang around here much longer, or we’ll put our host in danger.” She looked at the medicine man. “Sir, I would recommend that you leave the area as soon as possible. If anyone else lives here with you, we should try to warn them too.”
“I live alone, but it’ll be daylight soon. None of us will be in danger then.”
Lee nodded, and had just turned to thank John Buck when a dog started barking outside.
John Buck reached over and grabbed his rifle, motioning for Diane and Lee to move to either side of the entrance. As they did, they drew their pistols and crouched down low to the hardened earthen floor.
Buck walked around to the opposite side of the smoke hole, the west side, putting himself in the shadows and aiming his rifle toward the blanket covering the entrance. He whistled sharply once.
The blanket moved at the bottom, and a brown mutt rushed into the hogan and ran around the fire pit, sitting beside the medicine man and growling toward the covered entrance.
Lee flinched when the dog ran in, and noted out of the corner of his eye that Diane had reacted the same way, but kept her pistol still.
It became very quiet, and the only sound was the soft crackle of burning pine and the nearly imperceptible, deep growl of the dog. The mutt’s ears were lowered so far they almost disappeared into his head.
The sound of a footstep just on the other side of the blanket was only slightly louder than Lee’s beating heart. At least it sounded that way to him.
The medicine man pulled back the lever on his Winchester, cocking the weapon loudly as it sent a cartridge into the chamber.
They waited a minute, then three minutes. Even the dog never took his eyes off the wool blanket hanging from the top of the doorway. It occurred to Lee that if a piece of wood in the fire popped, that blanket would be full of holes in two seconds.
The thought made Lee remember the smoke hole above. He looked up toward the center of the wood-lined ceiling, caught John Buck’s eye, then looked up again.
The medicine man nodded and, holding his rifle as steady as he could with one hand, reached over with the other and grabbed a piñon log heavy with yellow chunks of pitch. He set it in the middle of the fire, and scooted back slightly. The dog looked at his owner, then scooted back too. The mutt had finally noticed Diane and Lee, but his focus soon shifted back toward the entrance. He crouched down low to the ground. His mouth was halfway open, showing sharp, healthy fangs.
The pitch in the wood caught fire quickly, flaring up and putting out a spitting flame that reached three feet off the ground toward the smoke hole. Anyone peeking inside would either be temporarily blinded or scorched, perhaps both.
Nobody moved for another five minutes, but finally everyone relaxed a bit. Diane lowered herself to the ground, going from a painful crouch to a sitting position, relief evident from the expression on her lace when she finally sat.
Still no one shitted their weapons’ aim away from the entrance, and John Buck kept the fire going a bit longer. Eventually the fire died down and Lee noticed light starting to appear in the sky outside the smoke hole.
Not long after that, the dog inched up to the blanket, sniffed, then
went outside.
Diane sighed, and lowered her weapon. “My arm is tired,” she whispered. Lee nodded, and motioned with his head toward the medicine man.
“It’s over for now,” Buck said.
CHAPTER 15
Diane went to the blanket serving as the door to the medicine hogan and peeked out. The sun was just coming up, and Lee stood back to avoid the direct rays.
“Sorry, Lee. I forgot.” Diane looked contrite.
John Buck gently lowered the hammer of his Winchester, setting the weapon down on a sheepskin. “The one at the entrance. He was one of the night walkers?”
“Probably the same one who made me one of them so long ago,” Lee answered. “He’s after us because we know about him. lie’s a German who came to this stale during World War II and killed several soldiers, my partner, and a shop owner in Albuquerque. At the time, the vampire was with other German spies. He and I were the only survivors of the ambush he arranged back in March of 1945.”
“I heard about that from my uncle after I’d grown old enough to learn the ways of the hataalii. The government said it was a terrible accident, and that you had drowned later in a ditch, but he knew they were lying about it. Has this German night walker come back to hunt you down after all these years?” Buck stood slowly, stretching to ease his cramped muscles.
“I don’t think he’s after me, unless I get in his way. He wants something the soldiers were protecting back during the war, something very much a secret, even today.” Lee looked at Diane, who shrugged.
“But he didn’t get it then, apparently. Was it something you hid, and is that why you’ve been coming back here as long as I can remember?”
“So you’d seen me, and already knew who I was last night.”
“My uncle found a small hole that had been covered over with dirt, and never looked inside, but he built the hogan near there so he could be close. He kept watch too, thinking you must have had a good reason to hide whatever it was inside there. Do I want to know what it is?” Buck looked at Lee, then Diane.
