He glanced at Calico. “And I guess I’ve got my own traditions.”
“But what do you do out here?” Santana asked. “Don’t you get bored?”
Steve shook his head. “You might say I’m a student of the desert and the mountains. I can spend a whole afternoon watching a red-tailed hawk build its nest in a saguaro, or the colours change on a wolf spider as it crosses different kinds of terrain, and never consider the time misspent.”
Calico smiled. “Sounds like somebody’s feeling a little spiritual.”
“Sure,” Steve said. “It’s partly that. It’s partly appreciating the beauty on a very simple and basic level—you know, the small day-to-day changes around me, as well as the big picture events like a sunset, or the nightly show the stars put on. But it’s mostly paying close attention to a lot of interesting things and learning not to try to impose my will on any of it. Does that make sense?”
Thomas nodded, though he wasn’t sure he understood completely. It took Santana to voice part of what he felt.
“Sounds kind of boring,” she said.
“One man’s poison...” Steve said with a shrug.
“I’m more interested in the spirits and ma’inawo. The cousins. What’s it like living with them every day?”
“I’ll tell you truth. I didn’t even know that much about them until today.”
Thomas saw his own surprise mirrored on the face of his sister.
“What he means,” Calico said, “is that until today, he didn’t realize the dreamworld is real and he’s awake in it.”
“The dreamworld,” Santana repeated. “Auntie tells stories about it. What’s it like?”
“You tell me,” Steve said. “That’s where you’ve been for this past half hour or so.”
Thomas and his sister exchanged glances. Magic land, he thought.
10
Leah Hardin
It was pretty noisy in the courtyard of the Katharine Mully Memorial Arts Court; the sound of kids’ conversations and their music rose in skittering waves to bounce back down from the high ceiling and around the interior. Leah Hardin barely noticed. All of her attention was focused on the screen of her laptop. She was sitting off to one side of the main courtyard area at one of the tables near the pay-as-you-can café, availing herself of the building’s free WiFi. Her dark hair curtained her face, green eyes gleaming with an electronic blue tint from the light cast by the screen.
She’d just finished two back-to-back volunteer shifts, the first in the Arts Court office sorting electronic invoices because nobody else liked the job, followed by a shift as a barista at the café. She’d decided to make herself an Americano before she went home, and was sipping at it while she went through her email.
Nothing could have prepared her for one of the messages in her inbox. She didn’t know at the time that the message had come to her from halfway across the continent before reaching her here in Newford.
She’d read it through a half-dozen times, but the content hadn’t changed.
It had to be a joke.
She looked at the sender’s name again: [email protected]. She didn’t recognize it, but it wasn’t exactly hard to open a Gmail account. It could be anybody—as benign as a friend playing a prank, or as nasty as one of the trolls she had to keep blocking from her blog’s comments—thinking she’d be gullible enough to believe anything so outlandish.
But she couldn’t shake the funny feeling the email had woken in her.
“Hey, Leah.”
Leah looked up from her laptop to find Alan Grant standing at her table with a coffee in one hand and a muffin in the other.
She and Alan both volunteered here at the Arts Court, helping street kids get in touch with their creativity. The truth was, a lot of the kids just came to hang out, drink free coffee, charge their phones, or use the bathrooms and WiFi. But that was okay. Part of the Arts Court mandate was to provide a safe space for kids who didn’t have anywhere else to go. Tools were provided if they wanted to express themselves: art and writing supplies, musical instruments, even access to computer workstations with word processing, art and music programs. And some of the kids actually took advantage of what was offered.
There was no instruction unless they specifically asked for it. Various artists, musicians and writers in the Newford arts community made themselves available on a regular basis, helping in whichever way they could. They did office work and maintenance, and helped out at the café when they weren’t mentoring the kids.
Alan sat on the Arts Court board and was also publisher of a small press, but he was more likely to be found down here with the kids than dealing with his administrative duties.
“Hey, yourself,” she told him. “How’s Marisa?”
“She’s good,” he said as he sat down at her table. “Right now she’s back at the East Street office doing some actual work so I can goof off here.”
“Like you know the meaning of the words ‘goof off.’”
Alan grinned. “Says the workaholic.” He nodded at her computer. “Did I interrupt your writing?”
She turned her laptop around so that Alan could look at the screen.
“Wow,” he said. “That’s an amazing painting.”
“I know. Even though it’s just shot with a webcam on somebody’s laptop.”
“Who’s the artist?”
“I haven’t a clue. There’s a signature, but I can’t make it out.”
Alan peered more closely at the image. “Yeah, me neither. Who sent it to you?”
“I don’t know that either.”
Alan’s brows went up. “Well, that’s mysterious enough.” He gave the image another scrutiny. “The subject looks really familiar.”
“It’s supposed to be Jackson Cole—the way he looks today.”
Alan gave her a smile. “Well, now I know how come this showed up in your inbox. It’s actually a pretty good fantasy likeness, isn’t it? You could see Cole having grown into this guy.”
“It’s supposed to be what he really looks like—now.”
“Wait a minute...”
“The person who sent this claims to have met him. They say that he’s alive.”
“But that’s—”
“Impossible. I know.”
Alan returned his attention to the image. He had an expression on his face she couldn’t read.
“Are they saying that he never died,” Alan began, “or...”
“Or what?” Leah asked when his voice trailed off.
Alan seemed to give himself a mental headshake. “Nothing. What did they say?”
Leah told him what the sender had written about being abandoned by a highway in the middle of nowhere and then found by a man that he or she later realized was Jackson Cole. How, for a price, Leah could be told where he might be found.
“How much?” Alan asked.
“The person doesn’t say.”
He lifted his gaze from the image to study Leah for a moment.
“You’re not dismissing this,” he said.
She shook her head. “I want to think it’s just somebody’s bad idea of a joke.”
“But you don’t. Why not?”
“Just a gut feeling.”
“Look, I know Cole’s body was never recovered, but a painting doesn’t prove anything. Hell, these days a photo wouldn’t prove anything.”
“I know. But that’s an amazing painting—you said so yourself. Even with this poor resolution, you can tell it’s the work of a really good artist. Why would anybody with that much talent bother running a scam like this?”
“So let’s find out who the artist is,” Alan said. “Do an image search.”
He stood and turned the computer back toward her, then took a chair next to her so they could both look at the screen.
Leah grabbed the image from her downloads folder and dropped it into the browser’s search box. Moments later, dozens of possible matches popped up on the screen. They scrutinized each of the thumbnails, but the
painting didn’t show up in any of them.
“Wait a sec,” Alan said as Leah sat back. “Click on that one.”
The image Alan was pointing at looked nothing like the painting. It depicted a half man/half wolf or coyote figure in some kind of ceremonial Native American garb. But when it expanded on the screen she could see what had caught his attention. The style was similar to the painting that had been sent to her. It had the same brushwork, the same riot of colour in its background.
The picture of the man/wolf came from the website of an online arts magazine based in Arizona. When they clicked on the link to the magazine, an article popped up about a Native artist named Abigail White Horse. There was a photo of her, showing a broad-faced older woman dressed in a plain blouse and a long skirt, her grey hair plaited in a thick braid. She had her hand on the head of a tall rez dog that leaned heavily against her, its tongue lolling from the corner of its mouth. Two more paintings similar to the one of the man/wolf were also included in the article.
“It says she doesn’t sell her work,” Alan said, “and only rarely does shows. You know what that means?”
Leah shook her head.
“Either she sent you that email herself, or it was sent by someone who has access to her studio and her art. A friend or a family member.”
“What are you? A detective?”
“I think I’m doing pretty well here.”
Leah nodded. “Yeah, I guess you are.” She went back to the article. “She lives in southern Arizona, on the Painted Lands Kikimi rez in the Hierro Maderas Mountains outside of Santo del Vado Viejo.”
“With a little more digging we should be able to get a phone number for her.”
“I’d rather confront her in person.”
Alan couldn’t hide his surprise.
“Oh, I know I can’t,” Leah said. “I mean it’s ridiculous. It would cost a fortune, which I don’t have. But it’s a lot harder to blow somebody off when they’re standing right in front of you and you can’t just hang up on them.”
Alan leaned back in his chair and turned to look at her.
“What?” Leah said.
“This would make a good story,” he said. “Obviously, you’re not going to actually find Cole, but the journey itself could be really interesting, given the way you write. There’s this opportunity to tie in to all the things that first drew you to the Rats, and how writing about them changed you—a more personal journey to complement what you’ve already written about Cole and the band.”
Leah wasn’t sure she liked the idea, but she could understand its appeal. She knew she wasn’t alone when it came to the impact the Rats had had on her life. The fans on her blog loved to talk about that sort of thing. She’d only ever touched on it lightly herself because she wanted to maintain a more professional, objective profile. Mostly. But she had other, more personal, reasons not to talk about it.
“Maybe,” she said. “But I can’t just jump on a plane and fly down. The ad revenue from my blog’s okay, but it wouldn’t come close to covering these kinds of expenses.”
“But I could,” Alan said. “If I can get a book out of you for the investment. And if that painting is there, and the artist is willing, it would make a great cover.”
Leah just stared at him.
“I’m serious.”
“You don’t do non-fiction.”
Alan laughed. “Don’t tell Christy that.”
Christy Riddell was one of Alan’s authors whose East Street Press works were divided between collections of short stories and books exploring the folklore and mythology of Newford. Without apology, he always presented the latter as fact.
“I don’t know if there’s a whole book in this,” she said.
“Depends on what you find out when you get there.”
“You’re serious?”
“Absolutely,” Alan said. “Flights to Vegas are dirt cheap. You could rent a car from there and then drive down. You do drive, right?”
Leah shook her head. “City girl. They make public transport for people like me.”
“That could be a problem, except you know what? I’ll bet Marisa would be up for a road trip without much coaxing. I owe her a break, and she loves to drive. Besides, she’s a Rats fan too.”
11
Thomas
“How could you live in the otherworld for as long as Steve has,” Santana said as they were driving back home, “and not know it? How can you hang around with spirits—”
“Cousins,” Thomas interrupted. “And he’s the one who told us she was ma’inawo. He just seems to be learning more about them now, and about where he’s been living.”
“Whatever. It was weird how she could take the shape of a fox or an antelope, and more often, she was something in between,” she said.
Thomas had also had trouble wrapping his head around the rapid transformations. Fox to antelope to the strange hybrid of woman and both animals she’d become at the end, sitting right across the table from them with a cocky grin and her eyes glittering in the setting sun.
“And how could he live there and not know it was the otherworld?” Santana added.
Thomas shrugged. “Well, we didn’t know it was the dreamlands either, until he told us.”
“Yeah, only we just got there. We have an excuse. He’s been living there for ages.”
“You heard what Steve told us. He never really thought about it, even though he’s been living there for forty years.”
“Forty years!” Santana said.
“I know, but—”
“There’s coasting, and then there’s sticking your head in the sand. Does he ever look in the mirror? He looks way young for a guy who’s got to be pushing seventy.”
Thomas made a noncommittal sound. If Steve really had been deliberately trying to ignore what was around him, Thomas could empathize with the man. He knew from experience that pretending something wasn’t real, or at least not talking about it with anybody, was the easier route to take.
“You’re taking this really well,” Santana said.
“Hm?”
“For a guy who wants nothing to do with the old traditions.”
Thomas sighed. “Why does everybody have to harp on that?”
“Because it’s true?”
She tilted her head and gave him a sweet smile, eyebrows lifted.
“You forget,” he said. “Just like you, I can see things other people can’t. It’s happened my whole life. So why should this surprise me?”
Santana shrugged. She sat there in the shotgun seat, feet up, arms wrapped around her knees.
“Mom always warns us to be careful around spirits,” she said, “but Calico didn’t seem particularly dangerous.”
“We don’t really know much about her. And that doesn’t mean the other spirits aren’t.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
Thomas thought that might be the end of it, that she’d turn the radio back on again. Which would suit him because all of this had given him a lot to think about.
“What kinds of things have you seen?” she asked instead.
He thought about that for a moment.
“Nothing like today,” he told her. “It’s usually more subtle—catching something out of the corner of my eye, or how the prickly pear by the trading post are always in different positions every morning.”
“You mean, like they moved during the night?”
He nodded.
“Cool.”
He smiled. “And you?”
“All kinds of stuff,” she said. “Sometimes when I’m sunning with Naya out on the rocks behind the house I hear voices, but there’s no one around. And she doesn’t hear them. When we’re dancing it can feel like there are other—invisible—dancers moving in time with us. Or I might just be walking around the rez and I’ll see somebody with a kind of animal aura. Not like Calico, actually changing into something else—more like the ghostly impression of a lizard or a bird’s head just floating above the
ir heads, or maybe nested in their hair.”
Thomas gave another nod. He’d experienced all of that and more. He thought about the ghost raven from this morning—how strangely independent it had been of its host—but decided not to mention it.
“What are we going to tell Mom,” Santana asked, “about today?”
Thomas shot her a defeated glance. “You ever had any luck lying to her?”
Santana sighed. She dropped her feet to the floor and slumped in her seat.
“So we tell her everything,” she said.
“Don’t see as we have much choice.”
Santana sighed again. “Why did I know you were going to say that?”
The Death of Derek Two Trees
12
Steve
“Is there anything else I should know?” I ask Calico as we walk the ridge trail heading for Aggie’s house.
The twilight’s thickening into night, but I can still see the amused look she throws my way. Except for the little bit of showing off she did when Thomas and Santana were at the trailer, she’s looked human all day now.
“Like what?” she asks.
“How would I know? So far, I’ve found out I’m friends with people who aren’t people, but I didn’t know it—and I’ve been living the past forty years of my life in fairyland without a clue. Plus there’s this magical otherworld passage from the trailer to the rez.”
“Well,” she says, “there’s a benefit to spending as much time as you have in the otherworld. You don’t get sick and you’re going to live a lot longer.”
I never thought about it before, but I haven’t had a cold even once since I came here. I thought it was just the desert air.
“Great,” I tell her. “I’ve already made a mess of my life and now you’re telling me I can look forward to years more of it.”
Calico stops, so I do too. A frown creases her brow.
“I thought you liked living here,” she says. “And what do you mean, mess of your life? Thanks a lot.”
The Wind in His Heart Page 7
