Black Moon Sing (The Turquoise Path Book 1)

by L. M. Hawke

  Her eyes filled with tears; she blinked them away, turning her face to gaze out across the diner so Hosteen couldn’t see. “He wouldn’t have killed himself anyway. I’m sure of it.”

  There was a pause. Then Hosteen said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Ellery stared despondently into her coffee. “Well, I don’t know what I can possibly do to help you. The killer—whoever it is—is on the reservation, not here. Unless—” She looked up at him with sudden astonishment, which flamed immediately into fury. “You don’t think I killed him!”

  “No, no.” Hosteen held up his hands again, trying to soothe her anger. “But I do think a…” He pressed his lips together, obviously searching for a word that wouldn’t offend her. “I think a Paranormal person did it.”

  Ellery snorted. “You think it was a skinwalker.”

  “A Changer,” Hosteen said with delicate emphasis. “If that’s what you prefer to call yourselves.”

  “It’s not what we prefer; it’s what we are. You Typs are the ones who make up creative names for us, and creepy legends that follow us around and ruin our lives. I don’t know if actual Navajo skinwalkers exist or not. Maybe they do. But I’m not—”

  “Then maybe I’m not wrong,” he interjected. “Maybe that is exactly what killed William Roanhorse.”

  “I can tell you with full certainty that a Changer definitely didn’t kill him.” A Changer wouldn’t take the life of another Changer unless it was absolutely necessary—in self-defense—and no Changer would attack another, so self-defense would never become necessary.

  But Ellery was still banking on the hope that Hosteen had no idea about Roanhorse’s magical abilities. She said, “If something else did it—someone who chooses to call himself a skinwalker, who chooses to do evil deeds—then I have nothing to do with it, no knowledge about it, and nothing useful to tell you.”

  She sipped her coffee again, studying the cop’s face for a moment. He looked kindly and honest, and the spark of drive in his eyes intrigued her. It was a hunger of sorts—to solve the mystery of Roanhorse’s death. She wasn’t entirely certain she knew what motivated Hosteen Sikaadii, but here, sitting across from her in a restaurant instead of blocking her egress from a darkened alley, she at least found him significantly less menacing.

  “Why do you care so much, anyway?” Ellery asked him. “Why are you so gung-ho to get to the bottom of his death?”

  Then she realized what she’d said. Her face flushed; she tried to hide her discomfiture behind the coffee mug, but it was no use.

  “You mean,” Hosteen said, “why do I care so much about one murdered Paranormal?”

  Ellery sighed. “So you do know he was a Changer.”

  “I only suspected, but it was a strong suspicion. Mr. Roanhorse had known associations with—ah—” he cleared his throat uncomfortably. “With certain other members of the community who were also suspected of, shall we say, paranormal doings.”

  “Suspected of witchcraft,” Ellery said bitterly. “Suspected of evil.”

  Hosteen gave a single, slow nod—an acknowledgment of her anger, a concession to her feelings. “And Mr. Roanhorse was also known to be a mentor of sorts to a certain young girl who was left without any other family in the world. A girl who ran from the reservation when she was only fourteen years old.”

  Ellery stared at him in silence, unwilling to say anything, forcing him to speak on.

  “I know we don’t have a good reputation for treating Paranormals with justice,” Hosteen said gently. “In the Navajo Nation, or off the reservation, either. But it’s time we changed that. I want justice for William Roanhorse. Whatever his abilities or his motives were, he was victimized by someone. And I won’t let justice go unserved in my jurisdiction.”

  Ellery narrowed her eyes. “That’s nice, but forgive me if I don’t leap to put all my trust in a Typical right off the bat. You Typs are dangerous for Paras. I’d be an idiot if I trusted you blindly.”

  “You would,” Hosteen said, smiling with a wry air. “I won’t deny that. I can give you some other information, too—about myself. Consider it a truce flag, an offering of pure honesty so you know where I’m coming from. So you know I’m holding nothing back from you.”

  Ellery raised her eyebrows, waiting.

  “If I don’t solve this murder, I’m going to be taken off my beat and stuck on the gangs unit. Gang crimes are boring and predictable; I want to stick with the interesting stuff. So my motivations to solve this Changer’s murder—my willingness to risk my reputation on the Rez by working with a Changer in order to get it done—aren’t totally selfless.”

  Ellery drained the last of her coffee from her cup. Hosteen was right: against all odds—absurdly, perhaps—his willingness to expose all of his motives, even the most self-centered one, did… humanize him. She still didn’t trust Hosteen farther than she could throw him. But she trusted him just a little bit more than she did any other Diné.

  “Fine,” she said, setting her mug down on the table with a loud clank. “I’ll help you if I can. For Roanhorse’s sake, not for yours. But we’ll have to work quickly. I’ve got a mystery of my own that needs solving. And anyway, I have to be back to work at the coffee shop in three days. Iced pumpkin spice lattes wait for no one.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ellery pressed herself against the passenger-side door of Hosteen Sikaadii’s pickup truck, feeling the engine rumble through her body, rattling all the grief and exhaustion and fear inside her into a soup of nausea that boiled in her gut. The sun was already bright in a sky still paled by morning, and the air coming in through the truck’s vents smelled thick with heat despite the A.C.

  Coffee the night before had been a terrible idea. Ellery hadn’t slept a wink after returning to her apartment on the north end of Flagstaff, but she doubted she would have slept anyway, even if she hadn’t tried to coffee-chug Hosteen under the table. Texts had trickled in from her friends: no one had seen or heard from Vivi. She was still M.I.A., her bizarre string of messages a mystery that remained unsolved.

  Worry had gnawed at Ellery all night long—not only about Vivi, but about this unexpected return to the Navajo Nation. She’d never had any intention of going back to the place that haunted her—the source of so many dark and painful memories. And she sure as hell didn’t know whether she could really trust Hosteen. The further they went into the vast, red expanse of the reservation, blowing through the small towns along the highway and passing distant homes of sheep ranchers that dotted the scrubland, the warier she felt.

  Hosteen didn’t say much as he drove. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all unless Ellery spoke first. She pried at him with a few questions, learning some of the grim details of Roanhorse’s death, but more often than not she kept her silence and peered at him from the corner of her eye, shielded behind her sunglasses.

  He still wore his black hat, of course—Diné men almost always did. But in daylight his features seemed much softer, the look on his face more dogged and determined than stern or unforgiving, as he had seemed in the alley the night before. His eyes were red-rimmed; evidently he had slept very little, too. At least they had that in common, though it was precious little to make Ellery feel comfortable as his companion.

  Hosteen glanced down at the gauges behind the truck’s wheel, then gave a brief grimace. “I need to get gas. I’ll be quick.”

  He pulled off the highway at a truck stop of sorts, one of those middle-of-nowhere joints that nevertheless managed to attract a startling number of loiterers beneath their towering, dust-streaked signs. This one had a huge white sign, its once-red logo faded to a sickly orange-pink from the merciless onslaught of the sun, and below the logo, the words BURGERS * TACOS * COLD DRINKS were barely legible

  It was a stark reminder that Ellery hadn’t eaten for far too long. As Hosteen began pumping the gas, she eyed the store, wondering if she ought to slip inside and grab a bite. But a few older men and one rough-looking, hard-eyed woman wer
e gathered in the shade of the store’s eaves, talking and sipping on bottles of soda. One of the men caught sight of Ellery in the truck. He turned and murmured something to the others; they all stared at her, and a tension fell over them that Ellery could feel even at a distance. She hunched back in her seat, grateful for her shades, and refused to look at any of them, though she was on high alert for any sign of movement from that direction—anyone who might approach the truck and demand to know what she was doing back here, if she really was Ellery Chee.

  No tacos for me, she decided firmly. And not for the first time that day, she mentally kicked herself for agreeing to return to the Rez. What the hell were you thinking? It had been ten years since she’d left, but ten years wasn’t a very long time in the grand scheme of things. There were still plenty of people in the Navajo Nation who would recognized her on sight.

  But even without the mystery of Roanhorse’s murder, Ellery suspected she would have found herself returning to the Nation sooner or later, in Hosteen’s truck or in her own car. That strange sensation of calling—summoning—still pulled at her, drawing her attention toward the northeast with an insistence she wasn’t sure she could resist for much longer. In fact, the further Hosteen drove along Highway 160, moving steadily northeast, the stronger the pull felt.

  Hosteen went inside the shop to pay for the gas, and Ellery swallowed hard at the sight of him walking away. She was alone in the truck, alone with the stares and whispers of the people leaning against the white-washed cinder block of the shop’s wall. The air in the trucks’ cab had long since grown stuffy, but she didn’t dare crack the window, afraid that if she made any move at all she would attract more attention from the group—or inspire one of them to approach, to start asking questions.

  When she saw Hosteen emerge from the store carrying a paper bag, she sighed in relief. He was back in the truck moments later, handing the bag to her as he started the engine.

  “Food,” he said. “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t eat much since last night. And late-night coffee is pretty hard on the stomach.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ellery dug into the sack and produced a burger wrapped in greasy paper. Truck-stop burgers weren’t exactly fine dining—in fact, they were the lowest form of burger known to mankind. But she was hungry enough that she ate the thing with as much relish as she would have a rib-eye steak.

  At the taste of meat, however substandard, her two animal spirits expressed their approval—Dusty with a shake of her pelt that Ellery could feel rippling all down her skin, and Ghost Owl with a screech she could hear inside her head. She downed half her bottle of Coke in a single swig while Hosteen managed his burger carefully with one hand, never taking his eyes off the road.

  Soon enough the landscape took on a poignantly familiar look, the flat lands over which they drove giving way in the distance to a steady rise of green-flushed pastureland, the fields speckled with the pale-gray forms of sheep. Beyond were the dark ridges and shadowed folds of Black Mesa, the isolated community where Ellery had grown up.

  Hosteen turned off the main highway and found the narrow dirt road that led, Ellery knew, to William Roanhorse’s home. She watched the remembered fields and fences take shape around her, emerging out of the mists of memory and into the present. Finally, several miles from the highway, the domed, red-earth roof of the hogan came into view, almost blending into the land at the foot of the mesa.

  The truck slowed and rolled to a stop in the silent, abandoned yard. Ellery bit her lip as she stared at the hogan. She half-expected to see Roanhorse emerge from the wooden door, but of course that was impossible now.

  “Are you all right?” Hosteen asked quietly.

  “Yeah. I’ll be fine. It’s just strange to be back here after so many years, that’s all.”

  “I’m sorry it’s under such unfortunate circumstances.”

  She turned to look at him. He gave her a half-smile of sympathy that was almost timid. She liked the softness of his eyes, the way they contrasted so startlingly with his hard-carved features and the strength of his face.

  But he was a Typ, after all. And a Diné Typ at that. He was dangerous to Ellery. She knew that for a fact—knew it all too well.

  “Let’s get to it,” she said. She swung the truck’s heavy door open and stepped out into the heat of the flat, barren yard.

  A sluggish breeze blew across the desert, kicking up puffs of dust, whirling them into tiny dust-devils which died down again almost immediately. A few twigs of dead sagebrush tumbled between Ellery and the silent hogan. From somewhere above, in the Black Mesa foothills or in the sky itself, a distant crow called.

  Hosteen stepped up beside her. Her sensitive ears picked up the sound of wind-blown grit striking the crisp fabric of his pressed white shirt, an incongruous choice when paired with his faded jeans. He crossed the yard to the hogan with a business-like stride and pushed its door open, but would go no further.

  Ellery approached. She, too, hesitated on the threshold. Most Diné were reluctant to enter a home where a person had died. It was bad luck, and disrespectful—and even though Ellery had lived ten years away from Diné culture, she realized the old ways were still ingrained in her.

  Roanhorse wouldn’t mind if I entered his home, she told herself. He always welcomed me when I was a kid—when he was alive. He’ll welcome me still.

  With a deep breath to steady her nerves, Ellery went inside. Light from the open door illuminated the interior, exactly as in her memory. And much of Roanhorse’s belongings were still where they had been ten years past, so familiar and homey that fresh tears stung Ellery’s eyes. She blinked hard to clear them away, unwilling to wipe her eyes and betray her sadness to Hosteen.

  She ran her hand over the small, round table with its two wooden chairs, brushed dust off the chests and cabinets that lined the hogan’s circular wall, and contemplated the bed, carefully aligned so that its head faced south, not north, in accordance with tradition. She smiled in spite of her sadness. William Roanhorse had always been deep in the old traditions.

  As her sharp eyes adjusted fully to the dimness inside, she noted the dark stains on the woven rugs that covered the floor. Blood—a lot of blood. What Hosteen had said was true, then. Roanhorse had been killed, and brutally. She had hoped she would find some evidence that it wasn’t so, that Hosteen had been mistaken and the old man had died peacefully at home—or at least naturally, his last moments free from violence and terror.

  “He didn’t deserve this,” Ellery said, staring at the blood-soaked rugs.

  Hosteen shifted on his feet, lingering just outside the door. “I know.”

  “Come in here.”

  He said nothing, but he made no move to enter the hogan.

  “You’ve already been inside once, haven’t you?” Ellery said, more snappishly than she’d intended. “What can it hurt to come in again?”

  Hosteen shrugged. “You’ve got me there.” He ducked his head as he came through the rather low doorway, then turned slowly in a circle, taking in the silent hogan with caution, as if for the first time.

  “The door was barred from the inside when you found him?” Ellery asked.

  “That’s right. Somebody from Black Mesa called us to do a welfare check, as Mr. Roanhorse hadn’t been seen for several days. When we got here, we knew at once that he was deceased, from the… well, we knew.”

  From the smell. Anger rose up in Ellery’s chest, nearly choking off her breath. It was a damn shame that someone as kind-hearted as Roanhorse had been left to rot. But she knew what Hosteen was getting at. Through Dusty’s spirit-nose, she could detect the sweetish, cloying odor of decay still clinging to the inside of the home.

  Ellery closed the door; Hosteen gave a nervous twitch of his shoulders.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I just thought it would be useful to get some idea of what it looked like… for him, I mean.”

  “I understand.”

  She dropped the door’
s cross-beam bolt into place. “No windows,” she said thoughtfully. “So with the door shut and barred, the only way for the killer to get inside was…”

  As one, Ellery and Hosteen lifted their eyes to the domed roof of the hogan—to the smoke-hole at its apex. It was no wider than eighteen inches, far too narrow for even a small-framed man to climb through. And the drop from the roof to the floor was considerable. A human would be just as likely to break their legs jumping down from a smoke-hole as to perform the feat unscathed.

  But it would have been simple for a bird to come through that opening, or for a cat to spring down to the floor unharmed.

  Queasy fear rose in Ellery’s gut; her greasy truck-stop lunch churned dangerously. Dusty and Ghost Owl felt panicked, their animal senses on high alert, their spirits distinctly unsettled.

  “Tell me more about how he died,” Ellery said quietly.

  “We found him lying on his back, just here.” Hosteen pointed to one spot on the floor where the blood stains were the largest. “There were… severe injuries to his neck and deep score-marks in his body. It looked to me as if he had been attacked by a large animal. A mountain lion, if I had to guess. I’ve seen the things mountain lions sometimes do to sheep, and—”

  “Okay,” Ellery said, cutting him off. “That’s enough information.”

  She crossed the room to William’s chests and cabinets and began searching through them, looking for anything that might give her some hint about his death—or perhaps just looking for some way to reconnect to him. She found his clothing, faded, patched, and nearly worn out; she found his black hat with its beaded band the little ukulele he’d tried to teach her how to play when she had been no older than eight or nine. She found cans and boxes of food, some of the packaging nibbled by mice in the days since his death. But nothing that gave her any hint as to who might have killed him.