The Pumpkin Seed Massacre

by Susan Slater

  “Can I use your office?” Sandy had already moved toward an open door to his right.

  “Sure. I’m going to finish up a couple things. Let me know when I need to go to work on your guy here.”

  Sandy closed the door and dialed the number in Atlanta.

  “Pres, glad I caught you. We’ve had our first death in the under sixty category, a construction worker.”

  “Indian man?”

  “No, an Hispanic working a crew in the pueblo.”

  “Same symptoms?”

  “Exactly. Pres, if this is something new—a totally new virus—not on the books anywhere, what kind of time frame are we looking at from isolation to eradication?”

  “Between you and me, months. Four to six maybe. It took five to track down Legionnaires. Things haven’t changed that much when we’re working from scratch.”

  “Damn. I just remembered; the feast day is Monday.”

  “A feast day?”

  “Yeah. About five hundred or so tourists and the curious will be swarming all over Tewa to watch the dances and eat.”

  “Bad timing.” Pres gave a low whistle. “I think based on the autopsy of the construction worker, you should talk the media into getting the word out. Do you have a contact? Someone you can trust to report accurately and not exploit the situation? It’s pretty sensational stuff.”

  “There is someone. A young woman from one of the TV stations. Her reporting so far has been sympathetic. She’s working with my intern in Tewa ... she’s been careful not to step on toes so far.”

  “She sounds perfect. Keep me updated. I’ll assign whatever you send me top priority.”

  Sandy continued to hold the phone after Pres had hung up. What should he do? His intuition said an all out warning, a media blitz. But was that wise? The state would lose. The pueblo would lose. But the deaths couldn’t be ignored. He dialed the TV station and asked for Julie Conlin.

  + + +

  Julie set up a live interview with Dr. Black for that evening on the ten o’clock news. Bob Crenshaw had been reluctant at first, but after reading the Tribune’s latest headline: “Are We Safe Here? Strange deaths leave pueblo’s residents bewildered,” he sanctioned the plan and only asked that she run the script by him before air-time.

  Julie worked on a set of questions before meeting with Dr. Black at eight-thirty. The station was at its usual frenzied best when he arrived so they met in Bob’s office where they wouldn’t be disturbed. Dr. Black seemed ill at ease in all the hustle, but Bob’s welcome had been effusive and almost genuine. Within two minutes formalities were dropped and everyone was on a first name basis. Bob asked to sit in on their discussion, which rankled, but was probably due to her inexperience, she concluded.

  “So, what’s the tactic? How are you going to inform the audience without needlessly scaring them?” Bob leaned back in his desk chair arms behind his head.

  Julie ignored the “needlessly.” There was every possibility that a good scare might be in order.

  “I want Sandy to remind people of recent cases of unknown infectious killers. The examples need to be fairly current, nothing too much over ten years old. Let’s start with the ‘strep’ bacteria that killed Jim Henson in 1990.” Julie stopped to make a note on her legal pad before resuming her pacing back and forth in front of his desk. “And then move to the E. coli that killed those kids in the Pacific Northwest—tainted hamburgers from Jack-in-the-Box.”

  “I like that idea,” Sandy said.

  “Do you think we should do something stronger, maybe suggest that people stay away from this particular feast day?” Julie paused in front of Bob but looked at Sandy.

  “No. I’m adamant on that one. The evidence is still inconclusive and I don’t want to go out on a limb with the station taking some inflammatory position,” Bob interjected.

  “For what it’s worth, my gut-level feeling is that we’re just nosing around the tip of the proverbial iceberg,” Sandy said.

  “Listen, all due respect, Doc, but I think you’re way off base. All you research types would like to see your specialty get some press. Means more money, doesn’t it? Maybe time off for research?”

  Julie thought of interrupting to say that a clinical director was in a little different position, but didn’t. She couldn’t be adversarial. Maybe if she joined forces.

  “I agree with Sandy.” Julie pulled up a chair and sat across from Sandy at the conference table. “I don’t think we can rely on viewers reaching the conclusion we want them to. Good journalism doesn’t just lead them by the hand, it gives them some conclusions, too.”

  “Hey, kiddo, read my lips. I don’t want to jeopardize the station’s credibility.”

  “Okay.” Chalk up a loss, Julie thought. “I just don’t want a rehashing of Legionnaires, or Toxic Shock or AIDS. What we tell them has to be current and has to be thought-provoking.” Something they’ll perceive as a warning, she thought.

  “I agree,” Sandy said. “I think I should warn people not to be complacent. We thought we had won the war against infectious diseases in the 1950s but twenty years later, all hell broke loose. There’s even been a resurgence of tuberculosis.”

  “What does the latest research indicate?” Julie asked.

  “The National Academy of Sciences has identified over fifty emerging infectious agents. It seems that disease begins to spread when man intrudes into nature.”

  “What do you think?” Julie turned to Bob. “Is this more like what you had in mind?”

  “I want you to stress that the disease doesn’t appear to be highly contagious. Six old people and this construction worker; yet, no members of their families or any of the health workers have gotten sick. Wouldn’t you say it’s safe to conclude that the public isn’t in danger?”

  “So far that would seem true. I would probably have to admit that I have no evidence that anyone attending a dance in the pueblo would truly be at risk,” Sandy said.

  “See? If we can’t trust the good doctor, who can we trust?” Bob looked at Julie like he expected her to protest.

  “But it doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a problem. All of the victims had the pueblo in common. It’s not an excuse for being careless,” Sandy said. “The CDC is taking this seriously.”

  “What are they doing?” Bob asked.

  “We sent a number of samples of blood and tissue off this afternoon. They’ll dedicate a team of twenty to sixty technicians to solving this mystery. That’s not to say we won’t get bumped by something bigger. But we have their attention on this one so far.”

  “When will you hear something?” Bob asked.

  “Difficult to say, but maybe by mid-week.”

  “Can you think of anything else?” Julie asked Bob and hoped there was no trace of sarcasm.

  “No. That should do it.”

  After a quick stop at makeup, Julie took Sandy to one of the sound technicians to be wired with a portable mike.

  “Nervous?” she asked.

  “A little.” He grinned. ‘This is outside my job description.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  A man in the control booth motioned for them to stand by. Julie checked Sandy’s mike and pointed out where they would be sitting. They would go on after the weather about twenty minutes into the broadcast. Julie hoped their viewers got the message to be careful.

  The pudgy weatherman fumbled with his mike. What an idiot. Thought he was funny, too, Julie mused. Finally, he unsnapped the lapel mike and twirled it around by the cord a couple times faking a can-can dance. Then pushed his glasses in place with his middle finger. Hadn’t someone talked to him about that? How it looked like he was giving the bird to a couple hundred thousand viewers? Once a nerd, always a nerd.

  She nudged Sandy and mouthed, “We’re next.” His smile was confident. He would do well. The viewing audience would be able to make an intelligent decision about attending the feast day.

  + + +

  There had been a break in the dancing
before lunchtime and Johnson had gone back to his house to rest. The mid-August sun sapped his strength and dancing used muscles he didn’t know he had. He stretched out on the spare bed in his wife’s sewing room after he spread a towel to keep the ceremonial paint on his body from staining the quilt. He opened the window and remembered the screen was off as three bright green bottle flies buzzed past him.

  He dozed, awoke once to check the time, saw that he had another hour and settled down to sleep away his tired leg muscles. Johnson slept fitfully. First, he dreamed that the old governor was performing in a carnival, pulling coins from behind the ears of delighted children who squealed for more. The governor would grin, then hand a piece of gum, lollipop, or jawbreaker to each small member of his audience. The sunbaked skin around his eyes crinkled into deeply etched lines. He laughed often but then suddenly stopped and shook his finger at Johnson. And then Johnson saw himself—he was one of the children clamoring for candy, begging the governor to make more money appear from their ears, or nose, or the corners of their eyes.

  Johnson sat up and swallowed hard, then blinked to make the image of the old man go away. It had been so lifelike. How many times had he watched the governor entertain small guests? He’d always had time for youngsters.

  The curtains had been sucked out the window with the breeze but that wasn’t the sound that roused him. No, it had been something else. He lay perfectly still and listened. He strained to hear the sound again and hoped it was his imagination. All was quiet in the house. In the distance, the drums could be heard and the shouts of children playing along the irrigation ditch. He heard cars turn down his street, then back up when they couldn’t find parking spots. He didn’t move a muscle but continued to separate and categorize the sounds around him.

  Then, it was there again. The tiny pings of pebbles as they danced across his roof. The staccato taps of someone wanting to do him harm. The work of a witch. Johnson broke out in a sweat. This wasn’t the first time he had been under a spell. Two years ago it had cost him five hundred dollars to get rid of a recurring cold sore on his upper lip. It was best to act quickly when someone wished you evil.

  The taps had stopped for a minute before starting somewhere by the front porch and continuing back toward the sewing room. His heart beat faster, and he found it difficult to breathe evenly. Then, just as suddenly as they had started, they stopped. He waited a long time before getting up.

  He looked out the windows of the sewing room, the bathroom, the kitchen and living room. No one was in sight. Then he opened the front door, caught his breath and fell backwards against the doorjamb. There in front of the door in a neat row, evenly spaced, were five round glistening balls of obsidian. The witches’ tools. He shut the door. He had to get out of his house.

  He and his wife seldom used the back door. He had backed the power mower into the wooden steps that leaned precariously against the house and for three years had somehow forgotten to fix them. Today he wouldn’t mind the two-foot jump. He tucked the two boughs of ceremonial evergreen into his armband and threw open the back door. He saw them as he prepared to leap, leg in the air. Five shiny black pebbles that matched the ones on his front porch—or were they the same ones? He panicked. He had to get out. He could feel the spell surrounding him, making his breath come in short gasps. He had a weight on his head that pulled at the circle of feathers attached at the crown and made his ears tingle and go numb.

  He rushed to the sewing room, knocking over an end table full of magazines. He pushed a trunk under the window and clambering up, threw a leg over the window sill and looked at the ground below. Nothing. Sand and dirt, and that was it.

  The white buckskin skirt of his costume caught on the casing and held him until he pulled it free. Then he tumbled forward and hit the ground with a thud.

  Something hurt; he ignored it and struggled to his feet. He brushed the dirt from his costume and his arms and legs and then inspected the leather kilt-like skirt. Not too much damage done. But the red ocher paint on his chest and back had run down to stain the top of the white buckskin around his waist. His wife knew how to get the stains out. It would be all right. He was breathing easier now.

  Someone was parallel parking a car between two others in front of his house—all had their wheels on Johnson’s lawn. Maybe if he put in curbing the cars would stay in the street. Johnson would have to think about that. But, for now, he had to get back to the dances.

  + + +

  The smells assaulted Ben’s senses; corndogs, tamales, tortillas, fry bread, dust, and car exhaust mixed with the heat and drifted over the crowd. As usual, about a thousand visitors lined the plaza; the summer feasts or corn dances were always popular. It was a common sight to him, but Julie couldn’t get enough of the carnival atmosphere. It had been a good idea to ask her to come. He’d forgotten what fun it was to share the dances with someone who had never seen them before.

  Vendors were everywhere. Trays of silver and turquoise jewelry covered tables, shaded by bright umbrellas filling the already crowded streets. Julie paused to hold up a pair of stamped sterling conchos to her ears and squinted into a mirror tacked to the pole that held the sunshade.

  As they made their way to the plaza, they skirted a merry-go-round of molded plastic rabbits, turtles, and skunks carrying squealing preschoolers. Souvenir t-shirts fluttered in the breeze. Trash barrels overflowed with melon rind, corn cobs, and the usual assortment of paper plates and cups. They slipped into the crowd at the west end of the plaza and worked their way forward for a better view. Julie stood on tiptoe to see over the rows of people in front of her.

  The dancers seemed oblivious—to the crowd, the heat, the noise; they turned and swayed, placing moccasined feet in precision steps to the beat of the drums. Only the streaks of sweat across chests and running down arms belied their susceptibility to the heat of the breezeless day. Some women were barefoot with nothing to cushion the jolt of hitting the hard hot clay of the plaza’s flooring.

  “Look. Something happened to one of the dancers.” Julie was pointing to a group of men almost in front of them. Ben pushed through the crowd and saw Twila Runningfox kneeling beside a fallen dancer. “Heat exhaustion, I think,” Twila said. “We need to get him inside.”

  Ben helped the man struggle to his feet. “His aunt lives two streets over,” she said.

  The man leaned heavily against Ben and seemed dazed as they walked slowly away from the plaza. Julie fell in behind and walked with Twila. Parked cars and vendors’ booths slowed their progress. Pueblos might have to close their dances to the public eventually, Ben thought. No one could have anticipated their popularity or the Anglo’s insatiable curiosity. A group of tourists pushed past them, then stopped to peer into the windows of a house.

  “We’re here.” Twila opened the back door and Ben half carried the man through the kitchen where two Indian women were arranging thick slices of ham on a Melmac platter. They dried their hands quickly on paper towels and talked excitedly in Tewa while directing the group through the arched doorway and into the living room.

  The man slumped onto a sagging sofa and sat with his head in his hands. One woman brought him a glass of water while another threw a light shawl around his shoulders. Twila sat beside him, first checking his pulse and then feeling his forehead. She was asking one of the woman some questions and writing down her answers in a pocket-sized notebook.

  “Chills.” Twila was standing now and the word with its dreaded implications seemed to hang in the air. “I’d like to get him into Albuquerque. I don’t think we should take any chances.”

  “I’ll get the paramedics and the clinic van and call IHS. Can you follow us?” Ben asked Julie.

  + + +

  It was late in the afternoon by the time Ben reached the hospital in Albuquerque. Julie waited for him in the reception area as he briefed Sandy. Peter Tenorio was a long-distance runner famous in New Mexico for conquering La Luz Trail in the Sandias—running the trail up and back in the fastest t
ime ever recorded. And now he was fighting for his life. A twenty-eight year old man fit and in his prime—it didn’t make sense.

  “Do you need to get back right away?” Julie asked.

  “I probably should. I need to meet with the family. I can catch a ride with the paramedics.”

  “I don’t mind driving back.” Julie smiled and took his hand and they walked back out to the parking lot.

  He was a little cramped in Julie’s Miata but didn’t notice the discomfort as she drew him out, encouraged him to talk about his family and his future. It was a friend he was sharing things with, not a reporter. He learned about Wayne, and the promise made by her boss that dangled the prize of becoming an anchor-woman under her nose, and the mom and dad in Phoenix who liked to get involved every once in awhile—whether they were invited or not.

  He watched the way the setting sun turned her hair to copper-gold and warmed her hazel eyes. He stretched and left an arm along the back of the bucket seat and felt her hair brush against his skin. She smelled fresh, a breeze carrying rain. For all the heat of the day, she looked crisp—not that that was really the way he’d describe her, but crisp wasn’t wrong.

  He talked about his mother and the story-teller and promised to show her the piece of pottery. Julie was interested in his heritage—in him. Ever so slightly, she squared her shoulders so that bare skin touched his arm. He fought back thoughts of the two of them naked, standing pressed together before he explored her body with fingers, tongue ...

  “Is this it?” Julie had turned down a dirt road lined with adobe houses. A little help with directions and she pulled up in front of his grandmother’s house. There were fewer cars than earlier but the road was still clogged in places. A Feast was a long, full-day event.