The Pumpkin Seed Massacre

by Susan Slater

  “I’m going to make it, Ben. I have a chance. The Hantavirus has given me the exposure I’ve needed. I’ve already had a couple calls offering me spots, but I need more time.”

  “So, eventually your plans wouldn’t include getting stuck in a place like Rosebud, South Dakota? Or Pawnee, Oklahoma?”

  Julie shook her head slowly. “You know, I didn’t want to be tempted with a relationship. Not quite yet. You’re timing is terrible.” She laughed, but it sounded halfhearted.

  “Is it too late to go back? Start over? Maybe I could be a real shit?” Ben teased, but found himself thinking again about kissing her.

  “Won’t work. We’re stuck.”

  They stood silently. There didn’t seem a lot more to say, Ben thought. Their careers weren’t exactly compatible. Someone would have to give up something. Sacrifice could come back to haunt a couple. “Oh no, do you believe this? This guy’s ruining my love life.” Ben laughed as Lorenzo hobbled across the gym floor his cane thudding against the polished surface.

  “We must have disturbed him. He was probably taking a nap in the back.” Ben noticed that Julie’s poncho was a little dusty.

  “I think he remembers you.” Ben watched as Lorenzo patted Julie on the arm and pointed to the poncho.

  “Yes. I gave that to you.” She wondered if he was hard of hearing or if she was yelling too loudly. Lorenzo was gesturing toward the door and pulling on Julie’s shirt sleeve.

  “He wants you to go somewhere with him,” Ben said.

  “I think I’ll see what he wants. Come with us?” Julie asked.

  “I’m no fool. I’m not going to let another man walk away with you.” Ben grinned as Julie landed a solid punch on his bicep.

  “His house is just two streets over. I think that’s where he’s going,” Ben said and fell in behind Julie, who was being careful to let Lorenzo lead the way.

  “Yeah. This is it.” Ben and Julie waited outside as Lorenzo went into his room.

  “Do you have any idea what he wants?” Julie asked. “No. But he made it clear he wants us to wait here.”

  Lorenzo appeared in the doorway. The poncho was twisted to one side and flapped up and down as he waved his arms. Garbled sounds were punctuated by a spray of spittle and more arm waving. Finally, he reached into one of the poncho’s deep slant pockets and drew out a bright silver packet. As he turned it back and forth, the sun’s rays bounced reflected light onto the side of the house. Lorenzo laughed and twisted and turned the packet faster making the spots dance. Then abruptly, he pushed the packet toward Julie.

  “He wants you to have it,” Ben said. It’s obviously a treasured possession. “You gave him the poncho; he’ll give something of his back.”

  “What do you think it is?” Julie took the packet and turned it over, then looked inside. “Looks like some kind of elaborate lab envelope. There are seeds stuck in the creases.”

  “Let me see.” Ben took the packet. “Pumpkin seeds. Funny, Sandy was talking about a packet of pumpkin seeds missing from the hospital lab. Wonder if this could be what he’s looking for.”

  Julie turned to Lorenzo and took his hands in hers and thanked him. She didn’t even know how much English he understood, but he seemed pleased with the attention. She straightened the poncho and wiped the spittle from the corners of his mouth with a tissue. He stood still, then reached out and touched a strand of her hair.

  “He likes bright colors,” Ben said. “But, then, so do I.”

  Ben playfully uncoiled a curl and let it spring back into place. “We’d better get those posters up.” Ben folded the foil packet and put it in his pocket. “Don’t let me forget to give this to Sandy.”

  + + +

  “Preston Samuels is holding on one for you.” Gloria stuck her head in the door.

  “Thanks. Pres? Guess you guys are doing a little celebrating out there too?”

  “I want everyone to realize that we had answers in ten weeks. That’s a record. How are you doing getting the word out? Any resistance? Are people taking you seriously about deer mice being the culprits?”

  “The pound in Albuquerque doesn’t have any more cats for adoption. So, some people believe us.” Sandy laughed. “But a lot are skeptical. It would be easier for some to point to a uranium spill.”

  “Easier for us, too. You know, there’s something that still bothers me. We’ve been collecting samples of rodents from across the United States. Places where we know we have carriers for the Hantavirus, and this strain that attacks the lungs appears to be completely isolated. It has only occurred in the Tewa Pueblo in New Mexico.”

  “Any thoughts on why it’s localized?” Sandy asked.

  “Not so far. The satellite imagery data is being compared to past aerial weather photographs and, other than an unusually lush vegetative growth the last few years, we’re not seeing anything out of sync. Of course, when the desert overproduces, so do the rodents.”

  “How close are you to a vaccine?”

  “Hey, we set a record in solving this one; now you want a preventive in another couple weeks? There’s never any thanks.”

  Pres chuckled. “Actually, two researchers at the UNM medical school are pretty close. I’d expect to hear something within a month. They hope to begin testing a vaccine late this fall.”

  Sandy sat musing after Pres had hung up. There were still a lot of unknowns. At least Ribavirin, an antiviral drug, had worked on the last three suspected victims. There were three people recuperating upstairs right now who probably wouldn’t be around without ventilators and Ribavirin.

  “Ben Pecos is here.” Gloria stood in the doorway, her arms filled with troll dolls.

  “What are you going to do with those?” Sandy asked

  “Decorations for the bake sale. My daughter’s collection. Be sure to buy something before you leave. We have lots of oven bread. The money goes to the Tenorio family.”

  Sandy nodded as Ben stepped into the room.

  “Is this the packet of pumpkin seeds that was lost?”

  Sandy took the foil packet and looked inside. “Where’d you get this?”

  “Tewa. Lorenzo Loretto had it. You know Lorenzo?”

  “Everyone knows him. And he could have gotten it anywhere; we’ll never know.”

  “I take it this isn’t the one you lost?” Ben asked.

  “No. But it’s an odd packet. Definitely from a lab. Let’s get this out back. Let the experts tell us what it is.”

  Nancy met them at the door. Sucking up, Ben thought, as she gushed on about how wonderful it was to have them stop by and was there anything that she could do for them. She probably was still beating herself up over losing the first packet. Ben looked over the shoulder of a tech who was getting a package from the stand-up freezer. The results of Ben’s trapping were stacked small body to small body, alternating head to toe. Crammed without airspace between, they filled the entire seven foot tall unit. Thousands of cubic inches of dead rodents. Amazing, and all in the name of science, Ben thought. He was beginning to feel sorry for the little guys.

  “You’re right. This is a foil lab pouch. A new type, expensive, not seen very often.” Nancy was turning it over in her hands. “Tell me again where you found it.”

  “An old gentleman in the Tewa Pueblo had it stashed.” Ben stepped over to where Sandy and Nancy were standing. “We call him the packrat. He’s probably close to a hundred by now. Used to be a joke about checking with Lorenzo if you were missing something shiny.”

  “There are pumpkin seeds inside,” Sandy said.

  Nancy opened the bag and carefully dumped the four seeds into a glass dish. “Are you thinking that these came from the same place that the others did?”

  “Could be,” Sandy said. “If my suspicion about dried rodent droppings also being virus carriers is right, this is our first proof.”

  “It seems odd to find seeds in a lab pouch,” Nancy said.

  “Probably not if you knew Lorenzo. How long until you’ll be able
to tell us something about them?” Sandy asked.

  “Give me a couple days, but I’ll start this afternoon.”

  Good answer, Ben thought. Nancy needed to regain some points lost.

  + + +

  Sandy’s office phone rang once, twice; on the third ring he picked it up. Where was Gloria? Probably another bake sale like yesterday, and she was down the hall arranging troll dolls.

  “Black here.”

  “Dr. Black, could you please come out to the lab right away?”

  “Nancy, what’s wrong?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. We need to meet. Please. This is very important.”

  “I’ll be right there.” Odd, Sandy thought. She sounded genuinely upset. Certainly seemed overly secretive, couldn’t talk over the phone, and needed him to come out back. He pulled on a sweater and left a note for Gloria.

  “Thank you for coming so soon.” Nancy looked distraught. “I’ve discovered something that I think you ought to know about.”

  “What’s that?” Sandy noticed her usually robust skin color was a pasty yellow. Was she ill? He watched her take a deep breath before beginning.

  “I’ve discovered evidence ... let me preface this by saying that there is every indication ...”

  Just like the scientist, don’t take any chances and make unfounded accusations, Sandy thought.

  “... that the seeds found in the packet that you left with me yesterday have been tampered with.”

  “Tampered with?”

  Nancy nodded. “All of the seeds exhibit a microscopic hole at the base of the outer coating. This has permitted someone to inject the contents, in this case the kernel, with a foreign substance.”

  “Do you have any idea what the substance might be?”

  “I need your permission to send the packet and contents to Atlanta, but …” Nancy seemed reluctant to continue.

  “You have my permission.” Sandy waited for her to go on. She was twisting a silver ring on her finger but seemed oblivious to her actions.

  “I know how this is going to sound. And I don’t want to upset you unnecessarily ...”

  “Nancy, what is it, for God’s sake?” Sandy was beginning to lose patience.

  “What if I told you that I thought the Hantavirus might have been planted?” Nancy blurted out.

  “Man-made.” It was more of a statement than a question. Sandy stood looking at Nancy. “Are you sure?”

  “I guess I’ll go out on a limb and say eighty percent sure. I need the lab in Atlanta to take a look at what I’ve got.”

  “We’re talking mass murder.”

  “We’re talking very sophisticated, very specialized knowledge and abilities.”

  “Who would be able to ... ?” Sandy couldn’t finish. Why would someone want to kill people in the pueblo? Maybe it was a random thing, like the Tylenol tampering. No. There was the lab packet. The seeds were not in any kind of purchased wrapping.

  “The person who did this knows infectious diseases, has done research, knows the viral killers,” Nancy said.

  “Are you suggesting a rogue epidemiologist?” Sandy was immediately sorry he had tried to be funny, but maybe that was the truth, someone disappointed about something.

  “What should we do?”

  “Follow through with sending the evidence and the results of your findings to Atlanta. We’ll hold off alerting the federal authorities until the CDC confirms our suspicions,” Sandy said.

  “I’ll call ahead and get everything off this afternoon, overnight delivery.”

  “Good. I don’t have to tell you to keep this information confined to the lab. We can’t be premature in making any announcements. There are too many people who want to believe there’s a cause they can point a finger at.”

  “I understand.”

  “And, Nancy, thanks for the good work.”

  + + +

  Lorenzo Loretto shuffled along the road in front of the Mission church, his moccasins sending up small puffs of dust. He paused, then continued toward the river. Stalks of corn towered above his head and made the road seem more like a green tunnel than an artery connecting the village with the flat fertile acres along the river. Harvest time. Water stood in the fields—one of the last thorough soakings of irrigation before the land would be dried so people and tractors could reap this crop and prepare for the next year.

  Lorenzo watched the lazy spinning of delicate dragonflies that skimmed the water at the edge of the field, their transparent wings fastened to iridescent blue bodies. In contrast, fat, yellow-bodied grasshoppers were everywhere. They made the leaves on the corn stalks bend and bounce as they sailed from one plant to another. There were already large half circles chewed from many of the leaves.

  The dirt road led to the river’s edge. Lorenzo could no longer hear the rapids, but sometimes when he was in his room the river would come to his head and roar in his ears like a flood. He stood on the bank and leaned his cane against a rock. He could see silver minnows bunched together, swimming as one along the shallows.

  He was tired. He would rest before walking upriver to go to the store by the highway. He didn’t need to look long for a place to nap. The four foot thick trunk of the old cottonwood formed a V with its gnarled roots that would cradle his body and help trap his warmth, which could be stolen by the wind as he slept. He pulled out long tufts of river grass and lined his bed.

  + + +

  Johnson Yepa had more to do than meet with Bob Crenshaw. But when he had gotten to the office that morning, Mary had given him a message that Bob would be there around eleven. He thought of saying he was sick. Things weren’t going too well. He didn’t know what Bob wanted, but he thought it probably wasn’t good. Bob was one of the investors—part of Anderson and Anderson investment team—he knew that much, and when he’d called Douglas Anderson to say he didn’t have time to show Bob around Douglas cut him off, said he better make time if he knew what was good for him.

  It had been two weeks since he’d been to the Butte to spend time on The Dream Catcher. He had hoped to go down to Elephant Butte that afternoon and scout the surroundings, maybe spend the night. What good was a dream come true if you never got to enjoy it? He reached in his pocket for the roll of Rolaids and chewed two, then swallowed hard. He hated the chalky taste that would coat his teeth.

  He couldn’t get away even if he wanted to. A group of representatives from Title I was coming at nine-thirty. They wanted a tour of the classrooms at the BIA school and the Mission school. He’d ask Mary to take them, but first they would want to meet with him. He hated the meetings. He had to pay attention. And he had to wear a business suit with a white cotton shirt that choked his neck. If he bought a shirt with a comfortable neck, the cuffs would creep out from his coat sleeves and dwarf his wrists finally stopping at his knuckles. He’d asked his wife to shorten the sleeves but then they had been uneven; one side crept out, one side remained neat, outlining the edge of the coat sleeve with white just like the pictures in magazines. He wanted both sides to be perfect. His wife said there was a store in Albuquerque where short men could go to find their size. He ignored her and decided to wear a vest and roll up his sleeves.

  The Title I people were on time. The meeting took under an hour. They needed to know that federal monies were being spent correctly and they huddled with the project bookkeeper after they met with Johnson. Everything was in order; everyone was pleased. Afterward, Mary took them to visit the pueblo schools. Johnson had walked them to the edge of the parking lot.

  He was just thinking of going to his house to change the white shirt when he heard the motorcycle of Bob Crenshaw roar up the highway. Johnson could understand that. A man who liked machines. Big ones. Johnson watched the Harley leave the highway and spin ever so slightly on the gravel incline before Bob goosed it and set it down on a dime right in front of him. Johnson was impressed. Maybe he should get a bike instead of the Cadillac.

  “Okay if I leave the bike here?” B
ob asked.

  “Sure.” Johnson watched as he stepped off and tilted the heavy bike onto the stand. It looked even bigger when it was right in front of you, Johnson thought. He liked the way the handle bars curved back with a little flare at the rubber guards on the end. Black leather saddle bags fit neatly behind the rider. These had fringe and silver concho buttons to hide the ordinary snaps. Chrome pipes gleamed and distorted the reflection of Bob’s legs.

  “Nice,” Johnson said.

  “Thanks. I’d like to walk down by the casino site. We’re better off talking outdoors. I thought you might want to share with me how the seeds got away from the governor.”

  Johnson looked at the ground. He had been right. This wasn’t going to be a good meeting. Then Johnson said something he wished he hadn’t.

  “I’m going to take care of the witching.” He sort of blurted it out. But he was going to have the curse lifted. That part was the truth. Johnson waited. It wasn’t that Bob reacted immediately; he didn’t. But the way he walked ahead of Johnson, his back stiff, hands thrust into pockets, he knew. Dumb. Anglos didn’t believe in that sort of thing. He’d have to be careful. Maybe, if he talked about the bike. Then, again, maybe he’d just wait to find out what Bob had on his mind.

  They walked in silence until they came to the mounds of dirt along the partially leveled road. The now silent roller machine tilted slightly toward the ditch after rain had softened its footing. The foreman had said he’d be back to get it out of there, but it hadn’t been touched. Maybe he was afraid after that man had died. It could have evil spirits around it.

  The new construction crew just worked around it. And, as always, Johnson’s heart jumped when he saw the progress, saw the framed walls, the asphalt spread black and smooth. About a dozen framers were crawling over joists, pulling 2x4s up ladders. Then he noticed the trees. The transplanted saplings at the edge of the drive were wilted, their branches withered and brown. That wasn’t a good sign, Johnson thought. That could mean the spirits were displeased. He cleared his throat. He wanted to get this over with.