by Aimée Thurlo
“It is yours for life now,” he said quietly. “Its fate and yours are intertwined. I must caution you that this particular piece has a legend attached to it. The pot is said to have belonged to a Navajo skinwalker, a witch, and some believe it brings trouble. You will either control it, or it will control you.”
Now she understood why the Indian man had been eager to get rid of it. It was obvious he believed the legend. “Thanks for the warning, but I don’t believe in things like that.”
“Whether you believe or not doesn’t make much difference to the spirit world. But I should warn you that others may try to take it from you. Keep it safe and away from curious eyes.”
“It’s valuable, then?”
He nodded slowly. “To some more than others.” Abruptly he smiled. “Or perhaps it’s simply a pottery bowl an old man wanted to give a pretty lady so she’d remember him,” he added, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
Lanie laughed. The old man was a crafty one, all right. He’d woven a tale to pique her interest and make the gift more valuable in her eyes. “I thank you for the gift.”
“Go in beauty,” he said in the way she’d heard the Navajos say goodbye.
Wrapping the bowl in her handkerchief, she placed it carefully into her tote bag and walked to the grocery store. As she strolled past the other stores, Lanie noticed some. of the townspeople watching her, though no one approached her or said anything. When she made eye contact, they quickly glanced away.
As Lanie arrived at the small grocery store, a middleaged Hispanic woman came out from behind the counter. “I’m Rosa Gomez. That peddler sure is an odd one. He comes and goes and always has something interesting to show for his travels. What was it he gave you?”
Lanie unwrapped her bowl and held it out. As she did so, surprisingly she realized that she didn’t really want anyone else handling it. Without making it obvious, she drew the bowl closer to herself, while still making it easy for Rosa to look at.
Rosa looked at the pottery piece with open distrust. She seemed about to make a comment when Gabriel came into the store.
“Hello, Sheriff.” Rosa greeted. “Maybe you better come look at this.” She cocked her head toward the bowl in Lanie’s hand. “I don’t know very much about Native American crafts.”
Gabriel glanced down at the pottery, but made no move to touch the bowL “Where did you get it?” he asked Lanie.
“A gift from the peddler.” she answered, telling them what the man had said about it. As she spoke, another woman came over and joined them.
Lanie fought the urge to wrap the bowl back inside the handkerchief and stow it inside her bag. Though she was at a loss to explain it, the idea of having so many people looking at her gift was making her nervous.
“Rosa, do you have any of those pears I like?” The woman was in her late fifties. Her long denim skirt and loose, short-sleeved top looked stylish and comfortable.
“I’ll get them for you in a minute, Alma. Why don’t you take a closer look at this bowl?”
Alma glanced down at it casually but, as if sensing Lanie’s reluctance, made no move to touch it. “Where did you get it?”
Lanie began to wrap her handkerchief around it. “It’s just a gift from the peddler.”
“Some of those old Navajo pieces sometimes have curses on them. Maybe you shouldn’t have accepted it,” Rosa said.
Alma rolled her eyes. “That’s ridiculous.” She gave Lanie a warm smile. “I’m Alma Wright. You must be our new resident.”
Lanie tried to bite back her annoyance. Being referred to as the new resident was starting to get on her nerves. “I’m just passing through.” she said firmly.
“Are you perhaps interested in a temporary job?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.”
“Oh, good! I could use some help in my shop right now. In this small town, it’s nearly impossible for me to find someone who will come in every morning and work all day. People have their own businesses to tend to. I have one young man who helps out when he can, but he works as a courier for his dad, the mayor, and he’s not available most of the time.”
“Where’s your shop?”
“Right next door. Come in after you’re finished here. I’ll show you around, and we can talk.”
“Thanks. I will.”
As Alma went to pay for her groceries, Lanie glanced at Gabriel. He had moved off and was picking up a small carton of juice from the refrigerated section.
“You didn’t say much.”
He shrugged. “I really don’t know much about pottery. But to be honest, I’m not convinced that bowl is Navajo in origin, let alone a skinwalker’s. It does look old, but that’s about the only thing I can say for sure.” He placed the juice on the counter and reached for his wallet. “I’m going to go find the peddler and introduce myself. If he’s going to do business in my town, it’s time for us to meet.”
Lanie said goodbye to him, then finished her shopping for Marlee. As she stepped out onto the sidewalk, she saw Alma cleaning the glass window of her store, Golden Days Antique Store. Antique crosses, some made of wood and others from red and green glass, filled the display area.
Alma smiled and waved an invitation.
Lanie stepped into the store. Shelves filled with curios, from matchboxes to wooden, hand-carved cookie molds lined the walls. On the counter, however, papers were scattered several inches deep. Photographic equipment had been placed on top of them.
Alma smiled. “As you can see, I can use some help.” She waved a hand around the room. “I’m in the middle of making up new catalogs. That means taking photos of the different pieces I have in here and on consignment around town, then writing descriptions for the catalog copy while I’m taking phone orders and doing the bookkeeping. I can afford to pay five dollars an hour. If you’re interested, you can start tomorrow.”
“When would you need me? I’ve agreed to do housework and run errands for Marlee in exchange for my room, so I’ll have to coordinate it with that.”
“I’m flexible about time, as long as the work for the day gets done. You can shuffle your hours around to suit.”
“That would be perfect. But I should warn you that I don’t know very much about antiques.”
“You’ll learn—I’ve got a lot of reference books here. And who knows, you may end up falling in love with the business like my sister Emily did.”
Lanie found the thought of dealing with objects rather than people or, more to the point, students, comforting. Damaging a piece of furniture or curio by accident could be a great loss, but it couldn’t compare to the responsibility of making a mistake that destroyed a young life. “I’ll be here tomorrow, then.”
“I thought flexible hours would appeal to a free spirit like you,” Alma said with a twinkle in her eye.
“Free spirit?” The assessment surprised her. If there was something she was not, that was it. Not free from memories, or guilt…
“You’re on the road, no ties, traveling from place to place. How else would you describe yourself?” Alma asked.
“Someone who has nothing she can’t afford to lose, and likes it that way,” Lanie answered softly.
“But every once in a while, life forces you to stop and take stock of things, doesn’t it? Maybe this is one of those times. Your stay in Four Winds could be the opportunity to learn new things.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” Lanie replied with a ghost of a smile.
The bell above the shop door rang as a customer entered. “I better get back to work now. You can come in anytime after nine tomorrow, and I’ll get you started.” Alma told Lanie, then turned to see what she could do to make a sale.
Lanie balanced the two grocery sacks carefully as she walked back to the boardinghouse. She was halfway there when she heard her name being called from a passing vehicle.
Gabriel pulled up next to her in his police car. “The peddler seems to have vanished into thin air. I didn’t get a good enough lo
ok at him to make a positive ID. Could you ride along with me while I try to track him down? I want to ask him a few questions. Like where, for instance, he got that bowl he gave you.”
“Why is that important?”
“Some places around here are sacred, and that bowl looked old enough to have come from an archaeological site. I just want to make sure he’s not stealing from any of the tribes.”
“Okay, I’ll come. There’s nothing perishable in these groceries, so they’ll be fine for a while.”
Gabriel helped her load the bags into the Jeep, then held the door for her. “I’ve been asking about this peddler. Everyone knows about him, but nobody really knows him. What they remember most are the things that happened after he left last time he was here.”
“Like what?”
“Two years ago, when the peddler came through, old man Simmons bought a shovel from him. First time he used it digging for fishing worms, Simmons found a man’s body someone had buried decades ago. The body was eventually identified, and the man’s family came to claim him. Turns out they were so grateful to finally find out what happened to their dad that they set up a trust fund for old Simmons.” Gabriel shook his head in disbelief. “The end result is that Simmons doesn’t have to go fishing anymore to get meat on the table. He has steaks shipped in.”
“Well, surely no one thinks the peddler’s shovel had anything to do with what happened.”
He smiled. “If you talk to the old-timers, they’ll tell you the peddler is part of this town’s history. Depending on who you talk to, they’ll even try to convince you he’s this town’s soul. For some reason no one can explain, he stopped coming thirty or so years ago, after years of visits. Then, out of the blue, he showed up again two years ago and sold Simmons that shovel. Now he’s back again. They insist that time hasn’t changed anything, that strange things will always happen after the peddler visits.”
“Oh, please!” she scoffed. “That man was not a creature out of a legend or some kind of spirit. He was just an old man making a living the best way he can.”
“Well, tales do change the more they’re carried, and this might not even be the same fellow. I don’t know how much of it, if any, to believe, but I do want to find this guy. If he’s selling artifacts he dug up someplace he had no business being, then I’ve got to put a stop to it.”
“Something about that bowl really bothers you, doesn’t it? What is it?”
“I don’t know. I just can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s because I’m Navajo, and according to the story he told you, that thing is connected to skinwalkers. That’s not a plus where I come from.”
They headed down the main highway awhile, but found no trace of the peddler or his van. Frustrated, Gabriel drove to a high point and studied the surrounding area. “This doesn’t make any sense. He’s got to be out here somewhere.”
“We can’t really see into the forested area west of here. Maybe he went in there,” Lanie suggested.
“But he would have had to be going eighty, at least, to have made it that far in this short time,” Gabriel countered. “That old van wasn’t built for speed.”
Lanie stared at the way Gabriel’s hand rubbed the steering wheel, his palm running back and forth over the surface. For a moment, she pictured him touching her that way, caressing. She pushed the thought back vehemently. “You have another suggestion?” she answered, annoyed with herself.
“Not at the moment”
“Do you know if it was the same van we saw driving by Marlee’s?”
“I only caught a glimpse, but how many old VWs like that are still around?”
“So, what now? It’s not like the guy has done anything wrong. Couldn’t you just leave him in peace?”
“I suppose so. Let’s go back to town. There’s nothing else we can do now.”
“I know you’ve got questions about the peddler, but there’s something you have to remember. The peddler didn’t sell me the bowl, he gave it to me. If he were stealing from a sacred site, don’t you think he would have tried to make a profit from it to compensate for the risks he’d taken?”
“Yeah, maybe. But my gut instinct tells me that this peddler is trouble. I was a cop in L.A. for five years before coming back to Four Winds. In that time, I learned a lot about people, and there’s something about this guy that’s not right. I can feel it. For one thing, honest folks aren’t this good at disappearing. They don’t get the practice.”
“I’ll tell you one thing about him,” Lanie said, a little annoyed at Gabriel’s pessimistic view of the harmless old man, and focusing on that to stop her mind from wandering down more-dangerous avenues. “That peddler seemed as honest as anyone else I’ve met in Four Winds. Why don’t you cut him a little slack?”
Surprised by her vehement defense of the old man, Gabriel glanced over at her. “Though you’re pretty suspicious of people’s motives, you’re not in the least worried about the peddler’s. How come?”
She considered it for a moment. “It’s my impression of him. If he’s been stealing from sacred sites, he certainly hasn’t been making oodles of money at it. My guess is that he barely gets by. That van of his is at least thirty years old, and his clothes were faded and threadbare.”
Before he could counter that argument, a call came over his radio. This time the dispatcher’s voice came through clearly. “Unit One, this is Home Base. Do you copy?”
“Go ahead, Base.”
“Marlee called from the boardinghouse. Someone’s broken in over there. The intruders might still be inside, so she called in from next door and she’ll wait for you out by the apple tree until you check out the place.”
“I’ll be there. Ten-four.”
“Ten-four. Base out.”
“I thought you said you didn’t have crime here,” Lanie muttered.
“We don’t,” Gabriel answered. “Or at least we didn’t, until now.” He turned off on a side road and slowed the unit to a stop at a bend in the road about three blocks from the boardinghouse. “I’ll drop you off here. You’ll be okay.”
“I’m not getting out. I don’t know Marlee all that well, but she’s been decent to me, and if she’s in trouble, I’d like to be there for her. She might need help.”
From the determined look on her face, Gabriel knew that the only way he’d get her to leave was if he physically forced her out. He didn’t have time for that.
“Suit yourself,” he snapped.
He whipped around the bend in the road and drove up a rutted trail to the rear of the house. Stopping about thirty yards away, behind the cover of some piñons, he left the Jeep, staying low to the ground.
“Stay here,” he whispered.
Lanie strained to see ahead, figuring four eyes were better than two. As she shifted to one side, she spotted a dark shape near a window. Concentrating to. recall the floor plan, she suddenly realized it was her bedroom window. Moving quickly, she left the car and caught up with Gabriel. “Look over there. A man’s standing by my window.”
“I saw him,” Gabriel whispered, then glowered at her. “I thought I told you to stay put”
“I was trying to help—don’t be so ungrateful,” she said defensively. “I wonder what he’s doing there. There’s nothing in my room worth stealing.” The peddler’s warning suddenly rang in Lanie’s mind. She glanced back through the open door of the Jeep at the tote bag she’d left on the seat. “Not yet, anyway.”
Gabriel followed her line of vision. Was the pot already attracting interest in town? His gut feeling that it meant trouble might be turning out to be right. “We’ll look into that angle later. Right now, I’ve got a job to do.”
Lanie walked quietly back to the Jeep, watching Gabriel as he moved toward the boardinghouse. He soon became one with the shadows and disappeared from her view.
Chapter Five
Gabriel crept forward, senses attuned to danger. Years of hunting in the desert had made him a good stalker. But now, memories from another time and
place crowded his mind, taunting his confidence and courage. A woman back in L.A., a shotgun blast, the blood that had poured from her in a never ending stream.
He shook his head, pushing back the thoughts. This wasn’t the time. He had to stay sharp. Things were sure getting weird in Four Winds all of a sudden. First the fire and Lanie, next the peddler with the crazy legacy and now a prowler.
He was about eight yards away from Lanie’s window when he realized the dark shape there wasn’t a person. It was a bulging blue pillowcase that had been snagged by the pyracantha bush beside it.
He kept his back pressed to the house wall as he moved forward, gun drawn. No sounds came from inside the room. He raised his head slowly and peered through the broken window. Lanie’s room was in shambles, but there was no one inside. Even the closet door stood ajar. Whoever had broken in had left in one heck of a hurry, judging by the booty left behind.
Holstering his weapon, he crouched down and studied the ground for tracks. He found some immediately. Two men wearing sneakers, approximately size nine, had gained entry here. Of course, sneakers were a dime a dozen in town, since those were the cheapest shoes Darren Wilson carried in his store.
Gabriel hoisted himself through the window, careful of the glass. Once inside, he searched the house methodically. Satisfied no one was there, he stepped out the front door and looked around. Lanie was standing with Marlee by the apple tree near the fence. Fear was etched on Marlee’s face. Lanie seemed flushed with anger and determination. Full of fire, she seemed even more beautiful than usual.
He signaled them it was safe to approach and watched Lanie help Marlee cross the uneven ground. Lanie continued to be a fascinating puzzle to him. He had initiated a background check on her, but so far hadn’t found out much. As far as he could tell, Lanie had never even been cited for a traffic violation. Yet there was no doubt she was on the run, though evidently not from the law.
“Whoever was here is long gone,” he assured them as they came into the house. “And it looks like only Lanie’s room was disturbed.”
