The Shaman Laughs cm-2

by James D. Doss

  He had lost the dumb grin. "I came by to offer some help."

  "Help… from you?" In spite of her nasty mood, Daisy found this statement unaccountably amusing. She smiled. "Guess there's got to be a first time. Help away."

  Arlo relaxed. He used his boot-tip to shove the crowbar to the edge of the porch, and leaned on the pine railing. It swayed. Daisy wondered if it might break. She imagined this little peacock falling off backward and her grin spread wider.

  He drew a deep breath. Best to get it done. "You heard that the tribal council approved the Economic Development Board's proposal?" Daisy's face was blank. "The plan," he continued, "to get government money to study the feasibility of storing nuclear waste in Spirit Canyon."

  This little apple even sounded like a matukach. Red on the outside. White on the inside. "Gorman told me," she muttered, "you gonna make him move his cows out of the sacred canyon?"

  "Ain't my idea, it's one of them government requirements," Arlo said, "they'll all have to be out in the next couple of weeks."

  "If that garbage is so safe, why can't Gorman keep his stock in the canyon? He gonna get two-headed calves?"

  "It's perfectly safe," Arlo said, "it's just that the feds won't perform a study on any site with animals or people living nearby."

  Daisy felt a sickness deep in her abdomen. "People? There's no people in Canon del Espiritu."

  Arlo removed a three-page memorandum from his coat pocket and held it near Daisy's face. "These are the rules. No domestic animals, no endangered species, no human domiciles within two miles of a proposed storage site."

  She squinted at the tiny print. "What's dom-eye-ciles?"

  "Houses where people live on a regular basis. Like your place."

  "My place?" The sickening sensation became nausea; the old woman backed up against the door for support.

  "Yeah, Daisy, your place. You live too damn close to the canyon site. But don't worry…"

  "Don't worry?" She stared at Arlo's pudgy face in disbelief. "I've lived here for most of my life… Before we had this trailer, my first husband built an adobe, over there…" she pointed a trembling finger at the pitiful ruin, but Arlo ignored her pleas.

  "What I mean, Daisy, this is a real piece of luck. Since you have to move for this deal to stick, the tribe's going to pay for all your moving expenses, and provide you with a new house in that development south of Ignacio. Running water, electricity, cable television…"

  "I got electricity here," she said defiantly, "and I got a fine well with a good Sears-and-Roebuck pump. I could have had one of those cardboard-box houses anytime I wanted it."

  Arlo was determined. "But cable TV, Daisy, real good pictures, even the Movie Channel."

  "Cable TV is for folks who want to watch naked people," Daisy snapped. "I don't need none of that trash." She folded her arms resolutely. "It's a free country. I'm staying put, right here."

  "You got no choice," Arlo said with a dark scowl, "you got to get out and you got three weeks flat. You don't move, I'll send the police out to arrest you."

  Daisy drew herself up to her full height, which was an inch greater than Arlo's. "Listen to this, you poor imitation of a Ute, you're not one of the People, you never have been. I've got a matukach friend that's three times the Ute you'll ever be and he's chief of police until Severo gets back. And you think Charlie Moon is goin' to throw his aunt out of her own house?"

  Arlo opened his mouth to reply, but stammered impo-tently.

  "Listen, you little wart on a pig's belly," Daisy continued, gathering steam, "don't let me see your homely face on this land again or I'll reach down your throat, grab your little ass, and jerk you inside out!" She leaned over stiffly and picked up the crowbar.

  Arlo backed against the railing, the rotten pine gave way with a heavy groan, and Daisy saw the soles of his boots fly upward as he tumbled backward. The man hit the ground with a dull thump; he tried to speak but the breath was knocked from his lungs. When he got up on one knee, he found some of his wind. "You pushed me… tried to kill me, you damned old witch. That's… that's assault." He drew a deep breath and coughed. "I'll have you thrown in jail, you'll never see this dump again…" Daisy was standing on her porch, gripping the crowbar like a baseball bat, muttering weighty curses in archaic Ute.

  Arlo instinctively reached for his sheath knife. This offense was too much for the old woman to bear; she raised Gorman's rusty crowbar over her shoulder. Arlo's eyes widened. "Don't… no…" He managed to get to his feet, backed toward his expensive red automobile, attempting to shield his face with both arms.

  The shaman muttered an old incantation for victory over her enemies, then flung the crowbar at Arlo Nightbird with every ounce of strength in her frail body. There was a scream followed by a sickening crunch as the heavy steel implement impacted. Daisy stood, open-mouthed with surprise as she viewed the startling consequence of her fury. No… no… this was not at all what she had intended. Arlo was finally, for the first time since he learned to speak, at a loss for words. He made no sound, none at all, and this frightened her far more than his threats. Now, she knew, there would be the devil to pay.

  As Daisy considered what she should do next, the rains came.

  Emily Nightbird dialed the number at her husband's Economic Development Board office and waited. Ten rings. Fifteen. No answer. She dialed another number. On the second ring, she heard Herb Ecker's greeting. "Nightbird Insurance," he announced with European formality, "how may we be of service?"

  "It's Emily Nightbird. I'm surprised to find you at work so late."

  "I have considerable paperwork to catch up on."

  Herb had no apparent social life. Arlo thought Herb, who donated hours of free overtime, was a bargain. Emily found him to be somewhat… peculiar. She tried hard to make her inquiry sound casual. "Is my husband there?"

  There was a hesitation before he answered. "No, Mrs. Nightbird. He was here immediately after lunch, then…" No. It was not his place to reveal to this woman where her husband went. Arlo had made that crystal clear the last time he "blabbed." Herb cleared his throat. "I am uncertain precisely where he is… at this moment."

  Emily nibbled at a stubby fingernail. "Did he say when he was coming back? We have a reservation at the Strater in thirty minutes." She immediately regretted this admission.

  "I am sorry," Herb said. "He did not tell me when he would return."

  She said good-bye and slammed the receiver down. Tears welled up in her eyes. Emily clenched her fists. "I will not cry. I will not!" Thirteen years ago, when she had told her parents about her engagement to the richest man in Ignacio, her father had spat into the fire-place and made his warning. Emily remembered his exact words. "I've knowed about Arlo Nightbird since he was a little boy. He's mean as sin and a skirt-chaser and won't make you a good husband." Daddy had been right. Emily dropped her face into her hands and wept.

  The telephone rang. She grabbed it. Before she could speak, Emily heard her father's voice. "Hello, little girl."

  She cleared her throat. "Hello, Daddy."

  "What's wrong? You don't sound-"

  Emily drew a deep breath. "I'm fine."

  "Called to wish you a happy anniversary."

  "That's kind of you." Her voice broke.

  "Let me guess… it's your weddin' anniversary, and the little horse's-ass ain't there, is he?"

  She gripped the telephone with white knuckles. "Daddy, I wish you wouldn't refer to Arlo as a… in that vulgar manner."

  Fidel Sombra chuckled. His daughter had entirely too much of that fancy education. "I's'pose it is an insult to horses everywhere. Put the mule's ass on the line, maybe I'll apologize." Maybe, he thought, I'll ask him if he's picked up the clap from one of his whores.

  "Arlo's not here. I expect him any minute now. We have a reservation at a restaurant in Durango." Emily paused as she heard the doorbell. "Just a minute." She carried the cordless extension to the door. She was disappointed, even irritated to see Cecelia Chavez. Wh
y couldn't people call first if they wanted to visit; drop-ins were such an awful nuisance. The public health nurse appeared to be exhausted.

  "I'm very busy right now," Emily said curtly.

  "It's about the blood drive…" Cecelia was on her way in.

  "Could it wait until tomorrow? I'm speaking to my father on the telephone."

  Cecelia seemed not to have heard; she passed by and dropped her angular figure onto a sturdy couch.

  Emily turned her back on this guest and lowered her voice as she spoke into the telephone receiver. "Cecelia Chavez is here; I expect she wants to give me the blood drive figures. From the expression on her face, we must be short of our goal again this year."

  The old man snorted. "So where is your husband?" Out whoring around, he thought.

  "I don't know where he is." Emily hoped Cecelia couldn't hear the conversation. A few months back, there had been talk. The nurse, the gossip was, had spent a few of her evenings with Arlo Nightbird. "I called Herb Ecker, but he doesn't know where Arlo is. Or won't say."

  "I'll give him a call, and he'll damn well tell me where that worthless bastard is!"

  "You leave Herb alone. I'll be fine." She tried to distract him. "And how are you, Daddy?"

  "Hard as flint, tough as old rawhide."

  "I appreciate your call. Really."

  "I got hogs to feed. I'll come by tomorrow morning." He hung up.

  Emily stared blankly at the telephone and wondered what to do. If Arlo didn't show up soon, she'd call the Strater and cancel the dinner reservations. She turned to the nurse. "Now," Emily asked with pretended cheerfulness, "what can I do for you, Cecelia?"

  As the rain fell in sweeping torrents and the earth trembled under her feet with each deep rumble of thunder, Daisy struggled up the steep path across the talus slope toward her destination on Three Sisters Mesa. There was a sharp crack only yards ahead as a zigzag of lightning snapped the top of a pinon snag. The flash illuminated the concave shelter in the sandstone cliff. She slipped on a wet stone, stumbled to her knees, then pushed herself upright with the stout oak staff. Daisy clung tenaciously to her precious plastic bag. "Another two hundred steps," she wheezed, "and I'll be there, where it's always dry. One step at a time." She raised her staff. "Go away, tona-pagay" the shaman shouted to the lightning, "fly away to your home in the great mountains of the North, do not waste your powers to harm an old woman who," she added with a pitiful tone, "will die soon anyway." Heavy drops pelted the old woman, turning her path into slippery mud, but the lightning paused in its high-step across the mesa.

  Daisy Perika stumbled and slipped and grunted and tripped, but she did not pause. When she finally reached the cliff overhang, it seemed that her pounding heart might stop. The shaman fell on her side by the old brush shelter that she had used for long meditations and special visions. Now that she was safe, the lightning struck once, then twice, along the talus slope, exploding a juniper into splinters. "Thank you, tona-pagay," the shaman gasped, "thank you for giving me time."

  When she could breathe easily, Daisy crawled inside the willow structure and carefully emptied the contents of the plastic shopping bag on the sandy floor. Kitchen matches in a waxed box, a wool blanket, canned peaches, stale lard biscuits-it was all there, and remarkably dry. There was an armload of firewood remaining from her last sojourn in the cliff hideaway; she scraped dry bark from a juniper branch with her thumbnail and lit this tinder with a wooden match. The flames sprinkled her face with dancing flashes of amber light, the warmth on her hands and knees was wonderful. Gradually, Daisy began to feel better and to consider her predicament. If she had stopped after Arlo Night-bird fell off the porch, she would have been safe from the law. But once the crowbar left her hand, everything had changed. When the police came, there would be indisputable evidence of her crime. There would be no way out. She would be sent to jail, never again to see her sweet home at the mouth of Canon del Espiritu.

  The shaman bowed her head and pressed her palms against closed eyes. Nothing good would come of this day's work. Daisy pulled the blanket over her tired body; she immediately fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. A sleep that not even the booming thunder would disturb.

  Jojo Tonompicket paused on the deer path and nodded toward his brother. "Archie… you hear that?"

  The other young Ute leaned on his antique Springfield 30.06 and listened. "Yeah. I bet it's Uncle Homer. He finds us out here with these rifles, there'll be hell to pay and then some." Archie was a born worrier. "He'll take our guns and throw us in jail."

  JoJo nodded. "Yeah, he'd do that sure enough." Homer Tonompicket took his job very seriously. Just a couple of years ago, the tribal game warden had caused comment when he arrested his brother-in-law for keeping two cutthroats over the limit. But then Homer wasn't too fond of his brother-in-law. "Don't sound like Homer's truck," Jojo whispered. He moved behind a juniper and waited until he could see the battered GMC pickup lurching along the rutted lane.

  Archie dropped to one knee and watched. "Comin' out of Canon del Espiritu. Movin' right along, too."

  JoJo grinned. "Faster'n first-class mail." It was five hundred yards, but he recognized the old pickup with the loose tail pipe. "Wonder why old Gorman's haulin' ass in such a big hurry?"

  10

  Scott Parris was drifting through a strange dream. Daisy Perika, who was much younger in this fantasy orchestrated by stressed neurons, had prepared a picnic lunch and packed it in a basket. They walked together, hand in hand, deep into Canon del Espiritu. He spread a red and white checkered oilcloth onto a flat spot under a large cotton-wood by the stream bed. Fat speckled trout darted through the rolling green waters. Daisy opened the basket and displayed its contents with pride; it was rilled with acorns. "Eat one," she said urgently, "and you'll be given the Answer, eat two and you'll understand the Question." Parris desperately wanted to understand these mysteries. He bit into the soft pulp of a plum-sized acorn. It was terribly bitter. "That didn't help," he told Daisy, "I don't understand anything. I don't understand why my wife had to die, why Anne must be so far away." The young version of Daisy laughed and blew him a kiss.

  Parris awoke to the sound of thunder and blinked into the half-light. It took him a moment to realize that this was not his familiar bedroom in Granite Creek. He was in Ignacio, the tricultural city in the center of the patchwork Southern Ute Reservation. On the ground floor of the Sky Ute Motel.

  On a firm mattress, under a heavy orange quilt. He rolled off the bed and pushed the curtains away from the window. He blinked and gazed upward. The crystal blue was gone this morning; the sky was low, sodden, and uncharacteristically gray. Ominously gray. As he watched, a few drops of rains splattered on the cement walkway in the courtyard. The intermittent drops gradually multiplied into a light shower; within seconds a heavy gray rain was falling in vertical sheets. The drops stuck to the window like porridge and seemed to coagulate, as if the rain had turned to blood. This was a bizarre observation; he mustn't be fully awake. He ran his hand through his thinning hair and wondered whether it was raining in Bethesda, where Anne had her apartment. He glanced at his watch; it was two hours later in the District of Columbia; she would have been at work for some time by now. Probably interviewing Very Important People, people who made things happen. Senators. Handsome senators. Rich handsome senators. He wondered if Anne ever wondered about him. And cared about what he was doing. And with whom. As if in mocking answer, thunder rumbled a low, hearty laugh directly over the Sky Ute Motel. He didn't like the sound.

  Parris was brushing his teeth when Moon pounded on the door and boomed out in a voice that reverberated between the walls. "Up and at 'em, partner. Time to do some police work!"

  They were pulling into Angel's gravel parking lot when the dispatcher's voice crackled over the short-wave radio. "Car three-thirty-nine. Charlie?" She waited. "You there Charlie?"

  Moon picked the microphone off the dashboard hook and pressed the key. "What's on your mind, Nancy?"

 
"Just had a call from Emily Nightbird. Wants you to come by and see her."

  "Urgent?"

  "Don't think so," Nancy replied. "She said to come over at eleven."

  "I'll check it out." Moon hung the mike onto its hook.

  "You must be happy," Parris said sarcastically, "this call won't interfere with your breakfast."

  Moon's face wore a puzzled look. "Breakfast can wait. Let's go see what she wants."

  Moon parked the Blazer under the branches of a huge elm and switched off the ignition. He nodded toward a black Honda parked in the broad asphalt driveway. "That belongs to Doc Anderson."

  Parris raised an eyebrow. "He makes house calls?"

  "For the Nightbirds," Moon muttered bitterly, "we all make house calls."

  A uniformed maid opened the door and frowned at the policemen. Moon removed his hat; Parris followed suit. "Emily called," Moon said, "said she wanted to-"

  "Mrs. Nightbird"-the maid emphasized the proper address for her employer-"doesn't expect you until eleven." She waited to see if they would leave. They would not. "Come have a seat in the parlor," she said through thin lips.

  They followed the maid to a room filled with massive Spanish furniture. The couch looked like it would support a Buick. Moon sat; he seemed lost in thought. Parris wandered into the hall and glanced into the library just in time to see the physician withdraw a syringe from Emily's arm. He ducked back into the parlor. "Doctor just gave her a shot" The physician passed in the hall, noticed the policemen, then hurried through the front door without speaking. The maid appeared; with a subtle nod, she indicated that they should follow.

  Emily blinked uncertainly at the policemen. The delicate woman was pressing a piece of cotton against her forearm. "My doctor…just gave me an injection to help me relax. I've not been sleeping well." She glanced at the mother-of-pearl face on the grandfather clock. "I didn't expect you until eleven." Visitors should arrive precisely on time. Early was worse than late.

  Moon looked at the hat in his hands. "Well, we have some other things on our plate, have to stop by when we can." The Ute had no intention of being summoned like a servant.