Books by Linda Conrad

by Conrad, Linda

  “Did the elder say why he wanted me to think of it?”

  Tory shook her head. “He seemed very concerned that you should remember that particular plant, though.”

  Shirley looked puzzled but turned and kept on climbing. “This stream flows year-round,” she said after a few minutes of quiet. “And another couple of hundred feet up this canyon we will encounter a pleasant surprise.”

  The stream had already been a nice surprise as far as Tory was concerned. But while she kept up the pace behind Shirley, she spotted more and more plants growing beside the stream. Tory glanced ahead to where the canyon floor grew wider and spied what looked like a full-size pine tree.

  “A pond?” Tory asked when she came close enough to see the crystal water surrounded by a few ponderosa pines.

  “A mountain pool,” Shirley answered. “But what we seek is farther upstream.”

  They passed the clear pool and Tory had a great deal of difficulty not jumping in. It looked so inviting. But then plants were growing everywhere beside the stream, and Shirley named each one as they walked by.

  Moss and monkeyflowers lined the water as the canyon walls narrowed again and the spires of the cliffs rose higher above them, blocking out the sun. Finally, in one of the darkest crevices ahead Tory spotted a couple of tall, bushy plants with tiny white flowers and long, tangled roots.

  “Oh,” Shirley said with a groan that sounded like dismay. She came to an abrupt halt and put her hands on her hips.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Many of the plants have moved on.” Shirley walked upstream a little more. “Look, here. The Plant Clan did not go on its own. Someone has dug up most of them. And whoever it was, they weren’t careful how they went about taking them, either.” Shirley knelt to check the ground around the deep holes, where something had obviously been removed.

  Tory could tell that Shirley was shocked and upset. In fact, she’d never seen the woman so disturbed before.

  “Do you think a hataalii came up here and took them without letting you know? Or maybe it was an animal on a digging rampage or something?” Tory was searching for answers that would calm the woman.

  Shirley just kept shaking her head. “It’s crazy. There’s no reason anyone…”

  Just then, from high above their heads, a long, desolate-sounding cry from a wild animal filled the canyon with echoes. Tory jumped nearly a foot in the air and when she came to earth, her adrenaline was pumping and she was ready to run for it.

  “What the heck was that?”

  Shirley stood, looked up and searched the rim of the canyon. “Look,” she said with a deep frown.

  Tory lifted her head and stared up to where the older woman pointed. All of a sudden, one of the shadows actually moved and a pair of tall pointed ears came into view.

  “It’s a coyote, or a wolf, isn’t it?” Tory stuttered.

  “Look closer,” Shirley told her.

  After she’d swallowed back a spike of fear, Tory looked up again. This time, it was easier to see that the ears were attached to some kind of furry mask. It wasn’t a real animal at all, but a man, standing about six feet tall and in disguise as a giant wolf.

  Instead of being soothed by the knowledge that they weren’t been stalked by a wild beast, Tory’s sense of danger increased tenfold. “We have to get out of here.” She grabbed Shirley’s arm, turned and marched in double time downhill past the pool and lower on downward beside the creekbed.

  “We cannot leave the Plant Clan,” Shirley muttered as Tory dragged her along.

  “Yes, we can. Someone wants us to leave and we’re going—now.”

  For thirty minutes she pulled the older woman behind her as they traveled backwards the way they’d come. They moved beyond where they’d first seen the water in the creek. Then they climbed back down the shale footholds along the dry drainage bed.

  Finally, sweating profusely and breathing heavily, the two of them arrived back where they had left Ben’s SUV. Tory was a little hesitant to go near the vehicle. But after she’d checked it over and found it still locked and seeming the same as when they’d left, she hurried Shirley inside.

  She locked the doors behind them, cranked the key in the ignition and let the air-conditioning blast them with heat-relieving chilled air. “I don’t think anyone followed us. We should be okay now.”

  “We need to go back up there,” Shirley muttered. “Someone is stealing the Plant Clan and we have to stop them.”

  “Uh, I don’t think so. We’ll let the tribal police handle it. That guy looked deadly serious to me.”

  Shirley shook her head, buckled her seat belt and folded her arms over her chest.

  “I have an idea.” Tory dug under the seat for her carryall and pulled out the cell phone Ben had given her. “This is exactly the sort of time when I’m supposed to make a call to the Brotherhood.”

  “Yes,” Shirley said with a nod of approval. “Something unnatural is happening here. This is information the Brotherhood will need.”

  Ben’s eyesight was gone again by the time he and Hunter had driven up the canyon where Tory and Shirley were still parked in his SUV. It had taken so long to reach them that his every nerve ending was on edge.

  He’d made Tory stay on the phone talking to him for the last half hour while he’d urged Hunter to race here. His heart pounded wildly, though several other members of the Brotherhood had arrived at least fifteen minutes ago, and he’d been assured that she and Shirley were fine. It had still soothed him to hear her voice over the phone.

  The two women should never have been allowed to go out unescorted, he chided himself. Even in the daylight. What the hell had he been thinking?

  He was out the door of Hunter’s SUV before it came to a complete stop. Needing to touch Tory, he wanted to make sure by the static electricity they always shared whenever they came together that she was okay.

  “Ben, you’re not seeing again.” Tory’s voice sounded shrill coming through the cell phone at his ear. “Stand still and keep a hand on the bumper. I’ll be there in a second.”

  Damn his disease. Most of the time it didn’t much matter. But there were times when not being able to see was the worst kind of hell.

  He wanted to be her savior, not the other way around.

  The zing of sensation as she reached his side and took his elbow told him everything was still all right. “Why didn’t you call sooner?” he demanded with the annoyance plain in his voice.

  “When? You mean up by the pool?” Tory sounded just as irritated by his question as he’d been asking it. “In the first place, we needed to get away from there as fast as possible and not stick around chatting on the phone. And in the second place, I didn’t bring the cell with me up into the cliffs. I didn’t figure it would get a signal in that narrow canyon and it was just one more thing not necessary to carry.”

  Drawing a deep breath and trying to calm down, Ben reached out and touched her cheek. He could feel the frown lines on her face and spent a moment tenderly stroking them away with his thumb. Soon he heard her breathing deepen, and felt her face relax under his fingertips.

  “I’m sorry you were worried,” she whispered at last. “I was pretty scared, too, for a while.”

  He was forced to clear his throat to speak. “If you and Shirley want to go out again, I think it would be wise for someone in the Brotherhood to accompany you to these remote areas.”

  “All the time? But why? I imagine we just stumbled on some illegal activity up there—like a drug hideout or drop-off or something. Shirley and I shouldn’t need protection everywhere we go. We won’t come back here, I guarantee.”

  Ben experienced a moment of panic. What reason could he give her for needing a guard? He couldn’t tell her about the Skinwalker war. She would never understand.

  Not totally sure himself why anyone would need protecting in such a remote canyon and in broad daylight, he turned to seek an answer before he gave one. “Is Shirley Nez nearby?”

&
nbsp; “Yes, just a minute. She’s talking to a couple of your cousins.” He heard Tory call the Plant Tender over.

  “Yes, hataalii?” Shirley said when she stood close.

  He knew Tory was listening and he tried to hedge his words to keep her from thinking of more questions. “You said someone is stealing the Plant Clan. Taking them away by force. What plants are missing?”

  “It was the Leaf Scar that someone dug up,” Shirley told him. “The plants are now rare, but I still do not understand why anyone would be so desperate to have or destroy them.”

  “Leaf Scar? But that’s…” It came to him then, the thing that had been niggling at the back of his mind. “Leaf Scar can also be found near Tocito Wash these days, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes. But that area was a little out of our range for today’s lesson,” Shirley answered. “Why do you mention it?”

  “A patient of mine, along with her nephew, recently encountered someone in an arroyo near Tocito Wash that looked to them like the Navajo Wolf. I wonder now if that might not be related to this incident.”

  His own words rang a sound of alarm in his ears. “Will you two please wait in my SUV for a few minutes while I speak to my cousins?” he quickly urged. “And then, Tory, I think it would a great idea if you drove the three of us back to my office as soon as possible.”

  Tory’s head was spinning again as she and Shirley waited for Ben in the air-conditioned SUV. This time the dizziness wasn’t due to the plant names, but because of the many questions without adequate answers swirling through her brain.

  She twisted under the steering wheel, rested her knee on the seat and turned her head to talk to Shirley, who was sitting in the backseat. There were a couple of things that she hoped Shirley would be able to tell her.

  “Excuse me, Plant Tender. But could you please explain about the Navajo Wolf and tell me why anyone would dress up like one to scare people?”

  “Hmm,” Shirley murmured absently. “There is an old Dine legend you probably have not heard about evil and greed. And you should…”

  “The Skinwalker legend, you mean? Hastiin Lakai Begay told me most of it the other night at the ceremony. Is the Navajo Wolf part of that story?”

  Shirley stayed quiet for a couple of beats too long. Tory wasn’t sure the other woman’s silence was because the two stories of Skinwalkers and wolves were not the same—or because they were and it wasn’t something an Anglo should mention.

  Finally, Shirley began, “The elder Begay is correct that you must eventually know the Skinwalker story. But he should not have given you only some of the facts. It is dangerous for you to ask for answers on subjects so delicate.”

  “Dangerous? But they’re only old legends. Why would that be dangerous?”

  “I’ve heard Ben Wauneka ask in the past for you to keep an open mind to our ways. And I believe you have learned much from listening while I spoke of the Dine Way along with your plant lessons. Now again I ask that you accept what I say without letting your bilagáana background and superstitions interfere.”

  Her “white” superstitions? Wasn’t that an interesting concept? But Tory kept her mouth firmly closed.

  “The original evil one,” Shirley began in a soft legend-teller voice, “the first Skinwalker, was not a story character but an actual man who taught himself and his followers how to turn into animals. The animal he picked for himself was the wolf, as he intended to remain the leader of his pack.

  “What’s more,” Shirley added, “he knew most Navajo of the time were sheep and goat herders who would fear a wolf above all other animals.”

  Shirley’s voice grew hoarse, but she kept on talking. “The Evil One promoted stories of terror that surrounded the Navajo Wolf, a supernatural entity who could get his way by using threats and magic. And eventually, just the name Skinwalker would cause mass panic. Even today, people refuse to speak the dreaded word for fear of retribution.”

  Taking a breath, Shirley stared out the window at the canyon’s steep, barren slopes. “According to the rest of the legend seldom told, the original Navajo Wolf had indeed uncovered the secret to longevity. He ruled the Dine by terror for over a thousand years.

  “When the evil master was finally near death, he buried most of his secrets, allowing only one man per generation the knowledge of how to become the Navajo Wolf.”

  “So supposedly there is a modern man somewhere in Dinetah who can actually turn himself into the Navajo Wolf?” Tory asked incredulously.

  “Not supposedly. I know it to be a fact.”

  “But that…that Halloween character we saw up in the canyon was a real man and not a wolf. I doubt if there was anything superhuman about him, either.”

  “Yes, that is so,” Shirley agreed. “Throughout the centuries, each man who carries the secret has recruited others to join in his evil-doings. Each Navajo Wolf teaches his men how to become other types of unnatural beings. Snakes, birds, dogs. Some are traditional allies of the Wolf, others newly turned to the dark wind.

  “They mostly terrorize the remote and uneducated Dine,” Shirley went on. “Their goals are control of the land, minerals or water. It’s all based on greed, which is an opposing morality to the Navajo Way.”

  “So this is some kind of secret society? Or cult? Like the teenagers became involved with?”

  “Yes, though I know of many cases where evil men who have no real connection will impersonate Skinwalkers in order to capitalize on the terror and get what they want through fear. I would say that is what our ‘Wolf’ stalker was attempting today. I just still don’t understand why.”

  This woman could not possibly believe what she was saying. Could she?

  Tory scraped a hand over her face and tried to think. If the story were really true, wouldn’t the rest of the world know about it? It would’ve shown up in scientific journals, or at the very least on Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

  She respected Shirley Nez and had begun to think of her as more than just a teacher. There had to be a way of reconciling the Wolf story to her growing friendship with a woman who seemed so intelligent.

  Just then, Hunter Long brought Ben back to the SUV and it was time to go. Good thing. Tory needed more time to think through the Navajo Wolf story. Maybe a lot more time.

  Ben sat quietly as Tory drove them all back to his mesa. He could tell by the tension in the air that something had happened, but he wasn’t sure how bad it might be. Shirley seemed too quiet sitting in the backseat, and Tory might as well have been a stone beside him.

  This was one of those times when seeing Tory’s expression would’ve been worth a thousand words.

  After a while he heard his transmission wheezing under the assault of climbing the road nearest his house. In a few minutes they would all be freed from the captivity of riding in this SUV. Maybe things would get better then.

  “I heard an odd rumor from one of my old professors a few weeks ago,” Tory said. “And I’ve been sitting here wondering what sort of logical reason anyone might have for taking plants and then guarding the empty spot. It would have to be something involving a great deal of money for anyone to go to such trouble, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, but then wondered where she was going with this.

  “Well, my med school pharmacology professor heard through his connections that there’s a nongovernmental drug development lab located on the Navajo reservation. And that the lab has quietly been doing research on cancer cures. Either of you ever heard of such a thing?”

  Ben and Shirley Nez answered in unison. “No.”

  Shirley got her question out before Ben could formulate the question on his tongue. “Wouldn’t a lab like that take huge amounts of money to put together?” she asked.

  “Hundreds of thousands just to buy the equipment,” Tory replied. “Not to mention salaries for the researchers, and probably a ton more cash just to keep things secret. I thought that much money might qualify as enough to make someone do seemingly crazy t
hings—like stealing plants.”

  “I agree,” he said. “Do you think you can help us find out more about this lab—or perhaps about the exact kind of research they’ve been doing?”

  “I can try,” Tory told him.

  He heard her downshift for the final pull into his yard just as an inappropriate grin broke out across his face. Every time she did or said something like this it made him want to smile.

  Dr. Tory Sommer was just too damn smart for her own good. And he loved her for it.

  14

  S hirley Nez sat cross-legged on the floor of her ceremonial hogan. All alone, she chanted and prayed for guidance from the Yei.

  Her premonitions were quite clear now and she had come to accept that her time was running out. There was much to do to prepare—papers, plans and maps to assemble for the new Plant Tender’s use. All must be in place for the inevitable.

  The new Plant Tender was not yet convinced of her calling. But Shirley knew such hesitation would not stop the dedicated bilagáana doctor from fulfilling her destiny.

  Shirley Nez peered through the haze of time and had seen the future. But some small fact, some long-forgotten knowledge from the deep recesses of her memory, teased her—just out of reach.

  It had to do with old Lakai Begay’s reminder. The skunk-smelling raggedy goat sage. She hadn’t thought of that plant in a long time. It made a wonderful tea, terrific for curing excess stomach acid as she remembered.

  But that particular Plant Clan had not been seen in Dinetah for many years. While Shirley gathered together her old maps and lists for the new Plant Tender, she tried to think of where the goat sage might have relocated.

  Thoughts of the ancient, sacred plant and of what her grandmother had taught her of its uses stayed just below the surface of Shirley’s mind as she went about the business of preparing to meet the Yei. There was something of vast importance that Hastiin Lakai Begay had been trying to tell her. It would be no use asking him for clarification, however; the elder would only remind her that it was the Plant Tender’s job to know the whereabouts and uses of the Plant Clan. In that, he was correct.