The Bone Man

by Vicki Stiefel

  The woman’s eyebrows shot up, but she didn’t stop scrubbing. “You got a cell?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t, actually. That’s why I’d like to use your phone. I’ll reverse the charges.”

  “I see. One minute.” She walked through a striped curtain at the far end of the counter and disappeared.

  I relaxed for the first time in I-couldn’t-remember when. Ahhh, that felt great. I wiped the sole of one foot on the upper arch of the other and repeated the process in reverse. Better.

  My back prickled. A dozen pairs of eyes were fastened on me, and I couldn’t stop glancing at the door. Someone was coming after me. It was the “when” I didn’t know.

  I hadn’t asked her where I was. Idiot! I did a three-sixty of the place. Nothing shouted back at me.

  I wished the woman would hurry.

  I studied the ancient red counter until she finally brushed through the curtained door. In her right hand, she held a sponge. In her left, a portable phone.

  Yes.

  She smiled at me as she handed me the black portable phone.

  “Thanks so much,” I said. “Um, where am I?”

  Her face scrunched up in that you’re-crazy-lady look.

  I smiled. “Never mind.” I slid off the stool as I punched out “O” for Operator. I gave him Hank’s cell phone number. It rang and rang and . . . dammit. Who knew why he wasn’t picking up.

  I couldn’t leave a voicemail. Not without any money.

  Something bad was going to happen. I just knew. My eyes scanned the restaurant again. Everyone was eating and smoking and chatting, but they were watching me, too.

  “Gee,’ ” I said to the woman. “Anyplace I can call that’s a little more private?”

  She nodded. “Out back.” She wagged two fingers toward the back of the restaurant.

  “Thanks.” I hustled to the back, where I found a cubicle just in front of the kitchen. I called Hank again, got nowhere. Maybe I should call Gert or Jake or Kranak. Except calling Boston made no sense.

  I stared at the phone, shook my head, and dialed 911.

  “Yes,” I said. “I need help. I’m on some reservation. Pueblo. I don’t . . .”

  A door slapped, and I whipped around. A couple with a little girl in a frilly blouse and pink jeans.

  “Hello? Hello?” came the dispatcher’s voice.

  I hunched over the phone, trying to make myself small. The chatter rose and fell, an ocean of voices, nothing alarming. “Sorry. I’m in a strange place, and I . . .”

  “We need some idea where you are, ma’am. We can’t seem to locate you.”

  “I don’t know where I am. On a pueblo. In a small restaurant. I was in an accident in Albuquerque and I woke up here.” My voice rose. I tried to control it, but a sob burst out. “Damn. I need some help here.”

  “We will. We will, ma’am. If you can, take the phone outside and describe what you see.”

  I breathed in. Calm, I told myself. “Yes. Okay.” I headed outside. As I passed the woman, who was serving eggs to a man at the counter, I held up my index finger and mouthed, one sec.

  She nodded, and I relaxed a bit. I took a breath. Hoped I could get through this.

  I stood on restaurant’s wooden stoop, read the name of the restaurant to the dispatcher and described the main street.

  “Okay,” the dispatcher said. “We got you. Just hold on. We’re on our way.”

  Relief became an ocean tide, and I shook. “Thank you. So much.”

  “On our way. Now just hang on, and we’ll come get you.”

  “I will. Yes. Hang on.”

  I walked as casually as possible down the stairs and pressed against the side of the restaurant. I took deep breaths, and every few seconds I’d reconnect with the dispatcher. I checked my watch. My wrist was bare. Gone, too. So I tried to keep track—five, ten, maybe fifteen minutes passed.

  A brown car with an unlit bubble light atop ambled down Main Street. I waited. I needed to make sure that this was my ride back to sanity. The car’s windows were blacked out. But as it neared the restaurant, it slowed down.

  I’d been standing in shadow. They couldn’t see me.

  “I’m here. In the shadow,” I said to the dispatcher.

  But the dispatcher had hung up. It had to be them. I stepped out of the shadow. The police car stopped and an officer got out. He wore a brown hat and uniform and he smiled and waved.

  Relief flooded me, making me dizzy. I smiled back. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Come on,” he said. “We’ll take you back to Albuquerque. Sort this thing out.”

  “Great. Super.” I began to climb the stairs.

  “Stuff inside?” he said. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No need. I just want to return the phone.”

  He strode over, grinning. “We want you safe, little lady.”

  “Thanks.” I reached for the door.

  “Hold on!” came a shout.

  The sun was in my eyes. All I saw was a clump of people running toward me. I dropped the phone and ran to the car. The officer gripped my arm as he flung open the back-seat door.

  “No!” someone shouted.

  A frission of fear and insight. What was I doing? “Wait,” I said.

  He grunted, shoved me into the back, and slammed the door.

  Wrong. All wrong. I reached for the door as he slid in beside me.

  He shifted the car into gear, and I shoved open the passenger door.

  Now? Never?

  I flung myself out the door, rolled, and sputtered to a halt sprawled on the tarmac. My head spun. What the hell had I just done?

  Tires screeched, and the brown sedan spun around, so that it was facing me. I was still pancacked on the road, dizzy, uncertain. What had I done? I couldn’t seem to move. Not fast enough.

  The sedan barreled toward me.

  Holy hell!

  Someone grabbed my shoulders and hauled me out of the way as the sedan flew by and raced out of town.

  Juiced with adrenaline, I peered into a woman’s face. It looked frozen, as if in fury or fear.

  “I . . . I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I . . .”

  Arms tightened around me, and I was smothered by a large-bosomed hug. “You are one lucky chica.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  I sat at a table in the café across from the bare-chested Indian, now wearing a snap shirt. Another man, much older, with drooping eyes and a face etched and jagged with age, sat beside me.

  Neither man said a word.

  The seat across from me was empty, yet a menu was placed in front of it by the waitress. We were waiting. The woman who’d saved me had disappeared.

  “Where am I?” I said.

  The younger man pressed a finger to his lips. “Sshhhh.”

  I shook my head. I stood to leave. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Don’t,” the older man said. “Please, wait.”

  His tone was flat, but his eyes begged. How could I refuse? I gave my order to the waitress while she flirted with the younger of the two men. When I looked around again, the café was empty except for us.

  I excused myself to the bathroom. The men exchanged looks, but didn’t try to stop me. When I returned, a woman was sitting in the chair across from mine. She wore a white shirt and black pants. A large silver Zuni bracelet circled her right wrist, and a turquoise petit-point clip held her long white hair to the side. Her face was lined, the color of butternut, and rich with age.

  When I sat across from her, her apple-green eyes sparkled. I could tell her smile came often and gladly.

  “Where’s the woman who saved me?” I said.

  “My daughter?” the old woman said. “She had other things to do. You’ll see her again.”

  Had I slipped down a rabbit hole? I decided to try to be normal. “Hello. I’m Tally Whyte.”

  She smiled again, nodded, and that’s when I got it. She was related to Governor Bowannie. I wondered if she k
new he was dead. I got sad all over again, just thinking about him.

  “Don’t be sad,” she said.

  The younger of the two men snorted. I almost said “wiseass,” but held myself back.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I said. “But I am sad.” I nearly blurted out that I was sorry, but I waited for her to speak. I wanted to be considerate, to wait, to be kind. Minutes passed, long ones, then more minutes. My tether finally snapped.

  I stood up. “Whatever happened here, I don’t get. Thank you for saving my life. But I’ve got to go. I have dead friends and something important to do.”

  The old woman smiled. “Well, it’s about time, Tally Whyte, that you found your cojones.”

  “What?”

  She kept smiling. Her eyes sparkled with humor. I wanted to shoot her.

  “Cojones?” I said. “Believe me, I’ve got cojones to spare! Maybe not literally, but . . .”

  She laughed, slapped her thighs, and the men laughed, too.

  “What is the problem here?” I said.

  “You,” she choked out. “You almost went with those villains. You would most likely have been killed. We’ve worked so hard to keep you alive. Don’t you see the irony?”

  I was too tired for irony, but I laughed anyway. “How did that man, the pretend cop, find me?”

  “Police scanners,” the old man said. “These people are good. Real skilled.”

  The old woman nodded, looked again at me. “Fine to see you recovering.” Her hand shook as she reached into the pocket of her black pants. She slid out a folded piece of paper. Her knuckles were gnarled, her fingers scored with a thousand cuts.

  I tilted my head. “You’re a carver.”

  “Yes.”

  “I should have known. Of course. I’m in Zuni.”

  She beamed. “Yes. Your brain is working again. Thank heavens. You’ve been a mess.”

  “Thanks a bunch,” I said. Not that I could take offense. She was a very cool lady.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The waitress brought my huevos rancheros, coffee, and OJ. I sipped the coffee, found my brain kicking in even more.

  The old woman smelled of sage. She nodded when she got her cocoa, and she held her mug with two hands as she sipped. A wave of overwhelming sorrow jarred me. I gently lay my fork on the plate. I dabbed my lips with my napkin. The two men kept forking eggs into their mouths.

  We locked eyes, the old woman and I. The same painful sorrow stole my breath.

  I reached for my coffee. “What is it?”

  “You’ll see.”

  And I suddenly knew. “Where’s Natalie?”

  The old woman notched her chin. Tears washed down the wrinkles of her face like a many-fingered river. “Dead. For you. My niece. You had better be worth it.”

  I wasn’t. Not in trade for a young woman. Natalie had a lot more life to live than I. I shouldn’t have come out here.

  “How did she die?” I said.

  “She pulled you from the wreck,” the younger man said. “They shot at her, but she got you out. A good thing to do.” He nodded. His face was dark with anger and tight with pain. “She was a good girl, our Natalie.” His lips thinned, and he caught my eyes with his. “A good girl. You were out of it, and she dragged you to her van and pulled you in. I guess that’s when she got hit.” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Shot?” I said.

  “Hit,” he said. “Yes. She drove toward the res, them tailing her. Shooting. Her bleeding. She wanted you safe. I don’t know why she didn’t go to the hospital there in Albuquerque. She called and we met her around San Rafael. She was weaving all over the place, but nobody stopped her. I guess they thought she was just another drunk Indian.”

  “Why didn’t she call the police?” I said.

  The older man shook his head. “It’s not something we’d do. We whooped and hollered and went after those guys, the ones chasing her. They hightailed it outta there.” He rubbed his fingers back and forth across the Formic. “Boy, did they ever. You never saw anyone run so fast. Yeah, they got away. She died. We got you.”

  I rubbed my eyes to keep the tears at bay. Damn, but I wouldn’t cry. Not now. Later. I stuttered in a breath. “I’m sorry. I really . . . I don’t know what to say. I never wanted this. Natalie deserved better. A lot better.”

  The old Zuni man’s hand slid atop mine. “Don’t,” he said. “It was for you, but you didn’t do it to her. They did. There’s a reason. It matters. It mattered to my brother, her sister, his niece, and his nephew.”

  His hand was dry and comforting. I squeezed it. With two fingers he held up a folded piece of paper.

  I unfolded the paper. It read: The Bone Man, Land’s End Trading, Route 404.

  I walked back to the old woman’s home with the younger of the two men. I had a million questions but couldn’t seem to voice a one. The same two dogs greeted me, and I wished I had treats for them. I crouched down and scratched their chests. I missed Penny, but I was glad she wasn’t with me. She’d be dead.

  “Please tell me your name,” I said.

  “Aric. Aric Bowannie.” He notched his head. “Ben’s son. Natalie’s cousin.”

  The governor’s son. I hadn’t guessed. What a loss he must be feeling. “And the old woman?”

  “Katie Poblano. My auntie. Ben’s sister. Enough?”

  “Thank you.”

  The streets beneath my feet felt ancient. No longer a village of adobe, but the homes clustered together as if they were trying to accomplish what once consisted of the pueblo. We neared the church and bore left, and shadows darted like knives in the late afternoon. Above all, Corn Mountain, guardian, home, everything to Zuniland.

  My feet ached from slapping the hard ground without shoes. Aric’s confident steps mocked my tentative ones, his running sneakers finding easy purchase on the uneven earth.

  The Bone Man. Talk about creepy. “Why the mystery?” I said. “The secrecy?”

  He chewed his lip. “My father died when he was with you. We wanted to make sure you weren’t from them, particularly after Natalie. She was good people. You shouldn’t go back to Albuquerque. Not until you have what you came for.”

  “I’m not sure what I came for,” I said. “At one point, your father asked me to come out here with him.”

  My thighs ached as I climbed the wooden steps that led to the darkened house. Someone had carried wood to the crate left of the door, and a low fire burned in the kiva fireplace. I walked across the cool linoleum floor and warmed my hands by the fire.

  Aric gestured me to the couch.

  “Now what?” I said.

  He stood before me, looking every inch the macho man. “We go. Soon. Find the skull.”

  “Find my friend Didi’s killer,” I said. “Your father’s, too, I suspect. Natalie’s. An art dealer named Delphine. Too many more.”

  He shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “Yeah.”

  “It’s a big job.”

  “Be right back.” He left the room, and for a few minutes I allowed the fire to mesmerize me. I wished for the comfort of the familiar, for Hank and Penny and Carmen and Gert. For my apartment, The Grief Shop, Newbury Street.

  I needed my bearings, and I wouldn’t find them here.

  I turned away from the fire. I felt like crap, and not just physically.

  Just beyond the fireplace, a door yawned wide. I didn’t remember it from earlier. I suspected I was too busy, too frantic. I slid off the couch and hobbled through the door. My feet killed.

  Tools and rocks cluttered the narrow room. Dust covered every inch of every surface, including the large windows. So much dust that I couldn’t see outside to the rapidly setting sun.

  If I’d seen this room earlier, I would have known I was in Zuni, for here was where Katie and her family made hundreds of Zuni fetishes every year. Here they carved the rock with powerful tools, sanded it so it was smooth and gleaming, wound rawhide or gut around the carvings and attached arrowhead
s and coral and turquoise and heishi bundles. Chunks of serpentine and marble and pipestone lay in a basket, and a fine piece of turquoise sat on a shelf beside a pack of Marlboro Lights.

  It was hard and dirty work to create such beauty.

  Someone had wiped a circle on the dust-covered window. I peeked through and saw the mountain. I shouldn’t be surprised.

  “Ready?” came the voice.

  I spun around. Aric wore jeans and a button-down shirt and loafers.

  “You could be a teacher at some Boston high school,” I said.

  “I’m not,” he said.

  “No. Right. I need to change. Shower. Get some shoes. My purse.”

  He handed me a plastic bag. Inside were a few of my belongings clumped with a new toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, other toiletries, and a pair of slip-on sneakers.

  I pulled the sneakers on, and he nodded. “Good.”

  Aric’s face, so sad. “This is very hard on you,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “Your father, Natalie. My dad . . . I’ve been through it.”

  Again, lips compressed. He nodded, said nothing.

  I sighed, moved closer, studied his eyes, which met mine dead on. “I could help,” I said. “I’d like to. It’s what I do.”

  “Let’s go.”

  I assumed we were heading out to The Bone Man and the trading post, but instead, I followed him through winding streets and alongside homes until we arrived at a larger building. Bound by a fence, the two-story adobe building looked cozy and inviting. It was trimmed with bright red and turquoise paint and carved posts that supported the porch roof.

  We walked around back to a flagstone courtyard. There, a dozen people sat on folding lawn chairs while women and men in native costume milled around. We took seats in the first row, and then Katie Poblano arrived and the crowd hushed.

  She sat beside Aric and the older man I’d met earlier. She nodded, and the dancers, drummers, and chanters began.

  A spell draped me in mystery, one I would not repeat. Ever.

  The old woman whispered in my ear, yet if I had to tell what she said, I couldn’t. Seeing the dance, smelling the sage, hearing the chants, the music—I was part of it now, the hunt for the evil. I had been woven into the fabric of events I hadn’t begun, but needed to end.