Red Fox (18 page)

He slowed them and raised
his brow at me, eyebrow ring glinting. “Did the crow do
this?”

I nodded and turned over my
hands, opening the palms.

He held the backs of my
hands in his for a few seconds, giving them a warm but barely
perceptible squeeze, before he returned to the kit. He ripped open
a packet of iodine-soaked pads and pressed them into my palms. That
hurt even more than before. My face scrunched up with the sharp
bursts of pain.

“
Sorry, kiddo,” he said
softly. “I don’t think we can be too careful. Crows are dirty
fuckers.”

When he was done, he
started to wrap my hands like you would a boxer.

“
I’m sort of waiting for
you to tell me how this happened,” he said as if I had missed my
cue or something.

“
Well, I don’t really know.
I had climbed to this ridge and was just looking at the view when I
guess it came at me from behind. Messed up the back of my head and
knocked me off balance. I rolled down this slope, and actually was
like airborne for a few seconds before I landed on this
arm.”

He let out a low whistle,
“Perry…”

“
Anyway,” I said before he
could lecture me, “I didn’t break anything and wasn’t really all
that hurt so I got up and then saw this fire pit. I guess someone
had a fire there at some point. There were footprints, maybe a paw
print too.”

He stopped wrapping, his
complete attention on me.

“
And there was a shovel and
holes in the earth, like someone had been digging for
something.”

“
Those boys who were
attacked by the fox,” he said, thinking out loud.

“
That’s what I thought. I
didn’t see anything else though, there wasn’t really any evidence
but I know there’s something about that place. I had been there
before. In my dream.”

He cocked his head. His
eyes grew from mahogany to a steely shade of brown, as if the moon
passed in front of the sun.

“
You had a dream about
this?”

“
Yeah…it was earlier in the
week.”

“
You had a dream and you
didn’t tell me?” he sounded slightly offended.

I shrugged, carefully, so
that my towel didn’t spring open and said, “It was just a dream.
How was I supposed to know it would…mean something?”

“
Because of what happened
last time, you tard. Don’t you see? You dreamt about being in the
lighthouse and then you were there. You can’t pass these things off
as dreams anymore. Those days are over.”

I started to protest but he
cut me off, “What happened in your dream?”

I told him everything and
then added, “But maybe it’s not the same place anyway.”

He fell silent. He finished
wrapping and then started on my other hand. “Pretty big coincidence
to dream about that when you were back in Portland and had no
knowledge of the desert, coyotes, and stuff being unearthed, you
know.”

I tensed up as he applied
the iodine on the other hand.

“
Almost done,” he said,
gesturing to my palm. “So then when did the crow do
this?”

“
When I was looking things
over. I don’t know how it happened without me seeing it but I think
it hit me in my head from the front. I fell down and it just
started attacking me, like fucking claws out and everything. I
stopped it with my arms but it was still using its beak to like try
and peck my eyes out or something. Then I like flung it on the
ground somehow and it flew away. Then the snake appeared, from out
of nowhere.”

Dex closed his eyes briefly
but continued wrapping. “And then…”

“
Bird shot it. Just as it
was going for me. If he hadn’t followed me, I-”

“
I know,” he interjected.
He finished wrapping my hand, then looked at me and gave me a terse
smile. “I can only imagine.”

I could tell Dex was
genuinely worried about me. Even though it caused butterflies at
the base of my stomach, I felt like an idiot again for putting
myself in that situation.

Dex let go of my hands and
put one of his hands under my chin. He took the iodine pad and
aimed it at my cheekbone gash.

“
You know the drill,” he
commanded and turned my face, gently dabbing it against my cheek. I
barely felt it. I only noticed the strange look in his eyes as they
stared into mine. Though they were tinged with sadness, their
intensity made me feel weak in the knees and I was once again very
aware that I was a shuffle away from being completely
exposed.

I don’t know how long that
moment lasted, or even if it was a moment, but eventually he looked
away and did a final dab on my cheek. He let out a large puff of
air, smelling faintly like sweet tobacco, and stepped
back.

“
You’re going to have a
rusty blotch on your face from the iodine, but I think if you wash
it in an hour you should be good to go.”

“
Thanks, Dex,” I said
softly.

He gave me a quick smile
and then opened the door. “I’ll be downstairs.”

And with that he was gone.
I was alone again in the bathroom, my wounds cleaned but my mind
more infected than ever.

CHAPTER EIGHT

After I had thrown my ratty
tank in the trashcan, it was time for me to pretty-up. I threw on
slim-cut olive cargo pants and a billowy black kimono shirt (loose
sleeves were my friend at the moment) and piled my wet hair back
into a low braid, before attacking my fragile face with makeup.
There was nothing I could do about the orange smear of iodine on my
cheekbone but at least I could do my eyes up. Maybe I over did it
with the eyeliner but I needed something to distract from my
wounds.

When I felt more or less
composed, I made my way downstairs. I heard voices coming from the
living room and saw, well, pretty much everyone sitting
there.

Will and Bird were sitting
on the couch, while Maximus sat back in the loveseat beside Dex,
who was scribbling into a spiral notebook. His camera sat on the
table. Across from that was Sarah in her rocking chair, going
through the knitting motions.

Everyone stopped talking as
soon as they saw me. I could not have felt more awkward.

I waved. “I didn’t know we
had a party going on.”

“
Bird was just telling us
about what happened,” Will explained. “Then Dex filled us in on the
rest.”

I shot Dex a killer look. I
thought everything I just told him was confidential!

“
They all needed to know
exactly what happened,” he said, ignoring my death glare and
turning his attention back to the books.

Maximus nodded. “It’s the
only way we’ll actually figure out how to deal with all of
this.”

Sarah laughed. “All of
this? Any of you think that perhaps Miss Snoops here just doesn’t
get along with animals? I mean she barely gets by with-”

“
Sarah,” Will warned,
wagging his finger despite the fact she couldn’t see the
gesture.

She clucked and continued
knitting. “I’m just saying, this is a lot of fuss for some city
girl who went for a walk in the woods. It’s a lot easier to blame
something else.”

I crossed my arms
impatiently (and carefully).

“
OK, well since you were
all talking about me while I was gone, how about you fill me in on
any conclusions you may have had?”

Dex and Maximus and Bird
all exchanged a three-way glance. I waited for them to say
something but no one uttered a word. At last, Will spoke
up.

“
The Navajo believe that
people can be cursed by someone,” Will said with embarrassment.
“They believe that if a curse is placed on the person, that the
person will continue to suffer from the curse until they die.
Unless the curse is found and burned.”

I must have looked confused
because Bird elaborated, “The curse is usually a bundle of twigs,
maybe animal skin, a drawing depicting the curse and a personal
item of the person, like hair or jewelry. If you can find the
bundle, usually by using a medicine man, you can burn it and
destroy the curse forever.”

“
But that’s bull,” Will
said, wriggling uncomfortably in his seat and avoiding Bird’s eyes.
“I don’t believe any of that for a second and you know it
Bird.”

“
But you believe in ghosts,”
Maximus drawled nonchalantly.

“
That’s different,” said
Will. But that’s all he said.

“
That aside then,” I said,
“could all of this be the work of a curse, Bird? If you believed
it, could you get a medicine man here to find the bundle or
whatever and lift the curse?”

Everyone’s eyes turned to
Bird. He looked down and adjusted the hat on his head.
“Technically, yes.”

“
But…,” Dex
added.

“
But nothing,” Bird said,
slapping his hands against his knees. “We could do it, if this
really was a curse. But that’s a big if.”

“
But couldn’t a medicine
man tell you if it was or wasn’t? Maybe we just need confirmation
and then we can cross it off the list,” I offered.

“
Shan’s a medicine man,”
Sarah piped up.

That simple remark managed
to change the whole dynamic of the room.

Judging from their faces,
Maximus and Dex were just as surprised to hear that as I was. Bird
was shaking his head ever so slightly as if he was mad at Sarah for
bringing it up, Will was rolling his eyes and Sarah looked
downright smug.

“
You’re kidding me,” I
finally said.

“
Does it look like I’m
kidding?” Sarah said, then went back to her knitting, smiling to
herself.

“
It’s true, Shan was a
medicine man,” Bird spoke slowly. “Was, though. He’s not anymore.
It’s complicated.”

“
Damn right, it’s
complicated,” Will said. “And you aren’t involving him in any of
this. Let him do his job, his proper job. Which you should be doing
too, Bird.”

Sarah suddenly sprung out
of her chair and flung her knitting stuff to the side, the needle
ricocheting off the wood floor with a clatter. Her agility
surprised me.

“
I say we go see him right
now and see what he says!” she exclaimed.

“
Sarah, don’t you dare,”
Will said as he got up and made a grab for his wife but she was
already beyond his reach and shuffling with her cane towards the
door.

She felt for her shoes and
slipped them on effortlessly. “Well come on you ghost hunters,
don’t you want to talk to a real medicine man and see if he can put
an end to all of this?”

I did but there was
something terribly off-putting about the way she was so gung-ho. I
glanced at Dex who was already staring at me. His expression
agreed. Something didn’t gel here.

But to Maximus it did and
he was already joining Sarah by the door. “Bring the camera just in
case,” he said and motioned to Dex, as if he was suddenly in charge
of the whole operation.

“
This is a bad idea,” Bird
said getting out of the couch, his jaw set firmly. Will
agreed.

I gave them a shrug to show
that it wasn’t my idea, but I wasn’t missing this either. Dex
snatched up his camera (with some annoyance, I’m sure, at being
told what to do) and we ran after Maximus and Sarah who were
already out the door and heading to the barn.

“
She can sure move fast for
a blind lady,” I said under my breath to Dex as we went after them.
I couldn’t run thanks to my ankle so it was a gimpy speedwalk of
sorts.

“
Mmmmm,” he muttered,
flipping on the camera switches.

“
What are you thinking?” I
asked. He had something going on in that head of his.

“
I’d say the same thing you
are,” he said and stopped. “Hold on.”

He licked his thumb and
then smudged it along my cheek, wiping off the iodine.

“
Which is what?”

“
Something’s not right. But
we’ll figure it out. You ready?”

“
Ready for what?”

“
Ready for anything. Come
on, we can’t lose them,” he broke into a trot heading to the barn
where Sarah and Maximus just disappeared into. I did my best to
keep pace.

As we entered the darkness
of the barn, my eyes had a hell of a time adjusting to the light. I
walked blindly for a few moments, feeling for Dex, when I heard a
Spanish-accented snarl.

“
You too?” Miguel’s voice
came from the shadows.

We stopped. Miguel came out
from a tack room, wiping his hands on a dirty cloth.

“
Sarah and–” Dex
started.

“
They went to see Shan,”
Miguel interrupted, pointing out the other end of the barn where
the hall opened into a tunnel of light. “I don’t know why. He’s
sick.”

He nearly spat out that
last word, like it was our fault.

“
He’s sick?” Dex
repeated.

“
His chest hurts. Nothing
bad but he’s in bed.”