The Bone Man (33 page)

“I wonder,” I said. “Could it be more potsherds? Unwrapped? I don’t get it at all.”

They carefully replaced the box on the floor of the tunnel.
Aric pushed a chaw into his cheek. “Maybe. Boxes aren’t shaped right for a whole pot. Too small.”

“So why would they want a bunch of shards?” I said, more to myself than anyone. “I’ve seen a few on eBay. What does it give them? They’re not that valuable.”

Hank picked up the flashlight and shined it on the box. “You see where it’s headed, Tal?”

I leaned forward and read the address. “Wow. Huh. Salem, Massachusetts. What goes around . . .”

“Yup,” Hank said.

I pulled Hank aside, into a darker recess of the tunnel. “I wanted to ask . . . any word or sign of Niall and his daughter?”

He brushed my lips with his. “Leave it to you to ask.”

“Isn’t everyone asking?”

He pressed me closer. “Some rangers found ’em just a little while ago, hon. While we were out walking to the stair.”

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath.

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” I said. “Just like Didi and Delphine and . . .” I didn’t need to open my eyes to feel the sorrow and kindness in Hank Cunningham. He hugged me tight.

“We did our best, babe. They were dead long before the five o’clock deadline.”

I melted into him, and we held each other, knowing that we both were feeling the horror of the world and glad we had each other.

“It’s probably time to go home,” he said.

“It is.”

I refused to leave at that instant, and so we were right back to reality. We had a fight. Not a big one, but I sure didn’t need it, and I bet Hank didn’t either.

I insisted on spending that day at Chaco. He wanted
out of there right away. Gimp offered to drive me to Albuquerque, but Hank would hear none of it, so he and Aric hung out somewhere, while Gimp took me to her apartment in the housing area where most of the rangers lived.

The one-story apartment had a wooden porch and was made of stucco. Inside, it felt like any other apartment just about anywhere on the planet. It was clean and plain, with photos of Gimp’s family as decoration. I slid beneath the clean, white sheets. Heaven. I didn’t dream. Or, if I did, I had no memory of it when I awakened.

I sat up in the bed, rubbed my eyes. Every damned part of my body ached, from my skin right down to my core. I had cuts and bruises everywhere. My knee throbbed, and so did my head. My face . . . oh, boy—I didn’t even want to go there. All I wanted to do was sleep some more.

Instead, I fluffed the pillow and sat up in bed. I smiled when I saw the bottle of ibuprofen on the small wicker table beside the bed. I was sure it was courtesy of Hank. It would help, for sure.

I shook three tablets into my hand, then poured some water from the white ceramic pitcher that also sat on the end table. They went down easy. Funny, it felt good to do small things, like pouring water and plumping a pillow. It felt good to
live
. I should pay attention more often.

I’d been damaged, outside and in.

But maybe not my heart. Maybe not that. Yes, it felt bruised, but not broken.

I hunkered under the soft down comforter that was just light enough on my aches and pains to keep me warm. My eyes slowly shut, and I pictured a small red boat I’d owned as a kid back in Maine. The paint was flaking and there was a hole—a big one—in the bottom. I’d found the boat near our home on the Surry Road and asked my dad if he’d fix it for me. He said I was nuts, that it wasn’t worth fixing, but he did it anyway, and he and I used to row in the boat
out to the big rock where he’d pretend to fish and I’d read my book.

“Ready for our walk?”

I jumped. “Gimp?”

“Yupadoodle.” She leaned in the doorway, one foot inside, and one out.

“I think I need to sleep more.”

“I go on duty in an hour. We don’t have much time. Let’s go.”

“How about a rain check, huh?”

She burst out laughing. “I’ll meet you outside in five minutes.”

She handed me a chilled water bottle, and we strode across the housing area, then hopped into the Jeep she’d left running.

The sun from the sunroof felt good, but Gimp stuck a ball cap on my head.

“No sunstroke here,” she said.

I snugged it on. “Gotcha.”

With one hand, she fished in the cooler on the floor behind the seat.

“I can do that,” I said.

“All set.” She handed me a Diet Coke. “Figured you needed that to wake up.”

“You got that right.” I popped the top and took a long swig. “Thank you, Gimp!”

“Pleasure.”

She shifted gears, and the Jeep took off, thumping and bumping over the chip-seal road.

“I’m surprised the road’s not dirt,” I said.

“Everyone is.” She laughed.

The golden sun fingered the canyon with jeweled beauty. The red and yellow rock took on even deeper hues.

“This is the quick tour,” she said.

I looked at everything, drank it in as the best nourishment in the world.

She pointed with her right hand. “That’s Una Vida.”

I nodded.

Minutes later, as we drove down the canyon she pointed out Hungo Pavi and then . . .

“Chetro Ketl,” I said. “Yes?”

“Yes. And there,” she said. “Pueblo Bonito. Chaco’s crown jewel. Can’t you see it filled with people?”

And suddenly it was dark, and I again saw a hive of activity, and the man with the carving and the woman with the crutch and . . .

“Do you?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She parked the Jeep. “C’mon.”

We walked inside Pueblo Bonito, down a small stair, and onto the floor of the great house.

“I’d love to see the six-toed petroglyph,” I said. “It’s in Bonito, right?”

She shoved her hands into her back pockets. “Is . . . was. We had to backfill it. Someone vandalized it. You can’t see it anymore.”

“How sad.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Happens. Let’s sit.”

We sat on a floor of stone surrounded by four circular kivas excavated to about four or five feet down. Grasses, now brown with winter, grew on the bottom.

The stone was chilly on my bum, but it reminded me that I was alive.

“How long have you been at Chaco?” I asked.

“Forever.”

“It’s a good place, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “As long as we can keep the evil at bay. That’s why you’re here.”

“Pardon?”

She handed me a granola bar and unwrapped one for herself. “You were meant to come here, to protect Chaco.”

I looked around at the brown clumps of grasses, the fine stonework, the round kivas, and raised walls of Pueblo Bonito.

“Chaco doesn’t need me to protect it,” I said. “Not that I believe I could.”

She finished the bar, rolled the paper, and tucked it into her pocket. She took a deep swig of virulent pink Gatorade. “I don’t say I understand it. I just know it to be true.”

I thought of the many deaths—good people and bad. Odd how I felt no further along in learning who’d killed Didi and Delphine. “Sounds like a lot of woo woo to me.”

She grinned. “It does, doesn’t it?”

And then Gimp sat very still. The wind, which had been our companion all day, quieted. She moved to sit cross-legged, closed her eyes, and rested her hands, palms up, on her knees.

The sky darkened, not night, but softer, as if the world were wearing a chiffon party dress.

And she transformed into the Chaco girl I’d seen the previous evening, the one with the crutch and the warrior lover. Gimp’s hair darkened from blond to black. Her eyes tilted upward and her figure slimmed to fragile and young. Her hands shrank to delicate, and a dull henna polish coated her nails.

Her left ring finger was bound with a bright gold ring, braided and inlaid with turquoise and jet. And resting on her right palm sat the carving done by the young man, the one of the mountain lion. Or was it? The carving was the same, yet different, more . . . detailed.

My breath came shallow and fast. Obviously I was hallucinating. Maybe she’d spiked my water or soda. Sure. Or maybe it was a real vision, like the stairway.

But I didn’t believe in visions.

We were sitting so close. I leaned closer to see better, and she said with her mind,
Take it
.

I lifted the fetish from her hand.

The carving was heavy and rough and hard. It glittered, and its turquoise eyes seemed to move, to watch me. On its back bound with sinew was a black arrowhead, which looked hand flint-knapped, and random shell heishi. A nugget of turquoise, small and crude and a deep blue, had a hole in the middle, through which passed the sinew.

The lion’s mouth yawned, but it was all interpretive, really. The fetish had just a hint of a form, with the tail bent over its back. And someone—the young man?—had rubbed a rust-colored substance, like clay, on the body. Part of a ritual, maybe.

The fetish warmed my hand. It felt secure.
I
felt secure. And strong. Powerful. I wrapped my fingers around it. The arrowhead stung as it pierced my flesh, but I didn’t mind. I rubbed my fist against my cheek.

Was this the blood fetish? The one Didi had meant by the words written with her own blood? The one demanded by the man on the Vineyard? Was I really seeing It?

“Hey there, Tally,” said the voice.

I was leaning on my arms, which were folded across my knees. I looked to the left. “Gimp?

“Where you been?” She was smiling, and she was blond and sturdy and wore her tan ranger hat.

“I’m not sure,” I answered slowly. “Things seem clearer here, don’t they?”

“Mostly.” She offered me a hand up, and I took it.

“I’m weaker than I thought.” I chuckled.

“Oh, but you’re not.”

I clutched the fetish tight in my hand as we walked back to the Jeep. I knew I couldn’t take it with me, but I wanted to hold it for a little while.

“This is very weird,” I said. “I don’t ordinarily talk to people. I’m pretty closed. But I’m talking to you.”

She brushed her hat against her thigh. “People say that I’m a good, well, I’d guess you’d say sounding board. Or somthin’.” She smiled. “Haven’t we known each other for always?”

We climbed into the Jeep.

I smiled back. “Maybe we have. I’ve learned things.”

“Yeah?” Off we went.

“I’ve been drifting.”

She glanced at me. “I thought you were hunting a killer.”

“Yes. But that’s not what I mean. I’m talking personally. Ever since my foster mother died, I’ve felt adrift, not knowing how to get on or what my place is in the world.”

She slowed the Jeep, pulled to a stop beside the tall canyon wall. “Maybe you don’t want to let her go, huh?”

I chuckled. “Oh, I definitely don’t want that. I miss her madly.”

Gimp removed her hat and wiped her forehead. “My pops died fifteen years ago now. Long time. But it’s not. It’s yesterday. He’s here.” She pressed her palm to her heart. “But I’ve let him go. I’ve found
my
place. I suspect you’ve found yours. You just don’t know it yet.”

Her eyes were clear. What I saw was depth and purpose. Chaco was her life. Perhaps MGAP was mine.

“Yes,” I said. “Maybe.”

“We’d better hustle,” she said. “I go on duty soon.”

“This drifting . . .” I powered down the window, let the wind scour my face. “Now I understand the place to go.”

“New Mexico?” She put the Jeep in gear and gunned it.

I liked her takeoff. “I thought maybe. But no. I think my place, at least for now, is back in Boston. Back where I used to be. It’s home. Back at MGAP.”

“What the hell’s that?”

I looked out at the beauty of Chaco and talked, telling her about my work with the families of homicide victims, how my dad had been murdered, how I’d met and fallen in love with Hank. And about Veda. Beloved Veda.

She nodded. “Whew. Lotta stuff.”

“Yeah.”

“You gotta be half crazy to do what you do.”

I grinned. My heart lightened for the first time in months. “Yeah, you noticed. But first, I’ve got to find out how two friends were murdered and why. I’m closer, but not there yet. I’ll get there.”

The Jeep lurched down a pothole and up. “Ugh!” she said. “Sorry. Paulie and Dumb Dick were a part of that.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Unfortunately that’s true. But so are you. I wouldn’t have missed that.”

“There’s Casa Rinconada.” We approached the top of the canyon, near the museum and visitor center. But before she rounded the curve, she stopped the Jeep.

She pointed. “Just one more thing.”

An incredible table-top mesa sprouted like a jagged, giant pillar from the ground.

“Fahaja butte,” she said.

“It looks like the place in
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
!”

“It’s not, but it sure could be. Didn’t a guy build a mashed potato mountain or something in that movie?”

We laughed and took off, and a fullness filled me right up.

Hank and Aric stood by the Land Rover in front of the visitor center.

“You ready?” Aric hollered.

“In a sec.” It was hard, but I unwound my hand to return the fetish. “This belongs here.”

Gimp looked at my hand. “You mean that rock?”

I looked down. A rock, smooth and egg shaped and
blushed with red, rested on the palm of my hand. “Um, did you give this to me?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think so, but . . .”

“It’s illegal for me to bring it from here, isn’t it?”

She hugged me. “For you and your journey? I think you
must
bring it. You need a bit of Chaco with you. Return it when the time is right.”

“Thank you, Gimp,” I said. “For everything.”

When I climbed into the Aric’s Land Rover, Hank asked what I was holding.

“Oh, just a mountain lion.” I laughed. “I really need a bath.”

He wiggled his auburn eyebrows. “How ’bout a shower, honey bunch. With me!”

“You betcha. And then we go to Salem.”

Albuquerque. I got my next rabies shot. Two more to go, day fourteen and twenty-eight. Then I’d be done. I had my cuts and bruises looked after. Gave the FBI a deposition about Paulie and Dumb Dick. I took a shower with Hank—great fun—and a bath alone. I apologized to New Mexico’s Chief Medical Investigator, declined the alluring position he’d offered, and said a temporary farewell to the state.