The Night Visitor (29 page)

Forgetting to latch the trailer door.

She pulled the covers up to her nose. How sweet it was to be in her own bed. Soon, she began to get warm. All except her nose. She closed her eyes. And soon drifted away into a bright, happy world of singing birds… meadows… a stream filled with large goldfish. Before her was a small white house; its yard was surrounded by a picket fence. Miniature rosebushes with pink and white and yellow blossoms lined a redbrick walkway.

On the porch was her father. He was whittling a piece of red cedar into the shape of a little dog. A plump blond woman was sitting in a rocking chair. Crocheting pretty red and blue flowers onto a white cloth.

“Mamma,” she called out.

The woman leaned forward. “Well, now—it's about time you showed up. I been real worried about you.”

“Mamma …” she said again, and tried to run. But her feet were so heavy… No matter how hard she tried, Butter could not get to the porch.

The woman rocked back and forth in the chair. “Child,” she said, “you need to be careful. Don't be talkin' to no strangers. You hear me?”

“Yes, Mamma… I hear you… but …”

The scene faded away.

The child found herself alone. In a dark woodland. The trees were big and ugly… they had twisted, wrinkly arms for branches… awful hands with bony fingers that reached out for her. Again she tried to run …

The singular figure stood over the small bed, his head cocked curiously. This child with yellow hair seemed oddly familiar. As if she was someone he had known. One of his people… even one of his own kin. But he could find no place for her in his memory. Worse still, he could not quite remember precisely who
he
was. Only that he had been terribly wronged. And that he had something important to do. Something that must be done soon.

This was a pretty child. So plump.

He reached out to touch the golden locks of her hair.

Butter Flye stirred in her sleep. She blinked her eyes. Saw the pale, bewhiskered face.

The man was standing by her bed. Staring at her. He was awfully dirty. Like he'd been wallowing with the hogs. And he was rolling something in his hand. Something white… looked like an egg.

The child sat up, rubbing at her eyes. This must be part of the dream. “I remember you,” she said. “You peeked in my winder when it was dark outside.”

The intruder leaned forward; now his face was very close to hers. He stared. His pale blue eyes did not blink.

“Go 'way,” she said, “or I'll tell Daddy.”

He seemed unimpressed.

And then she remembered that Daddy had gone away. “I'll tell the
Wuff.”
That ought to scare him.

It did not. Truly, he did not fear the Wuff. Nor have reason to.

“I know who you are.” At this, he cocked his head.

She pulled the covers to the bridge of her tiny nose. “You're the Booger-man.”

Daisy Perika felt a small hand on her arm. The hand was shaking her. “Aunt Daisy… wake up!”

She groaned. Children were such an awful nuisance. Especially when you needed a good night's sleep. “What is it?”

Sarah was shivering in her thin nightgown. “I just woke up—I had to go to the bathroom.”

“You don't need my permission.” Daisy rolled over on her side and waved her hand. “Now go away.”

She stamped a bare foot on the cold floor. “Aunt Daisy-it's Butter.”

The Ute woman groaned. “What's she done now?”

“She's not in the bed.”

Daisy pushed herself up to a sitting position. “What …”

Sarah was wringing her hands. “I just woke up and she was gone.”

The old woman got up and pulled a robe around her body. “Well, she's probably sleepin' under the bed or somethin'.”

The girl shook her head, snapping the short braids about her shoulders. “I think she's gone outside to—”

“Why'd she go outside? It's cold as a brass apple out there.”

“'Cause she's been wanting to sleep out there in that little trailer. In her own bed. She told me so, two or three times. Said you wouldn't let her.”

“Oh.” The old woman was terribly tired. “Well, if she is, maybe we should just let her be.”

Sarah yanked at Daisy's robe. “No. I think something's wrong.”

“Why?”

“I just do.”

“Hmmmf,” Daisy said. She found a flashlight and waddled toward the kitchen door, yawning.

Sarah followed the old Ute woman outside and down the porch steps. Daisy tried the door on the Flyes' camp-trailer. It was unlocked. Daisy stepped inside the small trailer; the plywood floor squeaked. She moved the flashlight beam around. There was the little girl's bed. It had been slept in. Daisy put her hand under the covers. Still a little warm. The child had been here… and now she was gone.

But where?

As Butter hurried along beside the night visitor, she could see her breath make a cloud in the moonlight. There were sharp-edged rocks in the deer path; the child felt them through the thin soles of her bunny house slippers.

She looked up at him. “Where're we goin'?”

No answer.

“I'm really cold.”

He kept up his steady pace, so that her little legs were fairly running.

“Hey—you!” she shouted.

He did not look at her.

She stumbled over a juniper root, and took a hard tumble.

He stopped, and squatted. Stared at the small child in a most curious fashion.

“My knee's skinned,” she sobbed. “And my feets hurt.”

Daisy Perika carried a stout oak staff; she hurried along without speaking. The night was piercingly cold; her hands and feet were already numb. But she hardly noticed this discomfort. Inside, she was paralyzed with an icy fear. Trying not to imagine all the awful things that could happen to a six-year-old child wandering around alone in this dark wilderness. A child who was supposed to be under her protection.

Sarah Frank, close by her side, carried the flashlight.

“Aunt Daisy?”

The old woman did not answer.

“Where are we going?”

“To the closest neighbor.”

“Who's the closest—”

“Nathan McFain.” She pointed with the staff. “His ranch is just over that ridge.”

“Why are we going there?”

“Nathan has a telephone.”

“Who're you gonna call?”

“Police.”

“Oh.” Then Aunt Daisy thought something bad had happened to Butter.

Yes. The police. And what would Charlie Moon say when he heard that the little
matukach
child had just wandered off? Worse still, what would her nephew think? Well, she knew the answer to that. He'd think she was a foolish old woman… who should never have been trusted to look after children.

Now, the Magician was leading the child into a very dark place.

Butter could see nothing at all. But she could smell a familiar, earthy scent. It was like a freshly plowed field. Or a newly dug grave.

The Ute elder and her youthful companion approached the McFain ranch from the west. Daisy and Sarah stood for just a moment, at a place below the crest of the bluff, looking over the pasture. The barn… the ranch house… the scattering of log cabins on the far ridge—all had an unreal appearance. Like hollow toys. The dark tent that covered the mammoth excavation was like an enormous black bird, huddled over a dreadful nest filled with bones. And other dead things.

The old woman and the child helped each other through the boundary fence, which was topped with two strands of rusty barbed wire.

Daisy Perika was already heading across the pasture when Sarah called to her. “Wait.”

“Wait for what? I got to wake Nathan up and use his telephone to call …”

Sarah, flashlight in hand, was headed toward the darkened tent.

The old woman had to hurry to catch up with the child. “What're you doing?”

Sarah painted a smear of light on the tent door. “She's in there.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just know.” The girl's thin body was suddenly wracked with shudders. Her teeth chattered.

The shaman had sensed nothing. But Daisy Perika did understand this sort of intuition. And she knew from past experience that Sarah Frank was a most remarkable little girl. She took the flashlight from the child's trembling hand. “I'll have a look. You wait out here.” If the little white girl was really inside that dark tent… The old woman patted Sarah's shoulder. “Anything funny happens, you run for the big house and wake everybody up.”

Sarah seemed not to hear.

Daisy Perika cradled her walking staff under one arm, and pulled the tent door open. She flashed the beam of light around the excavation site and saw what she'd seen before. Sturdy tent poles. Spindly-looking card table. Tripod-mounted aluminum reflectors and camera lights. And, of course, the mazelike array of excavations in the earth. Some of the smaller slots had been filled with dirt already sifted for artifacts. But the larger trenches were empty. Very deep they seemed in the half-darkness. Dank pits, cluttered with the bones of an ancient beast. And perhaps there was more …

She took a few faltering steps inside. Toward the excavation.

And looked in.

A great, sweeping tusk beckoned at her like a giant's curled finger.

Step into my grave.

Her foot slipped; dirt spilled into the pit.

Daisy backed away, gasping hard for breath. As she
turned, the beam from the flashlight swept across a pile of sifted earth. Laying face-up on the mound of dirt was… the child.

The Magician stood on the bluff, rolling the “egg” in his hand. Watching the black-haired little girl who waited outside the tent. Wondering when his work here would be finished.

Daisy approached the tiny figure slowly, as in a dream. It was as if someone had tossed a broken doll onto a rubbish heap. Butter Flye's blue eyes were open, her yellow hair askew. She was very still.

The old woman sensed a presence behind her. She whirled, raising the heavy staff like a club.

It was Sarah.

Daisy's voice was little more than a croak. “I told you to wait outside.”

Sarah did not speak; she ignored Daisy's futile attempt to urge her away. She approached the still figure of Butter Flye and kneeled. Sarah reached out, and touched the smaller child's pale hand.

The still figure did not stir.

“Wake up,” Sarah whispered.

Butter's lips parted… and moved.

The older girl leaned close. And listened. Then turned to Daisy. “She'll be all right.”

“Thank God,” the old woman said gratefully. “Oh, thank God.” Now she must get them home. And quickly.

Though she had to stop and rest a dozen times, Daisy Perika found sufficient strength to carry the small child back to her trailer-home. Butter Flye's arms and legs were limp and clammy-cold. Once in her kitchen, the Ute woman warmed a coarse woolen blanket in the oven and wrapped the child in it. She sat by the bedside to keep a close watch over her.

Sarah Frank was close by Daisy's side, also watching the pale face of the child who now slept with an almost unnatural soundness.

Daisy did not look away from Butter's face as she spoke. “Sarah—what'd she tell you… back there in that tent?”

Sarah had already decided that she wouldn't reveal everything Butter had said. Not just yet. But there was one thing Aunt Daisy should know. “She said… ‘He's here. Down under the dirt.'”

The old woman felt a chill shudder ripple along her spine. She swallowed hard. “Under the dirt? Who did she mean?”

Sarah shrugged.

Daisy rubbed at her chin. All the way back from the excavation tent—and without any reason that she could explain—the old shaman had nursed a growing suspicion. Suspicion had matured into certainty. It had to be that naked white man who'd showed up in her yard that night—the one who'd pulled the egg out of his hair. One way or another, the Magician had a grimy hand in this night's dirty work. Her mouth made a grim line. Somebody needed to hunt that mud-caked fellow down.

And put him out of business. Permanently.

Charlie Moon, of course, was just the man who could do it.

But her smart-aleck nephew thought she'd dreamed up the Magician, so she wasn't about to ask the big yahoo for any help. More to the point, Daisy didn't want Charlie to find out that she'd let the little girl wander off in the middle of the night. But she would not admit that this had anything to do with her decision, nor was she the least troubled about the course she had chosen. Living for so many years in this lonely place, Daisy Perika was accustomed to solving her own problems.
So here I am, just a feeble old woman on my own …
Her mouth twisted into a wicked grin.
A pitiful old woman with a twelve-gauge shotgun. Who's more than willing to use it.
More to be feared than a dozen policemen.
Next time I meet up with that mud-caked white man, he'll wish he'd turned himself in to Charlie Moon!

But first things first.

Very early that morning, while both children were sleeping, Daisy Perika went to her kitchen. From a high cupboard shelf, she removed a red coffee can. She pulled off the ltd, reached
in, and got the fat homed toad. And placed him in Butter Flye's shoe box. The one where the
matukach
child kept all her “pretties.”

Pretties, indeed!

The Ute woman glowered at the horned toad. “I don't know what that little girl sees in
you
, Ugly-face.”

It may have been because the old woman had gone too long without sleep. Or perhaps it was a trick of the light. But the old shaman could have sworn that Toe Jam winked at her.

C
HARLIE
M
OON TURNED
off the gravel road, and passed under the McFain Dude Ranch sign.

Vanessa McFain was unloading boxes of groceries from her battered Chevy van. The Ute policeman allowed the SUPD Blazer to coast to a stop. The tall young woman—dressed in tight-fitting faded jeans and a loose wool sweater—was pulling a fifty-pound bag of potatoes from the rear of the battered automobile. She turned to give him a look. There was, he imagined, a little bit of welcome in it.