The Night Visitor (4 page)

“Our tribal council is working with them Papagos?” Daisy said with a chortle. “Hah. A Ute goes and makes a deal with them sneaky desert Indians, he'd better count his teeth before he comes home. It costs a lot to take care of a child. One of 'em will drink a quart of milk a day. And they're a bother and a nuisance.”

Moon continued as if he hadn't heard her. “Because Sarah is
Tohono O'otam
on her mother's side and Ute on her father's, the tribes will go fifty-fifty on her financial support.”

At the mention of cash money, Daisy's left eyebrow raised a notch. “Financial support?”

“Yeah. Monthly payment to cover expenses.”

“So who's going to take care of the little girl?”

Moon shrugged. Several well-qualified families had already refused. Had too many responsibilities already, they'd said. The few who had shown an interest were, for one reason or another, considered unsuitable. “I expect there'll be several families who'll volunteer.”

“Sure,” she said with self-righteous indignation. “All they'll be interested in is makin' some money. What that poor child needs is a good home.”

Moon turned away to hide a smile. “Roy Severo and his wife Bertha have talked some about Sarah movin' in with them.” It wasn't a lie. Not exactly. They had talked about it—and decided they were too old and set in their ways to raise another child.

Daisy snorted. “Roy and Bertha couldn't raise their
own
children up right. Why, one of 'em is working for some fly-by-night telephone outfit. They say she calls people up right at suppertime—tries to talk 'em into changing their telephone service.” Enough said. She squinted through the window.
“Why's Sarah stayin' out in the truck? Why don't she come inside?”

“I figured you'd be in a hurry to leave,” Moon said innocently. “And I guess Sarah's anxious to get to Ignacio And find out where she'll be living.”

“Well, we're not going to Ignacio for shopping today,” Daisy snapped. “I need to go up to the supermarket in Bayfield.”

“Bayfield?” She seldom shopped in Bayfield.

“Sure. They got a big sale goin'.”

“Sale? On what?”

She hesitated. “On… on broccoli. And artichokes.”

“Oh.” He'd never seen the least sign of either item in Daisy's kitchen. “Well, I guess I could loop around and drop Sarah off in Ignacio on the way back from Bayfield.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Guess we better get going. The Social Services Office will be wanting to start the processing.”

“Start what?”

“The paperwork.”

“Paperwork for what?”

“The monthly checks to Sarah's foster parents.”

“You know,” Daisy said as if the thought had just occurred to her, “there's no need to hustle the poor child off to some strange house right away. You could leave her here for a while. Little Sarah stayed with me once before. I expect she'd feel more comfortable bein' with somebody she knows.”

“Well,” Moon said doubtfully, “I don't know… I'd have to get approval from Social Services.”

Daisy dismissed this objection with a wave of her hand. “You can leave Sarah with me when we get back from Bayfield. If those fussy old hens in Social Services give you any trouble, you just send 'em out to see me and I'll clip their feathers.”

Feigning reluctance, Moon nodded. The lady from SSO had already agreed to Sarah staying with Daisy Perika on a “trial basis.” Before it could become a permanent arrangement, Daisy's home would have to be checked out. SSO would determine whether the elderly woman was physically
and mentally fit to provide proper foster-parent care of the child. But the head social worker owed him a favor or two; it was virtually a done deal. “You know… Sarah would have to stay here at least a month before you'd get a support payment from the tribe.”

Daisy put on a pained, saintly countenance. “If I was to let a poor little orphan child stay in my home for a while, it wouldn't be for
money.”
She held her hand near his face, and rubbed finger against thumb. “The trouble with you young people nowadays is that all you think about is money, money, money.”

Moon assumed a suitably sheepish expression. He opened the trailer door for her. “Well, it's not a
lot
of money …”

She paused on the porch and scowled at him. “Just exactly how much is not a lot …?”

Charlie Moon pitched the plastic garbage bag into the truck bed; he opened the passenger-side door. The elderly woman puffed and grunted as he assisted her climb into the cab. Daisy Perika settled herself beside the child, who had scooted to the middle of the broad seat.

The girl smiled fondly at the newcomer. “Hello, Aunt Daisy.” Sarah Frank held up the coal-black cat for the Ute woman's inspection. “Say hello, Mr. Zig-Zag.” The sleek feline blinked warily at the woman's small black eyes, sitting like plump raisins in an oatmeal-pudding face.

Daisy beamed upon the pair. “Why, hello, Sarah.” She reached out to pat the cat's head; the animal hissed a warning. “And hello to you, Mr. Rag-Bag.”

“Mr.
Zig
-Zag,”
Sarah said.

Charlie Moon backed the truck into the rutted lane that connected
Cañon del Espiritu
with Fosset Gulch Road. The Ute policeman was feeling quite satisfied with this morning's work. True, Daisy's trailer-home was a little ways off the beaten path. But it was neat and clean. And the old woman could still get around well enough to deal with a child. Daisy was a bit peculiar, of course. She still walked up the canyon sometimes to visit that abandoned badger hole where—so she said—the “little man” lived. But she'd hobnobbed with the
dwarf since she was a little girl. Said he'd told her lots of things. Important things. It wasn't just Aunt Daisy; several of the older members of the tribe still believed the
pitukupf
was a real person, even claimed they saw him from time to time. Only last week, the manager of the Sky Ute Motel restaurant had made a report to the SUPD. A substantial amount of food was missing. Moon had questioned the kitchen staff. His chief suspect was a Ute woman whose husband had died last April. She had a minimum-wage job and four hungry children to raise. With a perfectly straight face, she claimed that it “wasn't none of us employees who took the food.” No, she explained, the
pitukupf had
sneaked in after closing and carried away two sugar-cured hams, three dozen eggs, and twelve pounds of frozen hamburger. How did she know it was the dwarf? Why, she had seen him when she arrived for work just before sunup. Runnin' away, with a big sack over his shoulder. Moon had wondered why such a little fellow would carry away so much food. He must be stockin' up for the winter, she had suggested.

Moon had dutifully entered this material in his official report:

Witness reports seeing suspect leaving Sky Ute Lodge, approx. 6
A.M
. Suspect description follows:

Height: approx, two feet

Name: unknown

Race: said to be non-human

Age: said to be older than the mountains

Clothing: green shirt, funny hat, buckskin trousers, moccasins

Last known address: unknown, but individual of similar description has been reported to be living in badger hole in Cañon del Espiritu

The chief of police had not been amused. But you could put all of Roy Severo's sense of humor into a thimble and not fill it up.

Moon's thoughts drifted back to his aunt, and her fitness to
care for an orphaned child who didn't seem to have all that many options. It wasn't just Daisy's visits with the
pitukupf.
The “Ute leprechaun” was a tribal tradition that could be overlooked. But more and more, the old woman's thoughts wandered. She had weird dreams and often awoke with a dreadful certainty that these night visions predicted awful things to come. He knew because she would hound him about her worries.
You're a policeman, so go and stop this thing from happening. Do this. Do that. Call Scott Parris, he'll know I'm right.

And the poor old woman saw ghosts and spirits everywhere. Last June it was a growling bear-spirit sitting on a piñon stump in her yard; she'd thrown it a donut and the “bear” went away, satisfied with the offering. Month before that, it was the ghost of a Ignacio businessman walking along a street, looking into store windows that hadn't changed (for him) in fifty years. Seeing these haunts was bad enough. But Daisy
talked
to them. And they talked back. But it wasn't like she was getting feebleminded. Well, not
very
feebleminded.

Through the mists, Daisy Perika could see the jutting tower of Chimney Rock. She pulled a scrap of paper from her coat pocket and went over her grocery list. Flour. Salt. Ground beef. Pork sausage. Coffee. Milk. Eggs.

Yes… eggs.

This reminded the shaman of last evening's peculiar visitor. “Charlie?”

“Yeah?” He didn't take his eyes off the road. There were holes big enough to break a shock absorber. And you never knew when a deer would step out from behind a juniper, right in front of your bumper.

She blinked owlishly through her spectacles. “You oughta be on the lookout for a white man. Probably on drugs. Walks around naked as a plucked chicken.”

“Naked?”

“As the day he was born,” she said with a weary shake of her head. It was embarrassing the way people carried on nowadays. “He came by my place two nights ago.”

The policeman frowned. “He do anything threatening?”

The old woman shook her head. “But he did do something kinda peculiar.”

“What?”

“A magic trick.”

Moon shot her a sideways glance. “He did
what?”

She smiled at the memory. “Conjured up a white egg in his hand. Just like one of them magicians on TV.”

“Oh.” This was beginning to sound like one of her peculiar dreams. “What'd he look like?”

The old woman frowned thoughtfully. “Skinny. Not so tall. Yella hair. Blue eyes. And all muddy—like he'd fell in one of them bogs in Snake Canyon.”

“Well,” the Ute policeman said amiably, “I've had no citizen complaints about any
matukach
of that description. But if we cross paths, I'll throw a net over him.”

Daisy nodded. “That's just what he needs. A net throwed over him.”

Moon tapped the brake pedal as a gaunt coyote loped across the lane in front of the Blazer, and disappeared into the brush. Maybe some drunk had wandered by her trailer-home. On the other hand, the old woman had got to the point where she had a hard time telling the difference between dreams and reality. He couldn't resist teasing her. “You remember anything unusual about this fella that'd help me figure out who he is?”

She snorted. “Well, Mr. Policeman—he was stark naked, all covered with black mud, and pulled a white egg outta his hair. I'd say Unusual was his middle name.”

The policeman grinned at Sarah, who seemed fascinated by this conversation. “I mean like… distinguishing marks or characteristics.”

“Like what?”

He shrugged. “Oh, I dunno. Hanging-scar around his neck. Gold ring in his nose. Big red spider tattooed on his knee.”

Daisy Perika shot her nephew a warning look. “Nobody likes a smart aleck.”

Moon slowed to steer around a fallen pine branch. “There may be more'n one naked white man sneakin' around in the brush. If I'm gonna catch
your
guy, you got to give me something more specific to go on.”

“I think he was some kinda foreigner,” Daisy said suspiciously. “German, maybe.” German tourists visited Mesa Verde in great droves. Some spilled over onto the Ute reservation.

“German,” Moon said with a smirk that irritated his aunt. “Well, that'll help.”

“Or he coulda been a Albanian or a Bulgarian,” she snapped. “Or a Canadian.”

Moon wondered whether bringing Sarah Frank to stay with this peculiar old woman had been a sensible notion. But there was no acceptable alternative. Not until Social Services could find a permanent home for the child.

The grocery shopping was finished. They were headed back to Daisy's trailer-home at the mouth of
Cañon del Espiritu.
Charlie Moon had taken notice of two things. First, his aunt had purchased neither broccoli nor artichoke. Second, she had not mentioned the fact that Sarah was looking for a home. Maybe the old woman was trying to think of a gentle way to broach the subject to the child.

Daisy Perika took a sidelong look at the little girl sitting between her and Charlie Moon. The child was clutching the black cat to her chest. “Well, Charlie tells me you've left the Papago reservation.”

Sarah Frank nodded.

Moon was pleased that his aunt—who could be brutally direct—was approaching the sensitive subject with some delicacy. This is what he thought.

Daisy squinted through the windshield. “I hear your Papago grandmother went and died on you. And your grandfather's gone feebleminded and's living in an old-folks home. And here you are—without a roof over your head or anything to eat.”

With some effort, Moon held his tongue.

Sarah nodded again. “Yes, Aunt Daisy. I thought maybe me and Mr. Zig-Zag could come and stay with you… for a little while.”

Uh-oh.
Moon kept his eyes on the road.
If Aunt Daisy guesses that this was my idea …

Daisy was pleased that she and Sarah Frank had shared the same thought. But it would be a bad tactic to appear too eager. “Well… I don't know how I'd manage with a noisy child in my house. I'm too old to put up with any nonsense.”

Sarah rubbed the cat's neck. “We wouldn't have to stay very long—just till some
nice
people want me to live with them.”

The old woman scowled at the little girl.