The Shaman's Secret (24 page)

He was dead. And yet there was no joy in our hearts. It
was too macabre, the burning body in this fetid hole of a cave.

“May we go to the cavern of the ancestors?” Aunt Hilda asked the shaman. “I would very much like to see this tablet.”

I glanced at her, then looked away. It was too naked, her greed for possession of the sacred thing.

“How do we know that we will not be struck down like Cecil?” Waldo said. “I don't—”

“You are right,” Boy interrupted. “We must clean ourselves.” She pointed to two tiny huts, which stood near the far wall of the cave. They had been constructed out of bent willow saplings, covered with skins and blankets—and looked barely big enough for a dwarf.

“What are they?” Rachel asked.

“The shaman has built two medicine lodges,” Boy explained. “There is one for women and one for men because they must not mix. We must perform the medicine before we go in search of the sacred tablet.”

“What?!” Rachel said.

Aunt Hilda stepped in. “Keep your voice down, Rebecca,” she said. “Indians believe that sweat ceremonies cleanse the evil before meeting spirits. Or some such. You clean your soul by sweating out all the badness, is that not right?” she demanded of Boy.

Boy nodded.

“It is an important ritual in these parts,” she explained. “We must strip down and sweat out the bad in those huts.”

“Naked?” Rachel asked. “Not naked?”

“Of course naked. That's why there are separate huts for men and women. Better get on. It's an interesting ritual, and I hear it can be quite pleasant,” Aunt Hilda said.

The rest of us were outraged, Waldo's chin jutting forward in a growl. There was something repulsive about the idea of sweating, naked, here in the bowels of the earth with Cecil Baker's body burning so near us.

“No,” I said. “I'm sorry. I can't do it.”

The others were adding their protests to mine. Boy held up a slim hand.

“We must do this,” she said. “If we do not do this, the shaman cannot take us to the cavern of the ancestors.

“This means we will not find the tablet.”

Several hours of sweating later and my head felt as if it was floating off my body. My throat was parched, as Boy allowed only very few sips of water. The hot stones glowed in the center of our sweat house, steam pouring off them. Boy chanted and drummed, her incantations whirling in my head. Occasionally she would take her buffalo horn
and pour more water on the glowing stones. Even more occasionally she would replace the stones with those from the fire blazing in the cave outside.

It was already hot in the canyon outside. In here it was hot, hot, hot.

My insides felt as if they had been opened and flayed by the burning stones. All the flesh was gone, shriveled away. There wasn't anything left of me, just baking flesh. Somewhere very small inside was a shining nugget. It was
me
, Kit Salter.

I will not dwell on the sight of my aunt. She seemed quite at home naked, squatting in the heat like a giant toad. It was much more pleasant to avert my eyes. I will say, though, that the drumming and chanting made it all seem like a dream.

Boy was outside, gathering more hot stones, when Aunt Hilda turned to Rachel and me. Through the steam her face was contorted.

“I've just realized what this is,” she said.

“A steam bath,” I replied.

“It's a ritual. They are purifying us.”

“So?”

“You know what that means.”

“Of course,” I said. “Cleansing our spirit and so on. The steam hissing up is the universe's creative fire.”

“No.
They're purifying us
. Rebecca, Kit, listen—perhaps
the Apaches purify people before they offer them as a sacrifice.”

“I don't understand.”

“A human sacrifice. To their gods.”

I didn't believe her. I couldn't believe her. Hadn't Boy and the shaman already shown they were on our side? And our enemy, Cecil Baker, was dead. But Aunt Hilda's words blended with the steam and the rhythmic chanting from the male sweat hut to create a terrifying din in my head.

Boy appeared, like a ghost, through the animal skins that formed the door of the sweat hut.

“We are ready for the cavern of the ancestors,” she said.

Boy, a splash of color in her fawn dress and scarlet headband, stepped lightly across the earthen floor of the cave. We followed her, our tread heavy. The snake on my chest writhed, going in for the kill. Fear rose from my belly to meet it. What were we doing here? On a quest for some legendary tablet that we only knew of through rumor. A foolhardy mission led by Cyril Baker, a crazed man who was now dead. A dark foreboding hung over me. The “Glittering World,” the “Earth Surface World,” felt very far away. We were trapped here in the realm of shadow.

The shaman was waiting, along with Isaac and Waldo. His grotesque mask glowered at us in livid reds and blues. In the sweat hut I had asked Boy about the mask, and she'd said it was called a
kachina
. When he placed it on his head, a man
became
the supernatural spirit carved on the mask.
Kachina
s control the living—birds, beasts and humans—and can bring rain or sun. They were savage gods, it seemed to me.

Walking through the gloom, I realized that what I had
thought of as a cave was actually a natural drainage ditch. I could see a tiny patch of sky a mile above us. A glimpse of louring clouds. This cleft in the canyon had been caused by water pouring from the world above for time immemorial. I put out a hand to steady myself as, bending down, I followed Boy and the
kachina
.

Abruptly, as the sky far above our heads closed over into rock, we were plunged into darkness. My hand gripped the side of the tunnel, finding chill slimy stones, water-slick. Something clamped over my mouth and an iron grip took my other hand.

I tried to scream, but my voice was cut off by the leathery glove prodding into my mouth. My hands were tied, swiftly, before I had the chance to fight. I heard a shrill wail—Rachel. Then the sound of cursing—Waldo. Both of these noises were gone as quickly as they started, and in the damp silence I could only hear scuffling.

Something pushed me from behind and I stumbled onward, almost falling into a large cavern. It was filled with watery light from far, far above. Too weak to dispel the gloom. Much stronger were the brands that flamed from pockets in the rock.

Rachel was flung down on the stony floor after me, then Waldo, Isaac, Aunt Hilda and Boy. All of them had their hands tied and were being shepherded by grotesque masked
kachina
s.

It was a nightmarish vision, the cavern rising like a gothic cathedral in a pointed star-shaped spire. Down on the floor, and in the rocky ledges to the sides, dozens of robed, feathered figures flitted. They leered at us, their gaudy faces covered with turquoise, yellow and orange masks. From the depths of the cavern a great drumming and chanting started up, and they began to dance.

In the blinking light of the flaming torches, I could distinguish a cavorting figure. Kokopelli, the humpbacked flute player, beloved of the ancient canyon dwellers. A sinister mud head, lumpish and coarse-featured, like a figure from a dream drawn by a four-year-old. A clown with huge, red, rubbery lips and sad black-rimmed eyes, half pathetic, half sinister.

One dancer, garbed in moccasins and a buckskin kilt, his body daubed with paint and adorned with beads and feathers, had a head shaped like a bluebottle. Black eyeholes were cut in his mask.

“Be calm,” said Boy, who was on her knees on the floor next to me, her hands bound behind her back. “They will release us once they are sure we are pure.”

In the center of the space a ledge of rock rose like an altar. It was made of dark, shiny basalt. It bore something propped upon a stand. It was hard to make out from this distance, but it looked to be of pink-veined marble, with
figures that reminded me of Egyptian hieroglyphs inscribed on it.

“The tablet,” I said to Boy, while one of our captors poked me forward. “Boy—that must be it. The Anasazi tablet.”

Wonder surged in me as I looked upon the thing. A slab of dull marble, not gold, not precious. But a thing of legend that for centuries people had fought and died over. A sacred object imbued with powers that were only talked of in hushed voices.

Aunt Hilda was staring at it, hunger on her face. I knew she would have given up any number of diamonds to possess this tablet. To return home to Oxford in triumph with this legendary stone, which the Indians claimed had been handed to them by their god.

She was not totally thoughtless, but at that moment she had forgotten that the tablet might actually cure me. All she saw was a picture of her everlasting fame as its discoverer.

“The Anasazi tablet,” she murmured in a trance. “Boy, where is your master? We must be released. Where is Far-Seeing Man?”

“Far-Seeing Man is not coming back,” a voice behind us said.

The clown stepped out of the shadows, his rubbery face breaking into a smile.

“Far-Seeing Man is gone,” he said.

“What have you done to him?” Boy called, and the clown opened his mouth wide in a jangling laugh that echoed through the cavern.

“He is dead. Quite, quite dead. Your shaman is dead. Nah Kay Yen, the great far-seer, didn't see that, did he?”

The clown was a slim figure with scarlet lips, and eyes that drooped at the side and drooled dark pus. It was wearing a black-and-white striped hat and had two horns growing from its head, tassels sprouting from the ends. More demon than jester, it struck dread into my heart.

“What are you?” asked Boy, recoiling from him as he leaped above her.

For answer the clown tossed away the watermelon that it was holding in its left hand and removed the striped leather glove. With horror I saw that the ring finger had been hacked away. In its place was a stub. A bloody, bandaged stub.

“Cecil Baker?” I groaned, staring at the diabolical mask.

“Clever, clever girl.” The clown cavorted over to me. “Well, quite clever. I suppose I am the obvious suspect. Still, I knew I wasn't wrong. Cyril argued with me. Said you weren't worth it. But I always had faith in you.”

“It can't be. We saw your body … your finger,” Waldo cried. “
You are dead
.”

“But if I'm dead, how come I to stand before you now?”

“Your finger,” Aunt Hilda said. “We saw your ring.”

“A clever trick.” His lips cleaved in delight. “A genius trick, even if I say so myself.”

“If it is you, Cecil, show yourself,” I said, struggling to sit up. “Prove this isn't just some horrible game.”

The clown's face split in a smile as big as a knife slash. “My pleasure,” it said, and ripped off the mask.

Underneath, as ghastly as the clown's chalky mask, was Cecil. His eyes glittered with a manic glee, his tongue flickered like a lizard as he dropped down on his knees in front of me. The drumming increased in intensity and the dancers' feet pounded the rocks harder and harder.

“Never believe in half-truths,” he said loudly, spreading his hands out. “
Never see what you only desire to see
. The body you saw in the cave there was Far-Seeing Man. I had no more use for him, so I dressed him in my clothes and burned him.”

Boy exploded in screams.

“Your finger,” said Aunt Hilda. “What happened to your finger?”

“I cut it off. A small price. I had no more use for it anyway.” As he said this, he waved his stumpy left hand, boasting of his madness. Then he dropped down close to me and began to speak in a low voice.

“I'm so glad,” Cecil whispered tenderly. “Finally, after all
this time, you're mine.” He put out one hand and stroked my chest, where the snake's head was gliding downward. Every inch of me recoiled in disgust from him, from his dead touch. It was like being embraced by a corpse.

He tore open his tunic to reveal a snake crawling toward his heart. A snake just like my own.

“See,” he said. “We're not so different, after all. Only mine has such a damn grip that nothing will release it.”

“You deserve it.”

“Quite true. Perhaps you will have better luck.” He moved closer to me.

“Get away from me,” I spat.

“I don't think you quite understand,” he said. “We will never be separated. Not now. You are the treasure I've been seeking. I've been dreaming of this moment half my life. Ever since your mother died.”

Never, ever, had I felt more hatred. Cecil must have seen what I felt. Briefly a shadow crossed his face, as if disappointed that I didn't share his rapture. Or was it possible he felt ashamed of what he was about to do? It was gone in an instant, replaced by the former wild glee. He jumped to his feet and, clicking his fingers, called his masked minions. Two of the Hopi Indian
kachina
s broke from the shadows and scurried over.