The Witch's Tongue (23 page)

The dusty, musty, foul-smelling room would have been totally dark had it not been for the television screen, which cast a sickly bluish hue on the meager furnishings. The single human occupant of the dreary space was watching the late evening news out of Denver. Electronic snow drifted across the face of the cathode-ray tube, horizontal lines zigged and zagged along the handsome announcer’s face.

“And now we have an up-to-the-minute exclusive News-Cam story from La Plata County. Jane Cassidy, well known for her philanthropic activities in the world of fine arts and theater, will make a statement about the burglary of the Cassidy Museum.” He turned to view the scene on a life-size monitor.

The wealthy woman was standing outside the family mansion, her slender frame hidden under a buttoned tweed overcoat. She cleared her throat. “Just six weeks ago, an unknown person or persons broke into that building.” She turned to point; the camera panned the grounds to frame the museum. Her off-camera voice continued, “A number of valuables were taken. The theft has been covered rather thoroughly by the media, so I shall not repeat the details.” The camera found her face, zoomed in. She was reading from a document that had been prepared by her Denver law firm. “I am hereby offering a reward of one million dollars in cash to any person or combination of persons who will provide information that shall result in the return of the stolen property.” She paused to take a deep breath. “Such person or persons will not be presumed to be guilty of the burglary. Furthermore, in the unlikely instance that such person or persons should ever be indicted by any legal authority for the burglary, I will provide sufficient funds to defend said persons.” She stopped, glared at the papers, then at the camera. Jane Cassidy pitched the legal document aside. “Oh, can that lawyer gibberish. If the weasel who ripped me off is watching—prick up your pointy little ears. Here’s the deal. You have two options. Number one, you contact an attorney of your choice, make arrangements to return the stolen property. You have my personal guarantee, you will be paid the full one million dollars for the return of what you stole. You do that, far as I’m concerned, it’s over. I will not make any attempt to determine your identity or have you arrested.” Her eyes became slits. “But hear this, night crawler—you’ve got thirty days from right now. If you do not return my property during that period, you will have automatically selected the second option, which is this: I will spend the million dollars and more on the best private cops, bounty hunters, and knuckle-dragging mercenaries my money can buy. There won’t be anyplace on earth you can hide. You will be hunted for the rest of your miserable, rotten life. Even after I’m dead and gone, you won’t be able to rest. I have made a stipulation in my will that funds will be set aside in a trust to pay the hounds that will dog your trail till you’re run to ground.” She stopped, took a breath. “So there it is, lowlife. Your call.” She turned and walked away.

The wide-eyed face of a local stringer appeared on camera. “Well, Howard, that was quite a dramatic statement by a very determined lady.”

The Denver anchor’s face filled the television screen. “It certainly was, Bud.” He grinned at the unseen audience. “If I was the burglar, I’d be making plans right now to get the stolen property back to Miss Cassidy and collect the million bucks. It is obvious that the lady means business.”

The thief got up, walked across the room, switched off the television.
I can’t believe it—a million dollars in cold hard cash
. That was a sizable pile of money. And the second option was extremely unattractive.
What a nasty old witch!

Hearing the sound of the V-8 engine, Kicks Dogs shut off the television set, parted a tattered curtain to take a peek out the window. She watched the tall, lean man get out of the pickup. On the way to the door, the woman paused before a mirror, made a hurried attempt to pat her wild hair into place. She stared glumly at the result.
Wonderful. I look like I’ve just been electrocuted
.

After she had led Charlie Moon into the kitchen, Jacob Gourd Rattle’s wife stomped around, wringing her hands, looking this way and that. The pale woman’s eyes were wide with an expression of alarmed curiosity, as if she had never been in the room before this moment. A gray cat leaped onto the cluttered table, mewed at her mistress.

She stared blankly at the animal, then: “Oh, Bitsey—it’s you.”

The cat sniffed at a saucer. The dish was encrusted with a black smear that might have been the fossilized residue of King Tut’s chocolate cake. The animal licked at the sugary remnants with all the enthusiasm a haughty feline can be expected to demonstrate.

Kicks Dogs plopped herself onto a pine chair, propped her elbows on the table, cradled her chin in her hands. As if suddenly aware of the Ute’s presence, she cocked her head at him. “What brings you out here?”

Moon, standing with hat in hand, returned the peculiar stare with a patient smile. “I thought it was time we had a talk.”

“Talk?” The pale face assumed a suspicious expression. “About what?”

“About that night Jacob left you in the canyon.”

The woman watched a tiny yellow moth dart about above the table. “I’ll help you if I can. But these days, I have a hard time remembering anything that happened more than a few minutes ago.”

“I was hoping you could—”

Kicks Dogs pointed at a straight-back chair. “Siddown there, if you want to.”

Moon seated himself across the dining table from the woman.

She waited until the silence began to crush her like a vise. “What do you want to know?”

“I’d like to ask you some questions about your husband.”

Kicks snorted. “What husband?” She pointed at the bedroom door. “If I had me a husband, why would I be sleeping by myself every night? Can you answer me that?”

“No, ma’am.” He made another try: “When you showed up at my aunt’s place during that big spring snow, you said you and Jacob had spent the night in the canyon.”

Kicks patted her matted hair. “Did you know that I used the last of my savings to pay off the mortgage on this place?”

Moon shook his head.

“Sure you didn’t. And I bet you also didn’t know that I paid over eleven hundred dollars to put a new crank case in Jake’s clunky old van.”

Moon admitted that he was ignorant of that fact too.

“If Jake don’t come back pretty soon, all of his sneaky Indian relatives’ll swoop down on this place and take everything that ain’t nailed down. And most of the furniture is mine.”

“I’m sure you don’t need to worry about anyone taking your possessions. But if someone bothers you, you call me and I’ll see to it that—”

“You know what I need?”

Charlie Moon thought he should not respond to that.

“I need me a lawyer.”

“Uh—could we get back to what happened when Jake left you during the snowstorm?”

“Oh, I guess so.” She folded a soiled napkin into a small, thick triangle. “What do you want to know?”

“You said Jacob left you in Spirit Canyon.”

“Is that what they call it—Spirit Canyon?” She frowned, as if trying to remember. “I don’t think Jake ever mentioned the
name
of the canyon we was in.” The cat leaped off the dining table, came to lick at a sore on the woman’s ankle.

Moon continued politely, “About an hour after you reported Jacob missing, I met an SUPD officer in the canyon. We not only didn’t find your husband, Jacob’s van wasn’t parked on the mesa where you told us you’d left it. After the snow melted, the tribal police organized a thorough search—brought in about forty volunteers. They combed Spirit Canyon for three days. Never found a trace of Jacob.”

She pushed the cat away with her foot. “If nobody fund Jake, then he must’ve not been there. Which is not all that amazing, since I saw him walk away from his camp.”

He said it slowly: “The search didn’t turn up any trace of Jacob’s camp.”

Unfazed, Kicks Dogs found a blob of something sticky on the oilcloth, scratched at it with her thumbnail. “Maybe they didn’t look hard enough.”

The tribal investigator stared at the faint greenish yellow remnant of the bruise on her cheek. “Why did you stay with a man who knocked you around so much?” It was a highly personal question, but pertinent to his investigation.

She shrugged. “Jake wasn’t all that bad.”

He tried another approach: “Can you think of any reason why your husband would have gone away?”

“Men are always going away.” She flicked this particular member of the gender an angry look. “That’s just the way they are.”

The tribal investigator watched her eyes. “What was Jacob doing in the canyon?”

The pale woman curled her fingers, examined the chewed nails. “He was there because of those dreams he’d been having.”

“He went to Spirit Canyon because of a dream—that’s all he told you?”

A slight shudder rattled her thin shoulders. “Jake—he said what he was doing in that canyon wasn’t for a woman to know—it was
men’s
business. And I wasn’t supposed to tell anybody he was there.” She darted a glance across the table at her guest. “Would you like something to eat? I got some prunes in the fridge. And some candied yams.”

“That’s very kind of you, ma’am—but I’ll pass.”

“Something to drink then? I could brew up some herbal tea.”

Moon shook his head. “Is there anything about that night you could tell me about?”

“What night?”

“When Jake left you alone in Spirit Canyon.”

“I already told the police and the FBI everything I can recollect.” Her face brightened. “Would you like to hear about what I dreamed that night in the canyon?”

The tribal investigator looked at the ceiling. Suspended on a brass chain, swinging slightly in a draft, was a blackened sixty-watt bulb. It wore a cone hat of greasy white plastic that was cocked at a jaunty angle. Anchored between the corroded chain and a dusty pine beam, a ragged spiderweb billowed like a macabre sail.
If I wait for a little while, maybe she’ll forget about the dream
.

This was wishful thinking.

She followed his gaze. “I dreamed about those demons and things up there on the ceiling, hanging over me while I tried to sleep.”

“Demons?”

“Oh yeah. I spotted ’em with my little flashlight.”

He heard himself mumble. “You saw demons with your flashlight.”

“Sure. I had a fresh set of double-A alkaline batteries. And you can bet your eyes that after I fell asleep—” She bit her lip. “I’m sure it was the spotted lizard that put the double whammy on me.”

Charlie Moon tried to appear interested. But as her nasal voice droned on, he drifted away to that perfect refuge, the Columbine. He imagined himself a mile south of the ranch headquarters. Standing on the pebbled bank of the glacial lake. Casting a feathered lure onto the mirrored surface. As he was strictly a bait fisherman, this was odd. But there—just under the mirrored surface—the darting form of a twenty-six-inch rainbow flashed in the sunlight. He tensed.
Attaboy. Take it and run
. From far away, he heard someone call.

“Hey!”

Moon jumped, blinked at the woman.

“When a lady is talking, you should pay attention.”

“Uh—yes, ma’am.”

“Do you want to hear my dream?”

“Sure I do.”
Forgive me, Father, for I have lied
.

“Okay then.” Kicks Dogs tugged at an unruly ringlet of corn-yellow hair; an expression of certitude glinted in her watery eyes.

Surreptitiously, Moon glanced at his wristwatch.

The cat rubbed her spindly ribs against his boot, a fine-tuned purr rattled in the feline throat.

“I was laying there on my back.” She looked up at the lightbulb, her pupils shrunk to tiny black dots. “It seemed like the clouds was all yella, kinda glowing. And I thought I heard somebody talking, only not in any earthly language.” She gave him a knowing look. “It sounded like
aliens
.”

“Aliens, huh?”

She bobbed her head in a jerky nod. “But I want to be perfectly honest and tell you that I’d had just a little sip of my sleeping tonic—which is a little-bitty, teensy-weensy dab of whiskey in a pint of hot water. With lots of sugar.”

Moon wondered how much better his life would be if he resigned his appointment as part-time tribal investigator.

In a mildly theatric gesture, Kicks Dogs put her hand over her eyes. “Anyway, through the mists, I see Jake coming. He stops just a little ways off. For a minute or so, he just stands there, looking up into those clouds.”

Moon watched the cat chase a cockroach across the linoleum.
I should check the oil in my fancy new truck. And rotate the tires
.

“Then up he goes.” She frowned at the Ute. “Are you listening to me?”

“Sure.”

“Then what’d I just say?”

Uh-oh
. “You were telling me about…your dream.”

She seemed satisfied with this response.

That was a close one
.

Kicks returned her gaze to the lightbulb above the table. “Then Jake starts climbing.”

He thought it best to show some interest.
Once she gets past the dreaming, maybe I can get something useful out of her
. “Climbing what?”

She presented a little-girl smile. “Now that’s the sixty-four-dollar question. In my dream, I couldn’t hardly see what it was my old man was climbing. But I’m sure it had to be something that was magical.” With her finger she drew an invisible line on the tablecloth. “Do you know what I mean?”

He knew a trap when he saw one. “Uh…more or less.”
Mostly less
.

“I believe Jake was climbing a
moonbeam
in my dream.” An expression of intense self-satisfaction brightened her face. “And it was the spotted lizard that caused me to have that dream.” She fluttered her eyelashes as if she knew a delicious secret. “Do you want to hear the rest?”

The defeated man nodded.

“Right after I had that vision of Jake climbing the moonbeam, I had this other dream. I was a sassy dance-hall gal all decked out in a shiny red dress and I was working in one of them old-timey saloons. All of a sudden, these wild and woolly cowboys came roarin’ in—they was half-cocked and loaded for bear.” She paused and squinted at nothing in particular. “If I remember right, two of ’em was John Wayne and Gabby Hayes. Well, this bunch started to yellin’ and sluggin’ it out with the other customers, which included Teddy Roosevelt—who is my most favorite president. First thing you know, there’s this big free-for-all brawl. A real knock-down-drag-out.”

Charlie Moon gave her a glassy-eyed stare.

“Well, I ran outta the saloon and then I dreamed that I saw old King Kong get hit right in the snout by a little airplane and fall off of the Empire State Building
—thump!
And I do mean to tell you, when that big ape hit the street it sure did make the earth rattle and shake.” She paused, as if recalling a pertinent detail. “It was all in black-and-white, like one of them old movies. I wish it had been Technicolor, like most of my dreams.”

After an hour or more of patiently listening to the lady pitch fairytale and fable, Moon finally got up from the table. He thanked the eccentric woman for her time, said his good-bye.

Kicks Dogs stood at a window, watching through a slit in the curtain as the Indian drove away into the gathering darkness. Her pale eyes squinted until the tail lights faded into the distance.
I bet he thinks I’m crazy
.

Sitting beside her mistress, Bitsey chewed contentedly on a cockroach.