The Witch's Tongue (36 page)

Standing with his back to the door, the tribal investigator knew who it was. He tensed. “Go ahead. Do it.”

The newcomer stared at the tall man. Reached out. Ran a pointy fingernail down his spine.

Charlie Moon turned.

Special Agent McTeague smiled. “How was that?”

He smiled back. “Lila Mae, you do a pretty mean scratch.”

SCOTT PARRIS
approached his office.
Seems awful quiet—maybe they’ve gone
. He turned the knob, looked through a crack in the door. The chief of the Granite Creek Police Department felt cheated.
I’ve been working with the feds for a good twelve years now, and I like to think I’ve done a pretty good job. Two or three times I’ve got a slap on the back or a “Way to go, Scott.” But in all that time, no FBI agent has ever hugged and kissed me
.

Daisy Perika was seated on an uncomfortable chair in the rectory parlor. Preferring to avoid the priest’s penetrating gaze, the Ute elder looked down at the weak cup of coffee in her hand. “So, how are your retirement plans going?”

Father Raes Delfino sipped at a cup of tea sweetened with honey. “I am reliably informed that the bishop has found a replacement.”

Daisy did not inquire about the new priest because she did not care to know a thing about him. It would be some enthusiastic young smart Aleck, all filled up with big long words and years of book learning. The old woman tried to make her next question sound like small talk. The trembling voice betrayed her. “Have you found a place to live?”

The Jesuit nodded.

Daisy shot him an accusing look. “It’ll be a long ways off, I expect.”

Probably not far enough
. There was a merry twinkle in the cleric’s eyes. “Shortly before I’m ready to make my move, I will pay you a call. Tell you everything.”

The cantankerous woman shrugged, as if she did not care where he went.

“Daisy, I have known you for quite a long time. I do not believe you are here to discuss my retirement plans.”

She squirmed in the chair. “Well—there is this one thing.”

Aha
. “And what would that be?”

The old woman grimaced. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been…to confession.”

Father Raes almost spilled his spicy-sweet tea. He set the translucent china cup on a matching saucer. Only last year, Charlie Moon had requested that holy sacrament—and for a most peculiar reason. And now Daisy.
Will God’s wonders never cease?
The cleric found his tongue. “Yes. I suppose it has been. A long time, I mean.”

Daisy strained with the mental calculation. “It was way back when old Father What’s-his-name was here—the one who wheezed when he talked and had a big red mole on his nose. And Mole Nose was here before Father Martinez, who was still a couple of Fathers before you.” She nodded to agree with this vague assessment. “And it wasn’t long after my third husband died, so it must’ve been sometime around 1962.” She shifted in the chair again, grunted. “Let’s get to it.”

The holy man looked to heaven for mercy. When there was no response, Father Raes Delfino made a halfhearted attempt at escape. “Perhaps you would prefer to wait until my replacement arrives.”

The repentant woman shook her head. “Got to be right now.” The old war-horse gave him a defiant look. “But I won’t go into that little closet—it gives me the spooks.”

“Very well. Under those special circumstances, I suppose we may proceed with less formality. Now to begin with—”

“It’s not like that last time, when everybody thought my third husband fell off his mule, and that his death was an accident.” She leaned forward. “The truth was—”

He raised a hand to silence her. “Presuming this sin has already been confessed in 1962, it is not necessary to repeat it.”

“Then you’re only interested in what happened lately?”

“Technically, we should discuss any sins since your last confession.”
God deliver me from hearing all of that
. “But let us begin with whatever is most burdensome to your soul.”

“Well, there’s hardly anything that bothers me overly much.”

He could not help smiling.

“But a while back…” She looked down at her wrinkled hands. “I took something that wasn’t mine.”

The priest raised an eyebrow. “You committed a theft?”

“You sound like a cop,” she snapped.

“I beg your pardon, Daisy. But stealing is a very serious sin.” He thought he knew the answer but was required to ask. “Did you return the stolen property to the rightful owner?”

“Not exactly.”

Father Raes put on his most stern expression. “Daisy, forgiveness can hardly be expected until there is true repentance. And that requires restitution.”

She thought of a mitigating circumstance: “I was
thinking
about returning it, but before I could, he came and stole it back.”

Father Raes closed his eyes.
Dear God, give me strength
. “Why don’t you tell me the whole story.”

She did.

At the end of the tale about Hasteen K’os Largo’s horned-star pendant and the murdered white policeman, and how it had all turned out “all right” because she had helped the authorities convict the Apache who murdered Officer Wolfe—the priest fixed her with an astonished look. “This is quite a remarkable account.”

Having unconsciously interlaced her fingers, Daisy seemed on the very verge of prayer. Her voice crackled with fear. “Will I have to do penance?”

“Of course.”

Imagining the dire possibilities, she cringed.

“But before we discuss that, there is something that you must understand.”

The old sinner waited.

“Daisy, you must learn to love God—not the things of this world.” The priest’s voice was full of compassion. “The time eventually comes when we are compelled to depart from this mortal body.” He looked past her at something neither he nor she could see. “And when we go, we are obliged to leave everything behind.”

CHARLIE MOON
had wasted hours searching the broad crest of Three Sisters Mesa. His happy hound had well spent the same interval scaring up cottontails and chasing every butterfly that fluttered by. The shadows were stretched and diffuse; both man and beast were ready to call it a day—when just a few paces from the edge of the cliff that hung over the Witch’s Tongue, in the slanting light of the afternoon sun, the tribal investigator spied a fluffy wisp of something on the very tip of a yucca spike. It was a tiny hank of wool. Yellow wool. And a peculiar kind of yellow at that.

A few yards away, Sidewinder sniffed and whined at a narrow crack in the mesa floor. “What’ve you found, another rabbit?” Moon went to scratch his hound behind the ear. There was no rabbit. And because there were hundreds much like it, this particular fracture in the sandstone was hardly noteworthy. Except for the fact that a green piñon branch had been stuffed into the small crevice. The Ute removed the small piece of brush, stared at precisely what he had been searching for—a rolled-up bundle of nylon cords. He knew who had hidden it here. This was a highly significant piece of evidence.
By rights, I should tell McTeague about this
. But knowing that he would not
—could
not—Charlie Moon replaced the piñon branch over the hound’s discovery. He walked away, Sidewinder trailing along behind. “You’re a good old dog,” he said to his fuzzy-faced friend. “How about a big chunk of prime beef for dinner—and some fried chicken livers?”

The canine gourmet licked his lips.

Months passed with a painful slowness, like old men walking uphill. A dry summer was replaced by a drier autumn. Cottonwood and aspen leaves crinkled into crispy gold, fell away to drift in the cool breath exhaled from the mouth of
Cañon del Espiritu
.

Every day, every night, Daisy Perika got a little older. A little wiser.

Every day, every night, she prayed for God to remove from her the burning desire for the K’os Largo pendant.

Every day, every night, she loved God a little more—earthly treasures a little less.

And it came to pass that she was blessed.

One fine October morn, while she was dozing on her lumpy little cot, the weary woman heard an automobile pull up near her trailer and stop.
Maybe it’s Charlie
. Daisy got up to look through the bedroom window, saw an old, rusted-out Chevrolet sedan. She squinted at the license plate.
God help me—it’s a whole carload of Okies!
But what were they doing here? She considered several possibilities, settled on what seemed the most likely.
I bet the dust bowl has come back and they’ve hit the road to look for work
. She retreated from the window, hoping and praying that they would go away. Her hopes and prayers were pointedly ignored. There were squeaks on the porch steps, a tentative knock.

I’m not here
. Ostrich Woman closed her eyes and stood quite still.

Patiently, persistently, the knocking continued.

I might as well get this over with
. Prepared for an unpleasant confrontation, she jerked the door open, found a grizzled-looking old white man standing on her porch.

He took off his new straw hat, smiled most pleasantly, and said, “Excuse me, ma’am—I don’t know if we’ve found the right place. Might you be Mrs. Perika?”

Somewhat reluctantly, she nodded.

He tapped the hat brim on his chest. “I am Tobias Wolfe—father of Jim Wolfe.”

Daisy took another look at the Chevrolet Impala parked a few yards away. A woman who looked about the same age as Tobias was staring at her from the passenger seat.
This must be the dead man’s mother
. A slender youth leaning on the car looked enough like Jim Wolfe to be his brother. She found her voice. “I’m sorry about what happened to your son.”

The other man approached the porch, climbed the steps to stand behind his father.

Daisy Perika eyed them both, knew what she must do. “Would you like to come in?”

Tobias Wolfe shook his head. “Oh no, ma’am. We would not want to impose ourselves on your hospitality. We just came to tell you how thankful our family is to you for helping the government convict the man who murdered our oldest son. If you hadn’t treated Jim’s wounds that day he had the fight, and took notice of that little blue stone he wore under his shirt—why, his killing might never have been solved.” He turned to look at his wife in the Chevrolet. “And we’d never have been able to find peace of mind.”

Daisy’s face burned with shame. “I didn’t do all that much.”

“What you did meant a lot to us.” As he put his hand in his coat pocket, the grateful man smiled at this remarkably modest woman. “Me and the wife, we got this property of Jim’s last week by registered mail. It was legal evidence for a while, but now they don’t need it no more. And seeing as how you have a connection with the thing, we thought you might like to have it. So we came all the way from Talequah, just to give it to you personal.” He stuck out a knobby, work-worn hand. In his callused palm was the K’os Largo pendant.

The Ute shaman felt electricity tingle up and down her spine. All her good intentions vanished; every atom in her body lusted after the rare treasure.

“Go on,” Tobias Wolfe said. “Take it.”

She looked at the younger man. There was a smile, a nod.

The tempted Christian closed her eyes. Talked to God.

The puzzled old man waited with the patience characteristic of his kind.

Having made her decision, Daisy was able to lay her burden down. She looked through tears at Mr. Tobias Wolfe. This was not an ordinary pendant, she told him. It had belonged to a famous Navajo medicine man who died many years ago. It was probably worth a lot of money. Mr. Wolfe could sell it. Or keep it, in remembrance of his son.

He gave her a bewildered look, stuck his hand out even farther. “You sure you don’t want it?”

Miraculously, she did not.

Daisy beamed a hard look at the kindly
matukach
. “Now listen to what I’ve got to say, because I won’t put up with no argument. You people come inside while I make you some coffee.”

“Well, I guess if you put it that way…” The old man nodded his assent, made a gesture to his wife, who got out of the car and approached the Ute woman’s home. And so it was that three members of the Wolfe clan experienced the hospitality of Daisy Perika’s kitchen. For hours on end, they talked about the son who had been murdered. He had always been a good boy. Daisy Perika provided Tobias Wolfe and his wife with oatmeal-raisin cookies and strong coffee. The shaman did not offer any refreshment to the young man. It would have been quite pointless.

And would certainly have startled his parents.

Charlie Moon looked through the north window, saw Pete Bushman down at the riverside corral. He stepped out onto the porch, gave his foreman a wave.

Bushman was busy and did not want to be bothered. “What is it?” he yelled.

Moon yelled back, “Got some news.”

Convinced by years of hard knocks that all news is bad, the bearded, bow-legged stockman approached the boss with an air of dread. “What is it now?”

Charlie told him.

For a breathless moment, the foreman stared in disbelief. “You did—you really
did
?”

Moon grinned. “Signed the papers this morning.”

Bushman jerked his tattered hat off his head, threw it into the air, let out a screeching yelp that startled the horses in the corral and a flock of blackbirds passing by. “Ya-hoooooo!”

The owner of the Columbine feigned a look of disappointment. “From time to time, Pete, it would help if you could manage to show a little bit of enthusiasm.”

THE DEALER

SEVERAL HOURS
later, Charlie Moon was on the telephone, having an unpleasant conversation with the owner-manager of Happy Dan’s Custom Trucks and Vans.

“So,” the rancher mumbled, “the first payment on the F-350 is due.”

Happy Dan confirmed that this was true.

“And remind me, Happy—how much does that come to?”

He was told the sum. To the very penny.

Ouch
. “That much?”

Happy Dan reminded the Ute that this was a zero-down-payment, zero-interest deal. And the pickup was practically one of a kind.

“It’s a great truck, but my budget is kinda strained right now.” Moon hated to say it, but it had to be said. “Maybe I’d better let you take it back.”

The cheerful salesman hated to tell his customer this, but there was a stiff penalty for return of the vehicle. Check the contract.

The rancher had a copy of the document on his desk. “I didn’t see anything about a penalty.”

Happy Dan directed him to page 16, subparagraph II-A.

Moon turned the pages, squinted. “That’s so small I can’t read a word of it.”

His visual acuity was hardly the issue, the dealer informed him. The important fact was that Moon had put his John Henry on the agreement.

“If I can’t come up with the monthly payments, I sure as heck can’t afford the penalty.”

Finding this remark hilarious, Happy Dan laughed in Moon’s ear. After regaining his composure, the businessman suggested that the rancher get back to him. Soon. Pointed out that he could have one of his flunkies out there to pick up the pickup before Moon could say the machine’s digitized name, which was Betty Lou. With that cheerful threat, Happy hung up.

Immediately, there was a knock.

Moon turned to stare at the door.
Surely not…