interrupting your sing.”
“True,” he said. “But that don’t make me regret what happened any less.”
There was nothing I could say about his regret, except to perhaps offer the advice to suppress it savagely. It keeps you functioning.
“What happened to the hippies?” I asked, to distract both of us from our regrets.
“Oh. Well, Changing Woman told me they’d wake up eventually, but she didn’t say when. It was summertime and hotter than a branding iron down there, and part o’ me thought it’d serve them right to get sunburned, since they wanted to be red men so badly. But then I thought they might get seriously burned, and I didn’t want to be responsible for that. So I did my best to drag them into the shade. One of them was too damn huge and I couldn’t move him, so I put my hat over his face and hoped he’d be all right.”
“That was kind of you,” Granuaile said, smiling at him. “I know from experience that a bad sunburn can make you terribly sick, so that was a good precaution.”
“What could you see after Changing Woman touched your eyes?” I asked.
“Most things were the same. But some things weren’t. I saw some colors around my jish that weren’t there before. I could see which homes had been blessed well and which ones hadn’t. And whenever I did ceremonies after that, I could kinda see what I was doing, see everyone’s spirit and how the songs and the sandpaintings could change them, bring them into harmony with the Holy People, and unite the spirit world with the physical. And sometimes I’d run into people who had colors around them too. People like you. People like that lady with the death goddess inside.”
“How about Mr. Benally?” Granuaile said.
Frank squinted at her. “Well… yeah. Him too.” He looked at me. “You know who he really is, don’t you?”
“I think so,” I said. “He-”
“Wait,” Frank said, holding up a hand. “Don’t say any names. That’s important.”
I didn’t understand, but I wasn’t going to argue with him. If he thought it was important, far be it for me to gainsay him.
“I think he’s one of the First People,” I said, hoping that wasn’t stepping over any lines.
“Yep. I think so too. Problem is figuring out which one. They’re capable of trickin’ a fella pretty good. Let’s say no more about it.”
I shrugged. He seemed to have a pretty good idea it was Coyote, so I wasn’t going to force the issue.
“You’ll be all right for a while?” I asked.
“Aw, sure. Where you goin’?”
“Gotta walk the dog.” Oberon’s tail swished energetically through the air at this announcement. “Might head north.”
Frank looked at me sharply. “You be careful.”
I nodded acknowledgment at him and called Oberon, who’d been quietly watching all this time. “Ready to do a little bit of hunting, buddy?”
I switched to mental communication. Skinwalkers. Let’s see where they went. If they’re hiding in a cave, maybe I can get Colorado to collapse the entrance and solve our problem for us.
“All right, let’s go,” I said. Granuaile joined us as we walked down to the car. We stepped softly around Darren’s body. Oberon whined once, then put his nose down to the ground.
We paused at Granuaile’s car and poured some bottled water into one of those collapsible dog bowls. We also took the opportunity to fill our tanks with some beef jerky and crackers. Then we took an extra couple of water bottles each for the trip ahead.
Oberon announced. He trotted back to the base of the hill, snuffled around a little bit, then turned north.
I expect it will get harder soon.
“What’s the plan if we find them, sensei?” Granuaile asked. We broke into an easy jog to keep up with Oberon.
“Depends on the situation,” I replied. “I’d prefer to call in an air strike, but unfortunately that’s not a viable option. Don’t worry, I’m not planning on poking them awake and suggesting a duel. Whatever we do, it will be from a safe distance and completely cold-blooded.”
The trail ended on a small knoll three miles away. My improvised javelin was there, stained with blood, and there were plenty of tracks and smells for us to decipher. I wouldn’t be able to smell any of it while in human form.
“Fair warning: I’m getting naked,” I said to Granuaile as I unslung Moralltach and stripped off my shirt. “I need to shift and find out what Oberon’s smelling.”
Granuaile made no reply, but she let out a wolf whistle when I shucked off my jeans. I shifted quickly to my hound form so she wouldn’t see me blush.
I sneezed immediately, as I often did when I changed to a hound. The potent sense of smell that comes with the form is far more jarring than suddenly walking on all fours. What hit me first was the burnt-rubber scent Oberon had described, except there was something fouler mixed in. It was like placing your face next to the exhaust port of a city bus just when it accelerates from a stop; it was asphalt and rubber and oil and everything black and smelly in a single, lung-destroying cloud. But underneath this were other scents: the blood and sweat, fear and anger of two humans, two bobcats… and something else.
Oberon asked.
These were mostly smudges and scuffs in the sandy dirt; there was nothing like a perfect print in the mud waiting for us there.
I padded over to where Oberon had his nose to the ground and considered the outlines of two large talon marks. It was an incomplete print-impossible to tell the species without a clearer picture, but it was definitely a larger bird.
Oberon asked.
I looked up and around. There were any number of places to the north and west where the skinwalkers could be hiding, all kinds of little holes up in the mesa, lots of water-carved caves and the like. If Frank Chischilly had known precisely where they were, I’m sure he would have told me. Hell, if Coyote had known where they were, he wouldn’t have had to resort to tricking me like he did. So now we had two choices: We could spend all day searching for them, with the distinct possibility of finding nothing, or we could go back to the hogan and approach the problem from a different direction.
Oberon and I went around lifting our legs on scrub cedar, boulders, and the javelin.
Granuaile wrinkled her nose at us. “That’s really classy, sensei.”
Oberon and I chuffed at her.
Chapter 10
Plan B was to get the gold moved under the mountain and then get out of there so that the skinwalkers would pursue me-the cure for Famine’s curse-and leave the Navajos alone. The problem was, once I returned to the proposed site and broached the subject, Colorado didn’t feel like cooperating.
//Reluctance / Discord / Hate mines// he told me. Well, fair enough. But I had to get him to agree, not only to fulfill my obligation to Coyote but to give myself a free hand to deal with the skinwalkers.
//Necessity / Urgency// I replied.
//Query: What necessity?//
It took some time to explain why Coyote’s plan for solar and wind power was far superior to the current coal mining operation going on. To Colorado, a mine was nothing more than a giant hole with unconscionable water usage and a surefire way to destroy the habitat of anything living nearby. But he conceded that generating power from clean energy was better than generating it from coal-even if the government wanted to call it “clean coal,” an Orwellian oxymoron if ever there was one. Still, he flatly refused to provide material for a precious metals mine
