We settled at the card table with him and Granuaile said, “It’s starting to look a bit homey in here.”
“It’s a bit more comfortable,” Frank agreed, nodding. “Going to enjoy it while we can. We start the Blessing Way tomorrow on the second building.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the unfinished structure.
“Had any trouble from the local wildlife?” I asked.
Frank knew what I meant and shook his head. “Not for us. I heard that some climbers disappeared up on the mesa yesterday, and I doubt we’ll ever find ’em. The skinwalkers showed up and spent some time issuing threats last night, but they didn’t try nothin’. This hogan is totally protected now. They can’t get at us in here.”
“Those sound like famous last words,” I said.
Frank chuckled hoarsely. “They do, don’t they? I’ve always wanted to say somethin’ good when I go. Like ‘Free Leonard Peltier!’ or ‘I’ve got your boarding school right here!’ ”
We chatted amiably for a few minutes before Frank suggested a card game to pass the time. “You know how to play pinochle?” he asked.
“Sure do,” I said. “Learned how when I was in Ohio one time.”
“Teach me?” Granuaile asked.
“Me too,” Ben chimed in. He grinned at Granuaile, perhaps to reassure her that she wouldn’t be the only newb at the game. Or perhaps he was smiling because she had the same effect on him that she did on me, and on most men. He offered to grab us a drink out of a cooler nearby and we thanked him. I surreptitiously waggled my eyebrows at Granuaile and she muttered at me through clenched teeth.
“Shut up, sensei.”
Ben heard it and asked, “Why do you call him sensei if he’s your brother?”
“Oh,” Granuaile said, startled to be reminded of our assumed roles, then covered admirably with the truth. “He’s teaching me martial arts, and so I call him that to keep from descending into sibling rivalry. It goes easier when I think of him as the instructor, you know?”
Ben nodded. “Makes sense,” he said, handing us each one of those canned iced teas.
We had the first hand dealt, I’d won the bidding, and I was just about to name diamonds trump when the torn-metal scream of a skinwalker startled us. Ben managed to spill tea on himself, and he started cussing but choked that back at the sound of a thunderous impact and cracking, splintering wood coming from the west, where the new admin building sat unfinished. The sounds of destruction continued as I rose to walk to the west wall. I put my face up to a log and held it there, then concentrated on unbinding the cellulose in front of my right eye for a short time. The wood obediently compressed and parted to create a peephole for me-it was sort of like the opening credits of a James Bond movie, except that I didn’t get to look at provocative silhouettes. I cast night vision and saw the blurring shape of one skinwalker going Hulk on the construction materials. He couldn’t touch us inside the protected hogan, but everything outside had become fair game. He’d have those logs split up into kindling in no time. Where was the other skinwalker though?
The answer came shortly, from behind me. To the east, where the trucks and Granuaile’s brand-new SUV were parked, crunching metal and shattered glass announced a skinwalker special on free demolition services. I kept watching the first skinwalker dismantle the construction materials as Ben and the others hurried to the opposite end of the hogan to press their ears against the walls. The skinwalker I could see looked fully healed now, and I assumed the other one was as well from the sound of things. While their strength might be on the low end of vampiric, their speed was still far in excess of what Leif or I could manage. There was no way for me to beat these guys, unless I got in a lucky strike with Moralltach. That was far from a guaranteed win however. I knew from experience how quickly they could take me down and chew me up. They were simply too fast; I had to slow them down somehow.
“That was my SUV, wasn’t it?” Granuaile said, reacting to a noise that had a new-car crunch to it. “Damn it, how am I going to explain that to the insurance company?”
“Maybe you lost control and rolled it?” Ben suggested.
“Possible, but it’s probably going to have claw marks or handprints or something on there, and then what am I going to say? If I get that little gecko on the line and tell him that a skinwalker smooshed my SUV, is he going to cut me a check? I kind of doubt it.”
Frank Chischilly stood next to me and spoke in low tones. “Makes me wonder why they didn’t do this before.”
“They’re not under the Famine curse now,” I explained in the same quiet voice. “I think that kept them pretty single-minded. Now they’re healed from their injuries, they want us to leave their territory, and they’re making it expensive for us to stay.” Sophie Betsuie climbed down from her bunk to join us as I continued talking to Frank. “They’re more dangerous like this. Clever. If we don’t leave after this, I bet they’ll start coming down off the mesa and messing with people down in the flats, adding a human cost on top of the one we’ve already lost.”
“That could be really bad,” Frank said. “Lot of ranches along the base of the mesa.”
“They’re all protected by the Blessing Way, right?”
“Yeah, but those people don’t necessarily know to stay inside from sundown to sunup. An’ even if they do, the skinwalkers could go after their sheep an’ shit like that. Ruin their livelihoods. Some of them are barely scrapin’ by as it is.”
Sophie caught the end of this conversation and added, worry in her voice, “My grandmother lives below the mesa.”
Gods Below. How could Coyote drive off and say his work was done here?
Frank hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and sighed. “You got any ideas on how to stop ’em, Mr. Collins?”
Sophie looked confused. “Why are you asking him?”
“Well… he’s pretty smart,” Frank said.
This intelligence flabbergasted her. Sophie cast a bewildered gaze at me, trying to discern how Frank’s assessment could possibly be true-and, even if it was, how I could know more about skinwalkers than did a hataalii. Her eyes flicked down to my tattoos, and disapproval floated over her features like storm clouds. Perhaps she thought anyone who spent that long under the needle couldn’t be all that bright. “Well, I’m pretty smart too,” she finally said.
“What has Mr. Benally said about this skinwalker situation?” I asked, hoping to distract attention from my questionable IQ. Sophie, Ben, and the rest might know all about the skinwalkers, but they didn’t know what I was other than a strange man who could make a rock disappear and a good guy to have around when monsters jumped on the roof. Gods knew what they thought Coyote was. As far as I could tell, none of them apart from Frank knew they were working with one of the First People.
“He’s kinda hopin’ I’ll take care of it, like I said a few days ago,” Frank said. “But I don’t have any ideas. Except you should call your grandma,” he told Sophie, “and tell her to lock herself in until this is over.”
Sophie pulled out her cell phone and walked away from us for some privacy. As she did so, the demolition noises from the east increased dramatically, and I figured I’d better investigate. The ear-shredding screams were revving up there too. I opened a peephole in time to see both skinwalkers attempting to lift Granuaile’s SUV above their heads, quivering and shrieking as they did so. The remains of the other trucks lay strewn about like a parts graveyard.
“The good news is, that wasn’t your SUV you heard earlier, Granuaile,” I said. “The bad news is, it’s going to be dropping on us soon if they’re planning what I think they’re planning.”
“Please say you’re just teasing me again.”
The skinwalkers got the SUV over their heads, and they looked at each other and nodded, beginning a countdown. While I marveled that those unholy noises could be coming from human throats, I also admired their strategy: They might not be able to touch the hogan now, but the Blessing Way did nothing to protect against damage from mundane objects.
“Not kidding!” I yelled. “Everybody move to the other side against the wall, now!” Granuaile rounded up a very confused Sophie while Frank and Ben got the crew moved over quickly enough. I turned around and looked up at the beams above us. With the earth piled on top, there was a chance the roof would absorb most of the force with a few cracks and splinters and allow the vehicle to slide off the roof. Then again, a half-ton vehicle thrown with force would probably exceed the stresses allowed for in the building code. I wondered what would happen to the Blessing Way ward if the structural integrity of the hogan was breached. Would that provide the skinwalkers a hole in the magic to jump through? Better not to find out. I decided to go for the Gregor Samsa option and let the apple
