'The devil came and hurt her,' Brigham said in an odd, flat voice. 'He hit her. She ran away. He chased. She fell down. He pushed her off. She fell into the canyon. Broke everything.'
Brigham had made a bed for her by digging a coffin-shaped pit in the sand that had drifted into a room of the sheltered ruin. He'd filled it with a two- or three-foot layer of leaves. Open as it was to the air, it had the sickroom smell of urine and decay.
'Tell me about this,' Leaphorn said.
Brigham was standing at what had been the entry door to the little room--now a narrow gap into a roofless space. Behind him the sky was dark. The wind, which had fallen during the afternoon, was blowing again now. It blew steadily out of the northwest. Winter, Leaphorn thought. He kept his eyes locked with Brigham's. The young man's eyes were the same odd blue-gray as his father's. Had the same intensity about them. Leaphorn looked into them, searching for insanity. Looking for it, he found it.
'This devil came,' Brigham said, speaking very slowly. 'He dug up the bones, and sat on the ground there looking at them. One after another he would look at them. He would measure them with a tool he had. He was looking for the souls of people who never had been prayed for. He would suck the souls out of the skulls and then he would throw them away. Or some of them he would take away in his sack. And then one day the last time the moon was full--' He paused and his somber bearded face converted into an expression of delight. 'When the moon is full, that's when Papa comes and talks to me, and brings me what I need.' The smile drifted away. 'A little after that, this woman came.' He nodded at Friedman-Bernal. 'I didn't see her come and I think maybe the angel Moroni brought her because I didn't see her come and I see everything in this place. Moroni left her to fight with that devil. She had come to the old cliff house down below here where I keep my frogs. I didn't know she was there. I was playing my flute and I frightened her and she ran away. But the next day, she came to where the devil was digging up the bones. I saw them talking.' Brigham's mobile face became fierce. His eyes seemed to glitter with the anger. 'He knocked her down, and he was on top of her, fighting with her. He got up and was searching through her pack, and she jumped up and ran over to the edge where the cliff drops down to the streambed and then she fell down. That devil, he went over and pushed her over with his foot.' Brigham stopped, his face wet with tears.
'He just left her there, where she fell?'
Brigham nodded.
'You kept her alive,' Leaphorn said. 'But now I think she is starting to die. We have to get her out of here. To a hospital where doctors can give her medicine.'
Brigham stared at him. 'Papa said I could trust you.' The statement was reproachful.
'If we don't get her out, she dies,' Leaphorn said.
'Papa will bring medicine. The next time the moon is full he will come with it.'
'Too long,' Leaphorn said. 'Look at her.'
Brigham looked. 'She's asleep,' he said, softly.
'She has fever. Feel her face. How hot. She has infections. She has to have help.'
Brigham touched Eleanor Friedman-Bernal's cheek with the tips of his fingers. He jerked them away, looking frightened. Leaphorn thought of the shriveled bodies of the frogs and tried to square that image with this tenderness. How do you square insanity?
'We need to make something to carry her on,' Leaphorn said. 'If you can find two poles long enough, we can tie the blanket between them and carry her on that.'
'No,' Brigham Houk said. 'When I try to move her, to clean her after she does number one or number two, she screams. It hurts too bad.'
'No choice,' Leaphorn said. 'We have to do it.'
'It's terrible,' Brigham said. 'She screams. I can't stand that, so I had to leave her dirty.' He looked at Leaphorn for understanding. Houk had apparently given him a haircut and trimmed his beard on the last visit. The old man was no barber. He had simply left the hair about an inch long everywhere, and whacked the beard off a half -inch under Brigham's chin.
'It was better to leave her dirty,' Leaphorn said. 'You did right. Now, can you find me two poles?'
Brigham nodded. 'Just a minute. I have poles. It's close.' He disappeared, making no sound at all.
Here is how it must have been when man lived as predator, Leaphorn thought. He developed the animal skills, and starved with his children when the skill failed him. How had Brigham hunted? Traps, probably, and a bow to kill larger game. Perhaps his father had brought him a gun -- but someone might have heard gunshots. He listened to the sound of Eleanor Friedman's shallow breathing, and over that, the wind sounds. Suddenly he heard a thumping. Steady at first, then louder. He leaped to his feet. A helicopter. But before he could get into the open there was only the wind. He stared into the grayness, frustrated. He had found her. He must get her out of here alive. The risk lay in carrying such a fragile load over such rough terrain. It would be difficult. It might be impossible. A helicopter would save her. Why hadn't Houk done more to get her out? No time, Leaphorn guessed. His son had told him of this injured woman, but perhaps not how near she was to death. Houk would have wanted a way to save the woman without giving up this mad son to life (or perhaps death) in a prison for the criminally insane. Even Houk needed time to solve such a puzzle. He was too crippled to bring her out himself. If he did, she would talk of the man who had nursed her, and Brigham would be found--an insane triple murderer in the eyes of the law. The only solution Leaphorn saw would be to find Brigham another hideaway. That would take time, and the killer had allowed Houk no time.
The woman stirred, moaned. He and Brigham would have to carry her to the canyon bottom, then five miles down to the river. They could tie the kayaks together, put her litter on one of them, and float her to Mexican Hat. Five or six hours at least, and then an ambulance would come for her. Or the copter would come from Farmington if the weather allowed. It hadn't been too bad for whatever had just flown over.
He walked out under the dark sky. He smelled ozone. Snow was near. Then he saw Randall Elliot walking toward him.
Elliot raised his hand. 'I saw you from up there,' he said, pointing past Leaphorn to the rim of the mesa. 'Came down to see if you needed help.'
'Sure,' Leaphorn said. 'Lots of help.'
Elliot stopped a few feet away. 'You find her?'
