James Doss: The Shaman Laughs

He was in the parking garage when he heard Sam Parker's booming voice.

"Parris! Scott Parris, you trout-fishing sunnuvagun, is that you?" Parker burst from a crowd of travelers, the image of a successful attorney in his expensive three-piece suit.

Parris grabbed Parker's outstretched hand and pumped it with enthusiasm.

The special agent in charge of the Denver Field Office was, he explained from the corner of his mouth, just returning from a trip to Boston. On some unmentioned Bureau business. "Why don't you come over to the house this evening, spend the night with us," Sam said. "I'll broil some steaks so rare, there'll still be ticks on the hide."

Parris grinned and glanced at his watch; the morning was slipping away. "Sounds hard to pass up, but I've got to get back to Granite Creek and get things shipshape at the station before I head for Ignacio."

Parker dropped his suitcase at his feet and leaned a long cardboard cylinder against the wall. "Oh, yeah. I heard you were going to be acting chief cop for the Southern Utes while Roy Severe's away on vacation." He searched Parris's face in an effort to detect some clue to his feelings. Parris had seen the same expression when Sam Parker sat in a bass boat, reading meaning into the ripples on Navajo Lake. "I'm surprised Granite Creek can do without you for that long."

Parris leaned against a steel column. "No problem, actually. Got a leave of absence. Leggett will be taking care of the shop while I'm away. He'll probably have my job before I get back."

Parker tilted his head quizzically, a sure sign he had something on his mind. "Frankly, I'm surprised the Utes didn't appoint Charlie Moon as acting chief. Or Sally Rainwater. She's been around since Moses parted the waters."

"I don't know about Sally, but Moon turned 'em down flat," Parris said. "Charlie said he didn't want a desk job. He suggested they ask me to cover for Severe So, they made me an offer."

Parker nodded. "Sergeant Moon's a good cop. Only one thing I have against him," he said with earnest dismay, "he's a bait fisherman." He faked a shudder. "Night crawlers, crickets, grasshoppers."

"I figured a change of scenery would be good for me. Nothing's happening in Granite Creek. Anne just left for Washington, won't be back for weeks." Maybe months.

"What's Anne Foster up to in the District?"

"She's in demand since her piece on the 'Sunday Morn-* ing' show last year. She's landed some kind of contract with CBS." His eyes had a faraway look. "Anne speaks several foreign languages, so I expect the network will find lots of ways to keep her busy. She'll probably be wined and dined at the best embassy parties." Parris was suddenly ashamed of the bitterness he heard in his voice; he wondered if he sounded like a small boy whose mommy had left him at school for the first time. "I figure I'll spend a few weeks with Charlie Moon, find out where all the good fishing holes are down there. With any luck, the whole thing will be a vacation. When the stint's over, I'll take a week or two of real vacation, show up on Anne's doorstep. Maybe if I'm good," he said earnestly, "she'll adopt me."

Parker was entirely lost in thoughts of his seven-pound line cutting the water like a hot wire through butter, a bristly Joe's Hopper trailing in intermittent jumps at the end of an invisible meter of nylon tippet. He could almost see a four-teen-inch native brown, its glistening body breaking the surface to take the hand-tied fly, then diving to bend the rod double. "Maybe I'll get a chance to drop by Ignacio myself." He patted the cardboard cylinder as if it was a friendly puppy. "Bought me an antique bamboo rod last week in Connecticut-an Edward's Quadrate." He paused to let this sink in.

"You're kidding." Parris's envy was written all over his face. "One of the numbered series?"

"Serial number five-zero." Parker grinned, displaying a set of oversized teeth that would have looked just right in the mouth of a Neanderthal. The rod had set him back a week's pay. "Can't wait to flick some dry flies in the Piedra.

It's about time for the browns to get hungry." Parker paused, choosing his words carefully. "While you're in Ig-nacio, you'll likely end up working with my people. From time to time."

"Yeah, guess I might at that." Parris waited. The FBI had jurisdiction for major crimes on Indian reservations. But he sensed that Parker had something specific on his mind.

"You know our guys in Durango?"

"Sure," Parris said. "Stan Newman. George Whitmer. First class guys." The Durango office had the responsibility for the pair of Ute reservations along the southern Colorado border.

"Newman had to go in for knee surgery a couple of days ago. He'll be laid up for at least two months. Whitmer's tied up at a federal trial in Salt Lake, then he's off on a job in Arizona. Don't know when he'll get back." Parker avoided eye contact. "I've sent a new man down there. Expect you'll meet him pretty soon after you set up shop in Ignacio."

"Fine," Parris said. "Look forward to it" He could have cared less, but it seemed an appropriate response.

"I'd appreciate it if you'd introduce him to Charlie Moon and the rest of the Ute movers and shakers. Kind of grease the skids for him."

There was something odd about this request. It seemed so reasonable, but there was a worried look in Sam's eyes. Parris nodded. "No problem. Me and Charlie Moon, we'll take care of your new man." And, in a way that neither Parris nor Parker could have foreseen, they would.

Scott Parris was halfway to Granite Creek when he realized that Sam Parker had not mentioned the new agent's name.

Near Bondad, on the Banks

of the Rio de LosAmmas Perditas

Charlie Moon folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the fender of the big Blazer. And remembered. It was now most of a year, since Nahum Yacuti had vanished.

The old man had disappeared on the same night his sheep had been slaughtered in the violent storm. There had been nothing but rumors about Nahum's whereabouts, but the Ute policeman stopped every time his duties brought him south of Durango along this stretch of Route 550. He stood in silence and surveyed the small section of earth that had been home to Nahum and provided marginal pasture to his few sheep. It was less than a dozen acres, this sharp wedge of land that pointed to the south. The low bank of the Animas, dotted with tall cotton-woods and bushy willows, was the western boundary. The two-lane blacktop between Durango and Aztec formed the eastern limit. Armilda Esquibel's land abutted the Yacuti property on the north, and the old woman could see everything from her adobe home that hung precariously on a clay bank above Nahum's bottom land. Moon wondered if the troublesome woman was peering at him from her bedroom window. Sure. If Armilda was alive, she was watching.

The Ute policeman put his hands in his jacket pockets and walked slowly down the lightly graveled driveway toward Nahum's small log house. No smoke came from the stone chimney, and a sheet of steel roofing was loose and rattling in the occasional gust of wind. The shepherd's dilapidated Dodge pickup was parked out back of the house near the small corral, exactly where it had been on that morning after the twister came through. Things were much the same, except now the rusty truck was covered with a thin coat of yellow dust. And it had been much colder on the morning after the storm. It had been October, that time of year the old people called Moon of Dead Leaves Falling. Nahum's sheep had fallen like dead leaves. The pasture was dotted with bleached bones scattered by coyote and buzzard. Occasional snatches of dirty wool still hung on a few tumble-weeds.

Moon leaned with both hands on a creosote-soaked timber that served as a heavy cross member in the sagging corral fence. A relative from Towaoc had taken Nahum's skinny Appaloosa mare to shelter in his own barn until the old shepherd returned. But the smell of the animal still hung on the corral. The presence of Nahum Yacuti was also strong.