James Doss - The Shaman Laughs

Pamela turned to open the rear door for the old woman. "It's all right, dear. We're Lutherans."

Daisy got in beside Billy, who scooted away quickly. "Well-I need a ride." She could not afford to be choosy, but this development was a great puzzle to the shaman. The country between Durango and Pagosa had enough good Catholics to fill a dozen churches and here was God, sending her a Protestant. Maybe it was The Great Mysterious One's notion of a little joke. Well, that could be a good sign. Someday soon, she would have a lotof explaining to do and it would help if God had a sense of humor.

"We're on our way toColorado Springs," Pamela shouted over her shoulder. She always spoke loudly to the elderly, as if the entire lot had defective hearing.

"God," Daisy said, "wants you to take me to Ignacio. I got important business there."

Albert found Ignacio on his road map. He finally understood where he was, and sighed. The Forty-Fifth Annual Convention of Wisdom Literature Theologians would have to wait. God's will be done.

Little Billy eyed the wrinkled woman with frank suspicion. "You a real Indian?"

She glared at him. "Sure as Columbus was a foreigner."

"I don't think you're a sure-enough Indian," the boy squawked.

"Now, son," Albert cautioned, "remember your manners." The boy had little to remember.

"Sure-enough Indians live in Calcutta," the shaman said. Daisy leaned over, her face close to the boy's. "Besides, how would you know a real Indian if you saw one?"

Billy paused to consider this, then smirked at the supposed impostor. "Real Indians can make fire"-he rubbed his grubby little palms together to demonstrate-"by rubbing two sticks together." He grinned, exhibiting a set of red gums from which sprouted about nine teeth. "Till they get red hot!"

Daisy tilted her head and winked. "Watch this." She closed her eyes and raised her hands, fingertips touching as if in prayer. "O ghosts of my ancestors," the shaman moaned, now raising her arms in a theatric gesture, "put the spirit of fire in the hand of your daughter!" She cracked one eye to watch the child, who waited with no little apprehension.

"I don't see no fire," he said sullenly. As he spoke, a thin blue flame leaped up from the shaman's index finger. Billy was startled. Billy peed in his pants.

Albert braked the station wagon and glanced over his shoulder at the old woman. "This close enough to your destination? We don't mind taking you…" Daisy unbuckled the seat belt. "No. This'll do fine."

"Good-bye, dearie," Pamela said as she waved at Daisy's back. "Albert," she whispered, "how do you suppose she did that fire thing with her hands?"

He made an illegal U-turn. "Some kind of Native American magic, I suppose." The priest, who had watched the episode in his rearview mirror, smiled with satisfaction at the secret he shared with the hitchhiker. He had seen the old woman palm the plastic cigarette lighter.

Charlie Moon arrived barely two minutes before the fire engine; both were too late to make any difference in the outcome. The Economic Development Building was wrapped in flames. The scorching heat kept the curious onlookers well away. Moon was interviewing potential witnesses when he noticed a familiar face under a maple tree. He turned his task over to Sally Rainwater and made his way through a throng of onlookers to the solitary figure. Moon pushed his hat brim back a notch. "What brings you here, Aunt Daisy?" What, indeed.

The old woman looked up and blinked innocently. "Had to come to town. Things to do."

Moon had no doubt that his aunt had seen the Drum article. Daisy would have read about the Economic Development Board's decision to revive the late Arlo Nightbird's plans to convert Canon del Espiritu into a nuclear waste repository. Arlo's extensive files had been stored in the EDB building. Now, the valuable papers were ashes. Without the stacks of documents, the plans for the canyon were as good as dead. The policeman wanted to ask the question; the nephew didn't want to hear the answer.

The old woman watched the flames. She looked guilty. Extremely guilty. Moon turned to see the remains of the building collapse. "Good thing it happened so early in the day; nobody was inside." He cocked his head and stared down at his aunt. "Don't suppose," he said casually, "you have any secrets you want to share with your favorite nephew?"

"You want to learn yourself some secrets," she said with a poker face, "maybe you should go over to Canon del

Espiritu and have a long talk with the pitukupf ."

"Maybe I'll drop by later and have a chat with the dwarf," Moon replied. "But in the meantime, I need to figure out how this fire got started. Anything you want to tell me?"

"Was on my way to the grocery store," she said. The shaman had learned this trick from the politicians she watched on television. Someone asked them an unwelcome question, they answered a different question with the intention of sowing confusion. It was a very clever ruse and it usually worked.

Moon's brow furrowed. "The grocery store's way over on Goddard Avenue. Isn't this stop a bit out of your way?"

And sometimes it didn't work. "Meat," she said darkly, "need to pick up some… fresh meat." Daisy had no intention of stopping at the grocery.

Moon grinned down at his aunt. "Don't suppose you brought any matches with you?"

Daisy closed her fingers over the plastic cigarette lighter in her pocket. "I read in the Drum that there's going to be a fishing contest at Capote Lake." Any mention of fishing always distracted her nephew.

"Uh-huh," Moon said absently. "Maybe I'll go wet a hook."

The fire chief waddled up in his oversized rubber boots. Abe Workman pushed his helmet back and wiped sooty sweat from his forehead. He nodded politely at Daisy Perika, then turned to the Ute policeman. "I got something for you, Charlie. Federal Express lady stopped next door to make a delivery. Navajo woman, her name's Martha George. Said she saw something… ahhh… somebody near the building right before she smelled the smoke."

Moon looked for the familiar van and didn't see it.

"Where is she?"

"Already took off. Had some deliveries to make in Bay-field."

Moon knew about this Martha George. The Navajo woman was rumored to be some kind of clairvoyant. Her father was a traditional Navajo healer… performed the Blessing Way. The policeman found his notebook. "She give you a description?"

"Not much. Except… she says the suspect was… uh… not more'n two feet tall." Workman blushed under Moon's stare. "Must have been somebody's kid, Charlie. Playin' with matches, maybe."

"Yeah. A kid." The policeman put his notebook in his shirt pocket.

Daisy's face was impassive. Reflections of the flames danced in her dark eyes.

His face, she thought, had a hollow look. Almost haunted.

Anne Foster frowned at the dark patches under his eyes. "You look absolutely exhausted." She caressed his hand. "You simply must take a few days off. Get away from the pressures at work."

"I'm fine." Scott Parris forced a smile, and it hurt his face. "All I need is a few hours of good sleep." Sleep without dreams.

But first there was work to do.

And promises to keep.

She knew that he was driving himself much too hard. Anne would have been astonished to know how he was spending every spare moment. But she would never know. No one would.

Not unless the dead knew.

The coyote paused to sniff tentatively, interrupting a determined search for the scent of the cottontail. The hungry canine turned, orienting her sensitive ears toward the source of the barely audible sounds. Scuff-scuff , the sounds said. They would pause, then start again. Scuff-scuff . The clever animal, long acquainted with the threat of the two-legged creatures and their dogs, sensed that something far more sinister approached along the floor of the canyon. The coyote moved into a patch of dead chamisa and waited with apprehension as the source of the scuffing sounds approached. The animal tilted her head in puzzlement at first sight of the thing -this unnatural apparition that moved in undulating motion like a shadowy wave over the moonlit sand of the canyon floor. At first, the shape of the intruder was indistinct, an amorphous patch of dark fog floating over the ground. Then, as if it could change its shape at will, the presence seemed to take on substance. The thing paused, raised itself to a standing position… like a great bear. But it was not a bear… This creature had broad shoulders, no neck, and a peculiar, flattened head. The head had horns. And a single red eye. Now it would glow brightly, like an ember in a fire. Then it would dim, as if the creature had blinked. The coyote could not deal with abstract concepts, like Good and Evil. But there were primitive instincts deep within her breast that drummed an urgent warning: Be still, be still!