Daniel Hecht - Land of Echoes

"Did he burn it?" Claustrophobic, Cree sidled another step away.

"Yes, as a matter of fact." Standing where Cree had just been, the nurse pretended to look over Tommy's drawings. "Why? What does a modern parapsychologist think of old superstitions?"

"This one thinks there's usually some wisdom there."

"You're thinking there's a… spirit inhabiting Tommy, aren't you? That he's possessed. Is that what you are? An exorcist?"

Cree would have preferred not to discuss it with Lynn, not yet. But there was no denying the obvious. "No, I'm not an exorcist. I don't believe the popular idea of possession, Lynn. I'm skeptical of the idea of purely evil beings. In my experience, paranormal entities are neither more nor less wicked than living humans. I wouldn't assume this thing has malevolent intentions. It may be just lost or scared or desperate. Or lonely."

Lynn Pierce cocked her head, puzzled. "Am I being obtuse in some way? Because you saw him attack Julieta. And he stabbed himself repeatedly tonight." She winced as she rubbed her forearm and went on. "In fact, I have a confession to make. Something I didn't tell anyone, but I'll tell you." She unbuttoned the cuff of her jacket, tugged back the sleeve, then rolled the sleeve of her blouse. Cree gasped at the sight of the half circles of scabs and the surrounding penumbra of marbled green bruising. "From last week. I didn't tell Julieta because she's so… invested in Tommy. I didn't want her to worry." Lynn held up the arm and rotated it, looking at the wounds with satisfaction, as if admiring a suntan.

"Do you have any idea why she might be so 'invested' in him? Him particularly?"

Again, Lynn cocked her head. "Why do I keep getting the feeling you're trying to tempt me into indiscretions? Or maybe I'm just being paranoid. That must be it. But." She raised the wounded arm again and pinned Cree with her gaze. "You didn't answer me. Still convinced it's harmless?"

The bites were upsetting, and Cree needed a moment to think about what they implied. She moved farther away from Lynn, around Tommy's bed to one of the windows, where she leaned her pounding forehead gingerly against the pane and cupped her hands around her eyes to look outside. All she could see was the rectangle of bare earth lit by the ceiling fluorescents, stark as a patch of moon landscape, with her own humped shadow cut into it. Beyond the light, dead black. The wind whimpered faintly as if it wanted to get inside. The glass was icy against her skin. The nurse was complex and strange, and seemed to be fencing- to be asking or offering something. But Cree couldn't think well enough to respond in the right way. All she knew was that if Lynn came too far into her physical space one more time, she'd confront her on it.

"The entity is not harmless," Cree said at last. "It's hurting Tommy terribly. We just don't know that it's intentionally doing so. There's an important difference."

"Good point. Excellent point. Of course." The admiration in Lynn's voice seemed genuine. "You're very smart, Dr. Black. I can't tell you what a pleasure it is talking with you. Such a refreshing change from

… well, from my usual diet of conversation."

This time Cree heard her moving, and she spun around quickly.

But Lynn had gone to the door and stood half turned as if about to leave.

"You've been very kind, Cree Black. Thank you. I know I'm strange. Hard to get used to. My Vern used to say I was an acquired taste." Her downcast eyes darted around the floor as if searching for something; then, as if she'd found it, she brightened a bit and looked at Cree. "What you said about paranormal entities-you apply the same principle to living humans, too, don't you? I like that very much. You won't assume someone has malevolent intentions. They may be just lost or scared or desperate. Or lonely, huh?" She offered a shy, apologetic smile that quickly failed, and with a tired wave left the room.

Joseph Tsosie bumped his head on the door frame as he bumbled thick headed and banana fingered into his pickup. Morning at last, the prospect of some sleep. End of a long shift.

Julieta had called at around ten p.m. to tell him Tommy's symptoms had peaked again and that he'd been taken by ambulance to Ketteridge Hospital. She was afraid that she'd lost him now. He'd tried to console her but had to cut it short: He'd had patients waiting. Saturday night was drinking time on the rez. Those who needed it drove into Gallup or Farmington, pawned some family jewelry, put down a bellyful of booze, and got into accidents on the long drive back home. Or they opened up the bottle they'd provided themselves with earlier and got into fights or accidents or other mischief that left them in the emergency ward at some dark hour, where Joseph, or whoever was on shift, dutifully sutured their torn flesh or set their shattered bones or prepped them for internal surgery. Even now, eight o'clock Sunday morning, an old man was tottering around the parking lot of the Tribal Social Services building, blown like a tumbleweed on the random winds of ethyl-crazed impulse.

Joseph chided himself for his dark mood and reminded himself of his priorities: Hot shower. Bed.

The sun had just come up and was starting to burn its way through a high, thin ice haze. Along Route 12, where the red disk broke above the Manuelito Plateau, the bluffs wore pleated skirts of blue-black shadow. There were no other cars on the road, and the scattered houses were blank windowed and still. He turned on the radio, listened to the yammer of a commercial station, couldn't stand it, switched to a Sunday-morning Evangelical harangue and couldn't stand that either. He turned it off again and was grateful for the silence.

Tired as he always was, he relished these Sunday morning drives, especially in the autumn when dawn came late and he was there to see the rising sun. On a morning like this, it was easy to imagine this landscape as its first explorers had seen it, thousands of years ago: imponderably vast, humblingly ancient and full of mysteries. They'd have probed it cautiously, appraising the land's capacity to sustain life, alert for signs of water and game and enemies and portents, wary of the spirits who had first claim here. And that wasn't exclusively an Anasazi or Navajo perspective, you couldn't ascribe it to some local gene. Every people throughout the world had populated its pinewoods or deserts or ice fields, its rain forests or mountains or seacoasts with invisible beings that commanded that exalted form of fear called reverence. As a kid at St. Bonaventure's boarding school, he'd often asked his teachers why the Old Testament used the word "fear" to describe what you were supposed to feel about God, and he'd never gotten a satisfactory answer. Later, one kindly priest had explained the way perspectives had evolved in the New Testament, Christ's emphasis upon love between the Almighty and his creations. At the time, he'd found reassurance in that view.

But now, with what was happening to Tommy Keeday, he couldn't help thinking maybe the older texts had it right after all.

He wondered how the parapsychologist saw this stuff. She seemed to have sorted out her metaphysics in some way, forged a personal reconciliation between very divergent worldviews. He envied that equilibrium. For all his doubts about her, he also had to admit that she'd dealt very well with Tommy: sympathetic and responsive, yet never indulging in any of the politically correct walking on eggshells that you so often saw among whites pursuing altruistic motives among Navajos. Not even when Tommy had deliberately tried to prevail upon the liberal guilt reflexes he'd learned to expect from social service and medical types. Cree Black obviously had a talent for getting people to show themselves. Already she had induced Julieta to reveal the long-buried saga of Peter Yellowhorse, the divorce, the baby. It made Joseph's cheeks burn to think of anyone else knowing about the mistakes they'd made together sixteen years ago. Still, the parapsychologist's getting Julieta to talk about her past was a testament to her skills.