Jeanne Stein - Crossroads

It’s John-John’s hair.

What are they planning to do with it?

Nothing. Now.

I stick it into the pocket of my jeans. I wil take this with me and the threat of discovery be damned.

A sound from outside. A car pul ing up to the house.

Kayani? Why would he come to the house? I stil have a few minutes left.

I peek through the door. An old sedan, gray from sun and weather, is parked at the side of the house. A woman stands beside it, midfifties, dressed in a long velveteen skirt and cotton smock. Her waist is cinched by a conch belt of large silver disks each with a stone of turquoise and agate in the center. She wears a squash blossom necklace and bangles of silver. Her face is soft, rounded with age but her back is straight and she stands tal, commanding respect.

She looks toward the shed.

George’s wife? Can she see the door slightly ajar from where she’s standing?

She takes a step in my direction. Then stops, turns back toward the house. The sound of another car approaching has drawn her attention.

Kayani’s police vehicle pul s behind her car.

She and Kayani exchange greetings. I don’t waste a second. I take another quick look around the shed, recording to memory what I see. The screwdriver and paperclip are shoved into another pocket. Then I close the door softly behind me, relock the padlock, and slip like any other desert creature into the bright midday sun.

IWAIT FOR KAYANI TO RETURN TO THE SPOT WHERE

we planned to meet. I watch as he chats with the woman a few minutes, then climbs back into his vehicle and drives off.

The woman looks again toward the shed, sees nothing amiss, gives her head a little shake and retreats into the house.

I jump in as soon as Kayani pul s up.

“Wel?”

“First, thanks for distracting her so I could get away. Is that George’s wife?”

“Yes. When I saw her pul up, I figured you might need a little help. Lucky you were in that shed instead of the house.”

I pul the screwdriver out of my pocket, wipe it with the tail of my blouse and let it fal to the floor of the cab. Kayani glances at it but doesn’t ask what I used it for. Plausible deniability.

“Might want to throw that into the nearest Dumpster,” I suggest with a tight smile.

He looks at it again, distasteful y, but chooses to pursue more important matters. “What did you find?” he asks, heading away from George’s.

“Not what I expected.” I dig into the other pocket and pul out the pottery shard wrapped with John-John’s hair.

When Kayani sees it, he slams on the brakes so hard, my seat belt snaps taut, my head whip lashing forward and back.

“Ouch.”

He reaches over and snatches the thing out of my hand.

“You found this in the shed?”

“Do you know what it is?”

I can tel by his expression that he does, but he barks,

“What else did you find?”

I tel him. The pelts, the blowgun, the bone charms. I pause a beat when I’m finished to ask, “He is a skinwalker, isn’t he?”

His dark eyes pierce mine. “You know of such things?”

“Only what Frey told me. But that—” I point to the charm in his hand. “That I don’t know about. It’s John-John’s hair. What did he intend to do with it?”

Kayani peers at me again, searching my face for something. . Wrestling maybe with how much he can confide to this outsider. I can’t come clean with everything, but if I tel him I’ve had personal experience with a skinwalker, perhaps that wil gain me some measure of trust.

“I was shot with a bone charm. I’m pretty sure now it was George who did it.”

Kayani’s eyes widen. “What? When?”

“The night of the accident. The night Frey and I spent in the hogan.”

“You should be dead.”

“Frey recognized what it was right away. He got it out of me in time to prevent the poison from working.” That and the fact that I’m vampire and my body could heal itself once the charm was removed.

My shoulders tighten, waiting for Kayani to ask why George would target me, a question I’m dreading. I may have to tel him what I am.

While I wait, Kayani is silent. Then, “Why didn’t Frey tel me?”

“I suppose he wasn’t sure you’d believe it.” Flimsy but plausible. I don’t give him time to think about it, either. Relief, impatience and concern for John-John make me cut off any chace for more questions. “What were they going to do with John-John’s hair?”

His eyes refocus. “How did you know it was John-John’s?”

He keeps answering my questions with questions of his own, but I’l give him this one. I already laid the groundwork. “I told you — good sense of smel. Try it yourself. You’ve been around John-John a lot. His hair smel s like a little boy who spends a lot of time outside.”

He raises the charm warily to his nose, closes his eyes, inhales. “I guess my nose isn’t as sensitive as yours.” He touches the hair, examines it. “It’s the right color and texture, though.”

He bangs his hand against the dashboard with so much force, I jump. “Why would he be after John-John?”

I choose this moment to advance another theory. “I think maybe he caused the accident that kil ed Sarah and Mary, too.”

I say it softly, then brace myself, expecting heated denial and unequivocal rebuttal to blow with gale force my way.

Instead, I get more silence so I forge ahead.

“Could Mary and Sarah have heard something the night of the meeting? Maybe a conversation between George and the men he was sitting with on the deck?”

Kayani presses the palms of his hands against his eyes.

“Did you find anything to connect George with the counterfeiters?”

“No.”

“Then they might have been tourists he took out that day.

We need something concrete to connect them.”

I touch the charm. “If George goes looking for this, he’l know someone has been in his shed. He’l know someone recognizes what he is. How do you think he’l react?”

“Skinwalkers are reviled in Navajo society. He’l want his secret protected.”

“How does one become a skinwalker? Frey said it had to do with desecrating the body of a loved one. He didn’t believe George could ever do that.”

“Wel, it looks like he was wrong, doesn’t it?” Anger flares in his voice. “It is said that if a Navajo pronounces the ful name of a yee naaldlooshii , a skinwalker, that person wil die for the wrongs they have committed.”

He draws in a breath, a look of purpose tightening the lines around his eyes and mouth.

I put a hand on his arm. “No. Don’t. If you speak George’s name and it works, we may never find out if he is behind the counterfeiting. Or who is working with him. Protecting the good of your people is important, isn’t it?”

Kayani breathes out. His eyes narrow a bit as he looks at me. I suppose he’s wondering why I, a stranger to the Navajo, so easily accepts that he could kil with the invoking of a name.

But he doesn’t ask.

Wordlessly, he takes the charm from my hand, opens the car door, steps onto the desert floor. He throws the charm down, crushes it with the heel of his boot. Then he picks up the strands of hair and lets them gust away on the breeze.

“Let’s get back to Daniel,” he says. “He must be warned.”

FREY IS WAITING FOR US ON THE PORCH WHEN WE

arrive back.

“Where’s John-John?” Kayani asks the minute we’ve jumped out of the truck.

“Inside. He’s already asleep. The poor kid is dead tired.”

He looks from Kayani’s face to mine and back again.

“What’s going on?”