Stormwalker Read online

  As I turned away, trying to catch my breath, my foot struck something tangled in the weeds at the base of a rock. I leaned down and parted the grasses.

  Nash was right behind me. “What is it?”

  “Bones.” I looked down at the stained brown remains. “Animal. Rabbit, I think.”

  “Yes, I can see that. What about it?”

  “More over here.”

  I moved dirt on the slope down to the vortex to reveal three more carcasses—birds. I heard a flap of wings and looked up to see the big crow land on a nearby scrubby piñon pine. She looked down at the bones in disapproval.

  “What the hell is this?” Nash stood with hands on his hips. “Some kind of freak Native American ritual?”

  “I didn’t do this. These bones have been here for a long time. Some of them for years.”

  “It’s an ecosystem. Birds and rabbits are eaten by coyotes, owls, and snakes.”

  I stepped away from the vortex, feeling cold. The animals had simply died here; I knew that, caught in the evil energy of the place.

  “Don’t come out here again,” I said. “Not alone, and definitely not at night. Never, in fact.”

  “Funny, I was going to say the same thing to you.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck where the tingling was worst. “Can you feel that? I barely have any power right now, and it’s driving me crazy.”

  “No.”

  “Is that true, or are you just determined to be an Unbeliever?”

  “I don’t feel a damn thing, and you don’t either.”

  “The fact that you don’t believe in magic doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, Jones.”

  “Cut the crap. I get it all day long from losers who claim that magic put the stolen TV in their car or the meth in their pocket.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “You know, you and Maya should get together. When she talks, she sounds just like you.”

  Nash went crimson from neck to forehead. He opened his mouth like he wanted to swear at me, then he closed it again.

  Had I struck a nerve? I thought of the deep anger in Maya’s voice when she’d talked about Nash and Amy after she’d discovered the body in the basement, the flattening of her lips when she spoke Nash’s name. I studied Nash with new interest.

  He glared back at me. “Mind your own damned business, Begay,” was the best he could come up with.

  I got back to the hotel to find that the workers had dragged the magic mirror out of the attic and hung it on the freshly painted saloon wall. Mick lingered in the kitchen behind it, watching my refrigerator get installed.

  “The mirror?” I asked him.

  “I figure we’ll have to bring it down sooner or later. It can keep an eye on things.”

  “I suppose.” I didn’t look forward to listening to it every time I walked into the saloon.

  “The nonmagical won’t hear it, and the nearly magical will enjoy thinking the place is haunted.”

  Ever-practical Mick. The sinful smile he sent my way felt nice after being glared at by Nash.

  I drew Mick a little way from the others and said, “I’m going to have to go up to Many Farms so I can bring back my photographs. Come with me?”

  He was silent for a long time, and my heart began to pound. “Do you really think I should?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  “Why not?”

  He grinned, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I’m the big, bad biker you rode off into the sunset with. What’s this grandmother of yours going to say to that?”

  “My grandmother is five feet tall and seventy years old. What is she going to do to you?”

  “I don’t want to find out.”

  “Come on, Mick. Don’t make me go up there alone.”

  Mick regarded me a moment. “You have to go, Janet. You know that, right?”

  “Face my ghosts? That’s what Jamison said.”

  “Jamison’s smart. He knows all about facing ghosts.”

  “What about you? What ghosts have you had to face? Are you afraid of your grandmother?”

  “My family is dead. There’s no one left to face.”

  I stopped, shocked. “You never told me that. What happened?”

  “It was a long time ago. Too long ago to matter now.”

  “Mick.” I caressed his arm, fingers brushing the black lines of his tattoos. Saying I’m sorry felt ineffectual. I’d whined to him constantly about my overbearing grandmother and how I’d never been accepted into my own fa mily—the unfortunate incident, I’d heard my grandmother refer to me as once. I hadn’t realized Mick had been all alone.

  On impulse I asked, “How old are you?”

  Mick’s smile deepened, making his hard face fine and handsome. “Two hundred and fifty-three.”

  While I gaped, he kissed my parted lips and walked out of the kitchen.

  I dithered. I had plenty to do the next day as more and more people tramped through the hotel, banging, painting, plastering, varnishing. I went out and interviewed some of Amy’s friends, who told me pretty much the same thing Maya had, only they’d liked Amy. She was kind and generous, they said, pleasant to all, thrilled to be marrying Nash. A young woman with all the blessings of life. They shared Nash’s opinion that Amy was dead, because she had no reason to leave town of her own accord. She’d had everything in the world going for her.

  They weren’t much help. I needed something more, some sign that Amy was upset, was worried about something, had enemies. But she seemed to have been the perfect girl, and everyone but Maya had loved her.

  By the time I returned to the hotel the new bar was being installed in the saloon, a polished thing with brass around it. I’d projected the first of June as my opening date, which meant I had to get busy and hire employees.

  I’d never done anything as scary as hire people before, and the stack of applications I’d already received daunted me. Did I really have time for a trip home?

  I watched Mick as I summoned the courage to go. He looked the same as always—which meant wicked smile, warm blue eyes, snappy comebacks.

  Whatever Mick was, he was amazing in bed. Last night, when we’d found ourselves all alone, the hotel quiet, he’d had me on my hands and knees, his body enclosing mine, making love to me as though he’d never stop.

  My feelings about him confused the hell out of me. Even though he hid everything about himself from me, Mick had been the first person who’d ever listened to me, talked to me, treated me like I wasn’t some kind of misfit freak. Even Jamison had been a little standoffish until he’d become a Changer and understood what it was to be a magical person. But Mick had always seen me, the real Janet, and had liked her.

  The next morning, I knew I needed to quit sniveling and go. I packed a duffel bag and headed out to my SUV to find Mick there, leaning on his bike next to it.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “You’re coming with me?” I asked in sudden hope.

  “I told you, I don’t want to let you out of my sight. Coyote said he’d look after the place while you’re gone.”

  That idea made me pause, but I was too happy that Mick would be coming with me to argue. I kissed him and got into my SUV while he mounted his bike. The coyote watched from the shade of the juniper as I left the parking lot and pointed my rental north out of Magellan, heading toward Navajoland. I hadn’t been home in nearly six years. That wasn’t in any way long enough for me.

  I didn’t question why Mick rode his bike instead of in the SUV with me. First, he hated enclosed vehicles even more than I did. Second, if things got uncomfortable, for him or for me, he could easily take off and not leave me stranded. Third, the empty passenger seat gave me more room to haul my photographs.

  The hundred-and-fifty-mile drive to Many Farms took me into another world. I reached Holbrook and joined the freeway and then turned off again on the 191 and rode north onto the Navajo Nation. Home. The familiar beauty of the place caught in my throat as flat lands became desert hills and then sharp cliffs bes
ide which the highway snaked. The sun shone hot and hard, the land starkly beautiful, the sky soaring and blue.

  I passed Chinle, where Jamison had grown up. Chinle was the gateway to Canyon de Chelly, a crevice in the land with cliff dwellings and the phenomenal rock formations. People came from all over the world to look at its wonders.

  North of Chinle I followed the road until I reached the small community of Many Farms. Many Farms was just that, a small cluster of farms irrigated from the waters of the nearby lake. My family lived on a small plot of land just north of the town, with a range where we ran about twenty head of sheep. My grandmother did some weaving, but mostly she and my father sold the wool to other weavers. Cliffs hugged the horizon, places I’d explored and climbed as a kid.

  I pulled to a stop in front of a long, low, tan-colored house that sat alone at the end of a road, and Mick pulled in behind me. When I’d been a kid, children’s toys had littered the yard along with the old car my father had always said he’d get going again but never had.

  The car was gone, sold for scrap one year when we needed the money. Most of the kids’ toys were gone too, though one or two new ones had appeared—my cousin Cindy had two little boys now. A brown dog lay in the shade under the porch overhang, watching me without much concern.

  I parked next to the pickup I’d bought my father after I’d started selling my photographs. My dad hadn’t liked taking gifts from his daughter, but on the other hand, his bone-rattling truck had ceased to work, so he’d swallowed his pride and invited me to try it out with him.

  I drew a breath and hopped out of my rental. Mick stopped his bike, the throbbing dying away to stillness.

  Homecoming is always problematic. Either things are exactly as you remember when you’d hoped they’d changed, or what you remembered most fondly has vanished. Homecoming was especially problematic for me, because I’d grown up constantly trying to please my grandmother and my father’s three disapproving sisters, until I’d simply given up and left.

  “Anyone home?” Mick asked me.

  “I’m sure they’re around somewhere.”

  Mick gave me a smile, not getting off his bike. “You should go on in, Janet.”

  “Aren’t you coming with me?” I heard the panic in my voice.

  “I think the first step is one you should take alone. I’ll be right out here if you need me.”

  He was right, but I didn’t feel better. Not allowing myself to dawdle or even think about what I was about to do, I squared my shoulders, walked up to the porch, and opened the front door.

  Fourteen

  An empty living room greeted me. The house was small, nothing more than a living room, kitchen, and three bedrooms, all spare and painfully clean. My grandmother liked bright colors and no clutter. My dad considered himself lucky to have a chair in the corner where he could read his newspapers.

  I made my way down the narrow hall, noting the silence. One side of the hall was lined with small windows that looked out to the front yard. The other side of the hall held doors leading to my grandmother’s room, my father’s, and last, mine.

  When I opened the door to my bedroom, I found the window blind up and my single bed covered with pictures. More framed photos were stacked against the wall. I’d alerted my father that I’d be coming, but I couldn’t tell whether he’d put these in here for me or stored them like this the whole time.

  I heard a step behind me. I wasn’t alarmed, because I recognized it.

  My grandmother stood watching me from the end of the hall. Seventy now, she’d lost her former plumpness but stood plenty straight, her hair still black. She never admitted to dyeing it, but I was pretty sure my cousin Cindy did it for her. Her eyes behind her glasses were dark brown, with enough of an almond shape that some people mistook her for Asian. Not many, because Grandmother rarely left the Navajo Nation.

  “Six years without bothering to come home,” she said. She spoke the Diné language—Grandmother never spoke English if she could help it. “And now you turn up just to pick up your photographs.”

  “I know.” What could I say to that? I felt myself wilting under her sharp stare, me the all-powerful Stormwalker. “I’m sorry.”

  “That biker. Who is he?”

  I tried a smile that didn’t last. “His name’s Mick.” “What is he? His aura is fiery.”

  I shrugged. “Ask him.”

  She gave me a disapproving look. “You need to come with me, Janet. There’s something I want to show you.”

  I closed the door to my bedroom. “Where’s Dad?”

  “On the land.”

  Which meant communing with the sheep. Dad had a favorite spot in a cool niche of rock, where he’d watch our flock wander. He could sit there for hours. Grandmother always warned him he’d get heatstroke, but he never did. Considering that my dad spent most of his time in a house full of loud-voiced, opinionated women, I couldn’t blame him for finding a haven. The silence out there was immense.

  Without waiting to see whether I’d follow, Grandmother walked out of the house and started for my SUV.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as I hurried after her.

  “I’ll show you. But you have to drive. I’m too old.”

  I knew Grandmother could see just fine and was fit enough to drive a car, but she preferred other people to do things for her.

  Mick was leaning against his motorcycle. “Want me to come with you?”

  Grandmother stepped up to him. She was barely five feet tall, and Mick was six-foot-six, but she tapped a thin finger to his chest without fear. “This is none of your business, Fire Man,” she said in perfect English. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  Mick grinned, eyes impish. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now, be useful and open that door for me.”

  She stood back while Mick opened the passenger door of the SUV, but she hopped into the seat on her own. I got in the driver’s side and started it up, throwing an apologetic glance to Mick as he closed the door.

  “Where to?” I asked Grandmother.

  “East.”

  Very helpful. Mick patted my grandmother’s door and waved us off. I pulled out of our lot and down the dirt road toward town.

  On the other side of Many Farms, Grandmother directed me to the road toward Rough Rock. We rode in silence, the only vehicle on the road. After my long drive from Magellan I’d been looking forward to a shower and a rest, but here I was obediently heading out into the desert with no water but what was in a half-empty sports bottle, hoping my grandmother knew where she was going.

  I started thinking she’d have me drive all the way to Kayenta when my Grandmother said sharply, “Here. Turn.”

  She pointed at a dirt side road, and I obediently pulled onto the track. At the end of the narrow and very bumpy washboard road, a hogan rested in a fold of land, shaded by a gnarled tree.

  “Here?”

  Grandmother nodded. I stopped the SUV, and Grandmother hopped out.

  “Who are we here to see?”

  She didn’t answer me; she walked to the hogan and opened its door. Inside, it was mercifully shady, but stuffy and hot.

  “I brought you here to see this,” Grandmother said. “This is where Harold Yazzie died two weeks ago.”

  I had no idea who Harold Yazzie was. Yazzie was a common Diné surname, but I didn’t know anyone called Harold. What amazed me more than her bringing me to the hogan of a man I hadn’t known was that she’d let herself come this close to a place where death had walked. “Who was he?” I asked.

  “I’d never met him. His daughter came to me when he was dying, asked if I’d sit with him. He wanted to tell me something.”

  The air was still, no birds calling outside. They too must know a death had taken place here.

  “Tell you what?”

  “That he’d fathered a child. A girl. About thirty years ago.”

  “What girl?” I asked, baffled.

  “She died at birth.”

  “Oh.
That’s sad.”

  “The mother died too when she gave birth. Harold told me this on his deathbed. He kept the secret for thirty years.”

  My grandmother studied me with clear eyes. The only indication she felt the heat was a faint beading of perspiration on her cheeks.

  “Why would he keep it a secret?” I asked, not following.

  “Because the woman who died was white and not his wife.” Grandmother’s voice held significance. “Harold was already married when he met this other woman. Harold’s legal wife is still alive and living with her grandchildren in Window Rock. She doesn’t know about his affair and baby—no one knows. Harold sent for me and told me, no one else.”

  “Why did he tell you? If he didn’t even know you?”

  “Think, Janet. You’re smart. A woman, not Harold’s wife, had a child and died, thirty years ago. She was a white woman, he said, and she seduced him, dazzled him. He got a bastard child on her, a girl, and he didn’t know what to do. But both mother and child died, so the decision was taken from him. Harold heard about how Pete Begay had got a woman pregnant who died and left you to him. And he knew. The woman who seduced Harold was a sorceress, just like your mother.”

  She was beautiful, Janet. My father’s voice rang in my head, voicing the words he’d said so many times to me. Like a goddess. She begged me with her last breath to take care of you, to make sure you never came to harm.

  The realization hit me like a blow between the eyes. I slid down the rough wall of the hogan, my legs folding up under me.

  A man, a mysterious and beautiful woman, a girl child, the woman dead. My father had never told anyone about his affair with my mother until he’d brought me home right after my birth.

  “Gods,” I whispered. “Oh, gods.”

  I’d known that my mother possessed women in order to move around what little she could on this earth, just as she’d possessed the blond woman who talked to me in Holbrook, and maybe had possessed Sherry Beaumont, and possibly even Amy McGuire. She couldn’t roam far, she’d told me, and when the body weakened, my mother had to return to the vortexes and slip back through the cracks.