“Yeah. The only empty land left in Florida is in parks.”
“As much of the Rez as possible has been allowed to remain in its natural state. Modem civilization is peculiar that way, don’t you think? As soon as it achieves a certain level of creature comforts, it begins to spend huge sums on restoring what remains of the original habitat. In that respect we have been fortunate. Development in places like Kayenta and Klagetoh and Ganado has been intense, but if you go west from here, or north, you will find that the land looks much as it did to the Anasazi who settled here thousands of years ago.
“Peripheral development in places like Flagstaff and Gallup has not been nearly as well controlled. I do not think you would find those cities as attractive as Ganado, for all its typical urban troubles.” He gestured at the sweep of distant land.
“One can still go out there and wander through the hills and know that there is the chance he may be the first man to set foot on that particular piece of earth. Or you might find things; a bit of pottery, an old arrowhead, a section of necklace, beads, maybe even a small overlooked cliff dwelling. The park service has been all over this country as have thousands of amateur archaeologists, but there are still places where no man has set foot in a thousand years and more.”
“I’m only interested in finding one thing.” Moody was beginning to feel the strain of the cross-country hop and was not in the least interested in waxing poetic. “Our murderer.”
Ooljee sighed. “You are as persistent as you are direct, Vernon. With luck, we will run him to ground soon. Then you can fly back to your beloved Florida. I hope I am not asked to accompany you.”
“You don’t like open water?”
“Not when it is full of salt. Fresh water, now—I wish I had the time to take you up to Powell.”
“I’m not on vacation.” Moody tapped the spinner attached to his belt. Then, as if aware he might not be behaving as the most gracious of guests, he added, “Helluva view you got from up here.”
“We like the place,” Ooljee said simply. “I would like also to have a vacation hogan, but there always seem to be other priorities. The boys, they eat up a lot of money, and I don’t just mean that literally.”
“I’ll bet.” Screams and yelps reached them from the vicinity of the bedroom. “Don’t they ever slow down?”
“Never. I think they play in their sleep. As for you, I imagine you must be ready to eat.”
“I was ready to eat when I got off the shuttle.”
“We may not manage to fill you up, but I do not think you will go away from our table hungry. Do you like Chinese?”
“As long as it’s not all vegetables and stuff.”
“I appreciate your honesty. Lisa would too. Then she would hit you with a spatula. Don’t worry. We always have pasta or potatoes, and there’ll be frybread for dessert.”
“Bread for dessert?”
Ooljee smiled. “With honey and whipped cream. I don’t think you will be disappointed. Ice cream, too. Ever had pinon nut ice cream?”
“Can’t say as 1 have.” Moody was beginning to salivate. “Also made with honey. It will stick to your ribs. It certainly sticks to everything else. Every time Lisa makes some we have to watch the boys very closely, and we still end up having to dump them in the tub to dissolve them apart.”
The food was rich and wonderful, and despite his resolve, he overate. The result was initial contentment followed by roiling dreams.
Kettrick was there, and his housekeeper. They orbited each other too closely, an obscenely entwined absurdity to anyone who knew anything about Kettrick’s habits. If they were consistently rational, however, dreams would not be dreams.
Their place was taken by the grim, leering visages that populated the dead industrialist’s private museum of the primitive, ghosts and spirits drawn from those parts of the world where the past still lingered and myths retained their ancient powers. In their midst drifted a figure without a face, whose arms were flexible bars of steel ending in fingers like tines. Sparks flew from them, and whatever they touched burst into flame.
Sepik River sculptures shriveled and burned. Masks from Southeast Asia exploded in showers of fiery cinders. African fetishes turned into blazing torches. The conflagration consumed half-remembered stories and unexplained mysteries. Dreams burned like crepe paper, flame giving way to ash, ash to smoke, smoke to a faint aroma of hot carbon where once there had been intimations of reality.
Kettrick too shriveled and burned, as did the housekeeper. Only when all had become ash and charcoal did the faceless figure stride forward to embrace the sandpainting which stood like an icon, untouched and immutable, in the very center of the destruction. When his finger touched the drawing, the shapes on the board sprang to horrid life. Symbols, stick figures of men and women, highly stylized creatures alive with flat, bright color leaped clear of the wood. They were accompanied by lightning and rain and rainbows, lots of rainbows, twisting and contorting like snakes.
They engulfed the faceless figure, melting together into a tornado that wore the garb of a double helix, contracting, tightening until the figure exploded, leaving behind only wisps of itself that drifted aimlessly away in every direction.
Moody awoke drenched in his own sticky sweat despite the fact that it was cool and comfortable in the apartment. Fading images clung tenaciously to his retinas: a hyperat-mospheric shuttle, a dark shape rising high above a basket, an eagle inspecting a single spire of towering sandstone. All soaring, as children dream of soaring.
He rolled out of bed and sought his pants, not bothering with a shirt. Belly hanging over his belt, he tiptoed into the living room. It was silent and empty, the earthtones asleep in the moonlight that entered through the terrace doors.
He examined a pot, a piece of sculpture: cool, reassuring fragments of Mother Earth carried thirty stories into the air to remind the sky dwellers of the real world that existed beneath their feet.
Out on the porch Ooljee’s boys lay still in slumber, secure in their sleeping bags, their internal springs finally at rest. It took him a moment to realize they really were motionless. Lying in the soft glow of moonlight they looked like utterly different beings, the darting black eyes shut tight, tiny fists curled tight against half-parted lips. Under his gaze they slowly metamorphosed into the young men they would someday become.
“I can’t sleep either.”
Moody glanced backwards. Ooljee stood in the shadows clad only in his briefs, gazing at his offspring.
“That’s twice you’ve snuck up on me,” Moody whispered. “I don’t like it.”
“You are pretty quiet for a big ol’ Southern boy yourself. I didn’t hear you get up.”
“Then why’d you come out?”
“Like I said, I could not sleep either. Too much frybread, maybe. Too many thoughts, maybe.”
Moody decided to say nothing about his unsettling dreams. His host might only be talking to help his guest relax. For lack of anything better to say, he repeated the phrase he’d been taught.
“Doo ahashyaa da.”
“That’s for sure.” Ooljee looked back into the living room, where muted colors and traditional designs held back the intrusions of a homogenizing technology. “Look, maybe something has come in since the last time I checked. Want to take a drive? Check out the office?”
“I don’t like to bother night staff,” Moody protested. “They might be busy with something.”
“Like what? A floating card game? Ganado’s big and busy, but this is not Tampa. If you would rather go back to bed, that is okay too.”
Moody didn’t have to think long. “As a matter of fact, I’d rather not. Once I’m up, I’m up. Lemme get a shirt and throw some water on my face.”