Hutash's offices occupied the top floor of a modest, three-story building that overlooked Window to the Sea Park in Isla Vista. The tan walls were decorated with turn-of-the-century photographs of Chumash people and settlements. The only artifacts were wall hangings and wood carvings that had been made by modern-day Chumash.
The tall, bald-headed Tumamait received Grand immediately. The men hadn't seen one another since Rebecca's funeral.
Grand was openly happy to see his mentor. Tumamait's welcome was courteous, with a hint-just a hint-of satisfaction in the heavy-lidded eyes. The Chumash elder obviously knew something that Grand did not. The men embraced briefly.
"Hyvasti," Grand said, using a traditional Chumash greeting.
"Petaja," Tumamait said, a formal expression of gratitude. "I thought you might come."
"Oh?"
"There was an owl feather on my stoop this morning," he said.
"The messengers of the Great Eagle," Grand said. So that was it, the reason for Tumamait's smile.
"The feather was the color of your hair and eyes and the eyes were damp with dew."
"Are you pleased?" Grand asked.
"I'm always pleased when my beliefs are vindicated."
Grand grinned. He detected a whisper of the old Joseph Tumamait in his manner. Tumamait wouldn't give Grand the satisfaction of admitting he was happy to see him. But Grand sensed he was.
Tumamait took a step back and looked his former student over carefully. "You look tired."
"I am."
"I mean inside," Tumamait said, touching his own chest.
"That too," Grand replied, his smile softening. "It's been difficult."
"You are tired because you keep Rebecca trapped inside," Tumamait said. "Her spirit is free. You must let it go."
"I know," Grand said.
The Chumash believed that unless the spirits of "the beloved dead" were ceremoniously put to rest, they stayed with the living. Frustrated at being unable to touch and feel, the spirits became malevolent and destructive-sometimes physically, as maniti-poltergeists-and sometimes emotionally. Tumamait had offered to help him send Rebecca away through fasting and recitations of a ritualistic wedding ceremony, bonding the widower to the earth. That would allow Rebecca to become nashu, "the next thing," an animal closer to the gods. Grand had declined. He wasn't ready to let Rebecca go.
"But you know me," Grand went on. "I carry a piece of everyone I ever met I carry a lot of you with me."
"My people call these 'scars,'" he teased.
"There are a few of those, but there are other things too," Grand smiled. "Mostly very good things."
"Not recently," Tumamait pointed out.
"No," Grand admitted. The smile softened. "Joseph, I came here because I need a favor. I need you to help me solve a puzzle."
"What kind of puzzler?"
The elderly man listened as Grand described the new discovery up in the mountains. Grand described the tunnel, the white circles and crescents, and the symmetry of the designs. When Grand was finished, Tumamait was silent, his expression unchanged. Grand had hoped that the nature of the discovery might spark some of the old curiosity. Apparently, it had not.
"I've never heard of a Chumash shaman creating astronomical art," Grand continued. "If that's what I've found in the caves, it could be an extraordinary discovery."
"For whom?" Tumamait asked.
"For all of us," Grand said.
"You know what I believe," Tumamait told Grand. "Those works were not created for all of us. They were meant for the eyes of the gods and for other shamans."
"I also know that we aren't certain who they were meant for or who looked at them."
"And we will never know," Tumamait said. "Why not leave them, then, as the creators wished?"
"Because I want to learn everything I can about an amazing civilization. And I want to show others how great they were… how great you are."
"What others think won't change my people."
"But it might help improve the rest of us," Grand said. "We think that our communications and medicines and knowledge are greater than anything that has come before. That isn't necessarily so."
"James, years ago I told you that when the Great Eagle came to me I realized the paintings of my people are not meant to be talked about and analyzed," Tumamait said. "They are not stories to be read. They were painted by the enlightened. They are doorways into another realm meant to be opened only by the gods. I'm sorry, but I can't help you with this. If the earth has chosen to speak to you, you will know it in time."
"'In time' may be too late," Grand said. "Strange things are happening in the mountains. Disappearances, caves opening, the past emerging."
Tumamait said nothing.
Grand felt like he was back in school, being pushed by his professor to discover things on his own. In this case, though, he wasn't sure whether his mentor wanted him to continue searching or whether he really wanted Grand to stop.
"All right then," Grand said. "Let's try this. Have you had other visions since the first one?"
"Many," Tumamait said.
"Were they all of the Great Eagle?"
Tumamait nodded.
Grand stepped closer. "Be my teacher one more time. Tell me one thing he's taught you."
Tumamait thought for a moment. "I will tell you this. Haphap is dangerously near," the elder replied.
"The Mountain Demon," Grand said. "How do you know?"
"The Great Eagle comes to me when the world is in discord and he is no longer content to be spirit," Tumamait said. "He came to me recently. He was changed."
"In what way?"
"His feathers were those of an owl."
"Why?"
Tumamait didn't answer.
"Is he well?" Grand asked.
"He is a god," Tumamait said. "He comes because the earth is not well."
"In what way?"
"That is for us to determine," Tumamait replied.
"And fix."
"And fix," Tumamait agreed. "Good luck."
Grand smiled and offered his hand. "I'm not sure what I need good luck with, but thanks for your time." The smile turned bittersweet. "I miss the old days, sir. I miss talks like these, our explorations of mind and land."
"Perhaps we will have them again."
"I want to," Grand said. "It's been too long." Tumamait clasped Grand's hand. "There are many roads to the same place. Hopefully, I'll see you at the end. Until then, James, be careful."
"I'll do my best," Grand said.
He left the office feeling-how had Rebecca put it once when she came back from church? Lightened but not enlightened.
Though be still didn't know much about the paintings he'd seen, he had reconnected with Joseph Tumamait. And that was something.
Chapter Seventeen
Grand pulled up to the curb just as Fluffy was coming in from his late afternoon walk. The scientist was looking forward to seeing the dog. He could use some unqualified support after the difficult encounter with Tumamait.