“Where is he?” Elizabeth glanced around, but there was no one there. There had been a few people wandering about, but they were gone now. Gone very quickly. Sometimes people know somehow . . . They sense a minefield before they step in it. They turn and they go. And sometimes if I don’t want to be seen, people don’t want to see me. They, too, turn and go. Elizabeth and I were alone . . . well, excepting her one true love she was already saving up the potassium chloride for.
I leaned against the concrete that served as the barrier between me and nothing but hot, dry air. “Elizabeth, this is the desert. You haven’t lived here forever, I know, but have you been curious enough to drive out once in a while? See some things? You see Kokopelli all the time in the tacky little gift shops too good for the likes of you, I know. Kokopelli.” I shake my head and raise my face to the sun. “Glory hog and a whole lot handsy when he’s drinking. But forget him. Have you ever heard of Crow?”
“Coyote?
“Iktomi?”
I slid my gaze from the sun to her sudden frown and narrow-eyed blink. “Iktomi, that’s your last name. Is this a trick? Are you trying to rip me off?” So vicious the words now. So changeable, my Bethy Rose.
I laughed. “I would never rip you off. I’m giving you exactly what you want, a dead rich husband. But I am tricking you. You’re the first one to say that to me in so long.” I laughed again, stood and spun in a circle with arms wide. The sky spun with me, blue blue blue. It was once a deeper blue, the sun larger in the sky, and you could walk for years and not see a living person. The days do pass.
I stopped spinning, bounced on my heels, and grinned. “I have lots of names, sugar, so many I’d waste a good year telling you them all.” I put a finger to my lips. “But I’ll tell you a secret. They all mean the same thing.”
Trickster.
I liked Elizabeth because she was a good liar. She was my reflection in a mirror—hazy, as I did have six thousand years of practice on her, but she’d have made a good baby trickster . . . if not for her blindness to the balance. If you can’t see it, you can’t live it, and you can’t enforce it. Tricksters were created to bring balance and wisdom. Elizabeth had come to me a little late and too far gone for wisdom. But she also wasn’t stupid, my Elizabeth. She was a survivor, and so she thought to turn and leave. Thinking and doing, though, they don’t always go skipping hand in hand. As much as Elizabeth wanted to flee, she was caught firmly in the wheels of justice.
It was the balance for her.
“I’ve been so many myths, so many shapes, so many things, Bethy, you can’t imagine.”
This week alone I’d been an oversexed dolphin to teach a Speedo-wearing idiot a lesson he’d never forget. Great, great fun, that one.
I sat on the concrete barrier and told her a tale. “In Australia there was once a trickster called Dhakhan.” There were hundreds, thousands of tricksters, and I’d been them all. “Dhakhan was gorgeous, and I say that with all due modesty. A serpent covered with rainbow scales like a thousand sultan’s jewels. Does that sound vain? I probably was vain then; forget the modesty, swimming in the mountain lakes showing off like you show off your snakeskin shoes.” I kicked my feet back and forth lightly and remembered. “I watched over the people there, but where there are people there are bad people. Sometimes I had to punish the wicked. The murderers. Murderers like you, Elizabeth.” I patted the concrete beside me, and her mouth moved soundlessly as she walked over stiffly, fighting every step with all she had in her, before sitting down, wholly against her will, beside me.
Unfortunately for her, what she had accepted from me couldn’t be beaten. Her will was nothing next to it. It controlled her as she’d once controlled four stupid, stupid men.
“I stayed there a while—in Australia. It was like a vacation, a place so beautiful you could hardly look at it. But after ten years or so, I shed my skin and took it as a sign. Unless I wanted to mature into a new Dhakhan, it was time to go—to be something and someone else. And Coyote has always been my favorite—I won’t lie. But I hid the skin I’d shaken off. I knew I’d use it someday. There’s a great deal of me and my will left in that skin. There’s a great deal of justice in it. Now about that husband.” I leaned and looked down at the water below. Very far below.
A hand clamped tight on my wrist, but Elizabeth was still without her words, pretty or foul. Dhakhan had never been a form of trickster that tolerated idle chitchat from the guilty, and she was now wearing part of that form. “That’s okay, sugar. I’ll talk for you. Dennison Phillip Jameson. He was single, he did have a thing for women in boots, and he had all the money in the world, and you do sincerely take after his mama. He would’ve adored you. And as an extra bonus just for my favorite client of the week, he’s already dead—that’s how you wanted him—the sooner the better, right? He jumped right about here ten years ago.” A shame, no doubt, but he’d picked a nice place for it. “He was a sad man, but I think you’ll cheer him right up. They never did find his body. If things work out right, yours will wash up beside his and then it’s heavenly bliss in a tangle of bones and boots.” I smiled wider. “Sorry I couldn’t work you in a wedding cake. It would’ve been a nice touch.”
She was trying to say no; I could see it framed in her lips and the whites of her straining eyes and the fierce shaking of her head, but I didn’t hear a whisper. “Sorry, darlin’, these boots weren’t made for talking. They’re made for one thing only. Justice. Now go on. Go give your new dead husband a kiss. One from me, too, you hear?”
She stood stiffly, arms flailing. I ducked and backed away. Bethy Rose was a fighter with a helluva amount of stubborn resolve, that was for certain. Too bad for her that there were things you couldn’t fight and things you didn’t want to accept but had to. You don’t have to agree with justice—no, you do not—but that makes no difference.
One way or another, justice will do with you what must be done.
Elizabeth’s boots took her over the edge, climbing and dragging her along step by stilted step. It was done with a bit less grace than I’d hoped, but away she went all the same. She flew through the air like Icarus. She flew too high with the wings of murdered men and finally was felled low. I felt that discarded part of my self that she wore in boots of gold, scarlet, jade, sapphire, indigo go with her, back to the water where it belonged. I liked to think I heard her hit, heard the splash, but it was far and the wind was loud. That was all right. I’d never forget the picture it made, anyway. I never forget the good tricks or the good days. This was both. The sky was blue as ever and I waved at the crow that flew overhead. Maybe I knew him or her. You never know.
What?
You’re still here? Lesson not learned yet?
I told Elizabeth that I made no judgments? “Do I remember that?”
Of course I remember that. I can’t believe you’d ask. Yes, I did lie, but I also kept my promise to her, didn’t I? I delivered as I said I would. Oh, sweet Lord above. Keep up.
I lied about deciding the verdict. I always lie about that. I’m surprised Elizabeth believed me. I expected better from a liar as good as her.
I’m not so surprised you believed.