So with his remaining strength, Jojola lifted the demon and cast it down the mountainside, where it fell a thousand feet and struck with a sound like thunder rumbling through the ground. An avalanche of stone was dislodged and swept down, burying the demon.
Physically and emotionally drained, Jojola turned to see that the Huichol had gathered to witness the battle. Smiling, they came forward one at a time to embrace him. "You are free of the demon," the shaman, who approached last, said, "but only as long as you do not invite him back into your life. Return to the old ways. Reject him. Save yourself, your son, and your people."
Returning to the Taos Pueblo, Jojola was a changed man. He stayed away from bars and liquor stores in the city of Taos, and even shunned old friends who drank alcohol. Instead, he hunted deer on the sacred Taos Mountain with a bow, swam in the holy waters of Blue Lake, and communed with the spirits of the high plains desert of New Mexico. He also taught his son the ways of his people so that he would respect the culture and draw strength from it. "We Pueblo Indians close our borders to outsiders every winter and withdraw into our ancient adobe lodges so that we may come together as a people and become stronger for being part of a whole," he told the boy.
His tribe had rejoiced at his return to his place in the warrior clan. When it had come time to name a new police chief, he had been the only candidate they considered. Confident now in who he was and with his past, he was a rare man who stood comfortably and easily with one foot in the modern world-running a professional, modern police force-and the other foot in the ancient, returning every year to Mexico to join the Huichol in their trek to the mountains of Wirikuta.
Jojola despised so-called Indian medicine men who sold peyote and charged to perform the rites for Anglos who, dissatisfied with their own culture, tried to become "white Indians." But he knew Lucy was not trying to become something she was not, she was trying to understand who she was. When she talked about her dreams, he saw the fear in her eyes and knew that the answers she needed might be found in the otherworld.
So he'd led her to the desert butte where they now sat and up the steep, narrow trail to the top. He'd often traveled there himself because it was the home to eagles, who he considered to be messengers to the gods. There he'd heard her confession and tied knots in a string, quietly amused at how few knots there were compared to his own first time. Then they'd burned the string.
When she was prepared, he gave Lucy six pieces of mescal. As she sat looking at the cactus fruit, he told her to be careful not to overanalyze the journey she was about to take. "There will be things you don't understand or might misinterpret," he said. "We believe that a powerful spirit resides in the peyote and that spirit can be fickle. You may see visions that seem important, but aren't; and often there will be experiences that don't seem like much, but in the end are the most valuable to remember. Do you understand?"
Lucy nodded and began to place a piece of mescal in her mouth when Jojola restrained her arm with his hand. "It is not too late to turn back from the otherworld," he said. "People have lost their minds to peyote or injured themselves. I will be here with you, but I cannot protect you from everything in the spirit world."
The girl had held his eyes for a long minute, then patted his hand. "I understand," she said, and placed the first button in her mouth, making a face as the astringent chemicals hit her tongue. An hour later, she became violently ill as her body tried futilely to rid itself of the hallucinogenic poison. But it was already working on her liver and coursing through her blood. And then she'd found herself locked in the trunk of a car about to be murdered.
"What did you see?" Jojola asked gently. "I heard you scream and you spoke in a language I did not recognize."
Lucy shuddered. "I saw my death," she said, and relayed what she remembered though the details were already blurring in her mind.
When she finished, Jojola was quiet for a long time. Death dreams were not to be discounted. But he also knew that the visions could not always be taken literally. "Sometimes a vision of death actually represents a new beginning, just as death is merely the next step onward in our existence," he told her. "The spirit of peyote is fond of symbolism."
Lucy was quiet. "Maybe," she said. "I hope so, but even if it was literal, I still think it was important for some reason that I saw it now." She looked out to where the sun was now a pastel memory on the horizon and suddenly felt incredibly tired.
She yawned. "So what's next?"
Jojola smiled back. "Sleep."
As if he'd cast a spell, Lucy fell backward, but Jojola was ready and caught her by the waist. He picked her up and carried her to a bed he'd made of soft cedar clippings piled several inches thick. She breathed deep the fragrant aroma of the cedar and began to drift off.
"Rest now, Lucy," Jojola said, covering her with a blanket. "You will dream because the spirit of peyote lingers in your blood. But I will be here."
Lying on her side with her eyelids growing heavier, Lucy watched him walk over to a ring of stones, where he lit a fire and sat down next to his hide-covered drum. Picking up a stick covered on one end with doeskin, he began to beat the drum softly to a rhythm that matched the beating of her heart. Then he began to sing in Tiwa. "May the gods bless me, help me, and give me power and understanding."
4
Butch Karp winced as he stepped up onto the curb at the corner of Grand and Mercer. The physical therapist at the hospital had suggested that he use a cane as he worked his wounded leg back into shape, but he was damned if he was going to hobble around Manhattan like an old man. Instead, he forced himself to walk without support, and as normally as possible, so that he wouldn't develop a limp.
He was making good progress, too, except for the occasional misstep that reminded him that a piece of metal had passed through his thigh at a tremendous rate of speed. It will take time, he reminded himself as he straightened and resumed his stroll down the sidewalk at what he considered a respectable clip for having been shot three times.
A second bullet had hit him in the chest, but he'd lucked out and the 9 mm bullet was deflected by a rib and so only nicked a lung before passing out of his back. It broke two ribs, and he might have bled to death if not for the quick reactions of his wife and a passing stranger. But once the bleeding was stopped, the danger had passed.
However, the third bullet was a killer. Almost…as in close only counts in horseshoes, dancing, and hand grenades. The bullet that hit him in the chest spun him so that the next bullet entered the back of his neck. It should have killed him-pierced his skull right where it met the brain stem and shut off the lights before he even hit the ground. But X-rays revealed that the bullet had miraculously stopped just short of doing any real damage.
No one-not the police investigators, not the emergency room surgeons who thought that they'd seen it all-could explain why the bullet stopped. At that range, a 9 mm could have passed through a two-by-four. In fact, several other rounds that missed him took out tennis-ball-sized chunks from the marble facade of the Criminal Courts Building.
"The bullet probably didn't get the right charge at the factory," Clay Fulton said, and shrugged. "Or maybe you tensed your muscles at the perfect moment…I heard there's guys in the circus who can do that."
"Bullshit!"
"Probably," the detective agreed, then gave him a meaningful look. "Or maybe it was a God thing. Maybe the Man upstairs wasn't ready to see your sorry ass."
"Maybe so," Karp replied with a smile.