It was all a thin hunch. It could turn out to be a child with whooping cough or an old lady with the miseries. But Will Luxan was in that car.…
He touched the pistol at his spine and jogged on.
CHAPTER SIX
1.
DAWN BROUGHT him awake. He eased out from behind the juniper and had his look downhill.
The smell of burning piñon drifted up at him. He could hear the chant of the medicine song, Rufus Limita’s voice. Two or three other male voices mumbled along with him.
He had slept three hours, confident that any sudden change in the Sing would have awakened him.
He couldn’t see any of them, they were inside the wickiup. The Pontiac was parked up on top of the ridge; they had taken a narrow foot track down to the place from there. There was a Jeep station wagon beside it and that was why he had not moved in during the night; he had no way of knowing how many there were or whether they had posted sentries.
He saw no one but that didn’t mean much; in country like this it was just like the old days, the only time you saw an Indian was when he moved. Watchman studied the scene with care as light flooded across the valley, scattering the shadows.
The place had been a farm but it had gone dry with erosion. There were three wickiups in various stages of decay and behind the corral was a broken latticework which once had been the base of a windmill tower; it looked like something that had been bombed.
The wickiups faced various directions; the Navajo always built his hogan with the doorway to the east but this was not so among the Apaches. One of the wickiups was very large but part of its thatch had caved in; there was the glint of light on metal through the broken roof of this big wickiup. He had a feeling that was the Land Cruiser, concealed inside.
Watchman moved around a little, working his legs and shoulders, flexing the ache from them.
The light gained strength; shades of violet and lilac suffused the distant peaks. He was still studying the hillsides and finally he decided to take the chance that they trusted their safety to isolation and hadn’t posted a watch. On his elbows he sculled across the slope to a lower point from which he could command a clear 180-degree field of view.
There could be as many as six or seven from the Jeep and he didn’t want to tackle them all; but most of the people would have to go to work in an hour or two. Watchman planned to wait for their departure.
The way he had it worked out, Joe had got sick and somehow passed the word to Luxan. Maybe it was some ordinary bug and maybe it was nerves, and maybe it was the sorcery they thought it was. It usually amounted to the same thing in the end; whether the curative power was in the sick man’s mind or in the Mountain Spirits, the chant-songs of the Singers had as much chance of success as the pills of medical science. The best remedy for most ailments was tincture of time; some were cured faster by pills and some by faith and some by the spirits.
There was sorcery in the case from the beginning. If Luxan believed the deaths of Maria and Joe Junior had been caused by a witch then he would certainly call upon the medicine man at the first sign of malady in Joe.
You acquired supernatural power by dreaming about the animals and mountains in which those powers began; you bought from some wise elder the songs and rituals by which you activated the powers. It was easier to witch a man than to cure him because evil was the less difficult state of being. It was easy for a sorcerer to cast a spell which would cause sudden illness: dizziness, fainting, stomach pains, nausea, general weakness. The poison entered through the victim’s ears. The medicine man could counteract the spell by summoning the Spirits of the mountains, and of White Painted Woman who was Mother Earth, and of Child of the Water, her child, and of the remote supreme Life Giver. But the ceremonial rituals that were required for this were complex and precise and very expensive and took a great deal of time. Even this little ceremony was probably costing Luxan a hundred dollars and if it ended before noon Watchman would be surprised.
2.
At seven they filed out of the wickiup, three of them carrying dancers’ masks and one toting a drum. He hadn’t heard any drumming; that probably meant Rufus Limita had ascertained that Joe’s illness was not too severe.
There were five of them; Watchman recognized Danny Sanada. Limita and Luxan came as far as the door and watched the five Indians walk up the hill to the Jeep wagon. Limita wore an amulet and a medicine pouch on a string around his neck.
Watchman stayed put without moving while the Jeep backed up and turned and went away.
Limita and Luxan stooped to go back into the wickiup and as soon as they were out of sight Watchman brought out the pistol and walked down the hill without sound. His knees were a little watery.
Limita’s hoarse singing started up again. Watchman crouched just outside the wickiup and closed his right eye tight and stayed that way for several minutes until he judged his right eye would be able to see in the dimness within. Then he curled inside, opening the eye, going in like a seed squeezed from an orange.
Luxan heard something and reached for the .30-30 but Watchman had the pistol on him and Luxan dropped the rifle.
Limita sat cross-legged, dripping colored sand onto the edges of his sand painting. He looked up and the song stopped.
Joe Threepersons sat drooping in the middle of the sand painting on the floor. His clothes were very dusty and there was a sweat-shine of fever on his face. The cauliflowered ear picked up a little light from the fire hole and Joe’s eyes regarded Watchman bleakly, without surprise.
Watchman said, “Hello Joe.”
3.
He nudged the .30-30 with his foot, brought it over and grasped it. It was a Winchester ’94 saddle gun, lever action, and Watchman jacked all the cartridges out of it.
“Where’s the magnum?”
Three pairs of eyes stared boldly at him and finally it was Luxan’s that drifted off to a point behind Watchman. Luxan nodded dispiritedly and Watchman found the big rifle in back of him propped against the wall. He emptied it with care and laid the two rifles behind him and made a little heap of the cartridges.
Years and weather’s incursion had turned the walls driftwood-grey. The floor was rammed-earth and the ashes of the night’s piñon fire lay smoking to one side of the sand painting on which Joe sat but the residue of smoke didn’t quite mask the rancid smell of sickness.
Rufus Limita’s hand grasped the medicine pouch at his chest as thought it were a bludgeon. “I didn’t finish this time.”
“I’m sorry I had to interrupt.” Watchman was a little dry.
The old Singer brooded at him. Will Luxan played with the imitation-briar pipe in his fingers, and slid it away in a pocket of his shirt. Joe Threepersons coughed and stared, emanating hatred.
Watchman said, “I’m Highway Patrol.” He showed his badge.
“Good for you.”
“How’re you feeling?”
“Rotten. I think I got Montezuma’s Revenge.”
Dysentery. Joe Threepersons looked it. As if an elephant had kicked him between the eyes. His breathing was thin and rapid. Watchman said, “You think somebody witched you?”
“Maybe.” Joe’s round face was closed up, bitterly aloof. Watchman caught a sour whiff of sweat. Joe had nerved his stomach into knots; it wasn’t surprising he was sick.
Will Luxan was the key. Watchman addressed him gently. “Somebody wants to kill Joe. I need help to stop it.”
Joe said, “Man you got it backwards.”
“Who’s the rifle for, Joe?”
“I guess that’s my binness.”
“You didn’t kill Ross Calisher, did you.”
Joe showed his grudging surprise.
Watchman said, “Listen to me, Joe. Maybe I can get you off the hook. If you can help prove you never killed Calisher you can be a free man.”