I thanked Colorado for his wonderful work and told him we would speak again in the morning. I’d be hanging around and training an apprentice, and I was counting on him to help me teach her about the earth’s needs. He was nearly overwhelmed with gratitude and pride at this news and said it was the best day he’d had in centuries.
While I’d been in a trancelike state all afternoon, paying full attention to Colorado, Granuaile had slipped away to town and come back with a few groceries. She had a basic grill propped over the fire, thanks to a couple of rocks, and she was making hamburgers sprinkled with garlic powder. In a cast-iron skillet resting on one half of the grill, she sautéed mushrooms and onions in olive oil.
<Will you tell her I like my cow plain?> Oberon said. <No need to ruin it with fried fungus, and those onions will give me Heinz body anemia.>
I think she knows that already, but I will tell her. I was used to watching Oberon’s diet and unbinding the caffeine in his tea, but he was conscientious about keeping track of his allergies in case I missed something.
Coyote shifted to his human form and chuckled. “That was pretty good, Mr. Druid. But why’d it take ya so long? Woulda been better to do it when ever’one was still here.”
“You got a completely solid road made to the top of that mesa in less than a day and you’re complaining about how long it took?”
“Ain’t complainin’,” Coyote said. “Just sayin’ your timing coulda been better.”
“I’ll remember for next time, Mr. Benally.”
Coyote told us stories after we ate — some of them old, like his encounter with Horned Toad and with Bluebird, and some of them new, like teaming up with Rattlesnake to scare a traveler who’d stopped on the roadside to relieve himself.
After I told a story about my involvement at the Battle of Kalka River, and Oberon shared how he’d landed on that rescue ranch in Massachusetts where I’d found him, we were ready to hit the sack. Said sacks were in Granuaile’s car; she’d stowed sleeping bags in there in preparation for this road trip, because we knew at some point we’d be staying outdoors. Granuaile hauled them out, I used a wee bit of power to smooth out the ground, and we stretched out for the night. Coyote took his canine form and curled up with Oberon near the fire, and Oberon was so pleased by this that he completely forgot that he was ahead in our little game and neglected to declare victory. That meant I might be able to catch up tomorrow. I couldn’t wait to see how Coyote explained the road in the morning.
He disappointed me. To my chagrin, he brazenly, baldly lied about it. “It’s always been there,” he said, when Darren Yazzie asked how in the world we’d built a road overnight. Sophie Betsuie chimed in and said, no, it wasn’t there yesterday, she remembered talking about it. And then Coyote turned everything into a dominance game.
“You callin’ me a liar?” he said, a threatening growl in his voice. And that’s all it took, because he was the boss.
Sophie wanted to call him a liar, bless her heart, but she couldn’t. But she wouldn’t cave and say he wasn’t a liar either. She just turned around and walked away, making her position clear without saying anything.
Coyote shot a smirk at me. He hadn’t been made the least bit uncomfortable by the situation. We were allies, sure, but he was also intent on getting the better of me whenever he could.
Now that the road was there, work trucks brought up lumber to build a large hogan. They were building it semi-traditionally, with a hard-packed dirt floor, but in terms of construction, they were going a decidedly modern route by bringing up a small crane to get the logs placed quickly — they’d already been cut and sized, kit style.
Frank Chischilly began singing some of the traditional songs; as the posts were placed in clockwise, beginning at the east, he sang to them. He had unrolled his jish for the Blessing Way, a buckskin medicine bundle containing everything he would need for the ceremony. Much of it he left untouched for now, but there were rattles and feathers, some stones, and tiny pouches that contained herbs and pollens, colored clays, and sand for sandpaintings.
I watched him do his routine at the southern post in the magical spectrum. Nothing unusual happened until he finished, and then a brief flash of white light appeared along the ground between the eastern post and the southern post. It faded quickly, and I had no idea what it signified other than some magical energy had been expended there. I didn’t think that was normal for hataałiis; Frank was something extra.
I placed myself at Darren Yazzie’s disposal and helped out, and we got everything framed up with a couple of hours of sunlight left. We still needed to insulate it and put something on the roof besides plastic sheeting, but the structure was up and looking good. Granuaile was excited, because Frank would continue the Blessing Way that night and she’d be able to observe more closely. She’d spent most of the day on her Latin and trying to keep Oberon entertained.
As Darren’s crew was moving all the big equipment into a hastily fenced area for the evening, the hataałii was standing at the top of the road, about thirty yards away from the hogan site, nursing a bottle of water and looking down at the floor of the plateau. He called to us hoarsely, his eyes fixed on something to the north. Granuaile, Coyote, and I jogged over to him, but Oberon got there first. His hackles rose and he began to growl at whatever he saw.
<Atticus, we should run.>
Why? Who’s there? Moralltach was stored in Granuaile’s car below. I wasn’t ready for a fight. But as I drew even with Oberon and put a calming hand on the back of his neck, the blood drained from my face when I saw a lone figure limping toward us across the dry red rock. It looked like a little old lady, and she could not have been more out of place; it was like watching Elmo ride in to the Sturgis biker rally in South Dakota.
Granuaile joined us a moment later and gasped. “How did she find us?”
“You know her?” Frank asked. “Coming from the north like that, it’s a bad omen. An’ I can tell from here she’s got an awful bad vibe.” I took note of that; if he was speaking literally, then he must possess some sort of rudimentary magical sight.
<I’ll say. She could be a Sith Lord with a vibe like that. Or a Wall Street executive.>
Coyote squinted at her and agreed. “That ain’t a little old lady.”
“I used to know her,” I admitted. “She’s supposed to be dead.”
Frank spat on the ground. “You sayin’ she’s a zombie or some crazy shit like that?”
“Not a zombie, but some crazy shit? Yeah, I think she qualifies.”
“You ain’t really a geologist, are ya, Mr. Collins?” Frank asked in a wry tone. He had a sideways grin on his face, one of those looks that said he expected me to lie and that he wasn’t going to be fooled — or offended — if I did. If he could see something magical about the widow, then he could certainly see that I wasn’t an average Joe. So I didn’t try to pretend. It was all Coyote’s story anyway.
“No more than Mr. Benally here is a benevolent entrepreneur,” I said.
Frank chuckled as Coyote told me under his breath to shut up. That meant Frank must not know Coyote’s true nature — but he probably knew Coyote wasn’t normal either. “So what the hell is that out there?” the hataałii asked, pointing with a brief jut of his chin instead of his hand.
“I don’t know what it is. But it’s time I found out.”
The figure approaching on foot from the north looked like the widow MacDonagh, but I knew it wasn’t really her. I sprinted downhill to get my sword.