Land of Echoes

  Cree touched the butterfly bandage above her right eyebrow, grimaced, and told him, "A stupid accident with Ms. McCarty's horses."

  He relayed the news to the others in Navajo, and they nodded commiseratingly.

  Standing behind the plate, she savored the feel of the group. They had folded around her quickly, perfectly content to have this stranger among them as long as she was willing to play. Aside from the thump inside her head, it was very pleasant: the sun warm on her cheek, the air clean and sweet-spicy, the sky a vast dome of blue that set off the rust hues of the mesa.

  Even Tommy looked okay. She watched him as he caught the ball and briefly inspected it. He appeared to have a problem with a muscle cramp in his left calf, and he looked less than pleased to have her butting in, but otherwise, outwardly, he seemed like a pretty normal kid, playing some Softball.

  Tight-lipped, Tommy pitched, the batter swung and missed; Cree nailed it in her glove and flipped it back to Tommy as the fielders jeered the batter. As if to set them straight, he knocked the next pitch over their heads. It landed with a puff of dust well out in the desert, where the lonesome-looking outfielders had to chase it.

  "Not too bad," Tommy called. "For an old man."

  The batter watched with satisfaction as they retrieved the ball and tossed it around. "What's your name?" he asked over his shoulder.

  "Cree."

  He grinned back at her. "You don't look Indian."

  "It's not after the tribe. Just a nickname."

  He nodded and turned back to the field, then freed a hand from the bat to mime shaking hands in the air. "Ben," he told her.

  He hit another two dozen balls and then it was Tommy's turn at bat. Coming in from the mound, the boy seemed to approach Cree warily. He traded his glove for Ben's bat and scowled as he took a practice swing off to one side.

  "Don't worry," Cree told him quietly. "I won't hassle you. I'm off duty."

  He made a small, tight smile. "Like I believe you."

  "I never mix business with pleasure, trust me." It was a lie, actually. She wouldn't outwardly probe him, but with him standing only five feet away she found herself extending her senses toward him, straining to feel the thing that must be lurking in him. The best she could do was to note a tiny, ambiguous buzz of dissonance.

  "I'm serious," she went on. "I can use some exercise. Outside, sunshine, some air in my lungs—it feels good. Being here is very exciting for me. It's so different where I come from. You're probably used to it, but for me it's beautiful and new."

  He nodded as he set his stance, then swung at the first pitch and missed. Ben pitched hard, letting the ball go in a shallow arc after a fast bolo windup. Cree caught it with a smack, looked wide-eyed at her hands and yelled at him as she tossed it back, "Hey, take it easy! Wanna burn a hole in my glove?"

  Ben grinned and underhanded another fast one, which Tommy slapped on the ground toward the left. The woman at third base fielded it badly, then made a wild throw to first, laughing at herself and earning the scorn of everyone. As Tommy watched them toss it around he rotated his left ankle, pointed his toe, leaned on it to stretch out the muscle cramp. Cree waited, hands on knees behind him.

  Who are you? she asked in her thoughts. What do you want?

  "Why did you ask me about ghosts last night?" Tommy whispered over his shoulder. "Is that what you do? Something with ghosts?"

  He must have been thinking about that comment ever since last night, Cree knew suddenly, and she chided herself for her carelessness— for tossing that provocation at him, failing to realize how closely a very smart boy would inspect what had been said. How much it would frighten a confused kid, no matter how skeptical he claimed to be.

  She shook her head. "I'm off duty, remember? I really don't have you under a microscope. We should both just play and relax now. I think we both could use it."

  "Is that what you're thinking is the matter with me?" Tommy persisted.

  Ben caught the ball again and made an elaborate show of preparing to pitch. Tommy got set and when the ball came he whapped it over the first baseman's head, foul.

  "The answer I have is complicated," she told him quietly. "Because I don't think of these things the way other people do. If you want, I'll be happy to explain later, when we have more time."

  Tommy turned his back on the chattering fielders as they flipped the ball around. "Does that mean Mrs. McCarty and Dr. Tsosie think it, too?"

  "The more important question is, What do you think?"

  Tommy eyes were wide and desperate. He seemed to struggle with how to answer, and at last whispered hoarsely, "I have to fight it. All the time."

  Appalled, Cree realized for the first time the terror that Tommy must be living with, and how bravely he concealed it. Take the fear anyone felt when struck by a severe illness, and compound it a hundred times with the fear of the unknown—the awful, sick sense of strangeness that so often accompanied the paranormal. That metaphysical terror. The fact that he was talking to her now showed how desperate this boy was. She felt her heart leap out toward him, an unbearable desire to comfort and protect.

  "You can feel it? Now?" Cree was aware that Lynn Pierce was watching them closely. She wondered how much the nurse could hear.

  In a tiny voice, he said, "In my calf. It's like a charley horse. This little ball that tightens up. Like it's trying to make my leg move by itself."

  Ben pitched and Tommy swung and missed. Cree returned it and put her hands on her knees to wait for the next pitch. Ben wound up, slung it, Tommy fouled it far away east of first base, toward the mesa.

  "What about when it gets bad? Times like last night?"

  Tommy's leg was really bothering him now. He laid the bat down so he could use both hands to rub the calf fiercely. Cree caught only the briefest of glimpses when his pants leg hitched, but she was shocked at the striating bands and mounds moving under his smooth skin. He kept his face half turned to the field, barely moved his lips as if to conceal his urgency from the others: "I can't remember."

  "Is it always the same?"

  The bent head gave a shake. "Sometimes it's different. Sometimes it's fast, it just snaps, it catches you off guard. But the way it was last night, when it's coming it's like . . . when you're going to throw up. You try not to think about it, try not to let it get worse, but it keeps coming and coming until you can't help it."

  "Oh, man, Tommy. That must be so hard!" Cree said. Tommy's brown eyes reconnoitered hers and seemed relieved not to find condescension there. Still, craning her senses toward him she felt nothing but that queer sizzle that could be a foreign presence or, she had to admit, the mind of a troubled teen with a psychological problem—some unconscious need so desperate that it had to seek this drastic, exotic form of expression. Her spine tingled at the thought: That was terrifying, too. She had to quell the urge to go to him, hold him, stroke away the tension in his face.

  "Hey, batter!" Ben yelled. "Incoming!"

  Tommy picked up the bat. He took a pitch, waited for the next, swung and missed. Ben kept at him until he swatted one into the outfield. They didn't talk for a time as he hit a few more. Each metallic pank! of the aluminum bat rang painfully in Cree's head.

  "So what do you think is the best thing to do for it?" she whispered. "What would be the best thing for you?"

  "Just to die. Not to feel that ever again."

  "No! Not a good solution. Let's work on a better one, huh?"

  He shook his head as he turned mostly toward her. "You don't get it. You don't know."

  "I know I don't! That's why I need you to tell me!"

  His eyes flicked at her, glistening with an animal quality. "One time our sheep had this thing. There'd been a big hatch of this kind of fly . . . You couldn't see it until after shearing, but then you could see these . . . lumps. On their backs, their stomachs? The lumps moved by themselves. Kind of . . . pulsing. It was the worms, the maggots, under the skin. Eating the sheep alive."

  The image stunned an
d sickened Cree: the parasite inside, remorseless, growing, consuming its living host. Tommy's alert eyes reacted to her inability to respond, and she felt she'd failed him.

  "Okay, Tommy," Ben called. His voice startled them both. For the last few moments, a suffocating, fearful intimacy had wrapped around them, isolating the two of them, closing them off from the big sky and brisk air and the warm camaraderie of the other players. "A few more and it's Judy's turn. Stop flirting with the cute bilagâana and let's go. She's too old for you, yeah?"

  The others laughed shyly, watching to see how Cree took it. She made a smile that she knew looked forced. But Tommy managed some comeback in Navajo that got them all laughing again. On the next pitch, he connected hard and sent a level drive straight back at the pitcher's mound. Ben ducked under the ball as it hummed low up the middle and over second base. The fielders whistled appreciatively and then berated Ben for his arrogance and cowardice and general lifestyle: "Duck and cover, huh, Ben?" " 'Stop, drop, and roll,' man!" "Hey, no—for Ben, more like 'sex, drugs, and rock and roll.'"

  Tommy put down the bat as the woman at third base began to come in. He jogged out into the field with only a slight hitch in his leg.

  "What does bilagâana mean?" Cree called back to Lynn Pierce.

  "White person."

  "So what was that Tommy said to them?"

  Lynn was looking after him with a proprietary pride. "He said something like, 'Yeah, I'm too young and you're too ugly.' And then a pun that doesn't translate perfectly—it's better in Navajo. Ben was making an indirect pass at you and Tommy was telling him to mind his manners." She turned to Cree with a prim, apologetic smile. "Make any progress, Doctor? I was . . . kind of listening."

  "I don't know," Cree told her. "I really don't know."

  15

  "CREE!" She was walking back toward the infirmary, determined to lie down, when the voice startled her out of her thoughts. She looked back to see Julieta, striding toward her from the administration building. She walked quickly and wore a frown full of the angry determination of a prize-fighter coming out of his corner. "How's your head?"

  Cree put her hand to her bandaged forehead. "I'm fine. Going to be headachy for a few days, that's all. What's going on?"

  "I know who the ghost is."

  Cree's jaw dropped: This was quite a shift for a woman who'd expressed so many reservations not so long ago. "Urn, that's terrific. Who?"

  Julieta hesitated, making some decision as she looked at Cree through narrowed eyes. "Are you up for riding? I'll show you."

  Cree assessed her weariness, measured the gas in the tank and found maybe just enough. "Sure," she said.

  They saddled the two mares. Cree found she remembered most of the ritual of blanket and saddle, bridle and bit and stirrups; Julieta checked her work and needed only to draw Breeze's belly cinch tighter. The black gelding looked on curiously as they led the mares out the rear corral gate and mounted.

  Astride her horse, Julieta looked ravishing. Her black hair floated around her head and over her shoulders as she sat straight and proud. Once they were on their way, she pulled back the thick mane and put on a cowboy hat that held it behind her, then slipped on a pair of sunglasses. In the shades and hat, leather jacket and snug jeans, she looked gorgeous and dangerous, a woman warrior.

  Julieta said nothing as she led them straight north at a trot. Cree posted adequately, rediscovering more of her rusty riding skills by the minute. It helped that Breeze was a gentle horse and seemed to want to go today. The rhythm of the trot echoed in Cree's sore head, but the pain was manageable. Especially with her curiosity piqued. She wished Julieta would slow down and explain what this was all about.

  And the land was beautiful. Here was the big gesture she'd hungered for since coming to this place, a way of taking in the landscape. Sky. Earth. Rocks. Distance. The wordless company of the willing animal between her knees. Cree savored the air, clean but faintly spiced with a perfume that the grocery truck driver had told her was piñon-wood smoke. The only sound was the drum of hoofs, the creak of leather, the whuff of Breeze's breathing.

  They put a couple of miles behind them before Julieta slowed and allowed Cree to fall into a walk beside her.

  The iridescent green sunglasses turned toward her. Beneath the glistening ovals, Julieta's mouth was a thin, straight line. "It's Garrett McCarty. My ex. He was always a complete and total bastard and I guess he still is." The sunglasses turned back to the north without waiting for a response.

  Cree felt a sudden trepidation. Old animosities could cloud a witness's perspective on a haunting, and she had learned to be wary of making assumptions based on them. Especially if it involved an ex-husband or -wife or -lover. Yes, there was always a lot left unresolved between people who had once been deeply intimate and then had broken away, and of course a revenant often did prove to be an ex, driven to settle the accounts of love or hate. But just as often the kind of dead-certain identification she saw in Julieta now was merely the product of lingering hostility and paranoia in the living person.

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because he died not far from here. I told you about that, didn't I?"

  "Lip at the mine area?"

  Julieta nodded.

  "That's, what, fifteen miles or so from the school?"

  "As the crow flies, more like ten. Why? Is that too far for a ghost to come?

  A memory flashed in front of Cree's eyes, real enough to touch: Mike, standing there in downtown Philadelphia at the moment of his death in Los Angeles. "No," she said sadly. "Not necessarily. But why—"

  "Why would Garrett come back? To hurt me."

  " But—"

  "He hated me because I divorced him and because I came out better in the settlement terms and because I won a couple of fights with McCarty Energy over the years. Maybe because I had the gall to have a couple of relationships over the years, didn't live like a nun after divorcing the great man. I think he also suspected I had a lover while we were still married, or at least before the divorce was final."

  "Did you?"

  Julieta's jaw dropped at Cree's presumption and she appeared to catch herself on the edge of an indignant denial. She took a deep breath and then her shoulders slumped. "Yes," she said quietly. But then the resistance flared again: "Yes! I had a lover, okay? I was twenty-four and I was married to an old man who I never saw and who was screwing every secretary in his employ and every female social climber in New Mexico! I had a lover. But Garrett never knew about it. I made damn sure he never knew, because I wasn't going to let him use it against me in the divorce. It was perfectly all right for him to chase tail, but for me to actually love somebody for the first and only time in my life, that would have been unforgivable!"

  It was so clearly a defensive outpouring, and for Cree a little piece of the puzzle fell into place: Julieta's hard side, this angry warrior woman and the efficient administrator who explained her every action so logically and dispassionately— it was just the armor over the vulnerable person who lived inside. The woman who had invited her to go for a ride within moments of Cree's arriving yesterday and then concealed the gesture by explaining that the horses needed exercise. The woman who'd so badly needed Joseph Tsosie's brief touch last night.

  Julieta clucked to Madie, slapped the reins, and began to canter ahead as if fleeing her own words. Cree touched her heels to Breeze's flanks, urging her to follow, and soon they were pummeling full tilt over the rolling land. The canter was less jolting than the trot, the air seemed to flow through Cree's head and wash away the pain. The bare ground and low sagebrush rolled away beneath the lunging horse, unchanging.

  When Julieta finally slowed again, Cree caught up and they walked again as the horses blew. So many questions, Cree was thinking. Where to even start?

  "But, Julieta—why would he come into one of your students as a way to punish you?"

  "Because it's a great way to bring the school down. He knew it was the one thing I loved, the one thin
g I believed in doing on my own. Trust me, Garrett was very smart, very insightful when it came to figuring out somebody's weaknesses. He built an empire on knowing the best way to hurt somebody."

  Cree wanted to point out that ghosts were seldom so intentional and devious. Usually their motives, if you could call so elemental an urge a motive, were more like compulsions, just reflexes of their psyches. But there were more pressing issues to get out of the way.

  "Why would it settle in Tommy Keeday? Instead any of the other kids?"

  "I don't know!" Even behind the camouflage of the sunglasses, Julieta's face looked agonized. "How could I possibly know?"

  "Does Tommy have any characteristics that would make him particularly vulnerable? Joseph describes him as a boy with a lot of internal conflicts—"

  "Look, before all this, I'd spent maybe four hours with him. Once for his admission interview. A couple of chance encounters around school. He was in the drawing class I teach, along with six other kids, but we had only two classes before all this came up! Beyond that, I don't know anything about him but what I've read in his records."

  "Then why do you care so deeply about him?"

  "I care about all of my students! Every one of them! He's a very sick and troubled boy! I'd be the same with—"

  "Why didn't you ever have children? You want children."

  "Why didn't you?" Julieta shot back. "We're about the same age."

  Cree bobbed her head: Clearly, Julieta would demand reciprocation for eveiything she revealed. "My husband died unexpectedly before we had kids. We were going to. I'd like to, but I've never . . . I've never found the right man. Sometimes it makes me feel very sad, very incomplete. No—it just about kills me, Julieta. I'm thirty-nine and probably I'll never have a child. But I'm lucky to have two beautiful nieces who I'm very close to. Kind of their half-mom."

  "So I'm half mom to my students." Julieta tipped her hat brim lower over her face.

  The horses huffed and shied. As they craned their heads, Cree saw the object of their concern: a dead coyote, fifty feet ahead, stretched along the ground as if it had died running. Its gray fur was matted, and something had been nibbling it, leaving the eye sockets round black pits on its narrow skull. The belly had been eaten away, too, leaving a dark cavity and baring a length of dirty white spine. She caught the smell as they let the horses find a wide route around it. The sight struck Cree as sorrowful, a dark omen.