He rose reluctantly, then nodded at Ross. “I apologize for any rudeness, Mr. Ross. I didn’t come here to make trouble.”
John Ross nodded back. “You don’t need to apologize to me, Deputy.”
Larry Spence looked down at the floor. “Nest, I’m sorry. But I worry about you. Rumors have a way of sneaking up on you, if you don’t keep an eye on them. If there’s drug dealing going on in the park, I don’t want you to be associated with it.”
Nest stared at him. For just an instant she sensed that he was talking about something else entirely, that he was trying to tell her something. She shook her head slowly and stepped up to him. “Larry, I appreciate your concern. But drugs have never been a part of my life and certainly not of John’s. I promise you, if we see anything suspicious, we’ll give you a call.”
The big man nodded, turned, and started back down the hall. He caught sight of Little John perched on the sofa, staring out at the park, and turned back to Ross. “Your son?”
Ross nodded.
Spence looked at the boy, puzzlement etched in his rough features, as if he found the boy’s presence difficult to accept. Then he continued down the hall to the front door, where he paused.
“The offer for Christmas is still open. Kids would love it.”
“I don’t think so, Larry,” she replied, wondering what in the world he was thinking.
He nodded, opened the door, and went back outside. Nest stood in the doorway and watched as he climbed into his sheriff’s car and drove slowly off. Her hands were clenched and her throat was tight with anger.
Larry Spence, she decided, was an idiot.
The Indian seemed to come out of nowhere, appearing amidst the bare trees in a wooded stretch behind the toboggan slide, all size and dark shadows in the graying light. He was big all over, dressed in camouflage pants, ribbed army sweater, mesh vest, and combat boots. His black hair glistened with a gunmetal sheen, braided and drawn tight against his scalp, and his coppery skin shone like orange fire. He carried a rucksack and a rolled blanket over one shoulder, and his eyes, even from so far away, were bright pinpricks beneath his heavy brow.
Bennett Scott forgot about Penny and the drugs and everything else, and simply stared at him as he approached, his slow, heavy steps carrying him steadily closer, until he seemed to take up all the space in her screen of vision.
At the last minute, Penny, still whispering sweet enticements and urgent pleas, realized something was wrong. She backed away quickly and turned as the Indian loomed over her. Bennett heard her gasp of surprise and shock turn an instant later to a hiss of warning.
“Afternoon,” the Indian said, his copper face expressionless, his deep voice smooth. He was addressing Bennett and Harper, looking right through Penny. “Beautiful day for a walk in the park.”
No one replied. The women and the little girl stood frozen in place, as if turned to ice. The Indian glanced from Bennett to Harper, unperturbed. “Ah, little one,” he said softly to the child. “Do you wait for tonight’s snow so that tomorrow you might go out and build a snowman with Mama?”
Harper gave a slow nod. “Yeth.”
The Indian smiled faintly. “Mama,” he said to Bennett, speaking past a seething Penny as if she weren’t even there. “Do you know a woman named Nest Freemark?”
Bennett swallowed against the dryness in her throat, so frightened she could barely bring herself to do that much. The Indians she had encountered had mostly been street people, drunks and indigents and welfare dependents, barely able to get from street corner to soup line. This one was a different sort entirely, big and powerful and self-assured. He had not threatened Harper or her, but he seemed capable of anything.
“Do you know Nest Freemark?” he pressed gently.
Bennett nodded. “She lives right over there,” she managed, suddenly in control of herself again, her mind clear.
“She is your friend?”
“Yes. I’m staying with her.”
“Would you go to her and tell her Two Bears is waiting in the park to speak with her?”
It was an odd request. Why didn’t he just walk over there and tell her himself? But she didn’t feel inclined to argue the matter, and it gave her the excuse she needed to get away from Penny. “Okay,” she said. “Come on, Harper.”
She reached for the little girl’s hand, but Penny moved instantly to block their way, wheeling back on the Indian. “Why don’t you just push off, Tonto? Run your own errand. We were talking.”
For the first time, he looked at her. And Penny, well, Penny with her drugs and smart-ass talk, looked as if she might turn into a pillar of salt. She shrank from him as if struck, retreating into a protective crouch. Then something ugly and dark surfaced in her eyes, and she took on the appearance of a feral creature. She lunged at the Indian, snake-quick. There was a glint of metal, but the metal went spinning out into the gray, and Penny shrieked and dropped to one knee, holding her wrist and baring her teeth at Two Bears. A knife lay on the ground a dozen feet away, knocked free from her hand. Bennett had never even seen the Indian move.
“You should be more careful,” the big man told Penny, then dismissed her as if she were already gone. He bent to Harper. “Come, little one,” he said, taking her tiny hand in his. “I will walk part of the way with you.”
Harper went obediently, saying nothing. Bennett followed, leaving Penny kneeling on the ground where the Indian had put her. She did not look back.
Chapter 11
Nest Freemark pulled on her parka, not bothering with snaps or zippers, and banged her way out through the storm door onto the back porch, down the steps, and into the yard. She exhaled her frustration in a frothy cloud, her mind racing. First Larry Spence comes by with his bizarre story about drug dealing in the park and now O’olish Amaneh reappears. Today was turning into a replay of yesterday, and she wasn’t sure she was up to it.
She was already scanning the park, searching for the Indian’s familiar silhouette when Pick dropped onto her shoulder.
“Getting to be old home week around here, isn’t it?” he offered brightly, fastening on her collar with both twiggy hands. “Hey, watch what you’re doing!”
She was hunching down into the coat, jostling Pick as she did so, working the Gore-Tex into a more protective position. It was colder out than she had believed. The temperature was dropping again, the afternoon chill deepened by the sun’s disappearance behind a thick bank of clouds, the morning’s brightness faded to memory.
“Try thinking about someone besides yourself!” Pick snapped, regaining his balance.
“Quit griping.” She was in no mood for sylvan nonsense. Pick meant well, but sometimes he was an out-and-out annoyance. She had enough to deal with. “You saw him, I gather?”
“Which one do you mean? That deputy sheriff, John Ross, or the Indian? I saw them all. What’s going on?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure.”
She pushed through the bushes and onto the service road separating the Freemark property from the park. Ahead, the dead grass of the ball diamonds and central play area stretched away in a gray and windburned carpet. Beyond, along the ridge of the bluffs ahead, right toward Riverside Cemetery, and left past the toboggan slide, the bare trunks and limbs of the broad-leaves were framed like dark webbing against the steely sky.
Two Bears was nowhere in sight.
“I don’t see him,” she said, casting about as she proceeded.
“He’s there,” Pick insisted. “He was there early this morning, sitting all by himself at one of the picnic tables.”
“Well, I don’t see him now.”
“And you want me to stop griping? Criminy!” He rode her shoulder in silence for a moment. “What does he want this time? Did the Scott girl say?”
“Nope. I don’t think she knows.”
Nest’s boots crunched and skidded against the frosty dampness that had melted earlier and was now refreezing. She’d left both children with Bennett, who seeme
d confused and out of sorts from her encounter with Two Bears. There’s an Indian waiting outside in the park, she’d reported. Bear Claw, she’d called him. Ross was in the shower. Maybe he didn’t need to know about this. Maybe he didn’t even have to find out O’olish Amaneh was there. Maybe cows could fly.
She wasn’t kidding herself about what the Indian’s appearance meant. When Two Bears showed up, it meant trouble of the worst kind. She could have predicted his coming, she realized, if she had let herself. With Findo Gask sniffing around in search of the gypsy morph, John Ross bringing the morph to her in an effort to save it, and a deadly confrontation between the paladins of the Word and the Void virtually assured, it was inevitable that O’olish Amaneh would be somewhere close at hand.
A dog came bounding across the park, a black Lab, but its owner’s whistle brought it around and back toward where it had come from. She glanced behind her at the house, shadowed in the graying light and heavy trees, remote and empty-seeming. She found herself wondering anew about the unexpected appearance of Larry Spence. One thing was certain. He had come to her for something more than a warning about drug sales in the park, and it clearly had to do with John Ross. Larry didn’t like Ross, but she couldn’t figure out why. She didn’t think they had even met when Ross had come to Hopewell fifteen years ago. Even if they had, Larry wouldn’t be carrying a grudge that long, not without more reason than she could envision. It was something else, something more recent.
“There he is,” Pick said.
Two Bears stood next to the toboggan slide, a dark shadow within the heavy timbers. He was O’olish Amaneh in the language of his people, the Sinnissippi. He had told Nest once that he was the last of them, that his people were all gone. She shivered at the memory. But Two Bears was much more than a Native American. Two Bears was another of the Word’s messengers, a kind of prophet, a chronicler of things lost in the past and a seer of things yet to come.
He moved out to meet her as she approached, as imperturbable as ever, big and weather-burnt, black hair braided and shining, looking for all the world as if he hadn’t aged a day. Indeed, even after fifteen years, he didn’t seem to have aged at all.
“Little bird’s Nest,” he said with that slow, warm rumble, hands lifting to clasp her own.
“O’olish Amaneh,” she said, and placed her hands in his, watching them disappear in the great palms.
He did not move to embrace her, but simply stood looking at her, dark eyes taking her measure. She was nearly as tall as he was now, but she felt small and vulnerable in his presence.
“You have done much with your life since we spoke last,” he said finally, releasing her hands. “Olympics, world championships, honors of all sorts. You have grown wings and flown far. You should be proud.”
She smiled and shook her head. “I have a failed marriage, no family, no future, a ghost wolf living inside me, and a house full of trouble.” She held his steady gaze with her own. “I don’t have time for pride.”
He nodded. “Maybe you never did.” His eyes shifted to Pick. “Still have your shy little friend, I see. Mr. Pick, the park looks tended and sound, the magic in balance. You are a skilled caretaker.”
Pick frowned and gave a small humph, then nodded grudgingly. “I could use a little help.”
Two Bears smiled faintly. “Some things never change.” His eyes shifted back to Nest. “Walk with me. We can talk better down by the river.”
He started away without waiting for her response, and she found herself following. They moved beyond the slide and down into the trees, edging slowly toward the icy skin of the bayou. The temperature was dropping quickly as the afternoon lengthened and the skies darkened further, and their breath formed white clouds in the air before them. Nest was tempted to speak first, to ask the obvious, but Two Bears had asked to speak with her, so she thought it best to wait on him.
“It feels good to hear you speak my name, to know that you have not forgotten it,” he said, looking off into the distance.
As if she could, she thought without saying so. As if it were possible. She had encountered Two Bears only twice, but both times her life had been changed forever. O’olish Amaneh and John Ross, harbingers of change: she wondered if they ever thought of themselves that way. Both served the Word, but in different ways, and their relationship was something of a mystery. Two Bears had given Ross the rune-carved staff that was both the talisman of his power and the chain that bound him to his fate. Ross had tried at least once to give the staff back and failed. Each had come to Nest both as savior and executioner, but the roles had shifted back and forth between them, and in some ways they remained unclear. They were fond of her, but not of each other. Perhaps their roles placed restrictions on their feelings. Perhaps fondness for her was allowed, while fondness for each other was not.
She was not certain how she felt about them. She guessed she liked Ross better for having witnessed his vulnerability ten years ago in Seattle, when a demon had almost claimed him through misguided love. He had lost almost everything then, stripped of illusion and hope. In a few seconds of blinding recognition, he discovered how deeply pervasive evil was and how impossible it would be to walk away from his battle against it. He had taken up the black staff of his office once more, reclaimed his life as a Knight of the Word, and gone on because there was nothing else for him to do. She found him brave and wonderful because of that.
By the same token, she guessed, she had distanced herself from Two Bears. It wasn’t for what he had done, but for what she had discovered he might do. In Seattle, he had come to observe, to see if she could change the direction in which John Ross had drifted and by doing so enable him to escape the trap that was closing about him. Two Bears had come to watch, but if she had failed in her efforts, he had come to act as well, to make certain that whatever else happened, John Ross would not become a servant of the Void. He had made that clear to her in urging her to go to Ross, even after John had rejected her help, and it had given her an understanding of Two Bears that she would just as soon not have.
But that was long ago, she thought, walking through the park with him, and these are different times.
“I’m surprised you showed yourself to Bennett,” she said finally, abandoning her resolve to wait longer on him.
“She needed someone to protect her from evil spirits.” He kept his gaze directed straight ahead, and she could not determine if he was serious.
“I had a visit from a demon named Findo Gask,” she said.
“An evil spirit of the sort I was talking about. One of the worst. But you already know that.”
She scuffed at the frozen ground impatiently. “John Ross is here as well. He brought a gypsy morph to me.”
“A houseful of trouble, as you claim, when you add in the young woman and her child.” He might have been talking about the weather. “What will you do?”
She made a face. “I was hoping you might tell me.” On her shoulder, Pick was muttering in irritation, but she couldn’t tell who or what he was upset with.
Two Bears stopped a dozen yards from the riverbank in a stand of winter grasses and gray hickory. He looked at her quizzically. “It is not my place to tell you what to do, little bird’s Nest. You are a grown woman, one possessing uncommon strength of mind and heart and body. You have weathered difficult times and harsh truths. The answers you seek are yours to provide, not mine.”
She frowned, impatient with his evasiveness. “But you asked to speak to me, O’olish Amaneh.”
He shrugged. “Not about this. About something else.” He began walking again, and Nest followed. “A houseful of trouble,” he repeated, skirting a stand of hackberry and stalks of dried itch weed, moving toward the ravine below the deep woods, following a tiny stream of snowmelt upstream from the bayou. “A houseful of trouble can make a prisoner of you. To get free, you must empty your house of what is bad and fill it with what is good.”
“You mean I should throw everybody out and start over?” She
arched one eyebrow at him. “Bring in some new guests?”
Still walking steadily ahead, as if he had a destination in mind and a firm intention of reaching it, he did not look at her. “Sometimes change is necessary. Sometimes we recognize the need for it, but we don’t know how to achieve it. We misread its nature. We think it is beyond us, failing to recognize that our inability to act is a problem of our own making. Change is the solution we require, but it is not a goal that is easily reached. Identifying and disposing of what is troubling to us requires caution and understanding.”
He was telling her something in that obscure, oblique way he employed when talking of problems and solutions, believing that everyone must resolve things on their own, and the best he could do was to offer a flashlight for use on a dark path. She struggled with the light he had provided, but it was too weak to be of help.
“Everyone in my house needs me,” she advised quietly. “I can’t ask them to leave, even if allowing them to stay places me in danger.”
He nodded. “I would expect nothing less of you.”
“So the trouble that fills my house, as you put it, will have to be dealt with right where it is, I guess.”
“You have dealt with trouble in your house before, little bird’s Nest.”
She thought about it a moment. He was speaking of Gran and Old Bob, fifteen years earlier, when John Ross had come to her for the first time, and she had learned the truth about her star-crossed family. But this was different. The secrets this time were not hers, but belonged to the gypsy morph. Or perhaps to John Ross.
Didn’t they?
She looked at him sharply, sensing suddenly that he was talking about her after all, that he was giving her an insight into her own life.
“Not all the troubles that plague us are ours to solve,” Two Bears advised, walking steadily on. “Life provides its own solutions to some, and we must accept those solutions as we would the changing of the seasons.” He glanced at her expectantly.