Sacred Ground Read online

  She shook her head. "I am never going to be able to do that. You sound just like Sherlock Holmes, and I feel as stupid as Watson," she sighed, then hooked a chair with her toe and kicked it over to him. "Sit, Mooncrow, my Teacher. I am troubled, and in need of counsel. We have a lot of problems that should fit together and don't. I need your help, Little Old Man."

  He took the chair, losing his smile. When she called him that-which was a title of high honor among their people- he knew the situation was more than simply serious. And he knew that she would not ask him for help unless she really was out of her depth.

  She told him what she had told her father, but with more details, particularly the Medicine details. Although he was wearing his very best stoneface, as befit a Little Old Man, she thought that he became alarmed when she told him about Watches-Over-The-Land's looted grave.

  He began to ask her some specific questions about what graves in particular had been looted where, and she had to confess that she had been so upset that she couldn't remember precise details.

  "That's why I took these," she said, pulling out the Polaroids, and handing them to him. "Each set is from a specific grave; see, I put a number on a note right in the middle of each one, so you can tell which was which. I put everything back that I could, but with the bones gone, I got the feeling that my ceremonies were about as effective as blowing smoke into the wind. I did at least break the spiritual connection to the bones, but the mi-ah-luschka are looking for blood payment."

  He leafed through them, carefully, his face gone stony and cold. Finally, when he came to the last set, he took a quick intake of breath. That was all, but it was enough to tell her that he was as upset as she had ever seen him.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, simply holding the photographs in his hands. When he finally opened his eyes again, though, he did not look the way she had expected.

  He was angry, but that wasn't all. He was disturbed, and perhaps a little frightened. Something had happened that he had not expected.

  "You are correct in remembering that this was Watches-Over-The-Land's resting place," he said, after a long silence. "As I have told you, he was a Medicine Chief, and a very great one."

  He paused, and she waited. He would tell her what he knew, but he was clearly thinking this through as he spoke.

  "There is something wrong-besides this vandalism," he said after that long pause. "I am looking at these pictures, and there is more malice in the last looting than in the rest. There are no bits of pottery or beads left there; absolutely everything was taken. Further, no one but you, or I, or some other immediate ancestor, should have been able to find that grave. Not simply because it is-was-hard to find. Because they should not have been able to see it. Because it was protected."

  She nodded, slowly, and then with vigor. Of course! That was what the back of my mind was trying to tell me! Of course the place would be protected-how could it not have been, with a son who was a Medicine Chief himself seeing to the cairn? And with every descendant since watching over the site?

  Magics like that were only supposed to grow stronger with time, not weaker. And now she knew what Mooncrow had been up to, each time they had visited the place. He had been reinforcing those protections.

  So what had gone wrong?

  "So something has gone wrong," he said, echoing her thoughts. "Something has gone very wrong with all of the protections that we tried to keep in place." He pondered again for a moment. "So, here is something new to add to your equation. A new story for you, and it is one of ill omen; one I would have told you when I taught you the rituals to protect our Ancestor. There was a-a thing-that Watches-Over-The-Land defeated. This was later, after his visions, or he would not have been strong enough to defeat it. It was something evil, and he defeated the evil man that created it as well, killed him, and buried him with all his evil things. Watches-Over-The-Land told his son that he had seen another set of visions, visions that showed that if he did not defeat this man and his evil object, the Osage would go the way of the Hard-To-Kill-People, and disappear; and lose all that they had to the Long Knives, like the Thing-On-Its-Head-People did."

  The Osage disappearing, like the Sac and Fox, where I don't think there's a single pure-blooded member of the tribes left. And losing literally everything, like the Cherokee, who were driven out of the lands in the South, had homes and farms and businesses stolen from them by government order. ...

  "He said this evil man meant to get power by helping the Long Knives, and that he would have done terrible things to the land itself." Grandfather shook his head, and his eyes were very troubled. "That is why Watches-Over-The-Land had to try to defeat him and his thing. It was like a Wah-hopeh, the sacred hawk-bundle, but it wasn't. It was like an evil Wah-hopeh, meant to destroy everything that was sacred, to contaminate everything that was good. That evil man would know where Watches-Over-The-Land was resting. He would see through all the protections, for he is very powerful. And he would take great pleasure in seeing the sacred things stolen, the bones taken. . . ."

  Mooncrow's voice trailed off, and he narrowed his eyes, his attention no longer really on her. Abruptly, he stood up.

  "I must think on this," he said, and left without another word, leaving her to stare at the chair he had sat in.

  This does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling of confidence, she thought, unhappily. She particularly was not fond of the way that Grandfather had spoken of this "evil man" as if he were still alive. Or, at least, able to act.

  Of course, if he was that powerful, he would be able to act. He would not leave this earth; he would not be at all interested in going into the West. If he left the earth, he would be weighed by Wah-K'on-Tah, who would not be very pleased with his actions. So it would be in his best interest to stick around and see if he could break the bindings that my ancestor placed on him, then find someone to act through.

  If? From the look of things, he had. And some of the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fit together to form a very nasty pattern.

  In the past, the evil one had worked against the Osage and with the whites, even if the whites had not been aware of it. And in the present-

  In the present, there had been relics plowed up, a terrible explosion in which mostly Indians had been killed, for which Indians were being blamed, by whites. Some Indians were being stirred up against her, the ancestor of the evil one's great enemy.

  The two patterns matched.

  Too well. Far, far too well.

  _CHAPTER TEN

  david spotted horse stifled a yawn, wishing he hadn't stopped smoking. A cigarette would at least have given him something to do with his hands.

  The gathering in the back room of somebody's cousin's smoke shop was not going the way he'd planned. He wanted to warn the guys from Calligan's construction site not to talk to Jennie, no matter what they heard on the grapevine. He hadn't called this meeting to hear about superstitious crap, but that was what he was getting, especially from the Osage.

  He couldn't believe they were wasting a single moment of time on this. He leaned back against a stack of heavy cardboard cartons, and crossed his arms over his chest, trying to at least keep his face straight. First Jennie and her cute little stagetricks, making the door slam on me, and now this. And if I don't at least listen to them, they won't listen to me.

  The guys on Calligan's construction project had all gone back to work the day before yesterday-against his advice-when Calligan had promised to cordon off the particular corner of the property that seemed to be "sacred ground" now that the cops were done playing at evidence-gathering. He'd been dead set against them going back, on the grounds that they were playing right into Calligan's hands, but some guy named Rick had said stubbornly that if they didn't go back to work, it would pretty well prove that Calligan was right about one of them being in cahoots with terrorists. "The best way we can prove we're innocent is to act like we're innocent," he had said, over and over, until the rest agreed with him.

&nbs
p; But now, from all the stories being told here, as soon as they went back, everything started to go bad again. Not just heat from Calligan, either, although the bastard was there every minute of every damned day, supervising everything himself. Probably making certain nobody slacked off, although the guys said he told them he was watching for more sabotage. No, it seemed like every time somebody turned around, there was one accident after another.

  Weird stuff, too; stuff that couldn't have been like the dozer explosion. Holes opened up right in the path of equipment, big ones, and equipment would fall in and have to get hauled out, wasting time. A load of steel pipe broke its straps and came down right on one guy, who was lucky to get off with a broken leg. Every piece of heavy machinery was out of commission by the end of today, with gaskets blown, fuel lines leaking, hydraulics shot, piston arms broken. Something had gotten into the dynamite shed and chewed on every single stick, letting in damp-which made them likely to be unstable and useless. The only thing stupid enough to chew on dynamite was a possum, but there weren't any holes under the shed or in the roof big enough to let a possum get inside. And it was a good thing that the guy going after the dynamite had looked it over good, or the bad sticks could have killed someone.

  He hadn't heard such a litany of woes since Hurricane Andrew.

  And of course, every single one of those accidents was "proof" that the Little People were angry, that there was a curse on the project.

  How can people who are so smart be so gullible? he asked himself for the thousandth time. These guys aren 't stupid; it takes a lot of brains to horse one of those rigs around. I should look on the bright side. When they stop jawing, I can probably talk them into staying off the job now. But how can guys who laugh at people who're afraid of black cats turn around and believe in the Little People?

  He used to believe in all that nonsense-well, maybe not Little People, since that was an Osage thing and not Cherokee, but in spirits, and totemic animals, vision-quests, and all the rest of it. Medicine. Stuff that got all the New Age, Dances-With-Credit-Cards crowd so misty-eyed.

  Newage. Rhymes with sewage, and the same watered-down crap. He suppressed a smile at his own cleverness.

  He had more sense than that now; it was just one more way for people to delude themselves. Look what had happened to Wovoka and the Ghost Dance Movement! More of the People had been shot down because they believed that those stupid white shirts would keep them bulletproof. . . .

  Peyote, and too much imagination. That's all right if you're making a painting, or writing a poem, but we're trying to keep some People out of jail, here.

  Oh, he went to various rituals; even Peyote ceremonies, although he wouldn't go so far as chewing the stuff himself. Partially because he didn't like giving up control to anything, he liked knowing he was always completely in control of his mind and all his senses. But he went because his mentors pointed out it was important to go-"politically correct," as it were. It would look bad if he didn't participate, as if his spirit wasn't in helping his People.

  And he did believe that there was something Sacred out there, that there were special places that had a special power for the Peoples. Hell, even white people had places like that, places where powerful things happened, like Lourdes, Mecca and Jerusalem. It only made sense that there were places like that for everyone. And the earth itself was sacred, if only because it was the only place to live that humans had, and when they didn't treat it like it was sacred, they messed it up.

  And there's something out there that's for us, all the Peoples, something that doesn't fit the white idea of God the Caucasian Father. That only makes sense too. The Judeo-Christians don't have a lock on truth any more than anyone else does.

  But he just couldn't handle all this superstitious stuff. He believed in the power of Lawyers, not Little People; of Media Pressure and not Medicine. You could smoke a sacred pipe till you choked; it wasn't gonna do you a damn bit of good against a bunch of U.S. marshals with guns.

  I'd rather have a restraining order on my side than all the eagles in the country overhead when I'm facing the Feds.

  He sighed, and continued to listen to the latest story. The way he had it pegged, the mystics were deluding themselves . . . confusing the symbols of power with the real thing.

  But if it makes them get their act together to save their tribal identity and maybe do something so that the whites are forced to get their act together, well, fine.

  And despite Jennie's accusations, he had a larger goal in mind, too. The way he saw it, the Native Movement should be taking a larger role in ecological matters. Since so many of the eco-freaks were looking to the Indians for spiritual guidance, the Peoples had damned well ought to give it to them. We have to do something to save the world from poison. If it takes talking to crystals, it's all right with me, as long as they start cleaning up the air and water too.

  We all have to live here. The whites aren't going away, and that's reality. So the best we can do is get as much back as we can, and shame them into cleaning up the rest. . . .

  At least Jennie has that part right.

  He frowned a little, and caught himself. He took a quick look to see.if the latest speaker had seen the faint grimace, but the guy was so wrapped up in his own story that David could probably have stuck his tongue out without the man noticing. The smell of tobacco back here was overpowering. Made him really sorry he'd given up smoking. But damned if he was going to let a stick of dried weeds rule his life.

  But that made him think of Jennie again, since she'd been on him all the time to quit, and that just reminded him of that last confrontation. He was really glad none of the guys here had known anything about that. How the hell had she managed to get him to leave when he hadn't wanted to? The door trick, that was easy to figure out, but not the rest. He'd still had plenty to say to her-but somehow he hadn't been able to get the words out of his mouth, and he'd found himself walking right out the door on top of that!

  That crazy old man, her grandfather, was with her, too. Shit, he used to be able to do some weird things, back when we were kids. ...

  Hell, now I'm starting it! That stuff the old man did, it wasn't anything more than sleight of hand and the suggestibility of kids!

  What was the old man doing living with her, anyway? That only complicated matters. Especially since a lot of the guys here held the old man in pretty high esteem.

  "We've got to talk to old man Talldeer, that's what," the guy holding the floor was saying, and to David's dismay, there was a murmur of approval, even from some of the guys who weren't Osage. It was obvious from that it wasn't just some of the guys, but all of these guys had respect for the old man. Hell, that was all he needed!

  "Maybe we oughta talk to Jennie Talldeer too," said another. "Larry did; he said she's got the right stuff. Last time I asked the Old Man for a blessing, he had Jennie do my work for me, and she's good. Old man Talldeers training her right."

  Another murmur of agreement-

  "She showed up at the first meeting," said someone else, giving David an oblique glance. "Spotted Horse wouldn't let her in. He said she was there for Calligan, but what if she was trying to give us some Medicine help? What if the old man sent her?"

  Oh shit. Now how was he going to convince them not to go to her when she had the old man in her corner?

  So far none of them had gotten wind of the message she'd sent to him by way of the Osage Principal Chief; if they did, there'd be no keeping them away from her or her grandfather. And he wasn't sure if what she'd sent him was a trick, or if she really believed it herself-

  But the message had been, couched in no uncertain terms, that there was Bad Medicine involved in this Calligan mess, and that he'd better butt out or get involved in some constructive manner.

  How can she believe that stuff? She went to college! .

  How had she forced him out of her house when he didn't want to leave? And how come ever since then, any time he dialed her number, no matter what phone it was fro
m, he always got the "your call did not go through" message? She hadn't changed her number, and it happened even when he went through the operator. The operator had been just as confused, and had muttered something about a short in the line.

  On the whole, for the last day or so, things had not been happening according to David's idea of a logical and predictable universe. In a perverse sense, he would have liked to blame it all on Jennie, but he doubted that she had gone out and dug holes in Calligan's land for equipment to fall into. Short of ascribing supernatural powers to her. . . .

  Dammit. And what the hell do they mean by "old man Talldeer's training her right?'' Now that he thought about it, hadn't her message said something about being her grandfather's apprentice? Shit, maybe she did believe all that crap!

  The entire bunch was looking at him now, waiting for him to say something.

  He almost grimaced, and covered it in time. No matter what he said, he lost in some way. If he told them not to talk to Jennie or the old man, he'd lose them completely. They had that shaky, panicked kind of look about them. Then they'd go do whatever Jennie told them to do.

  "Well," he said slowly, keeping his expression just a shade on the dubious side, "you can talk to the Talldeer girl if you want, if you're really going to insist on it, but if you do, don't be surprised if everything you tell her shows up as evidence on Calligan's side when he takes you all to court. You know she's a private eye, and none of us know who hired her, but I'd bet on Calligan before I'd bet on anyone else. And anything she hears, if it has any bearing on the explosion, she has to tell the cops."

  I wouldn't, but she will. Little People, my ass.

  "What's she gonna tell him?" the man asked, scornfully. "That we think the jerk's got a curse on him? She already knows that, and so does he! We told him to his face, more than once! And last time I looked, curses weren't admissible in court!"