Читать книгу I Am Called Shaman - Rebecca Reeves - Страница 4

Chapter Two

11:44 a.m.

Between the forks of the “Y,” there is a primitive dirt road called Schnebly Hill. Unless you have a high clearance four wheel drive, it’s not a journey you want to make in your own car. The lower seven miles are treacherous. It snakes up Bear Wallow Canyon then climbs two thousand feet in elevation as it winds around Schnebly Hill to the official lookout point.

The view from the lookout is worth the drive — though in these multiple gorges, formed by runoff from the Mogollon Rim, there is a spectacular view no matter where you stop.

Travelers revel in the landscape then head back down to Sedona for a cappuccino. Few ever realize that the road continues up from the lookout and eventually leads to I-17. No tourist on I-17 would ever guess where the obscure off ramp would take them. It’s obscure by design. The lookout is a Sedona attraction.

The entire road is closed in winter, but this time of year, the lower seven miles will host up to a hundred vehicles a day between the jeep tours and the more adventurous sightseers in rental cars and ATVs.

I approached the area on foot from the northwest on the Casner Canyon trail. Sundara trotted beside me. We passed under the official lookout point, and stayed on the trail until it met up with Schnebly Hill Road. I jogged down the hill, following the sound of humans until I rounded the last bend that separated me from the activity. I stayed on the periphery and took in the scene.

Had I stood in this spot millions of years ago, I would have gazed at the ocean. Red sand would have blown in my eyes. It would have been incredible, but not half as surreal as the scene before me.

Yellow crime scene tape, tied around cypress trees, lined a section of the road. Beyond the tape, on the downside of the mountain, a rocky butte rose twenty feet higher than the road. People were up there, their heads bobbed in and out of view.

This section of Schnebly Hill occasionally looked like a parking lot, during weddings or when they bring out film crews to shoot commercials for the latest, greatest pickup truck. Today the road was lined with law enforcement vehicles.

I recognized some of the Sedona PD officers in their black uniforms, and most of the sheriff’s posse in tan. I knew none of the plain clothes men and women with badges that hung from their necks, but they were clearly FBI. One in particular stood out from the rest. He wore a tailored blue suit and Italian loafers. He alternated between glaring at his cell phone and pacing to and fro with his phone held high; looking for a steady signal he had no hope of getting in this deep gorge.

I scanned the faces for David Devlin. He was easy to find. At six-four he stood out in any crowd. He kept to his own uniform of well worn jeans, beaten suede boots, and a snug black tee shirt. David was with his father, Herb, their cowboy hats almost touching as they studied a map spread across the hood of David’s white Hummer. Herb Devlin is an icon in these parts, reelected as sheriff time and again because of his old-fashioned wisdom and work ethic. David, his son and deputy sheriff, is the finest man I know.

A dust devil kicked up and whipped at my long black hair. The movement caught David’s attention. He said something to Herb then covered the distance between us.

He stepped in close and pushed the brim of his hat up with a finger. His turquoise eyes studied me over the top of his sunglasses. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.

I nodded without blinking.

The wind ruffled the feathers that dangled from my walking stick. David’s eyes honed in on my left hand.

I held the staff in a death grip. I forced my fingers to relax.

David pushed his hat back down on his forehead and straightened his legs. “Okay, let’s do it.”

I walked beside him toward the chaos.

“Hey! Where did she come from?” Blue Suit barreled toward us, his useless phone pointing the way as if he intended to joust with it. “Get her and that damned dog out of here right now!”

Sundara, who’d been walking by my side, took two leaps forward. She lowered her head and growled.

Blue Suit stopped in his tracks. The only sane response, really, when faced with the toothy end of a one hundred and twenty pound wolf.

“Easy, everyone.” David held out his hands, palms down.

Blue Suit kept his eyes on Sundara. He spoke with authority albeit with a quieter tone. “This is a crime scene. She has no business here.”

“Actually she does. This is Abra Forrester, our best search and rescue tracker. Sundara,” David smirked, “you’ve already met. She’s our best sniffer.”

“Deputy, need I point out, this isn’t a search and rescue mission. We’ve got a dead Jane Doe, and — ”

“And a killer who needs to be tracked,” David said.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.” Herb stepped into the fray. “Let’s keep our eye on the ball.”

“This is my crime scene,” Blue Suit said, “and I decide who’s on it.”

Herb said, “Son, this is my crime scene until we ascertain it is the work of a federal suspect. Now I gave you guys a heads-up because I believe we’ll discover that that’s the case, but even then, you’d do well to remember that you’re in our territory.”

Blue Suit wasn’t ready to back down. While they argued jurisdiction, Sundara and I signed in with the security officer, and then waited for David by the side of the road.

Off the road and to the right of the cordoned area, the land under the butte had eroded away, leaving a steep dark crevice. Sundara sniffed the air rising from below, and then stood at attention to alert me that she smelled something suspicious. I’d sensed it too. Nothing grew down there on the smooth shale, but it was more than that, it felt like nature itself was holding her breath.

Blue Suit was still blowing wind, and I was done waiting. I gave Sundara the go ahead, and we slid under the ledge.

Sundara led me to a jagged cave, a tent formed by fallen rock. Two eyes peeked out at us.

The dog was a Heinz 57. His fur was matted with blood. He tried to stand, but he was too weak. He fell back to the ground.

“Shh.” I crawled to him. “It’s okay, little one. I got you now.”

I gently touched the dog and focused on his life force until his heart signature pulsated in my ears, then I shifted my awareness into that part of the brain where an artist first sees the intangible images their soul wants to draw, paint, or sculpt into form.

Billowing snow filled my vision, then, like adjusting a rabbit ears antenna on an old-fashioned television set, the dog’s most prominent memories popped out of the static and played inside my head as if they were my own.

The severity of the dog’s distress was such that, once the connection was made, I couldn’t let go. Vertigo swept through me. The visions slammed into my head; sharp freeze frames, each snapping like a whip.

Campfire glow. A young woman sang softly. She reached for a log, threw it on the fire. She smiled at me through the curtain of sparks. Her body froze.

I tried to pull away, to tug my mind back to myself, but it was like holding onto a live electrical line. I squeezed my eyes tighter, turned my head, but the pictures moved with me.

Her eyes wide with shock then horror. She convulsed as the second then third bullet struck her. Three shots. Three claps of thunder. Her battered body hit the ground. Her chest was destroyed. Her eyes stared with blankness.

The dog went limp with grief, and I fell back into myself, my heart a jackhammer in my chest. Bile climbed up my throat. My body heaved, struggling to expel the sight of her eyes and the horror they contained.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” I chanted, but it would never be okay. His girl had been murdered right in front of him.

I heard a keening cry and pulled the dog closer before realizing that the sound was coming from me.

Three shots. Three claps of thunder.

My father’s killer had claimed his fiftieth victim.

12:05 p.m.

Voices called my name in the distance, urging me back into motion. I hated to push the little guy any further, but I had to know everything he knew before the others arrived.

I waited for the dog to focus in on my mental images then replayed the sound of gunfire in my mind. “What direction did the shots come from?” I asked the question in words to help make my mental picture stronger and easier for him to grasp.

The dog replayed that section of his memory then whined with frustration. It had been dark at the time, and the blasts seemed to surround him. His head, however, had instinctively turned toward the sound. He’d looked over a watermelon sized boulder that had cracked into two pieces. It resembled a yin-yang symbol.

Next, I asked him to show me everything that happened after his girl fell down in case the SK had broken form and approached the scene after the kill.

The dog whimpered as he nudged the stiffening form of his girl. When he didn’t get a response, he lay down beside her, devastated. After some time, coyotes, drawn by the scent of blood, arrived. A coyote lunged out of the darkness, teeth snapping close to my face. The rest of the pack slunk in the shadows.

The dog’s fear burned down low in my belly. My own lips peeled back in a snarl.

The coyotes yipped and howled. They surrounded him then began attacking in turns. The little dog held them off for as long as he could; defending his girl with a savagery born of love, loyalty, and terror. When he could do no more, he crawled into this refuge and prepared himself to die.

“Abra, what have you got?” David asked.

I shook the visions out of my head. “The victim’s dog, he needs help right away.”

David shouted for two men, and a tarp to carry the dog on.

I comforted the dog until they arrived then backed out of the cave.“Take him to Dr. Pema, and tell her I sent him.”

“What’s going on down here,” Blue Suit demanded, struggling to keep himself upright on this uneven ground.

“Abra found the victim’s dog.” David smiled. “That’s why we call her ‘The Shaman.’”

My cheeks flushed. I hated being called that. It sounded so presumptuous. I call my art a gift, but I believe anyone can do what I do. My encounter with the Native American woman had been a one time gig. She hadn’t imbued me with any magical power or given any instruction. She’d simply shown me what was possible. Learning how to do it on my own had taken years of practice, and a lot of trial and error. I am learning still.

“We don’t have time for this,” Blue Suit said. “Wrap it up.”

Once the dog was squared away, Sundara and I climbed back up to the road. I reviewed the dog’s memories, slowing down the action, searching for clues.I found one in the audio; the jangling of two metal tags rubbing against each other. I put my hand on Sundara’s back and formed a generic image of a collar in my mind. Find it.

Sundara spun and trotted off, brushing past Blue Suit’s legs.

“Get that animal on a leash!”

Herb patted Blue Suit’s shoulder. “Agent Delaney, we’re all going to have to work together if we’re going to catch this killer.”

“Look, I appreciate your confidence in her skills,” the agent said, “but there are plenty of people here who are trained to investigate. We do not need the assistance of a civilian.” He turned toward me. “So if you’ll just collect your dog — ”

As if on cue, Sundara yipped twice from atop the butte.

“Damn it,” Delaney said, “now what?”

“She found something,” I said.

David came up behind me. “Shall we see what it is?”

Delaney patted his perfectly coiffed hair. “Oh, by all means.”

There were two ways to crest the rise, and, even in my thick treaded work boots, neither would be easy. I took the lead, David followed. Agent Delaney brought up the rear with muttered curses. The curses accompanied the sound of his slick city shoes losing traction on the loose gravel in the center of the path.

“Stay to the rock on the sides,” David said.

I heard nothing but a grunt in reply.

From below, this spot had appeared to be a stand alone mini-butte, but once on top I discovered that the other side hadn’t completely eroded. A finger of land reached out toward The Tribal Council, a formation of closely grouped spires off the end of Mitten Ridge.

The heads I’d seen from below were those of the forensics team. They scrutinized the area around a ring of campfire stones. The victim’s body had been removed.

Sundara waited for me beside a manzanita tree where the butte gave way to the finger of land. A purple collar lay at her feet.

Agent Delaney made it up the butte, crawling the last few feet on his knees. He swiped at the dirt on his trousers and glared at me as if it were my fault that there wasn’t a paved concrete path to our destination.

Without moving his lips, David asked, “Is he wearing Armani?”

“O-yeah.”

When the agent caught up to us, David said, “Looks like Sundara ID’d our Jane Doe.”

Delaney eyed the collar with suspicion then directed the look at me.

“Check out the tracks.” David pointed. “Coyotes, they took turns wearing him down, then here, a major attack. They must have ripped the collar off him in the fight.”

David motioned for a technician.

The tech came over and set a yellow evidence marker near the collar. He blew the dust off the tags with a tool that resembled a turkey baster. “We got a phone number.”

David produced a pen and pad from his back pocket and wrote it down.

Delaney snatched the paper out of his hand. “Get this collected,” he yelled to no one in particular, then walked back to the edge of the butte, squatted, and slid out of sight.

The girl had found an ideal place to camp. For all the ridges and valleys in this canyon, this was one of the few flat spots, and though it was near the road, it would have felt secluded even in the daytime.

Near her fire pit, a bundle of sage in an abalone shell sat beside a djembe African drum and two rattles. The girl had been here to honor the equinox with ceremony.

“Here’s what we have,” David said. “Female, early twenties, estimated time of death between 12 and 2 a.m. Her body was found around 7 a.m. PD’s checking the trailheads. So far, no cars unaccounted for.” He nodded toward a large green backpack propped against a log. “She probably hiked in.”

I studied the paw print of the victim’s dog; four feet, four pads to a foot, but only two toenails on his right front paw left indentations in the dirt. The missing nails were not an injury sustained during his battle with the coyotes. He’d come to the mountain this way.

I’d been in a rush to get out here, but my brain had automatically cataloged, not only the dog’s unusual print crisscrossing the trail, but that of the topmost human print — a woman’s boot with the manufacturer’s stamp on the bottom: Cabela’s. There had been no matching track heading back in the other direction.

“Check Grasshopper Point,” I said. “I just saw these prints on the Casner Canyon trail. They only went one way.”

“Got it,” David said.

He left me to go speak with one of the technicians. They knelt amid a plethora of red and blue evidence markers and studied the dirt near the outline of the body. The tech rose and pointed up at Schnebly Hill. His arms made a wide pie shape. David nodded and came back to me.

“Looks like one shooter.” David pointed. “Splatter says the shots came from up there.”

It was in keeping with what I’d already figured out by lining up the trajectory over the top of the yin-yang rock I’d seen in the dog’s vision, but as the dog hadn’t been able to pinpoint where the gunshots had come from, it left a lot of territory for us to cover.

The half-mile-wide face of Schnebly Hill towered above us, dense with vegetation. A craggy black layer of basalt topped the mountain; a few huge boulders dotted the steep slope, any one of them might offer a clear line of sight to the campsite. I tried to calculate the general distance.

“One hundred and seventy yards; two-ten if he stayed at the top,” David said, as if reading my mind. “What’s his longest shot?”

“Two-ten.” I answered from memory.

“Well, let’s get up there and see what we can find.”

We climbed off the butte. In our absence, more agents had arrived. Delaney was making a production of his role as commander with his small personal army. His authority was undermined by the pink dirt stains on his knees and rump. When he was done with his people, he hovered over us.

The map was still on the hood of David’s Hummer, the edges held down with four stones. We listened while Herb and David plotted out a search grid.

An FBI agent came over and waited for Delaney’s attention. She was a slender redhead with alabaster skin. The laminated ID tag announced her as Agent Givens. When there was a break in the conversation, she said, “We’re on line, sir.”

Agent Givens gave black walkie-talkies to each of us. She saved David’s for last, handing his over with flushed cheeks and a dazzling smile. David’s Nordic-God presence had that effect on women.

We were joined by Colin Hunt, a Sedona PD officer, and his K9 partner, a German shepherd named Max. Max carried himself with the dignity befitting an officer, and he wore his bulletproof vest, bequeathed to him from Doggie Lama’s, with pride.

A police dog has to stay emotionless while on duty. They won’t be certified if they feel the need to acknowledge anyone but their handler when they’re working, so Max and Sundara greeted one another with the barest flash of eye contact. Colin and I nodded to each other in the same manner. The four of us had brought out our fair share of stranded or lost hikers.

“Colin,” Herb said, “you and Max take a team and search up the road to the lookout point then over from there. David, Abra, which way do you want to go up?”

“Munds trail,” I said. “It’ll be faster.” It would be faster, but that’s not why I chose it.

Herb made eye contact with each of us to make sure there were no questions. “Okay. Go to it.”

Colin and Max headed up the road the way I’d come in. David and I headed down the road toward the Merry Go Round formation.Delaney started arguing with Herb again.

The Munds Wagon Trail is easy to miss if you’re not paying attention. It’s a narrow trail suited to hikers and mountain bikes. The trail was pioneered in the 1890s by a prominent Arizona rancher named Jim Munds. The track was used to push cattle up to the cooler mountain meadows in the summer. Cowhands had survived out here on beans, biscuits, and the occasional peach. They earned about three dollars a day. They couldn’t have paid me enough money to ride up this precipitous hill in a wagon.

As soon as David and I were well out of earshot, I said, “It’s him, isn’t it?”

The three shots the dog heard and the impact they’d had on his girl’s body had already given me the answer to that question, but I never revealed my gift to anyone.

Though no one was near us, David looked around before saying, “We’ve got the three round burst.”

The three round burst was the SK’s most defining signature. It was also the one piece of information that had been kept from the public. It was a well guarded secret within the law enforcement community, and it was information I wasn’t supposed to have.

“We still have to confirm the distance,” David said, “but, yeah, we think it’s him. If we can find the hide where he took the shot from, we might finally catch a break.”

“What happened to Emmett Reese?” Agent Reese had been in charge of the SK case for as long as I could remember and, while I’d never met him, I’d spied on him at plenty of crime scenes.

“It’s been ten years, Abra. He retired. It’ll be Parker Delaney’s case now.”

“He’s not good enough.”

“Let’s hope he’s a fast learner.”

When we reached the base of the Munds trail, David stopped and turned to me. “Are you sure you’re up for this, Abra? You can still back out, and you know I’d understand.”

“I just need to get centered,” I said. “Give me a minute.”

I stepped away from him, closed my eyes, and drew in a long, slow breath. I held it for a moment then exhaled. I repeated the process a couple more times until my fingers tingled around the smooth handle of my walking stick. Over the years, I’d added bits of fur, fang, and feather to the shaman staff gifted to me by the Native American woman. The amulets increased the power of my gift or, at least, my belief in its power.

To David or any onlooker it would appear that I was merely practicing yoga breath and stretching now as I raised my arms out from my sides as if conducting a symphony, and that was exactly what I was doing — conducting an orchestra of animals, asking them to join me in a concerted effort to bring my father’s killer to justice.

Heartbeats filled my body. I filtered out the buzzing swarm of human beats around us, and felt for any from above, in case the SK was lurking around, watching the aftermath. He wasn’t.

Next, I focused on the animals.

Raven cawed from a nearby tree then took flight.

My message sent, I lowered my arms and opened my eyes.

“Let’s go find him,” I said.

“Lead the way, Shaman.”