Lee had tricked her, made a fool of her from their first encounter at Shiprock. The details would sort themselves out, but her rising anger provided a surge of energy. She forced the pain aside and pressed her sore hands against the frigid earth to push herself to sitting. She decided to wait a moment for the light-headedness to pass before trying to stand. Another fall meant disaster, but she couldn’t linger long. She knew Lee would kill Palmer if, in fact, the man wasn’t already dead.
Then she heard something or someone approaching from behind. Lee? No, he would have made more noise. She turned her head and watched the mountain lion gliding toward her. The big cat walked cautiously, pausing after each step. She could see its ribs as it came closer. She readjusted herself to watch the animal as it circled to stand in front of her. She felt primal, brain-stopping terror, the hardwired response of prey to a predator. But, simultaneously, the cat’s grace and beauty stirred her sense of wonder.
Náshdóítsoh stared at her with its bright carnivore eyes and growled as it paced. She looked back and held its gaze. Slowly, she moved her hand to her gun and felt its reassuring presence. She didn’t want to shoot, but she couldn’t let the lion kill her without some attempt at self-defense
Then, from that place in her pounding heart that knew hozho, she began to sing the song her grandmother had taught Mama. The song of courage and protection Mama had sung to her and to Darleen. A song about the beauty that surrounded them; a song honoring the lion itself.
Náshdóítsoh stopped walking. It lowered its muscular body to the ground and raised fur-lined ears. Náshdóítsoh, the guardian assigned by the Holy People to protect Turquoise Girl. Náshdóítsoh, the one who helped The People by sometimes leaving behind for them a portion of the deer and elk it killed. She could feel the cat watching her. Its rope-like tail twitched.
She studied the broad nose and golden eyes rimmed with deep black, and then her eyes settled on its strong paws as she sang. She noticed the way stiff white whiskers stood straight out from its snout and the triangular shape of its head. Her voice grew stronger, her hand resting more lightly on the gun. The song’s rhythm and repetitions, its poetry and simplicity, became her prayer. She appreciated the mountain lion, not only as an animal to be reckoned with but also as one of the mysterious First People in existence before her tribe of five-fingered beings came to walk the earth.
When she had finished the words she remembered, she added new verses to praise the animal’s long legs, its thick winter fur, and the taut muscles beneath the sand-colored coat.
Then, as silently as it had arrived, náshdóítsoh rose and turned away, bounding down the slope with fluid grace, disappearing into the fog.
She ended the song and closed her eyes.
After she stopped shaking, she stood and removed her backpack, encased in dirt from the fall and the downhill slide. She pushed the crust off with her bloody hand, unzipped the front pocket, found her red emergency whistle. She slipped the whistle into her pants pocket. She felt something small and smooth, the talisman Sandra had given her. Náshdóítsoh. Bernie adjusted her pack and began the painful climb up the slope, fueled with adrenaline and a sense of both power and peace. She put the whistle in her mouth and blew as she hiked, when she could spare the breath. Chee must be searching for her and for Palmer. If the noise alerted Lee to the fact that she had survived, let him come. She wouldn’t hesitate to defend herself. And she’d protect Palmer, too, if he was still alive. The lion had taught her well.
She used her sore fingers for balance and leverage, inching her way up, hoping she was on course. The fog made the task harder and left her disoriented. Without the struggle against gravity, it would have been tough to know up from down.
She reached a section of the slope where she expected to see Palmer, or at least encounter something familiar. But nothing looked familiar. Rocks, bare patches of earth, scrub oak, the long brown needles fallen from the ponderosas, the darkness of their trunks and rich vanilla smell of the bark enhanced by the fog’s damp presence. She called, “Palmer?”
She heard a moan. She yelled again, heard nothing encouraging. Was she hoping for too much, wishing too hard? She spotted a footprint and then another and realized they were her own from before the fall. She came to a place where the slope flattened slightly. As she waited for her heartbeat to slow, she noticed something turquoise ahead of her on the ground.
Palmer looked worse than when she’d left him, but she found a pulse as she pressed her sore fingers against his neck. She blew her whistle. Again, and again.
As he looked for the mediator he’d been assigned to keep safe, Chee’s anxiety grew. Palmer wouldn’t walk off and leave his precious black bag in an outhouse. Whatever had happened, happened because Sergeant Jim Chee was still the screwup Lieutenant Leaphorn, his mentor, knew him to be.
Then there was the Bernie problem. They had agreed to regroup in twenty minutes, and the deadline had long since passed. His curious wife could have found an interesting plant, gotten mesmerized by the view, and lost track of time. She knew how to handle herself outdoors, but the thickening fog made finding the trail confusing for anyone. No reason to worry, he told himself, but he worried.
He called again and again for Palmer. Maybe the FBI team would find him first. Maybe they already had. Maybe Bernie had found him and they were eating lunch right now. He eased his way along the narrow, winding dirt path that led deeper into the fog bank and ultimately to the heart of the canyon. The fog had muffled the natural sounds of the birds and the wind. With no proof the mediator had come this way, he’d turn back in a few moments. He saw rocks, dirt, bits of vegetation that disappeared into the grayness. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted movement: a tan, muscular, long-tailed shape heading away from him. He whispered its name, náshdóítsoh. He watched it, a creature on earth before the birth of the Hero Twins, disappear as quietly as the fog.
Then he noticed a place along the side of the trail where the soil had been freshly disturbed. He squatted and found a print made by a waffle-soled hiking boot, a smallish indentation. Bernie’s? Then he heard a whistle, too sharp to be a bird cry. “Bernie!”
Chee climbed toward the sound. The whistle came again, and he yelled, “I’m coming. Keep blowing.”
He found her squatting next to Palmer. She’d wrapped her jacket around him and held her hands against his face and neck.
“What happened to him?”
“I’m not sure. I’m glad you’re here. We have to get him out of this place.”
He bent close to Palmer. “It’s Chee.”
Palmer didn’t respond.
Chee touched his face. “The nurse in ICU called. She said to tell you that Rocket opened his eyes. He wants to see you.”
Palmer’s face shifted to a trace of a smile.
He looked at Bernie, noticing the dirt on her clothes, the blood on her hands. “What happened to you?”
She shivered and he saw the glistening in her eyes. “I sang to náshdóítsoh. And Lee tried to kill me.”
29
Chee said, “Where is Lee now?”