Crooked River

31

Coldmoon stood in the main room of the “servants’ quarters” of the Mortlach House — he had to smile again at the term — eyeing the open bag and articles of clothing spread across the bed. God, it seemed like he’d just unpacked — and now he was packing again. Not only that, but he was headed for Guatemala, of all places. He’d been there before. It was a beautiful country with wonderful people, but a hard place, and he wasn’t particularly eager to go back, especially undercover, trying to figure out how a woman got from the streets of San Miguel Acatán to the waters off Florida’s Gulf Coast — or at least how one of her feet did. There was no telling what kind of hmunga was waiting for him down there.

He muttered a curse. And to think he could still be recuperating on Islamorada, drinking Coronas and watching the sun set over the rusting old fishery. But Pendergast had shown up, dangling precisely the kind of juicy case he knew Coldmoon couldn’t resist.

He picked up a T-shirt from the bed and threw it into the bag with disgust. In looking back on their conversation, he had the sneaking suspicion that Pendergast had known from the start that he’d insist on being a full partner in the investigation. He’d been manipulated. In retrospect, he should have remembered what his grandfather Joe had once told him: Keep your mouth shut and let the paleface do all the talking — and then say no. In this case “paleface” was a description so accurate it could hardly be considered insulting.

Then again, it was a juicy case — certainly the most inexplicable he’d ever handled. And high profile. Bagging this one successfully wouldn’t hurt his career... not at all.

He wondered idly where the “paleface” was. It was almost midnight and Pendergast didn’t seem to be the type to hang out in a bar or restaurant. Come to think of it, he had no idea where Constance was, either. She hadn’t been in the library when he went down to the kitchen at ten o’clock for a root beer, and no light had shown from beneath her door as he was going back up the stairs to the servants’ quarters. Maybe they were out together.

Only now did he realize he had, unconsciously but quite deliberately, looked for that light under her door.

Once again, he wondered what this “ward” business was all about. Was there something going on between those two? Coldmoon had seen some odd relationships in his day, but this one really took the cake. He didn’t think the two were together in any conventionally romantic sense — although Constance was smoking hot despite her prim clothing. And yet there was something electric between them. When Pendergast and Constance interacted, he could almost smell the ozone in the air, like the approach of a thunderstorm.

He had never met anyone like her: so poised, reserved, cynical, erudite, quick-witted — and yet, he sensed, broken at some fundamental level. But, broken or not, she was anything but fragile: he sensed a cold-bloodedness in her, a capacity for violence. She reminded him of a big cat, a panther or tiger, fangs smiling at you while the eyes never left your throat.

For some reason, the memory of his paternal grandmother came back to him. It was a cold winter night on the Pine Ridge Reservation, he was just six or seven, and she was mending a pair of beaded slippers by the stove, her chatter veering into talk of the unseen.

“There are spirits,” his grandmother told him. “Like Owl-Maker, who guards the Milky Way. And Keya, the turtle spirit. They are not of this world. But Wachiwi — Dancing Girl — she is mortal, as we are. Yet she is also different. She has lived hundreds of years and is very old and wise. No longer dancing, just watching and seeing.” The next fall, Coldmoon saw Wachiwi himself, from a distance. She was walking slowly at dusk through the frozen trees, a blanket wrapped around her corduroy dress. She looked toward him briefly, and even in that short glance he saw the wisdom in her eyes.

Had he seen that same look in the eyes of Constance?

Hell with this. He was just delaying the inevitable.

He picked up a checked shirt, tossed it into the bag, then followed it with a worn pair of chinos and his FBI day pack. He needed a game plan for Guatemala. There were ways in which he could turn what seemed like disadvantages — his obvious foreignness, his tallness, his unfamiliarity with indigenous languages and customs — to his advantage. If he told people he was from South America — Chile, perhaps — his odd Spanish and his looks would not be questioned. He didn’t need a disguise — his off-duty clothes and bag were cheap and shabby already. He’d have to wing some of it, but improvisation was his strong suit. And if Pendergast didn’t like it, then he could lick his kokoyahala, because Coldmoon planned to own this operation. This would be his, and his alone—

Suddenly, he heard something. He paused a moment, shrugged, then resumed his packing. As he did so, the sound came again. It was an unusual noise, like the knock of a bird’s beak, only slow and deliberate — and oddly hollow. Where had it come from? Nobody was in the house. There was no storm outside, no wind or waving branches, and the beach was still off-limits to people.

Another faint knock. His eye fell on the hot air register in the floor. It had come from there: that explained the hollow echo. The duct, he knew, ran to the boiler in the basement.

With a sigh, he went back to his packing. Rats, probably, in the ductwork. Not a bad place to hang out, given how infrequently the heat was turned on around here.

But then the sound came again. It had a measured nature that seemed to bespeak intelligence. He thought of Tungmanito, the night woodpecker, who visited the houses of the dying, trying to get inside and steal their spirits before they could complete their journey to the lush prairies of the afterworld.

His mind was certainly running in odd circles tonight. He’d better recall he was an FBI special agent on assignment and push aside all this superstitious nonsense. There could be someone in the house, and that was something real and present — and worth investigating.

He pulled his gun from the holster hanging on the back of a chair, stuck it into the pocket of his jeans, and stepped out into the hall as silently as possible. He glanced around, then took the back stairs that led down from the servants’ rooms into the kitchen.

Walking over to the door leading to the basement, he opened it, felt along the wall beyond, found the light switch, then reconsidered. If he was going to follow through on this fool’s errand, he might as well do it right. He pulled out the small tactical LED flashlight he always carried, snapped it on low power — if you could call three hundred lumens “low” — and started down the stairs.

The “basement” of the Mortlach House was, in reality, less than a full basement but more than a crawlspace. The ceiling was just high enough that he could move around with only the slightest stoop. As Coldmoon played his light around, he saw that the space was a forest of supporting beams, all covered in a moisture-resistant material of more recent vintage than the house itself, with a maze of brick alcoves built into the foundations. The air smelled of salt water, mold, and earth.

He paused once again. The tapping sound had stopped. Nevertheless, he made a thorough search of the labyrinthine space, walking among the columns and peering into various nooks and cellar rooms and vaults. His last stop was the boiler itself, which was newer than expected but, as he’d guessed, cold. Nevertheless, he gave its flank two good whacks with the flat of his hand, the sound booming out in the hollow darkness. If there were squirrels or rats — or woodpeckers, damn it — that would give them something to think about.

He made a final sweep with his light, then turned and ascended the stairs, bent on completing his packing.

The echoes of Coldmoon’s footsteps faded away in the cellar, and silence returned along with the dark. The figure in the basement remained unmoving, hidden in a small alcove. After a minute it moved out of the tiny space. Constance Greene, clad all in black as if in mourning, peered around, noting that the basement was once again empty. When she was satisfied that all was as it had been before Coldmoon’s disturbance, she retreated into the shadows, invisible once again, to wait... and wait.