Vic had come up beside me and peered into the vault. “How the hell did it get in there?”
Chuck looked around the enclosure, but the windows and the door looked sound. Stepping the rest of the way out, he glanced up at the vent stack on the roof and pointed. “Through there; some owls are cavity nesters and they look for dark, confined spaces for nesting and roosting. This one must’ve gone in through the vent and got stuck.” He sighed. “Thousands of owls die in these exact conditions. The Teton Raptor Center in Jackson has a program that puts screening over the restroom vents to keep the things from getting killed, but I guess they haven’t gotten to the Bighorns yet.”
The Napier woman called out from the truck. “What is it?”
“An owl.”
She looked at me, a little incredulous. “In the toilet?”
“It would appear.”
“Well, can you get it out?”
I shined the Mag-Lite back into the vault. “My arms aren’t long enough.”
I glanced at Vic, but she shook her head. “If you can’t reach him, there’s no way I can.”
Coon glanced at his wristwatch again. “The honey wagon is going to be here anytime now.” He stepped outside and fetched a large rock to prop open the restroom door. “Sorry, I can’t take the smell.”
“What will they do?”
“They’ll pump the thing out.”
“With the owl in there.”
“Yeah.” He glanced through the open doorway “The only thing they could do is pump the vault out there on the ground.” He made a face. “But I’m not telling them to do that in a national forest; besides, the bird wouldn’t make it anyway.”
Napier had crept closer—I guess she decided that danger from the owl wasn’t imminent. “Look, I’m going to get out of here and go find another toilet, but I have no idea where there is one. Can somebody show me?”
Chuck paused for a moment and then shrugged. “Duty calls.”
“You’re leaving?”
He started toward his truck. “I’ll run her down to Lost Cabin Campground and then I’ll try and come back, okay?”
• • •
“Motherfucker.” Vic looked at me as the ranger turned his truck around and Ms. Napier followed him up the road in her vehicle. “How about a stick?”
I sighed and walked toward the barrow ditch, found a likely limb about as big around as one of my fingers, and returned to the restroom. I leaned over the toilet and gingerly poked the stick down into the vault, careful to avoid the livid, round, iridescent eyes that continued to watch my every move.
Heck, I’d be angry stuck in there, too.
I adjusted the stick and slowly brought it over to where I thought the owl was, felt a brief tug, and then heard a sharp snap. Feeling nothing more on the stick, I pulled it out and looked at the broken end. “Yikes.”
Vic peered into the darkness of the vault. “I’m not sticking my hand or anything else in there where that damn thing can get at it.”
I turned to see the Cheyenne Nation approaching from the willows near the creek with the now empty plastic tray in his hand. “What is going on?”
“There’s an owl in there.”
He tossed the tray onto the hood of his truck and continued toward us. “What kind?”
“An angry one.” Vic looked past him. “Where are the bears?”
“Up the creek; I took them past where the water is more swift and then climbed across on a fallen tree. I do not think they will go to the trouble of doubling back—they are pretty full of fish.”
I glanced in the hole. “We’re trying to figure out how to get him out of here.”
He looked at my shoulder. “Nice scarf.” I’d forgotten to give the costumer back her accessory.
“Who-who-who-whoo-whoo-whooo . . .”
Henry leaned over the throne, and I clicked on the Mag-Lite, giving him a clearer view. He breathed out a breath through puckered lips. “Whew . . . great horned owl, princess of the Camp of the Dead.”
“Princess?”
He nodded. “It is a juvenile female.”
Vic leaned in. “Now how the hell do you know that?”
The Cheyenne Nation smiled. “The call, it is distinctively feminine.”
My undersheriff shook her head. “Distinctively screwed is what she is.”
Henry looked at me, and I filled him in. “The sewage people are going to be here any minute, and they’re going to pump the vault out, owl and all.”
The Bear straightened, and it was not unlike the other bear on-the-fight that we’d just confronted. “You cannot do that.”
“Henry . . .”
“This may not simply be an owl.”
I shook my head at the ridiculousness of the situation. “Henry, nobody wants to see this owl killed, but . . .”
“She may simply be a Messenger from the Camp of the Dead, but she may be something else as well.” He took a deep breath and tried to explain. “Within my nation there are traditional beliefs that certain people, both male and female, who practice Medicine are believed to have the ability to shape-shift, and the form they choose most is that of an owl so that they might move silently through the night and cast spells on people while they are asleep and vulnerable to spiritual forces.”
Vic looked at the Bear, then at me, and then back to the big Cheyenne. “If that’s the way you’re trying to convince us to save her, it isn’t working.”
“Among my people there is only one owl even considered to be a bird and that is the short-eared owl or snake-eating-owl, an important source of medicinal power for shamans.” He pointed toward the toilet. “But this is not that type of owl, so it is Mista, or a spirit-of-the-night. Even the Hohnuhke, the Cheyenne Contraries of the buffalo days, wore the feathers of the owl but never that of the great horned or the screech—their power is too strong. So it was lesser owl feathers that were attached to the warrior’s shield, lance, or headdress to protect them, help them to see in the dark and make them deadly silent.”
Vic shrugged. “Well, this one’s going to be silent but deadly here in a few minutes.”
Henry held up a hand. “I am not a shaman and cannot tell the difference between the Messenger and an ordinary owl, but the holy men and women frequently seek spiritual help from these owls in conjunction with healing practices. It is believed that the owl has medicinal powers, soft and gentle, similar to their feathers.”
I held up the stick and showed him the broken end. “Soft and gentle? She did this.”
He shook his head in dismissal. “This is a young great horned owl and most likely the spirit of a transformed holy person, the unquiet spirit of the dead. The tufts on their heads are symbolic of horns, the signs of spiritual beings like the horned water serpents or chiefs of the underworld.” He glanced at me as if there were more, more that he did not want to say. “Or, it is possible this owl is something else.”
“What?”
“Being as young as she is . . .”
“What?”
He sighed and looked directly at me. “The Spirit Messenger of an unborn soul, the herald of a young one who has yet to enter this world.”
I thought about Cady, my pregnant daughter. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
Vic folded her arms and leaned against the inside wall. “Oh, now for fuck’s sake.”
His face was still in all seriousness. “In my belief this Mista or Hiha’n Winu’cala is the spirit of . . .”
I could feel a shudder run through me, and I thought about all the prophecies that Virgil White Buffalo, the last shaman I had encountered in these mountains, had made concerning my daughter and granddaughter. “My granddaughter.”
“Lola?” Vic ventured.
“Exactly.”
I looked at the two of them. “We have to save this owl.”
Vic stared back at me. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Maybe, but we have to save this owl.”