The sow huffed a few breaths and then moved as she’d done when we pulled up in Rezdawg; she bounced twice and stood up to her full height, the bunching of muscle mass in her shoulders and back threatening without so much as a gesture. I’d heard it said that the beasts were about six times as powerful as a man and looking at the sheer girth of her, I didn’t have many doubts—it also meant that Henry and I were outmanned by four.
She sniffed the air again and peered into the semidarkness of the enclosure, perhaps four yards between us.
I spoke as quietly as I could. “Henry?”
“Do not move.”
Vic’s voice rose again at our boots, a little more frantic this time. “I’ve got her! I’ve got her! Pull me up before she gets away, damn it!”
I figured I could get at my sidearm, even holding Vic, since I had Henry’s help, even if all I wanted to do was fire off a warning shot. The bear cocked her head like a dog, and all I could think was that as horrible as Vic’s predicament was, she was the one most likely to survive this situation without getting mauled.
Vic kicked a little. “Hey, get me the hell out of here!”
The bear took a step toward us, still sniffing the air.
I spoke through the side of my mouth. “Vic, stop kicking and . . .”
“What? Hey, this bitch bird is sinking its claws into my boobs!”
The sow took another step toward us, chuffing and ducking her head down like she might charge.
The Bear’s voice remained calm. “She will bluff at least once, maybe twice, before she really charges, if she does.”
“Ouch, damn it! Motherfuckers, this isn’t funny!”
I continued speaking out of the side of my mouth. “Do you think if she realizes there are three of us, she might back down?”
“That or we can feed her Vic.”
The sow lunged forward, even going so far as to swipe one of the support poles at the edge of the pad, which sent a shudder through the structure. At the same time, we yanked as hard as we could, sending my undersheriff up and out of the hole. The bundle she was carrying exploded in a flurry of copper yarn and wing flapping as the great horned owl wasted no time in freeing itself, sending Vic to the floor and the two of us against the walls.
Up close, she was an amazing thing to see—the radiating feathers splayed out like a serrated sunburst, and even though she was only an adolescent, her wings seemed to fill the room. Three powerful swoops, and she levitated and blew out the open door straight into the bear.
It was as if Henry’s prophecies had come true and a possessed soul of the underworld had exploded from the depth with all the fury of a feathered banshee.
The sow didn’t know what hit her, and she didn’t care; as soon as the owl started out, the bear beat a hasty retreat as fast as four legs could carry her and the last we saw of her she was headed through the red willow thickets and back up the valley.
We all lay there in the aftermath, Vic looking like she’d had the worst of it, her face still red from hanging upside down for so long. “What the hell just happened?”
I looked through the open doorway and could see the scarf reflecting copper on the ground between us and Henry’s truck, but there was no sign of the owl; it was as if she had simply disappeared.
I glanced at the Cheyenne Nation, and watched as he walked out of the structure and kneeled in the gravel out front, carefully picking up an extended brown and white feather, rolling the quill of it between between thumb and forefinger. “I think we just witnessed the Mista.”
Vic felt her head, glanced around on the floor, and then looked back at the toilet. “I think I dropped my sunglasses.”
• • •
Coasting to let Rezdawg’s brakes cool on the slow drive down the mountain, Henry and I discussed the finer points of what had happened and their exact meanings. Vic ignored us and continued listening to her music
“So, you think the owl was there to save us?”
“I do.”
“And that it was a herald of my granddaughter?”
“Possibly.” He nodded curtly, as if the question was settled. “It is their connection with death, the afterlife and rebirth, that mark the owl as an embodiment of spirits; I think she was the herald at the fork of the Hanging Road, the Milky Way, which leads to the Camp of the Dead. She has the power to decide who shall pass and who will be stillborn or condemned to wander the earth as spirits or wana’gi forever. The Mista or Hiha’n Winu’cala is responsible for this transition, and you must cry your name to her and she assesses the merit of your attached soul. If you have a good name, you may pass the junction of the fork, but if your name is bad, you are shunted onto a dead-end branch.”
Vic, her earbuds back in and her eyes closed, continued to ignore us, and I leaned a little forward so that I could see the Bear. “So, according to Cheyenne beliefs you have a name before you arrive in this world?”
“Yes. We always have a name, both before and after our time here.”
“Can you change your name?”
He nodded. “Yes, but you risk changing your path, and the Mista or Hiha’n Winu’cala may deny you.”
“You mean not let you in or out of the world?”
“Yes. It can be complicated.” He sighed as he pulled back out onto the main road in a low gear, lugging Rezdawg down the mountain as his fingers came up to stroke the feather, now hanging from his rearview mirror. “My father lived with death for a very long time, and I remember the night he died a great horned owl was sitting on the poles of our family teepee outside the house. When I would go and visit his grave, there was always an owl feather there and still is today.”
I was about to say something more when Vic, who had adjusted her iPod, leaned forward and began drumming on the dash very softly.
Lola, Lo-lo-lo-lo-Lola . . .
Lola.
READ ON FOR THE FIRST CHAPTER OF A SERPENT’S TOOTH, AVAILABLE FROM VIKING IN JUNE 2013
1
I stared at the black-and-orange corsage on Barbara Thomas’s lapel so that I wouldn’t have to look at anything else.
I don’t like funerals, and a while ago I just stopped going to them. I think the ceremony is a form of denial, and when my wife died and my daughter, Cady, informed me that she was unaware of any instance where going to somebody’s funeral ever brought them back, I just about gave it up.
Mrs. Thomas had been the homecoming queen when Truman made sure that the buck stopped with him, which explained the somewhat garish ornament pinned on her prim and proper beige suit. Next week was the big game between the Durant Dogies and their archrival, the Worland Warriors, and the whole town was black-and-orange crazy.
The only thing worse than going to the funeral of someone you knew is going to the funeral of a person you didn’t; you get to stand there and be told about somebody you had never met, and all I ever feel is that I missed my chance.
I had missed my chance with Dulcie Meriwether, who had been one of Durant’s fine and upstanding women—after all, I’m the sheriff of Absaroka County, so the fine and upstanding often live and pass beyond my notice. On a fine October afternoon I leaned against the railing leading to the First Methodist Church, not so much to praise Dulcie Meriwether—or to bury her—but rather to talk about angels.
I reached out and straightened Barbara Thomas’s corsage.
One of the jobs of an elected official in Wyoming is to understand one’s constituency and listen to people—help them with their problems—even if they’re bat-shit crazy. I was listening to Barbara tell me about the angels who were currently assisting her with home repair, which I took as proof that she had passed the entrance exam to that particular belfry.