Wormhole (The Rho Agenda #3)(24)
On the chocolate-brown coffee table, a tall glass beaded water into a ring at its bottom, a ring that had grown a stray finger that reached out toward the round white pill sitting to its right. Linda’s gaze flicked down, paused at the pill, and then returned to the empty spot above the television. Trazadone had lost its allure, impotent at relieving her dark misery. It just made her want to sleep. But sleep was worse than waking. Sleep meant dreams. In dreams, her twin babies left her. In dreams, her twin babies died.
She knew they were dead. If they had lived, they would have contacted her. They would have contacted Fred, or Anna, or Gil. For whatever reason, Jennifer had run off and Mark and Heather had gone after her. Whatever horrible thing Jennifer had gotten herself involved in had killed them all. It was the only explanation for the months of silence. She knew her kids. No way would they have left their parents to suffer so long without word. No way.
The authorities had been no help at all, despite their canned “The investigation is ongoing” responses. They’d written the Smythe and McFarland kids off as they had so many thousands of other runaways. Linda could practically hear the officers she contacted wondering why they couldn’t just put three more faces on some milk cartons and call it a day.
Fred knew Linda was in trouble; he had known for some time. It tore Linda up inside to see how hard Fred worked at bringing some little bit of cheer back into her life. The sweet man smothered her in love, all the while raging at himself inside his head, as if will alone could do the impossible.
For that matter, Anna and Gil had done their best too. They were all so strong. Each suffering in his or her own way, somehow grabbing hold of an inner strength that Linda couldn’t find. She might have found it after Jennifer left. Given enough time and support, she thought she might have. But Mark too? It was as if someone had stabbed her in the heart, then reached through the gaping hole to rip out what little remained.
Linda rose unsteadily to her feet, turned, and made her way around the end table with its opened King James Bible. She stopped to stare down at the book, gold leaf on the edges of the pages, so lovingly made it felt good in your hands. Never religious, Linda had turned to the Bible in desperation. She’d read the whole thing, found paragraphs that should have given her comfort.
And she’d prayed. God, how she’d prayed. Lord, just give me back my kids. Take me instead. Anything, Lord. I’ll do whatever you want. Just let my kids come home safe.
Lot of good it had done her. She picked up the Bible, dropped it into the small elk-embossed trash can, and then turned and slowly climbed the stairs.
The cold spring wind swept down from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, whipping Tall Bear’s long black hair over his shoulders, an icy cat-o’-nine-tails stinging his face. Not that the wind would have been any warmer back home on the Santa Clara Indian Reservation. The bulk of New Mexico sat on the east slope of the Rocky Mountains, east of the Continental Divide, birthplace of the Chinook winds. In springtime it formed in the high country, a mighty raiding party, screaming down the steep slopes in a savage assault that sent everything in its path cowering behind available cover.
An image from his youth leapt unbidden to his mind. The sky had been gray, like this one, spitting sleet pellets driven horizontal by the icy wind. They stung his cheeks, ears, and neck as he rode, herding a sick cow into a pen. Tall Bear tilted his head hard to the left, his cowboy hat’s broad brim providing his only protection. Then he’d seen it. Not ten yards away from him, his father, Screaming Eagle, sat atop a big bay mare, huddled beside a telephone pole, instinctively seeking shelter on the lee side of the tall stick of wood. It was one of the funniest damn things Tall Bear had ever seen.
Screaming Eagle had been one tough Indian. As Tall Bear forced his mind back to the present, looking at the gathering before him, he knew that if they were going to get through what was coming, they were going to need a lot of men like his father.
Constructed entirely of adobe, the Taos Pueblo was home to around 150 full-time residents. Other tribal members lived in more modern homes outside the walls, but still on the reservation. Because it was situated on 99,000 acres of tribal land at an elevation of over 7,000 feet, Tall Bear thought it was a perfect place for the celebration. The second such declaration of independence to be held on New Mexico tribal lands.
Since the end of 1970, when President Richard M. Nixon signed Public Law 91-550, formally returning the sacred Blue Lake and its surrounding lands to the native people, no other ceremony had held such historical relevance. It had taken sixty-four years of struggle to overturn the injustice that had taken this land away from the people. But it had only taken two years for the Taos Pueblo community to go completely off-grid.
Tall Bear had led the push for a similar effort on the Santa Clara Reservation. But the Taos Pueblo had given the movement a widely publicized momentum, and it was rapidly being adopted by tribes across the country. Now, as he stood gazing across the courtyard at the St. Jerome Church and its surrounding brown-and-white adobe walls, with three white crosses visible atop the church roof, Tall Bear felt a warm glow wash away his awareness of the biting breeze.
With a few final words in the Tiwa language, tribal governor Vidal Padilla pulled the rope that released the tarp covering a small adobe alcove on the outer wall, revealing a larger-than-life ceremonial mask sheltered within. Stepping to his right, Padilla flipped the switch, filling the enclosure with a soft eternal light.