The Night Visitor Read Free

posole. Then, a bite of bread and margarine. A long drink of cold milk. The old woman closed her eyes in rapt pleasure. My… such a feast.
    Moreover, she was entertained as she supped.
    The FM radio dial was tuned to KSUT, the tribe’s radio station. And because it was Saturday evening, she listened to a program all the way from Minneapolis. Lots of good music… and
The Lives of the Cowboys
, with Lefty and Rusty who had themselves a bath maybe once a year and were always chasing after some saloon gal. Like any woman in her right mind would want to snuggle up to a fellow who smelled worse’n his horse. But Daisy’s favorite character on the show was the detective. Guy Somebody. She smiled and dipped up another spoonful of steaming posole. That Guy was always in some kinda scrape. Sometimes he got shot full of holes by gangsters, but he must be a fast healer because he was always healthy enough for next week’s show. And like them pitiful cowboys, he was always in love—but never got himself a woman. Maybe he didn’t bathe neither.
    When her meal was finished, Daisy stashed the leftover posole in the refrigerator, washed the bowl and spoon, and took a halfhearted swipe at the blackened iron pot. She glanced at the great sea of darkness rolling against her window, and yawned. Time for sleep. She switched off the kitchen light, and opened the door to the bedroom at the center of her trailer-home.
    This day had been as ordinary as a day can be for a wearyold woman who lives practically in the mouth of
Cañon del Espiritu.
This night would—so Daisy thought—be like ten thousand others. As she switched off the lamp by her small bed, the realization came suddenly—much as a crooked finger of lightning illuminates a dark landscape. A chill shudder rattled the shaman’s aged bones.
    And she knew as only one of her kind can know. She was not alone.
    Someone was there… outside.
    Cloaked in darkness.
    Watching.
    Daisy moved warily to the window. She pulled the curtain aside, looked toward the dirt lane that led to the rutted gravel road. The stars were like glistening points of white fire. The cusp of half-moon was sailing high, bathing the earth in a creamy light. She squinted. The few piñons and junipers stood there, precisely where they should be, as familiar as old friends.
    But something else stood there among the trees.
    A man.
    The old woman tensed. And regretted the fact that she didn’t have a telephone to call for help. What about the double-barreled twelve-gauge in the closet—was it loaded? Well, if it wasn’t, there was a box of shotgun shells on the shelf above it. She flipped a switch, turning on the porch light. Maybe that would scare this prowler off.
    It did not.
    He moved several paces closer to the trailer; now his gaunt body was illuminated by the sixty-watt light bulb. The night visitor had piercing blue eyes, matted locks of straw-colored hair, an untrimmed beard. And he wore something that caught the shaman’s eye. It was a pendant of polished wood, suspended on a cord around his neck. The ornament was long as a man’s middle finger. Round on the top, pointed on the bottom. And curved… like a bear claw.
    The pendant was all he wore.
    Except for an uneven coating of caked mud, the man was naked as the day he was born.
    Well. This was not your run-of-the-mill prowler.
    The winds whipped at tufts of rabbit grass, rattled the dry skeletons of Apache plume. But the frigid gusts did not seem to cause the nude man any discomfort. He merely stood there. And stared at the old woman in the window. He was apparently quite unconscious of his nakedness. Or his mud-caked skin.
    The effect, though unnerving, was also mildly comical.
    Daisy grinned. The old woman—who was no stranger to either drunks or idiots—opened the window. “Hey… what’re you doing out there?”
    He hesitated… then raised his fingers. Touched his