MYSTIC MOON Prologue Saquinnish Indian Reservation Just after midnight Reuven Jaye crawled out of his old Ford and trudged up the muddy flagstone path to his front door. He barely took notice of the wind howling in the cedars above his head, or the green branches flung across the yard and drive. Reuven was too worried to notice the storm, for in the space of one day, his future and the future of the tribe had taken a sudden turn for the worse. Arielle Scott was back. Reuven thought he'd seen the last of her ten years ago and believed the lie he'd told her would keep her away from the reservation and out of his affairs forever. But no. She had returned as a volunteer at the health clinic and was sure to ask questions. He thought his life had settled down, that most of his troubles were over, and had never expected a ghost from his past to reappear. He'd have to do something soon. Something final. Something drastic. Earlier in the day at a council meeting, he almost choked when informed of the name of the new volunteer physician. He quickly recovered his composure and looked around to see if any of the other elders detected his alarm, but no one seemed to notice. All afternoon he carried on an internal debate, knowing he would have to deal with the problem soon but hating the thought that violence was the only solution. Drunk, Reuven staggered up to the front door of his house. He'd tried to drown his worries in a pitcher of beer at the Rainbow Bar, but no matter how many glasses he downed, he couldn't douse the burning in his gut. It was the same feeling he'd suffered eleven years ago when this had all started. That night he'd come home late just like this, only that time he'd staggered from the effects of grief and exhaustion, not from alcohol. He had spent the day at Children's Hospital in Seattle, struggling to be brave for his twelve-year-old daughter Evaline, to contain his tears the entire day--the longest day of his life--but his endurance had cracked once he reached the reservation. Weeping, he fumbled with his clutch of keys, his hands shaking, feeling for the house key, while he looked at the black windows of the tiny ranch-style home he'd bought when his daughter was born. He'd never been in the house alone. Ever since he could remember, Evaline had always been there waiting for him, always turning on the porch light if he were late, banking the fire to keep the place warm, making his breakfast in the morning before she went to school. Not until that night, when she lay in a hospital in Seattle, her face and arms swathed in bandages, did he realize how much her presence in his life meant to him. Now that he approached the vacant house, he realized how truly alone he was. The truth ran through him like an electric shock. What if Evaline didn't recover? He slid the key into the lock and it made a grating noise, triggering the vision he'd been holding back all day. He tried to shut down the sound and the sight, but he hadn't the will left to fight his own guilt. The sounds rushed in on him full force--the frenetic snarling of the wolf, Evaline's shrill screams, the gun shots that killed the beast, and then the silence--the awful, awful silence when he'd dropped his gun in the grass and reached down for his Evaline, the child of his twilight years, his dearest possession, her face and torso covered with blood. Reuven yanked at the key, but his hand shook so hard, he had to jiggle the key to pull it out. He pushed his way into the house and closed the door behind him, shutting off the tears and the wailing wind. Instantly, he noticed an unfamiliar silhouette sitting in a chair by the fireplace, the same chair Evaline sat in when she practiced her basket-making. Reuven blinked, wondering if he were seeing things, wondering if his mind were playing tricks on him because he wanted so fervently for Evaline to be there for him as always. He wished with all his heart that today had been just a bad dream. But he knew this was no dream. And when the figure rose, stooped and round, all visions of Evaline vanished. "Who's there?" he called, reaching for the light switch on the wall beside the front door. He flipped on the switch, but nothing happened. The living room remained dark, full of shadows. The wind must have knocked out the electricity. "Reuven Jaye," a quavering female voice called out. "Who are you?" He fumbled for the lighter in his pocket and reached for the candle he kept on the corner of the counter. The lights went out all the time and he was accustomed to working by candle light. He lit the wick and the light caught and held. Shadows jumped onto the walls, startling him. He got a hold of himself and glared at the old woman hobbling toward him in a faded dress and tattered white tennis shoes. He'd never seen her before. "What are you doing in my house?" "I have been waiting for you, Tree-Falling-Down." Another shock passed through him. Tree-Falling-Down was his spirit quest name, a secret name that no one but him and his uncle knew. He hadn't spoken the name in years, and his uncle and mentor was long since dead and buried. Who was this old woman, who defiled him by speaking his secret name? Her voice wasn't familiar and her squat figure, a body shape all too prevalent among the elderly women of his community, gave him no clue as to her identity. He crossed his arms over his chest. "You speak a name that is not yours to speak, Old Woman." "And you take that which is not yours to take." Reuven swallowed. Surely she didn't know. No one had seen him at the Wolf House. No one had been at the old village, that desolate place of rotting plank houses and dilapidated mortuary poles miles from town. He was sure they'd been alone--just him and those guys from Seattle. Everyone else had bought his story about who had really stolen the house post, or so he'd thought. Besides, that was old news. Year-old news long-forgotten by everyone. "What are you talking about, Old Woman?" "You know very well, Tree-Falling-Down. You have violated the Wolf Clan. You have taken that which is sacred." Her words popped in a strange way, as if many of her teeth were missing, and her ancient tongue was slapping against smooth gum. But when she stepped closer, he noticed that her lower lip sagged down in a loose flap of flesh. He'd seen sepia prints of his people from the turn of the century, when a few of the old women still wore labrets, the wooden or bone disks pushed into a slit in the lower lip. Labrets were a symbol of prestige and beauty, and the larger the disk and the more ornate, the greater the woman's social standing. But they permanently disfigured a woman's mouth, making it hard to eat and speak, especially if the labret was removed. No one wore labrets anymore. The practice had ceased with the coming of white men in the early-1800s. And surely no one pictured in the old photographs could still be alive. Reuven felt a trickle of sweat roll down his forehead and into his eyebrow. "Return that which belongs to the Wolf Clan," the old woman warned. "This must be done." "I don't know what you're talking about, Old Woman." He flung his keys on the counter which separated the living room from the kitchen. "And I want you out of my house." She ignored him. "Do you think the wolf attack was a random act?" Her question startled him, for he had thought the attack had been nothing but a senseless tragedy. Did she know something he didn't? Reuven studied her wrinkled face in the gloom. He didn't recognize her, which was odd because he thought he knew everyone on the reservation. Her black eyes, nearly concealed by her sagging lids and milky cataracts, glinted at him. She gave him the creeps. "What do you mean?" he responded at last. "Isn't it unusual for a wolf to attack a human?" "I don't know. Maybe." Reuven knew very well that wolves never attacked men. In fact, there hadn't been a report of so much as a wolf sighting in the area for as long as he'd been alive. Just like the members of his clan, the wolf population had dwindled on the Washington coast. Soon there would be nothing left of either of them, man or beast. If Evaline died of her wounds, there would be no hope of the Wolf Clan sustaining itself, and no grandchildren for him. Evaline was the last of the wolf clan, except for him and the man who bore the blame of the theft and had been banished to Lost Island. It was highly unlikely now that he or Mack Shoalwater would father any children. Reuven was too old to take another wife, and Mack would be trapped on Lost Island until he died of exposure or old age. All the other clans in the village thrived--the raven, bear, eagle, and beaver. Only the Wolf Clan was in danger of dying out, a victim of alcohol abuse, poverty, broken marriages, and heart-breaking infant mortality. Reuven ran a hand through his hair. "Animals act strange these days, Old Woman." "No. There is always a reason for what an animal does," she retorted. "Unlike human beings, animals do not kill for sport or pleasure. They follow the laws of the Great One." "I can see no reason for attacking a twelve-year-old girl," Reuven said, his voice husky with suppressed outrage. "No reason at all." "Perhaps the attack was meant for someone else." "Someone else?" He felt another bead of sweat roll down his neck. Reuven thought back. He usually got home from the casino at three o'clock in the morning, after closing up and having a nightcap with the bartender. But that morning, he had stayed up later than usual, going over the contractor fees for the new construction, and had fallen asleep at his desk. Evaline, finding him gone when she awoke, had made him breakfast and was carrying it to him when she'd been attacked. Reuven cleared his throat. "No, they said it might have been the smell of meat that drew the wolf. The smell of bacon." "The smell of betrayal drew the wolf," she replied evenly. "The stench of dishonor brought him from the hills. The attack was meant for you." Thunder rolled through the sky, rattling the panes of glass in the window and shaking the bones in Reuven's legs. He thought he'd faint. The attack had been meant for him? He had been the target, not his twelve-year-old daughter, who lay unconscious, her face ripped beyond recognition and perhaps repair? The attack had been meant for him? "Get out!" he bellowed. "You are cursed!" she hissed. "It is the time of the Wolf Moon, Tree-Falling-Down, a time when the spirits seek balance." "Get out, Old Woman!" He grabbed the door and flung it open. A flurry of dead leaves blew in and stuck to his pants. "You are cursed by the Wolf Spirit--you who call himself a son of the people. But you are no son! You are damned, Reuven Jaye!" He couldn't speak. Anger, guilt, shock, and disbelief swirled around him, snatching his thoughts away like an eagle swooping down for a salmon, snaring the fish in its talons, and flapping back into the clouds. The woman teetered on her swollen misshapen feet, coming toward him, her strange bluish eyes boring into him. Reuven stepped back, out of her way, afraid that she might touch him. He couldn't look at her distorted mouth any longer. She paused in the doorway. "Return what belongs to the Wolf!" She pointed a gnarled finger at him, bent by arthritis into a knobbed claw. "Or there will be more sorrow for you, Tree-Falling-Down." "Get out!" he blurted and slammed the door after her. He ran a shaking hand across the side of his head. His thick gray hair was drenched in sweat. Reuven shut off the memory and opened the door. He switched on the lights and quietly shut the door behind him, hoping Evaline hadn't waited up for him. He had no wish to explain his unusual drunkenness to his sensitive twenty-three-year old daughter. With an unsteady hand, he brushed back his hair. It was white now, snow white. He was eleven years older and broken by worry and guilt. But he couldn't let his sacrifices count for nothing or allow everything he'd built to be destroyed by one well-meaning white woman. Arielle Scott had to be silenced. Either that or Reuven would have to get rid of Mack Shoalwater--not just by extending his banishment indefinitely, but by really getting rid of him this time. The more Reuven thought about it, the more it made sense to eliminate Mack. Reuven frowned and sighed heavily as he reached for a water glass. Accidents happened every day, especially out in the dangerous waters of Puget Sound. He filled his glass with the sulphur-laced water from his well and leaned on the counter as he gulped down the odiferous drink. Yes, an accident. Perhaps by drowning. That way, no body would ever be found. And without a body there could be no autopsy. © 2003 Patricia Simpson www.patriciasimpson.com