“Turn off the engine,” came a deep voice from the back seat.
He gasped, his hand freezing in mid-air. In the rearview mirror was the face of a wolf.
There was just enough light to see white fangs and a red tongue hanging obscenely from the snarling, ghastly mask.
Part One: Fernando Lopez
1
Detective Fernando Lopez wished he’d had more time to put on his game face this morning. He didn’t wake up so easily these days, not without his two cups of coffee. Age had begun to drain his energy and stiffen his joints. Hardly fitting for a patriarch, a man of honor from one of Santa Fe’s oldest families.
He opened his 7-Eleven bag and took out the cup of steaming black coffee. He fumbled with the soggy containers of cream and sugar, dumped a little of each into cup and stirred the mixture with a No. 2 pencil courtesy of the Santa Fe Police Department. The taste of freshly brewed coffee jolted his senses. What he really needed this morning was a cigarette, but since he had quit smoking, more or less, he would have to make due with only coffee. He still kept an open pack of Camel Lights with him at all times, just to remind himself that he had the willpower to stop. And in case of an emergency.
From experience he knew he would be totally out of sorts until he had ingested the right amount of caffeine. He always seemed to be in a bad mood first thing Monday morning, but he was in an especially bad mood today because these two Indians were waiting for him when he walked into his office at half past eight. He hated not having time to put on his game face before all the people with problems began arriving.
He crumpled the 7-Eleven bag and tossed it on his desk with the Sonic Drive-In cups and the Great Burrito Company wrappers.
He took a sip of coffee. “What pueblo did you say you were from?”
“Zuni,” replied the older man who’d introduced himself as Robert Naranjo and his friend as Billy Suino. He had a big belly and long black braids.
He frowned. He didn’t see many Zunis. The Zuni Pueblo bordered Arizona, two hundred miles southwest of Santa Fe. Zunis usually took their problems to the Tribal Police or to the Gallup Police.
“We came to you because of this.” The younger man took a folded piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and handed it to Fernando. He was wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap pulled down over his forehead and a Nike T-shirt. He looked like the athletic type, slender and muscular, maybe a long distance runner.
He unfolded the paper which turned out to be a short letter addressed to the Zuni Tribal Council. The letter read: “If you want your ahayu:da back, go see Michael Soto, the owner of Sabado Indian Arts gallery in Santa Fe. Soto is trying to sell the ahayu:da around town for $50,000.” The letter was signed: “A friend.”
He read the letter again. It was typed. Cheap paper. Anonymous.
“Would you care to explain?”
The younger man looked angry. “Explain what? We want our ahayu:da back. That’s why we’re here.”
He pronounced the Zuni word: ah – ha – yoo – dah.
Then Suino folded his arms across his chest, as though demanding immediate satisfaction. Wouldn’t it be nice if things were that simple?
Sighing, he glanced at the ugly brown wall behind Suino, surveying his many plaques and awards from the Hispano Chamber of Commerce and the Fraternal Order of Police. His eyes came to rest on his citation framed in silver from the governor of New Mexico commemorating thirty long years of distinguished service to the city of Santa Fe.
Indians made him nervous, even after all these years as a cop. He preferred the term “Indians” to the politically correct “Native Americans.” The fact that his ancestors had intermarried with both Indians and Anglos didn’t make much difference. He couldn’t help feeling they held him personally responsible for the Spanish conquest of New Mexico. The Spanish referred to it as the “Colonization,” but the Indians called it theft, beginning with Coronado in 1540 and culminating in the government of Don Juan de Oñate, the first official governor of the province known as “Nuevo Mexico.” Over four hundred years had passed since Oñate arrived in 1598, but the Indians hadn’t forgotten. Nor had they forgiven.
That was the problem with Santa Fe—too much history. People still held grudges about events that happened hundreds of years ago. Take Don Diego de Vargas and the Reconquest of New Mexico in 1692, twelve years after the northern pueblos had united forces and driven the Spanish settlers, soldiers, and priests, south to El Paso. The Pueblo Indians hated de Vargas and resented the Reconquest as much as or more than the original Colonization.
Was de Vargas a savior or a mass murderer? The answer depended on your point of view. Four hundred years hadn’t eased tensions one bit. And the arrival of the Anglos in the 1800s had just added another layer of grudges.
“I’m sorry, but what’s an ahayu:da?” he asked, hating to admit his ignorance. He wondered what Suino really wanted back. His land? The last four hundred years?
“A sacred war god. One of them was stolen this summer.”
He squinted over the top of his coffee cup. “When you say ‘sacred war god’, what exactly do you mean? An object? A person? A spirit?”
Suino looked offended. He sat erect in the chair, his head held high. He was young and handsome with a long, thin nose and high cheekbones. “No, a carved wooden figure. A sacred carved wooden figure.”
“So then, we’re talking about an object,” he said, reaching for a notepad.
Suino shrugged, not acknowledging his distinction.
“Here, take a look,” the older man said, taking a cell phone out of his back pocket and showing him a photo. “See, our Deer and Bear Clans carve the ahayu:da,” he added, nodding his head, trying to ease the tension between him and Suino. “We place them in sacred shrines on Zuni land. You know, leave them out in the open until they disintegrate. Because when they disintegrate, they replenish the earth.”
He wrote all this down on a legal pad.
Naranjo continued. “Problem is, the ahayu:da can be mischievous gods. They cause mischief if removed and not returned to their rightful places on the reservation.”
“What kind of mischief?”
“Natural disasters, mostly. Earthquakes and floods. Like that.”
He frowned. “Natural disasters?”
Naranjo nodded. “Unless returned to their shrines.”
“You said someone stole an ahayu:da this summer. Do you have any idea who?’
“Could be anybody.” Naranjo shook his round, weathered face. “An art dealer...a grave-robber...one of the hippies who come to hike on our land without asking permission. We see them all the time. We tell them to leave, but they just come back.”
“Even a Zuni,” Suino added. “One who’s become greedy like an Anglo. Or a Mexican.”
He knew Indians commonly referred to Hispanics as Mexicans, but common or not, he didn’t like to be called a Mexican. Nor did he like this Suino fellow. Still, he had a job to do, so he tried to put aside his feelings and assume an air of polite informality. “Can these carvings be sold for as much as fifty thousand dollars?”
Suino shrugged. “How would we know, we don’t sell our own ahayu:da.”
He scratched his head. “Okay. Why don’t you give me a description of the missing ahayu:da.”