LITMIR.BIZ

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exotic eyes were filled with defiant apprehension.

      “Hi, Canaan.” Her gaze darted past him. “You alone?”

      He nodded. She reminded him of a half-grown lamb, inquisitive and always landing herself into trouble.

      She relaxed visibly and stepped aside. “I know what you’re thinking, and I know what you’re going to say.”

      He ducked slightly at the threshold, taking slow steps, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dimness of the unlit house.

      “You’ve learned the art of mind reading on your long walk home?” he asked.

      “You know I didn’t—”

      “Walk all that way?” In the gloom, Canaan found a yellow-and-red-patterned kitchen chair and sank into it. “How often do I have to talk to you about hitchhiking?”

      Tanya took two mincing steps toward him, the delicate lines of her young face sliding into a grin of mischief. “Who said I hitchhiked? Maybe I turned into Yenaldlooshi and raced the wind home.”

      Canaan studied her expression to see if she was teasing. She wasn’t. He willed away the chill that slid over his skin. For a year, he had battled this superstition at the school, but it had persisted, even grown, the way a piñon sapling grew in the heat of the Arizona sun during a year of good rain. The children had recently begun to blame Navajo spirit entities for everything from unfinished homework to illness to lost track races.

      He would have another talk with Betsy Two Horses. Giving her permission to teach a couple of informal classes on the ancient Navajo customs did not include filling the kids’ heads with terrifying myths.

      “Maybe you raced like the wind to escape Yenaldlooshi, ” he suggested to Tanya, and continued to watch her expression carefully.

      She pivoted away, but not before he saw the fear in her eyes.

      He sighed. “Tanya, who tells you there is a skinwalker at the school?”

      She shrugged, refusing to look at him, which revealed the extent of her fear and clued him to the reaction she expected from him. She wanted him to deny the possibility of any kind of evil beings.

      If Wendy Hunt were still alive, she would’ve been the one to come and get Tanya. She would’ve reassured the girl that there were no evil animal beings, only evil people. Canaan sure missed Wendy’s influence right now. Wendy also would have had an additional advantage as the mother of Tanya’s friend April.

      Or rather, Tanya’s former friend.

      Canaan couldn’t give any reassurances to Tanya. “Why would this skinwalker still be at the school and not here? Wouldn’t he have followed you home, if he’s after you?”

      “He doesn’t know the way.” She was still serious; no teasing here. “I left after sunrise this morning, so he couldn’t follow me.” She believed what she was saying.

      “But he can follow your tracks tonight, and your parents are gone,” Canaan reminded her. “What if he knows you, and knows where you live?”

      Tanya stepped to the long window that overlooked a cactus-and-rock garden. With a stiffened spine, she stared out across the plain, her chin raised defiantly.

      “Come back with me now, Tanya, and you’ll be safer.”

      “You can’t protect me from everything.”

      “I didn’t say I could, but do you really want to stay alone here?”

      Her chin lowered a fraction. A tremor shook her. “I don’t want to stay at that school. He’s there, Canaan.”

      “Who, exactly, is he?”

      Tanya jerked around, dark eyes wide.

      “Have you forgotten that my great-grandfather was a hataalii, a medicine man?” Canaan asked.

      She shook her head. “I haven’t forgotten. That’s why I trust you.”

      “I know of the spirits we have always feared,” he said. “The only way to fight this evil is with a more powerful spirit. You’re safer from the skinwalker at the school than you are here.”

      Tanya’s eyes narrowed in disbelief.

      “This skinwalker you fear,” he said slowly, “what animal form does he take?”

      Tanya stared at him and did not answer.

      He hazarded a guess, hoping he was wrong. “The wolf?”

      A quick intake of breath.

      “I know about your fear.” The wolf was one of the most terrifying characters in Navajo lore, a destroyer. Canaan felt another chill of foreboding. “My Christian grandfather taught me special prayers to keep the Navajo werewolf away when I was afraid. He taught me when I was very young, and I still remember.”

      Some of the tension eased from Tanya’s face. “You mean Johnny Jacobs?”

      Canaan nodded.

      “How much do you remember of these prayers?” she asked.

      “All of them, but it isn’t the words alone that protect us. It’s where we keep our hearts and minds.”

      Tanya hesitated. “What…what about that woman?”

      “What woman?”

      “The one who’s coming. The biligaana who’s going to be there today. The white doctor.”

      “You mean Sheila Metcalf. She has nothing to do with any skinwalker, and she isn’t a doctor, she’s a nurse.”

      The girl pressed her lips together, obviously refusing to hear his words.

      “Sheila lived here with us for five years.” His voice was sharper than he intended. “She and I grew up together. I knew her.”

      Tanya searched his expression. “You…you knew her?”

      “Yes. She was a good friend. She was also a good friend to the Hunts.”

      “She’s white. Look what happened to Mr. and Mrs. Hunt.”

      “I’m half white, my grandfather, the school’s owner, is not Navajo, but that hasn’t stopped your father from sending you to our school.” Tanya’s father was a selective bigot, but his bigotry would overtake his daughter, too, if Canaan allowed it. Sheila’s arrival might be good for the children, if they would respond sensibly.

      He stepped toward the door. “You coming with me?”

      Tanya’s jaw slackened. “You’re leaving? Now?”

      “I have work to do at the school.”

      Tanya paused, then nodded her head. “Okay. I’ll come. But you teach me that prayer before it gets dark tonight. Okay?”

      Canaan bowed mockingly. “Yes, boss.”

       Chapter Four

       S heila tightened the final lug nut on the wheel, tested to make sure all was secure, then released the jack, glad she hadn’t taken Preston up on his offer of his Jeep. With her own vehicle, she knew where everything was and had been able to change the tire in ten minutes.

      After heaving the equipment into the back, she cast a wary glance across the desert for at least the twentieth time. All that moved was the undulating air above the ground, dancing in the unseasonably hot weather. A green line of cottonwood trees to the south told her there was a stream of water nearby. To the west, the plain seemed to stretch all the way to the foot of the towering Twin Mesas, at least two miles away.

      She glanced back down the road and saw a sizable boulder a couple hundred feet away that she must have struck with the tire when she allowed the vehicle to wander so far off the road.

      “Dumb, dumb,” she muttered to herself.

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