Nightwing by Martin Cruz Smith

Author:Martin Cruz Smith
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 0393087832
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Published: 1977-09-25T17:57:33+00:00

C H A P T E R

F I V E

A line of men chanted “Ho-o-hah!” against the backdrop of the desert. They were painted all in black except for white across their foreheads and mouths and spots on their arms and back. Eagle feathers decorated their long hair, and fox skins hung from their blue kilts. With every sideways step, the turquoise strings around their necks and the tortoise shell rattles tied to their knees clapped in time.

“There’s my jerkwater brother.” Cecil Somiviki pointed out a dancer to Youngman. “The one in the wig. So scared he’s ready to shit silver dollars.”

About five hundred Hopis sat on roofs and ladders, eating piki bread and drinking Cokes, the young men dressed up like dark cowboys, girls in ceremonial trim. A delegation of Navajos, each glittering like a presentation case of silver jewelry, stayed together, but the white tourists, exhausted by their climb from the parking lot a thousand feet down in the squash fields and their foreheads burned pink over dusty sunglasses, spread around the edge of the dirt plaza. Youngman looked for Anne. Walker Chee was there, a velvet sash tied around his razor-cut hair.

“Headpounder’s still after your ass,” Cecil muttered. “Well, I can’t fire you today anyway. Oh oh, lady!” He reached across Youngman and grabbed an Instamatic a white woman had wrapped in her scarf. “No photos, ma’am, you read the signs.”

She had swallow-wing sunglasses and zinc cream on her nose.

“Signs?”

Her smile turned into an oval as Cecil opened the back of the camera and ground the film cartridge under his boot. He dropped the camera into a sack and gave her a numbered piece of paper.

“Collect it after the dance.”

“This is a religious ceremony,” Youngman told her.

“Outdoors?” she squawked. “Come on.”

“Remember,” Cecil said, “no tickee, no camera.” He and Youngman moved on along the perimeter of the crowd, keeping their eyes out for more cameras, or tape recorders, or sketch pads. “Damn Bear Strap Clan’s supposed to be catching these yo-yos down in the parking lot.”

The ladder from the Snake Clan kiva flew pennants of feathers and horsehair. Youngman was surprised to see feathers still flying from the Fire Clan kiva, as well.

“Yeah,” Cecil answered his question, “those old boys been down there for days. Hey, we got ourselves another amateur anthropologist.”

A white teenager clutched a torn airline bag that, under Youngman’s hands, revealed a Panasonic recorder and a Glad Bag of grass.

“Far out.” Cecil took the recorder. “What’s the matter with you today, Youngman? Usually you’re the one who finds all the goodies.”

In the center of the plaza was a standing bower of green cottonwood branches and a hole covered over by a board. The dancers stamped on the board, warning the spirits below that messengers were on their way requesting rain, singing, “Ho-o-ah, ho-o-ah, ho-o-aha, ho-o-ah!” One of the dancers held up the “messengers,” handfuls of snakes.

Youngman and Cecil worked their way to the front of the crowd, while those dancers called “gatherers” fanned out around the edge of the plaza.

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