Zuni Stew: A Novel by Kent Jacobs

Author:Kent Jacobs [Jacobs, Kent]
Language: ara
Format: epub
Tags: Government relations, Indians, Zuni Indians, A novel, Fiction, Medicine, New Mexico, Shamans
Publisher: Sunstone Press
Published: 2015-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

Finally, he walked to his work bench in the niche, picked up a small mirror.

“Are you strong?” he asked.

“Very.”

“Go as sun rises. Face the sun. Look high. Signal him. Careful. Others may watch you.”

22

Impenetrable blackness. He closed his eyes, but there was no difference than with his eyes wide open. His ears buzzed, he needed to pee. Indigo. Deep purple. He thought he could see a faint light at the four-foot wide, four-foot high mouth of the cave. He shrugged off the blanket. Another sleepless night over.

In all of his years of medical training, sleep had come instantly. However, the sound of a bedside phone would awaken him immediately. Completely alert. Ninety-six hours since the night of the bear attack and the insane drive back to Zuni. Seventy-two hours since Lori had told him about the murders. The annihilation of his family.

He seemed to breathe slower, as if living in another body rhythm, like a hibernating bear. His heart rate had slowed, (he checked it repeatedly). Down to thirty-eight. Normally seventy-two. Mysterious calm, that’s what he called it. No sleep, yet he was extremely alert.

He splashed water from a mason jar onto his face. He pocketed the last jar of stew, crawled toward the light, stood erect on the narrow ledge. He stretched, pulling in the warmth of the sun. His dilated eyes stung. He shut them tightly. His mind was completely clear, like the cool water at the back of the cave.

He pulled off his shirt and tilted his head back. As he looked up at the sky, a black object hurtled toward the ground, streaking by the ledge by no more than a foot. He was not afraid. Watching intently, he saw the object grab a darting dove on the canyon floor. He could see it clearly as if he had binoculars. The giant bird skillfully swept away from the cliff with its prey, spreading broad blue-black wings, soaring out of sight.

He had never seen such a death executed so quickly and efficiently.

He shook the kill from his mind. He was ready for a little risk, confident he would not fall. Distance from the cave to the top of the cliff was about thirty feet. Everything shimmered in the heat waves. A wind-tortured juniper growing in sienna veins jutted out about five feet above the ledge. He got a foothold on a two-inch outcropping and sprung for the juniper branch. It held.

He was at the top in minutes. He pulled himself to the rim, lunged over the edge and crawled to rest against the bleached trunk of a fallen alligator juniper.

The wind was stronger at the top; he planted his feet solidly beneath him. By the position of the sun, he oriented his body to face north where he mentally envisioned the pueblo. He held his arms out, aligned east and west, imprinting each change of terrain to a map in his brain. Every landmark became part of a three-dimensional screen inside his head—a topographic screen he could move through, coursing back and forth.

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