The Summoning God: Book II of the Anasazi Mysteries by W. Michael Gear, Kathleen O’Neal Gear Page A

down, pulled the woman’s body into her lap, and smoothed hair away from her sightless eyes.
    Browser rose to his feet and brushed himself off. “Is she alive?”
    “Yes.”
    “Who is it? Do you know her?”
    Catkin said something soft, but he didn’t hear.
    He went to Catkin’s side and knelt, and he no longer needed a name. Despite her mutilation, he recognized Matron Eagle Hunter. Shallow breaths moved her old chest, but the back of her skull had been crushed.
    Catkin clutched the dying Matron and rocked her back and forth, whispering, “It’s all right, Matron. It’s Catkin and War Chief Browser. You are safe now. We’re here.”
    Browser stared at Catkin. He doubted the Matron could hear, but it was very much like Catkin to offer this small comfort just in case.
    As he rose, he placed a hand on Catkin’s shoulder to thank her, then walked to the trail the warriors had taken. He looked both ways, praying he would see no one. Cloud People had filled the sky and the darkness seemed to ripple with each punch of his heart. The trail more than a few paces away appeared warped and dreamlike.
    He cocked his head and listened.
    The aspens rustled. The explosions of leaves continued like far-off cries. Catkin whispered.
    Then … a rush of air.
    Catkin gently rested the Matron on the ground. The sound must have been Eagle Hunter’s afterlife soul escaping with her last breath.
    Browser bowed his head and silently prayed for the ancestors to come and find her soul, to guide it to the sacred lake and the opening
that led to the underworlds and the Land of the Dead. He and Catkin could not afford to bury her properly.
    “Let’s go,” he called.
    Catkin stood, a slender pillar of gray in the blackness. “I’m ready.”

5
    “H E’S A PYGMY,” SYLVIA RHONE SAID AS DUSTY PULLED UP at the end of a faint two-track, set the brake, and turned off the Bronco’s ignition.
    “Mr. Wirth is short,” Dusty corrected. “I met him in Dale’s office yesterday. He seemed okay.”
    Sylvia tucked a lock of shoulder-length brown hair behind her ear and her thin, freckled face went pensive. She wore a green sweatshirt and blue jeans, with heavy hiking boots. “Yeah, well, if you say so, but check out his hair. It takes a lot of skill to get that much hair spray in one spot. I mean, we’re talking years of spray-paint practice. He probably spent his entire youth on overpasses.”
    “Give the guy a chance, will you?”
    “I always give men a chance.”
    “Oh, I feel better. Thanks.”
    With practiced eyes, she looked out at the site. “So. They’ve decided to call it Pueblo Animas, eh? Nice touch. Sounds scary.”
    “‘Town of Souls’ is a clever bilingual pun, since it’s an Anasazi site on the terrace above the Animas River.”
    The site didn’t look like much, just a mound of rubble spotted with occasional sagebrush, rabbitbrush with its autumn browned tufts, and tawny patches of bunchgrass. Here and there, craters pocked the surface where eighty years of pot-hunting had taken its toll. Finding an intact ruin anywhere in the Southwest was akin to finding a true virgin in a Juarez brothel.
    Sylvia’s eyes narrowed at the man leaning against the dark blue Mercedes. “What does he do for a living?”
    Dusty gave her a sidelong glance. Her tone suggested that Mr. Wirth might be a drug lord, or worse, a politician. Dusty said, “He’s an investment banker from New York. Be polite, no matter what he says.”
    Sylvia’s freckled face froze. “Why, is he going to say something to set me off?”
    Dusty reached for the door handle. “I think he’s used to giving orders, that’s all.”
    “Oh, God,” she groaned.
    They both stepped out of the Bronco and walked to meet Peter Wirth. Sunlight shot gold and yellow from the cottonwoods that flanked the riverbank east of the site. According to the latest culturally sensitive perspective, they weren’t supposed to call these “ruins” anymore, that being pejorative to