Bart tilted the flask, dribbling grayish liquid onto the fragments of the bowl.
“You got it on my clothes,” Cora said, lifting her lapel, sniffing the darkened blue fabric of her jack. Her nose immediately wrinkled. “What is that?”
Kate clamped her own nostrils, as Bart began to chant.
They were strange words. Cora’s brow wrinkled, but Kate’s eyes widened. The words drifted toward her. Broken. Familiar sounds and syllables that carried a meaning that she did not fully understand. It was like she was trying to perceive an object looming out in the fog. At the mercy of the swirling gray of her memory, she could only glimpse a part or portion. A bit of clarity amidst the blurred form.
He repeated words. Now whole phrases. More and more the fog dissipated, yet never fully.
Cora gasped.
From the pottery shards, something like cobwebs begin to rise. Kate reached out to them. She felt nothing and the ghostly strings didn’t respond to her fingers, but continued rising, unabated, taking no note of her skin, blood, or bone as it passed through her palm.
The strings, moving like smoke trapped in a jar trying to find a way out, billowing, colliding, rolling, began to assume a form above her hand. First a beak, beginning at the end, the pointed tip, then continuing along the narrow arch where it expanded into a bird’s head, defining the subtleties of the varying feathers, even the eyes. Glassy eyes filled with smoke.
Kate shrieked and pulled her hand back.
“What?” Cora cried.
“They blinked,” Kate said.
Bart kept on chanting. The smokey webs filled out the mold of wings. Wings that flapped and stretched, shaking free downy feathers that fell like light snow about the bird’s newly formed feet, but once the loose feathers touched the table or the pottery shards, they silently burst into dissolving puffs of smoke.
“A crow?” Cora asked.
“No,” Bart said. “A raven. My spirit guide.”
The ghostly raven tilted its head as it studied Cora. It hopped closer to her, stretching its neck and pushing its beak closer and closer up to her face.
Cora swatted it, but the raven, untouched, leapt into the air, croaking, beating its wings, fluttering up into the dark rafters, releasing a cloud of downy feathers that fell in curving trails, down to those sitting around the table below. A few landed on Kate’s nose, popping out of existence as soon as they alighted on her nostrils, causing her to sneeze.
“That’s one way to guarantee his assistance,” Bart said to Cora beside him.
“And lead is another…” She had her pistol aimed at him again, but then she caught the flickering gleam on metal there in his lap. The gun’s barrel was pointed at her belly. Its hammer cocked.
Kate hadn’t noticed the standoff at the table, but stared up at the raven, who hopped from one dark rafter to another. His ghostly frame, like any other object in the Dugout (much to Kate’s surprise), was only visible in the fire light, only along the contours of his head, beak, wings, and belly closest to the dancing flames trapped in the hearth, which (much to Kate’s annoyance for she was very interested in viewing the raven in its entirety) were as thin as the fingernail moon. The phantasmal smoke of his form though, at least what she could see, churned and billowed incessantly.
The raven gazed down at Kate, turning its head, so only one eye, a glassy orb of rolling smoke, beheld her. Though its mouth was a beak, it seemed to smile.
Cora still trained her pistol on Bart. “What now? Is it ready to talk? Or commune? Or whatever the Hell it does?”
The raven croaked and croaked, bobbing its head, beating its wings, hopping on the rafter. Then it fluttered down to the table, alighting there in front of Kate, and began to laugh, before spreading its wings wide and running full on at her. Kate had little time to react, not to mention that the proceedings of the séance had left her in a state of stunned wonder, so her only response to the sudden attack of the ghostly raven was to jolt slightly in her chair, but quickly, she realized that the raven was not bent on hurting her at all. In fact, the raven slammed right into her chest, teetering Kate in the chair, and flopped its wings around her neck in a loving embrace. She, of course, sat there wide eyed and stiff, her left hand held confused in the air, having never been hugged by a ghost raven, yet the situation for her was all the more exasperated when the poor bird began to cry. A deep, clapping, barking sort of sobbing breaths.
Cora was also flabbergasted. Her pretty red lips hung apart and the barrel of her pistol drifted from its target. Bart, not at all surprised by his Spirit Guide’s antics (though a little taken aback by the hug), seized upon the opportunity and snatched Cora’s pistol out of her hand.
She spat in his face. “Damn you,” she said through gritted teeth.
Bart wiped the spittle from his cheek with a purple handkerchief and smiled, as the raven kept crying on Kate’s shoulder.
Kate pried at one of his wings, but he squeezed all the tighter, sobbing even more uncontrollably. “Does this always happen?” She asked, failing at her multiple attempts to unhook the raven from her neck.
“Most certainly not,” Bart said, knitting his brow. “Cracked Beak.”
The raven buried his face in Kate’s chest now, his tears dripping onto her shirt. “After all… this time… I found you. I found you!”
“Cracked Beak,” Bart tried again, but his attention was split. One, was the crying ghost raven, and the other was Cora, but thankfully, she was just as distracted by the weeping bird as the others.
Upon hearing the raven’s voice, Kate ceased her efforts to free herself. She had recognized it. And, for a moment, she sat there, listening to his muffled crying, listening to him repeating “I found you,’ realizing that what was only a handful of weeks ago, felt like years in her past. And perhaps, that was because she had heard it years ago. Not only in the hotel room, but out on the desert plain. Out on the flatlands, in the cover of prickly pears, as the howls of distant coyotes echoed under the night sky. It was only a glimpse of a memory, more feeling, than mental sight.
At last, Cracked Beak jerked his head up from Kate’s chest and stared up at her. How did tears roll from smoke filled glassy eyes? How did the physical tear trail from the ghostly eye? It seemed an impossibility, but there the droplets were, dripping onto her shirt and pants. Looking in his eyes, so full, Kate began to feel a stirring in her heart as well. He was yet a stranger sitting in her lap, but there was something all too familiar, a suspicion of fondness that continued to grow the longer she studied him.
“I didn’t realize you had such emotion,” Bart said to Cracked Beak, but the raven ignored him, still gazing up at Kate.
“She laughs at fire,” Cracked Beak sniffled (he sounded like a clogged flute), still gazing up at Kate. He wiped his eyes with his wings.
Kate’s eyes shot to Bart, who only shrugged, then to Cora, who stammered, “What does that even mean?”
At the sound of those four words, she laughs at fire, Kate retreated into her thoughts. Though she looked down at Cracked Beak, she searched her mind, for those words meant something. Like the raven’s eyes, they possessed an essence of connection. How they were bonded, she could not remember, but she knew there was some sort of connection between her and those words. It was like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle in the dark, her only perception was feel. She spun the words in her head, feeling along the edges, the cavities, the protrusions, trying to identify their shape, pressing them blindly into the existing categories of her mind, till at last, they fit together.
“Me,” Kate said. “That’s my name: She laughs at fire.”
Cracked Beak hopped from her lap to the table, laughing (a series of barking caws). “You say that as if you have forgotten?”
“She has,” Bart said.
Cracked Beak blinked, then let loose an incredulous caw.
“It’s true,” Kate said. “I can’t recall my life beyond three years ago.”
“Even me,” Cracked Beak said. “Your mentor. You have forgotten?”
“I am sorry.”
“And He Sniffs the Sky? Your Father?”
“My father?” Kate asked.
Cracked Beak hissed. “Damn me, Great Spirit! I have doomed the Coyote Tribe! I alone have brought on their destruction.”
“There is still time,” Bart said.
“But I have lost so much! I should have foreseen the power of the medicine. What a shortsighted fool I was! I should’ve seen. I should’ve known that the spell, powerful enough to divide soul from spirit, to split joint from marrow, would’ve severed her mind as well!”
“Yet, here she is Cracked Beak. Here she sits. And she has remembered her name already. There’s hope then that she is able to regain all of her memory.”
“True,” the raven said. “But, the time lost has allowed others to find her as well.”
“Who?” Kate asked.
“The Armadillo Shaman.”
“You’ve never mentioned that name,” Bart said.
Cracked Beak glanced at the man. “He is dangerous. A terrible shaman.” He shifted his gaze to Kate. “He is why we performed the Two Soul Medicine. He had already murdered your brother. He usurped your father.”
“I remember,” Kate said. “My brother. I can recall his funeral. The pyre. Sometimes I’ve seen a dog in the fire.”
“No dog,” Cracked Beak said. “A coyote. Like you.”
Cora sneered. “She’s about as ugly as one.”
The raven wheeled around, “Show respect to the Chief’s daughter!”
“I don’t understand,” Kate said.
Cracked Beak hopped along the table, closer to her. “You are part of an old people, She Laughs at Fire. As am I. We can wear the clothes of both men and beasts. I am of the Raven Tribe and you are of the Coyote Tribe. It was your brother, He Killed a Bear, on the pyre. It was his soul that our voices raised, his soul that the smoke guided into the Spirit World, where he waits for the call of the Great Spirit.”
Kate stared into the little fire in the rustic hearth and revisited the memory of the flames. The dream of her brother consumed in the pyre. Her eyes watered.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she said. “He couldn’t have… I… I’m not a coyote.”
“But you are. You can wear the clothes of a coyote.”
“The clothes of a coyote?”
“The fur. The muzzle. The teeth. Just as my tribe wear the clothes of the raven.”
“And you can take them off?”
He nodded. “But not now. After we performed the Two Soul Medicine, you were unconscious. It took all our strength. For three days, I waited by your side, but then the Hunters came. Your Hunters. Fooled by the Armadillo Shaman, pressed by the ambition of One Who Bites Ankles, they hounded me, thinking that I had killed you. I had to flee, but not before hiding you in a badger hole, which I knew would not only conceal your body, but your scent as well. But, eventually they caught me and though I fought hard, I was overpowered. Thinking that I was dead, they abandoned me, but there was still a little life left in me. And with my last ounce of strength, I tied my soul to a bowl that I carried. It was a desperate hope.”
Logs were stacked near the hearth on the side of the table where Cora sat. As Cracked Beak spoke, she inched her hand closer and closer, careful to move imperceptibly, and grip the top log. It was narrow enough for her to wrap her fingers around it. Kate and Bart listened intently to Cracked Beak’s story, none of them noticing Cora’s plan till at last she acted. She struck fast. The log splintered against the back of Bart’s head with a cracking thump. Bart, still sitting in his chair, flopped unconscious onto the table, the legs of which skidded along the dirt floor. Kate squealed and Cracked Beak cawed and beat his wings, fluttering up into the rafters. Cora wrangled Bart’s pistol from his limp hand, cocked the hammer, and aimed it at Kate, who immediately raised her hands defensively.
Cora brushed her hair from her eyes and smiled, “Enough of the reunion. Now you’re going to help me, Cracked Beak. I need to know about the Wells Fargo stagecoach. Don’t you move, Kate. Leastwise, not till I tell you to do so.”
“I can’t tell if he’s bleeding,” Kate said. Bart laid across the table, overtop the pottery shards. His arms outstretched toward the fire. His head to the side, the back of which was what Kate studied, but what with the shadows, frail fire light, and the man’s natural dark hair color, made it difficult to discern exactly what she was looking at. Something gleamed on the back of his head. A small patch.
“I can shoot him,” Cora said. “Then we’ll know for sure.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” Kate said.
Cora smirked. “You called my bluff.” She aimed the revolver at Kate. The fire reflected on the barrel, dancing on the iron. Kate stared down the dark hole of the barrel then to Cora’s eyes, which were nothing but shadows. Kate stiffened in her chair.
Cracked Beak cawed. Cora didn’t flinch. “I will do it, birdbrain. Lest you tell me what I need to know.”
The raven hopped to another rafter, farther from the reach of the firelight.
“What are you doing?” Cora asked. “I will squeeze this trigger.”
He fluttered to yet another rafter, where only his beak and eyes glistened. “You lose your leverage as soon as you shoot her. And then what do you gain? For I won’t help you at all if you hurt her.”
A shiver rippled down Kate’s spine. Her mouth hung open as she glared up at Cracked Beak, at the bird talking so cooly about her.
“Not necessarily,” Cora said. “She’s been shot before. The girl’s tough as nails. I’m sure she could take another round of lead. One in her remaining arm. Maybe another in the leg. I’m sure you get my meaning.”
The flames in the hearth continued to burn. Crackling, as the fire gnawed at the logs. One of them crumpled into fiery dust, spilling onto the bed of ash. Embers flitted like red fireflies, drifting up in the smoke, vanishing behind the stones of the chimney.
Kate’s heart beat fast. She remembered the fire of the bullet that took her right arm. Felt the impact, the burn, the stinging pain, the horror of it all. Her breath quickened. Her eyes welled with tears and when she blinked, one rolled down her cheek. She stared down the flickering barrel of the revolver at the mean smirk on Cora’s cheek. There was movement in the rafters. Cracked Beak had stretched his wings. Still perched on the beam, he leaned his head down from the shadows, into the firelight. There was a certain kind of gleam in his eye, a shimmer that ventured a sign. His body tensed. The feathers of his breast and neck bristled.
In the hearth, the fire burned. The flames and logs gently crinkling, till there came a loud pop. Reflexively, Cora’s eyes darted to the hearth.
Fast and silent, Cracked Beak plunged down from his perch on the rafter. Cora fired a shot, but Kate had already begun to dive to the floor, the bullet whizzing just above her head and biting into the wall of the Dugout behind her. Kate sprawled on the dirt. Cracked Beak attacked Cora, fluttering about her head, flapping his wings in her face, clawing at her with his talons, pecking at her eyes, cawing and cawing. “Get out!”
Kate slipped on the dirt as she scrambled to her feet and sprang for the door. Cora shouted and cursed, firing the pistol blindly. A hole appeared in the door beside Kate, blasting splinters into her face. As the gun barked again, she whipped open the door and darted out into the night.