The Night Visitor (Charlie Moon Series #5)

by James D. Doss

Overview

The morning after the aged Ute shaman receives a perplexing visits from a silent, disheveled matukach "magician," daisy's neighbor Nathan McFain discovers something astonishing buried in the dirt on his foundering Colorado dude ranch: the bones of gargantuan beast from a prehistoric age. It is a find of enormous scientific importance that attracts the attention of a wide variety of individual: noted paleontologist Moses Silver and his archaeologist daughter Delia; pillars of the scientific community Robert Newton and Cordell York; an Arkansas sharpie named Flye, an overly interested local antiques dealer.. and Charlie Moon of the Southern Ute Police Department. At the McFain spread primarily to keep an eye on the disreputable Flye, Moon is curious about the strange old bones ....and wary as well. For things this ancient and rare have been known to inspire evil deeds in the past, including avarice, mendacity, and murder. And when one of the prime players in this timeless drama vanishes without a trace, Charlie worries that his greatest fears have been realized. But while Charlie investigates the unexplained disappearance --and a very suspicious death that follows soon after--using rational and accepted police methods, his aunt Daisy is being drawn by forces preternatural into a grimly related mystery. For craven murder is not the exclusive domain of contemporary Man--and a cry for justice from the past has reached Daisy Perika and tow extraordinary young girls in her care, ensnaring them all in something old, dark, and dangerous.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062034748
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	10/12/2010
Series:	Charlie Moon Series , #5
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	42,507
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

James D. Doss, recently retired from the technical staff of Los Alamos National Laboratory, now spends most of his time in a small cabin above Taos -- writing mystery fiction. He also travels to the fascinating locations where his stories take place, often camping in remote areas to absorb the impression of an Anasazi ruin, a deep canyon, an arid mesa, or a Sun Dance. His Shaman series includes The Shaman Sings, The Shaman Laughs, The Shaman's Bones, The Shaman's Game, The Night Visitor, and Grandmother Spider. The unusual plots are a mix of high technology and mysticism (Shaman Sings), bizarre animal mutilations (Shaman Laughs), theft of a sacred artifact (Shaman's Bones), an unprecedented form of murder and revenge at the Sun Dance (Shaman's Game), a most peculiar haunting followed by the discovery of an astonishing fossil (Night Visitor), and -- because a small girl has killed a spider without performing the prescribed ritual -- the appearance of a monstrous, murderous, eight-legged creature on the reservation (Grandmother Spider, of course!).

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

The End

He has seen it all before. A thousand thousand times . . . and more. It happens so quickly—within a few beats of his heart.

A thunderous roar; a yellow arc flashes by his face.
Must escape . . . run . . . run . . .
but his feet are rooted in place.
There is a thin whistling sound . . .
a sudden, mind-numbing pain.

Then . . .
Filthy water fills his mouth . . . he struggles . . . gags.
Bones snap like dry twigs.
He sees the yawning mouth of the pit . . .
is swallowed up in darkness.

Then . . .
Someone comes . . . someone merciful.
It is Death. She whispers to him . . . caresses his face.
Pain slips away like melting wax.
It is over.

Then . . .
It begins.

The Beginning

There is—as the sage has rightly said—an appointed time for a soul to come into the world . . . and also a time to leave it. Before the first is an unremembered history; after the last, an eternal mystery. These are subjects best left to philosophers, mystics, and poets—and others so inclined to squander away precious hours pondering the unknowable. For those of a more practical nature, there is a quite interesting period nestled between birth and death—where the most remarkable things are apt to happen.

No one has a more practical nature than Daisy Perika—that sly old soul who lives near the mouth of Cañon del Espiritu. It comes from experience. The Ute woman is filled to the brim with bone-dry summers and marrow-chilling winters. Each of these seasons has salted her days with those ingredients thatmake a life palatable. Hard times. Unexpected blessings. Hunger that gnaws at the soul. Merry dancing and feasting. Solemn burials sanctified in mournful song . . . shrill cries of those newly come into the dawn.

She has known the warm morning of youth, the cool twilight of old age. And now that darkest of dark nights draws near. These should be days for rest and contemplation, the old woman knows. A time to prepare her spirit for the journey into that eternal world . . . where she will be forever young. But this present world—with its multitude of annoyances, problems, and difficulties—is a very great distraction. By way of example . . .

Not having a telephone.

Arthritis in her knee joints.

The fact that her favorite nephew is still a bachelor.

Charlie Moon should be raising himself a family, bringing his children out to see her. Daisy Perika has made herself a most solemn promise. She will refuse to die until he marries himself a wife—and that is that.

Once Charlie has a wife to worry about, maybe the Ute policeman will stop nagging her about moving into Ignacio. The Ute elder is quite content to spend her days here in the wilderness. Daisy is, in fact, quite snug in her small trailer. Her home, though it may seem modest, is a way station at the entrance to that great canyon where she hears haunting echoes of words yet unspoken. In this special place, she knows that comfortable security of one who belongs. And well she should. The shaman has plied her arcane craft here for seven decades. She gathers black-stemmed maidenhair fern from the cool depths of the Canyon of the Spirits; she plucks antelope horns from the arid wastelands—but will not touch the dangerous jimson weed.

When her aching legs would carry her there, the old woman scours the windswept roof of Three Sisters Mesa for the purplish-blue flower of the cachana, which is also called Gayfeather and Rattlesnake Master. This hardy herb is useful for a variety of ailments—and as a talisman to protect Daisy's fearful clients from mal de ojo. The Ute elder—though hardly a timid soul—does not journey to the lofty crown of the mesa more often than is absolutely necessary. Apart from the difficulty of the ascent, this is a holy place, and therefore dangerous to mortals. Here, shimmering ghosts of the Old Ones walk even at noonday—and the pine-scented west winds never cease their melancholy moanings. When the sun sets, there is a black elderberry bush that bursts into scarlet flame . . . but is not consumed. Moreover, every living thing waits in rapt expectation for the signal that this world is about to end—that long rumble of thunder preceding the final, cleansing storm. A cluster of gnarled piñons lingers here as a stalwart congregation, patiently awaiting the arrival of One who will appear as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west . . . when all of the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

And so the Ute shaman climbs the mesa but seldom . . . and makes haste to depart before the bush is touched by fire.

From her store of pulpy roots and succulent leaves, those delicate petals of pearly pink blossoms, Daisy brews concoctions both practical and problematical. There are varied purposes for her prescriptions, ranging from the ordinary to the exalted. This sly old physician treats a whole host of common complaints, from nosebleed and menstrual cramp to bite of snake and sting of wasp. Any day of the week, the shaman can conjure away bumble wart or other unseemly blot of skin. With one hand tied behind her back Daisy Perika can ward off vengeful ghost, malicious water-baby . . . or other such shadowy presence.

The Ute shaman is, of course, not without peers in her chosen field of work.

It is true that there are a few Navajo hand-tremblers and Apache mystics who wield similar powers. There is a very old black man in Pagosa who can mumble away warts from any part of your body. And there is the ninety-pound Cajun woman the locals call Fat Nelda. She plies her dark art in a rusting yellow school bus just south of Mancos, survives on a diet of green tea, pretzels, and Norwegian sardines. This remarkable bruja (so it is claimed) can conjure sturdy new teeth into the gums of old crones and fresh crops of hair onto the shiny heads of those unfortunate men who suffer...

Editorial Reviews

An old lady shaman, four backbiting paleontologists, a con man, two orphans, two cops and a ghost: from this grab bag of real and unreal Americans, Doss conjures up his fifth Shaman mystery, a quirky, satisfying follow-up to last year's The Shaman's Game. This time, Ute tribal cop Charlie Moon is asked to keep an eye on Horace Flye, an Arkansas rapscallion straight out of Mark Twain. Horace inexplicably has found employment with a team of paleontologists digging up Nathan McFain's ranch. Rumor has it that Nathan himself discovered a mammoth tusk with butcher marks--possible evidence of a human kill site dating back 31,000 years. Just as the feuding scientists consider publicizing their remarkable find, Horace disappears, leaving behind a bratty six-year-old daughter named Butter Flye. Moon brings Butter to his aunt Daisy Perika, an elderly shaman who has other worries, chiefly a mute, mud-caked, blue-eyed spirit holding an egg who has been loitering around her trailer in the dead of night. Once again, Doss dazzles with his trademark blend of Native-American folklore, science, satire and suspense. Sometimes there's too much of a good thing: vivid but extraneous minor characters muck up the action, and an extended subplot involving series regular Police Chief Scott Parris and his journalist girlfriend seems tacked on for old time's sake. But wry Officer Moon and irascible Daisy continue to charm as the series' lead characters. The dialogue crackles, and the Southern Colorado atmosphere astonishes, especially at night. Author tour. (Sept.) FYI: The Shaman's Game will be published in mass market paperback in August. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Ute lawman Charlie Moon and shaman Daisy Perika return in another satisfying blend of modern murder and ancient beliefs, set on the Southern Ute Reservation in Colorado. Charlie investigates a murder associated with a paleontological dig, while Daisy senses a much older injustice. An excellent addition to the series. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Another visit to the Colorado territory of Ute Indian policeman Charlie Moon, his white friend Scott Parris, chief of police at nearby Granite Creek, and Charlie's aged Aunt Daisy, a shaman afflicted by visions and prophecies, presently sharing her trailer home with eight-year-old orphan Sarah Frank (The Shaman's Game, 1998, etc.). The whole area is talking about the mammoth skeleton found on Nathan McFain's dude ranch, now being examined, under a huge tent, by world-famed experts in the fields of paleontology and archaeology, headed by Professor Moses Silver and his daughter Dr. Delia Silver—and being heralded by no less than the cover of' Time magazine. The diggers are deaf Jimson Beugmann and Horace Flye, a newcomer from Arkansas who shares his beat-up trailer with his six-year-old daughter Butter. An important second find at the site is a flint blade that eventually brings Charlie and Scott into a complex plot involving a wealthy collector, tons of' money, and local antiques dealer Ralph Briggs. More importantly, it leads to the deaths of McBain and Flye, leaving Butter in Aunt Daisy's care and Charlie to figure out the whole unlikely series of' events. The patient reader with a taste for Indian lore will be intrigued. Others may be put off by the endless turns of plot and the too-frequent, determinedly poetic explorations of myths and mesas. A hard-working combination of fantasy and practicality, then, but not for everyone.

Kirkus Reviews