Free Ghost Medicine by Aimée and David Thurlo Page B

Let’s go visit another one of the neighbors instead,” she said, checking her notepad.
    “Okay,” Justine said.
    “While you drive, I’m going totry to reach Clifford on the phone. I may not get him right away, but I know he’ll be checking his messages as often as possible. If a skinwalker’s really in this area, he’ll have more details.”

 
    SIX
    They’d driven about a mile when Ella, looking up after leaving a message for her brother, noticed a dead crow dangling from the wire fence that paralleled the road.
    “Stop,” she said, and pointed.
    “Birds sometimes collide with windows, but they don’t get hung up on fences like that,” Justine said, pulling over to one side of the road.
    “Let’s take a closer look.” Ella got out of the SUVand walked over to the fence. “Decapitated and left hanging upside down by a string.”
    “The kind of thing a skinwalker would do,” Justine said.
    “Yeah, he’s advertising his presence. He wants people to be afraid,” Ella said. “We need to remove this. Like it is with graffiti or tagging, by getting rid of it you show him he’s wasting his time.”
    Ella glanced around, taking in the area carefullyto see if they were being watched. Except for the house they’d just left, barely visible now, there was no sign of life.
    “Looks like the bird was shot.” Justine cut the string with her pocketknife and lowered the dead bird onto a bed of black ants. “Not worth collecting as evidence. Might as well let the body serve as a meal to something.”
    “And at the same time piss off a nut job,” Ella saidwith a mirthless grin. “Let’s get going, but keep your eye out for any more not-so-subtle messages. It looks like it’s going to be a long day, cuz.”
    They soon drove past the home of Dawn’s friend, Bitsy, the girl who’d found the body. An old Navajo man with a white headband was lifting a cardboard box out of his pickup, and as they went past, he looked up, and nodded to Ella.
    “That’s SamuelHenderson,” Ella said.
    “The hataalii from Cudei?”
    “Right. Looks like Joe’s observation was right on target. Bitsy’s family are Modernists but they’d decided to have a Sing done.”
    “Bitsy saw way too much for a girl her age,” Justine said. “They’re probably hoping that’ll help their daughter deal with things.”
    “It’ll also keep her Traditionalist friends from avoiding her altogether. I’d do thesame for Dawn.”
    “Which reminds me,” Justine said. “What’s your daughter think of her dad dating Carolyn?”
    “We haven’t spoken about it,” Ella said.
    “Do you think Rose knows?” Justine looked over at Ella.
    “I doubt it. Otherwise, she’d be making the mother of all medicine bags for my daughter. To her, the chindi is as real as you and I are to each other.”
    Following Ella’s directions, Justinecontinued down the slope of one of the low ridges running perpendicular to the foothills to the west.
    “We’re here,” Justine said at last, pointing with a fingertip raised from the steering wheel.
    “This is the home of Delbert Sells, his wife, and their two elementary school children,” Ella said as Justine pulled over to the side of the road. “He’s a mechanic and she works at the Sixty-four Laundryin Shiprock.”
    A well-maintained pickup with a metal storage compartment in the bed was parked halfway down the narrow driveway. The hood was up and a big red toolbox was on the ground beside the vehicle.
    Beyond that stood a lone mobile home beside a cluster of four very well established fruit trees. “Like the teacher’s rental home and the Willie residence, these people have a well,” Ella said,pointing toward a low shedlike structure at the rear of the trailer. “Nice to be able to have a garden or a small orchard.”
    A man in a dark green shirt with a label above the pocket opened the door of the home and came out onto the small wooden porch.
    “Good morning,” Ella called out. “We’re police