Chapter 11
Snow was beginning to fall as we sat, idling, next to a dumpster in the nearly full parking lot of Durant’s hotel near DIA. The clock on the Cube’s dash read 1:55 a.m.
On the floor of the passenger side was a King Soopers bag that held a small sack of masa harina, a box of quart-sized zipper bags, and about thirty crow feathers that Joseph the Owl had filched from a nesting site next to the South Platte River in Littleton.
“You really think this is going to work?” I asked Joseph, for approximately the ninety-seventh time.
And for the ninety-seventh time, he reassured me. “I guarantee that when Durant sees the crow feathers, he will believe they’re raven feathers.”
“I’m sorry. You are so patient with me,” I said. “I must be driving you crazy.”
“Nah,” he said.
“I’ve never met anyone as patient as you before,” I went on.
“You’ve never met anyone who grew up with Grandfather before,” he grinned. Then he looked at the hotel again. “His light’s been out for a good half-hour. Might as well do it now.” He got out of the car and shucked off his coat.
“You’re going to freeze.”
“I’ll only be naked for a minute or two. Would you please fetch my clothes when I’ve gone?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks.” He grinned as he peeled off his running shoes and socks. “I’m glad you’re here. It’s usually a crapshoot whether I get them back.”
“Joseph? Can I go with you?” I tapped my temple. “In here, I mean. It worked once before.”
He looked at me doubtfully. “Your defenses were down because you were asleep. I guess mine were, too – I’d never had a stowaway before.” He looked back at the hotel. “I don’t know if it will work now. We’re both pretty keyed up. But I’m willing to try it.”
“So am I.”
His eyes were already beginning to glow. He leaned into the car and said, “A kiss for luck?” His lips met mine briefly. Then he shut the car door and dashed behind the dumpster. A minute or two later, the owl perched on top of the dumpster and hooted at me. Then he took off on a glide path for Durant’s hotel room window.
I got out of the car and picked up his clothes, brushing off the snow that was already beginning to accumulate. It was freezing, and the wind was picking up. I got back into the Cube as quickly as I could.
Then I leaned back against the headrest and closed my eyes. Not only was it well past my usual bedtime, but the hollow, raw feeling in my chest told me I was skirting the ragged edge of exhaustion. I couldn’t let myself fall asleep in case Joseph needed me. But I thought if I just rested my eyes for a moment....
I was moving rapidly up a drainpipe, then through a tiny hole in the wall next to the pipe. My progress was slowed a bit by the zipper bag I held in my teeth, but I refused to drop my prize.
Still dragging the bag, I threaded my way through a channel in yellow foam board that other teeth had made. Another hole let me out into a cavernous area with huge pipes running through it. I pushed on the far wall – it was a door. I crawled out from the bathroom cabinet and, still dragging the bag, jumped up onto the desk, and then from there to the windowsill.
I took a good look at the giant snoring in the bed; it was definitely Durant. I dropped the bag then, and carefully chewed a hole in one bottom corner. Then I dragged the bag from one end of the windowsill to the other.
Jumping to the floor again, I scampered to the door of the room. Bright light shone along the threshold. I drew another line of masa harina in front of the door. Then I chewed the bag open the rest of the way and used my front paws to scatter crow feathers by the door and under the window. I paused to clean cornmeal dust from my whiskers. Then I picked up the bag with my teeth again and ran out the way I’d come.
I jerked upright. The dashboard clock said 2:15 a.m. Snow covered the windshield; I ran the wipers to clear it. Then I looked toward the hotel for Joseph.
There he was, in his owl guise. The snow had stopped falling for the moment; I could see that his talons were locked around a thin cable that ran along the side of Durant’s window, and he was using his beak to peck at the glass. I thought I could hear him hoo-hoo. Then he pecked at the window again.
A light popped on in the room. The owl let go of the cable and flew up to the hotel roof.
The light stayed on for quite a while.
Finally, Joseph took flight. On silent wings, he glided across the parking lot toward the Cube.
I shook my head to bring myself to full alertness and got ready to jump out of the car with his clothes in hand. But he overflew the car and headed toward the street.
We hadn’t discussed this part of the plan, but I figured there were only two places he would go from here – his place or mine. And his was closer. I shifted into gear and pulled out of the parking lot, leaving the lights off until I was a couple of blocks away.
I had guessed right. He met me at the door of the double-wide, a little wobbly from shifting, but fully human and already dressed. “I’m starving,” he grinned. “Want some pancakes?”
“Where’s George?” I asked, ducking under his arm to enter the trailer.
“Girlfriend’s,” he said. “He spends a lot of time there.” He closed the door and braced himself with one arm on the wall. “Whoo.”
“Maybe I’d better make the pancakes,” I said.
“So what do we do next?” I asked.
Joseph held out his hand for my used plate, and I gave it to him. Then he carried the plates to the sink and began running water into it. He tossed me a towel. “You dry.”
I laughed to myself. He cocked his head at me – a very birdlike movement, I thought. “The last time I did this, it was my mom handing me the towel,” I explained.
He smiled then, too. “I’d like to meet your mom again,” he said. “Maybe she’ll like me better now.”
“Maybe,” I allowed, although I wasn’t sure about that. “So,” I tried again, “what next?”
“Same thing again tomorrow night,” he said. “And again Sunday night.”
“Do you want me to come along again?”
He looked at me, surprised. “Of course I do. Unless you don’t want to.”
“No, I want to,” I said. I was dying to see Durant get what was coming to him. “I just thought maybe having me in your head would creep you out.”
He turned to me, hands still soapy. “You want to know the truth?” I nodded. “Having you in my head seemed like the most natural thing in the world.”
I swallowed and nodded again. “That’s the way it felt for me, too.” Carefully, I put down the plate I was drying, before I dropped it. “Joseph, what’s happening to us? I feel this...connection to you, but I hardly know you. To be honest – and please don’t take this the wrong way – but I’d just about decided that I wasn’t interested in you at all, except maybe as a friend. And then all of a sudden, boom, it’s all fireworks and heavy breathing.” I sat down at the kitchen table. “I haven’t been this confused about anybody since middle school. Is this real? Or is White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman throwing us together?” I spread my hands wide. “I can’t believe I just said that!”
“About feeling confused?” He leaned against the sink.
“No, about White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman!” I looked up at him. “I’m a good Methodist, remember? Protestant work ethic? Law degree? I’m practically supposed to worship rationalism. But my worldview flew out the window when you flew in. All this crazy shit about gods and goddesses, and being Chosen...goddesses talking to me...Brock being evil – I mean, I knew he was an asshole, Shannon was right about that all along, but....” I’d been staring off into space, but I re-focused on Joseph. “And you. How the hell do I fit you into my worldview?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t expect to be attracted to you, either. For
years, you were nothing to me but an abstract idea – this girl who would fulfill Grandfather’s prophecy. I was so tired of hearing about that damn prophecy that I began looking for you just so he’d quit talking about it.
“Then I found you. After all these years, I stumbled across you in my own hometown. And you were nothing like what I expected.”
“Oh? What did you expect?”
“An Indian princess, of course. Somebody who would float into my life wearing white buckskin and a stoic but regal air.”
I snorted. “You got rooked.”
“I did. And I didn’t.” He was smiling at me. “I am beginning to think that maybe what I got was better than I expected. Better than I deserve.”
I folded my arms and put my head down with a groan. “This is all so fucked up.”
I heard him let the water out of the sink. “It’s nearly four a.m. We should get some sleep.”
As soon as he said the word, I felt exhaustion overtake me again. “Sleep. What a great idea.” With an effort, I got up and went for my coat.
He beat me to it. “Don’t go,” he said, taking it gently out of my hands.
I groaned again. “I can’t do this tonight, Joseph,” I said. “Please don’t make me have this argument with you. It’s too late, and I’m too tired.”
“And it’s been snowing for the last two hours,” he reminded me.
“Shit.” My shoulders slumped. He was right. The roads were going to be in horrible shape, and I was in no condition to cope with them.
“Our sofa’s not as nice as yours,” he said, “but you’re welcome to it.”
I sighed. “Okay, you win.”
He gathered me into his arms. “Everything will look better in the morning,” he said softly, his chin resting atop my head.
“No, it won’t,” I mumbled into his shirt. “But at least we’ll be rested.”
I slept in until about noon. I remembered waking up a couple of times – once when George came in and headed for his own room down the hall, and a second time when I had to use the restroom – but otherwise my sleep was blessedly uneventful.
Finally, the sagging couch defeated my best efforts to roll over one more time, and I got up. I’d slept in my clothes and felt unbelievably grungy, but seeing the state of the guys’ bathroom in daylight put me off the idea of taking a shower. Instead, I stuck a note to the fridge – “Went home to change, will pick you up at 9pm” – and went out to the car.
We’d gotten less than four inches of snow. Quickly, I brushed off the car and climbed in, then cautiously backed out of Joseph’s driveway, thanking...Somebody...that I didn’t get stuck. The sky was a brilliant blue, but the radio said another storm was coming the next day. Great skiing weather, I thought, casting quick glances at the mountains in their mantle of white. Then I thought of Brock and his Vail condo. Curling my lip, I flipped off the radio and drove the rest of the way home in silence.
I had plenty of plans for the day – ordering business cards, checking the hard drive contents to make a list of the documents I needed to replace, grocery shopping – but it never happened. I fell straight into bed when I got home and slept until early evening.
We parked that night beside the same dumpster and kept watch on the same window. At 1:20 a.m., Joseph said, “Something’s wrong. I don’t think that’s him.”
“Why do you...” I began, and then noticed there were two silhouettes on the sheer curtain drawn across the window. “Oh.”
“Right,” he said, “either he’s picked up a date” – he said it as though the concept of Durant attracting a woman amused him – “or he’s changed rooms.”
“That’s bad news, isn’t it?”
“Yes and no. It means we’re getting to him. But it also means I’ll have to find him all over again.” His eyes scanned the rows of windows in the huge hotel.
“What if they put him on the other side?” I said.
He grinned suddenly. “They didn’t. See that window on the eighth floor, three from the left?”
I saw it. A thin line of light shone from under the privacy curtain. Then it blinked out. I looked at the dashboard clock – 1:27 a.m., the same time Durant had turned out the light the night before. “He likes to keep to a schedule, doesn’t he?” I marveled.
Joseph grinned in reply, his teeth shining in the near-dark. “Now, it might not be him,” he said. “I’ll double-check before I start setting things up. If it’s not him, I’ll have to track him down, and that will take longer. But I’m pretty confident we’ve got him.”
“Me too.” I yawned. “Listen, do I really need to come back to your place after we’re done here?”
“Well, no,” he said.
“Because I would rather just head home. I’m fine with waiting here while you’re inside, in case something goes wrong and you need me. But afterward? My bed’s a whole lot more comfortable than your sofa. No offense.”
He sighed softly. “None taken. Yeah, you’re probably right. There’s no need for you to come home with me after. We can make plans for tomorrow night after we’ve both had a good day’s sleep.”
“Perfect,” I said. “Thank you for being understanding.”
The conversation died for a while after that.
Once again, at 1:55 a.m., Joseph got out of the car and changed behind the dumpster, not omitting the kiss for luck – “hey, it worked yesterday, didn’t it?” – and flew toward the hotel. And once again, I collected his clothes and went back to the car.
I tried to relax, but I was too nervous. What if we had the wrong room? What if Durant had set a trap for his intruder? What if he was playing possum, lying awake in the dark?
The minutes ticked away slowly while I cursed my inability to see what was going on and strained for any sign of Joseph. 2:15 a.m. 2:20. 2:23.
At 2:24 a.m., I was out of patience with waiting. I decided to walk up to the building and call his name. I knew it would be futile – it wasn’t as if he would be able to answer if something had happened to him inside – but I couldn’t just sit there any longer. My hand was on the door handle when the owl flew up from the base of the drainpipe. I sagged in relief.
There was not even a flimsy cable next to the window of Durant’s new room. Joseph had to resort to flying into the window, body-slamming it over and over. Finally the light snapped on and the privacy drapes began to part. The owl fled to the roof in the nick of time.
I could see the angry grimace on Durant’s face as he peered out the window into the dark. Then the drapes slammed shut.
A few moments later, Joseph launched himself off the roof. He glided in a wide arc around the other side of the hotel and headed toward his place; I shifted the Cube into gear and headed toward home.
Asleep in my own bed, I dreamed again of the owl. He – we – were winging silently across the plains toward Denver. I recognized the Purina plant as we flew past it. Then we shot straight across the city, the cash register building always on our right and the ever-present mountains a comforting presence on our left. I could see Coors Field now, and the downtown street grid, set at an angle to the neat checkerboard of the rest of the city. And then we were in LoDo.
I awoke a few moments later and lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling; there was just enough light coming through the blinds to make out the contours of the light fixture. All was silent. Then I sighed. As I sat up, I peered into the deep shadows in the corner next to the window. “I know you’re there,” I said. “You can’t sleep propped in the corner all night. Do you want the sofa or the bed?”
“I don’t think I could make it to the sofa,” he said.
I threw back the blanket on the opposite side of the bed.
He rose from the shadows, shambled to the bed, and fell into it face-down.
“How do you keep getting in, anyway?” I asked.
“Chimney,” he mumbled.
I glanced at the fireplace
across the room from my bed. “But there’s a screen over the vent on the roof.”
His head shifted on the pillow until he was facing me. “Not since Sunday night.” He closed his eyes.
“How did an owl fit through that opening, though? You’d barely get your body to fit, never mind opening your wings.”
“Sparrow.” His eyes were still closed.
I leaned back on one elbow, turning to face him. “You shapeshifted into a sparrow to get into my bedroom. After shifting from human to owl to mouse to owl to human, not two hours ago.”
“Didn’t shift back to human. Can we talk more tomorrow?”
I couldn’t help it. “It is tomorrow, you lunatic.”
That got me a smile. “I guess I do howl at the moon sometimes.” His hand crept up and found mine. “Stay, okay? I won’t attack you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said. With my other hand, I brushed his hair away from his face. “Just my luck,” I said softly. “A handsome, naked man falls into my bed, yet my honor is preserved.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Good night, Joseph.”
He sighed and pulled my hand closer.
He remained a perfect gentleman through the whole night, damn the luck. I was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with me.
I awoke around noon to the smell of coffee. Joseph, dressed in a pair of my sweatpants, was presiding over my stove, flipping pancakes in my frying pan. Evidence of his industriousness littered the countertop – eggshells, measuring cups, and my box of biscuit mix.
“Hi,” he said over his shoulder. “Do you have syrup? I couldn’t find any.”
I tossed the eggshells in the trash and pulled the syrup from its hiding place. “How’d you sleep?”
“Like a log. Your mattress is better than mine. Plates?”
I pulled those out, too. He flipped three perfect pancakes onto the top plate and sat it on the breakfast bar in front of me.
I stared at it. “I hate you,” I said. “My first two pancakes always look like burned blobs.”
“Mine do, too,” he grinned. “I already ate them.”
I pulled a couple of forks from the flatware drawer and began eating while he finished making his own stack. They were quite good. I had to admit, I could get used to waking up to him in my kitchen.
Over coffee, I said, “I have an idea for tonight.”
“I’m listening.”
“All this back and forth is killing us. I can’t sleep at your place; you make yourself exhausted coming here. Why don’t we just get a room at the hotel?”
“Two rooms,” he said. “One for you, and one for me and George.”
My heart sank. “Your roommate, George? Your grandfather’s fire-tender, George?”
“Uh-huh. We need him tonight to spring the trap.” He explained why, and reluctantly I agreed. Then I went online and reserved two rooms at the hotel while Joseph cleaned up from brunch. Then he went around the living room, fluffing throw pillows and hanging up my coat.
Eventually, it dawned on me that he kept moving because he was nervous. “Joseph,” I said, “please sit down. You’re making me feel like a lousy housekeeper. Which I am,” I added ruefully.
He stopped in mid-fluff. “No, you’re not,” he said.
“Then stop,” I laughed. “You shouldn’t be cleaning up. You’re my guest.”
“I’m no guest. I’m an intruder.” He sat down miserably on the chair across from me. “I keep thinking about what you said the other night. About how I dropped into your life along with all the woo-woo” – he made air quotes around the word with his fingers – “and how everything’s so confusing for you now. Your whole life is turned upside down. And it’s all my fault.”
“No, it’s not,” I protested, thinking, oh no, what the hell did I say this time? “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman’s. She’s the one who picked me. You didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“But I found you,” he said. “Grandfather’s old, Naomi. He would be the first one to say that he doesn’t have a whole lot of years left. I could have let his stupid prophecy die with him.” He sounded disgusted with himself. “But I had to go looking for you. And find you. And now it kills me to let you out of my sight.”
“That’s not your fault, either,” I said gently. “She’s to blame for that, as well.”
“At first. Not now.” He clutched the pillow across his midsection and stared down at his feet.
I knew I had to be honest with him, even though the truth wasn’t exactly flattering to me. Even though it might ruin whatever it was that was beginning between us.
“Look, Joseph, I was beyond exhausted the other night,” I confessed. “And when I get tired, I babble. All sorts of stupid stuff comes out of my mouth. It’s like the filter between my mouth and my brain shuts down, and any thought that flits across my brain trips right off my tongue. Most of the time I don’t really mean any of it.” It was my turn to feel miserable. “Ask Shannon if you don’t believe me. She’s the one who usually ends up cleaning up the messes I’ve made.”
He looked up at me. “Which part of what you said then didn’t you mean?”
His eyes were so blue, like a deep mountain lake. I wanted to fall into them forever.
I crossed the room and took the pillow from his hands. “If I said I didn’t want to make love to you,” I said, stroking the side of his face, “that, I did not mean.” Then I leaned down and brushed my lips against his.
His hands found my waist as his mouth clung to mine. Then he stood and pulled me into an embrace. I laid my cheek against his chest and listened to his heart beating wildly, in time with mine, before he bent to kiss me again.
Eventually we made it back to my bed. The raw urgency of our first kiss never surfaced that afternoon; no hint of coyote ever showed in his eyes. It was all Joseph, awkward as a teenager and graceful as an owl in flight. It was all honesty. And it was exactly what I needed.