Chapter 4: Pieces of a Puzzle
Pale moonlight dimly illuminated the bedroom and the watch on the nightstand gave four short beeps, indicating another hour had passed. Picking up the watch, Wolf saw it was two in the morning. It was about this time last night that he heard their 'invisible houseguest' walking around and he wondered if "Blanket Woman", as the sisters affectionately named her, was planning to make another visit, then realized he really didn't care.
He and Cora had gone to bed four hours ago and he had been lying awake ever since. Trying to lay still and not toss and turn and wake Cora, he could not shake the memory of the rock that fell and nearly hit the both of them on their hike the previous afternoon. Turning onto his side he looked at his sleeping wife curled up next to him and he brushed a few stray hairs off of her face. She meant everything in the world to him and today, if he hadn't looked up when he did, he could have lost her.
While it was possible the rock just happened to come loose and fall at that particular moment, it was also possible it had help from someone on top of the mesa. If that was the case, then heaven help whoever pushed the rock because Wolf would have no mercy on them if he caught them. Rolling onto his back and closing his eyes, he put his arm across his forehead and took a deep breath, slowly letting it out in a big sigh. He tried to relax but sleep would not come.
"Wolf?" asked Cora.
"I'm sorry babe, did I wake you?"
"It's ok." she said. "Can't you sleep?"
"No, I can't seem to relax and get comfortable."
"Would you like me to make you some hot tea? We have some Chamomile and your mom packed us some of her tea as well." offered Cora.
"Some of Mom's tea? Are you trying to put me to sleep or poison me?" he laughed, thinking of how notoriously bad his mother's herbal remedies taste and smell. "No thanks, I'm fine."
Cora snuggled up closer to him, placing a light kiss on his shoulder before laying her head there and gently caressed his chest as she stared at the window. She knew her husband well and she knew what was bothering him. Looking up at him, she could see the troubled look in his handsome face.
"Your thinking about the rock that fell, aren't you?" she asked him.
"Yeah. It was probably just a coincidence that it fell when it did, but it really shook me up. And working in law enforcement doesn't help. You see and hear so much stuff in that line of work; it's hard not to get suspicious about things like that.
"Well you're off duty now and we're in the middle of nowhere on wonderful vacation. Rocks do fall by themselves and nobody was hurt, so try not to think about it. I'm really enjoying myself and I want you to enjoy yourself too. Please Wolf? For me?"
Just then, Cora and Wolf heard the bathroom door clunk and footsteps pacing the livingroom before moving to the kitchen and rattling the teakettle. Wolf gave a low laugh and pulled Cora closer to him.
"Sounds like "Blanket Woman" is going to take you up on your offer for some tea. I only hope she doesn't drink Mom's stuff. If she's not dead now, she will be after drinking some of that!"
After finally getting a few hours of sleep, Wolf woke up at sunrise and quietly slipped out of bed and went to the kitchen. He was surprised to find Uncas already up, making coffee.
"Your up early." said Wolf.
"Yeah. I decided to take a shower before anyone else got up. I didn't sleep to well. Too much on my mind." Uncas replied.
"Same here. What do you think, Fox? Are we reading too much into all this?"
"I thought so at first, when you saw those guys in the parking lot. But now I don't know. After seeing a similar truck driving out by the mesa and the spots where someone was digging by the ruins, it does seem a little odd. And then that rock falling the way it did. I just keep wondering…" said Uncas, his words trailing off as he became lost in thought. Giving his brother time to think, Wolf got up to pour two mugs of coffee before sitting back down again.
"Wondering what?" Wolf finally asked as he handed a mug to Uncas.
"What if whoever was digging out there didn't want anyone snooping around. And what if we weren't supposed to find that cavern? Remember what you said when we were down there and we heard those voices? You said it didn't sound real. What did you mean by that?"
"I dunno. It sounded fake somehow. Not like anyone was actually speaking."
"Maybe it wasn't real. Maybe the voices and the falling rock were intended to scare us away." said Uncas.
"I agree the voices could have been a scare tactic, but that rock could have killed somebody." said Wolf. "I dunno, maybe we are making something out of nothing. Like Cora said, rocks do fall by themselves and what we thought was voices could have just been wind." Finishing his coffee, Wolf got up from the table.
"I don't know what to think anymore." he said to Uncas. "Listen, I'm gonna go take a shower too. Then after the girls get up and we have some breakfast, I think we should go to Tuba City and get some more water. Maybe it'll help take our minds off of all this."
Gradually coming awake, Alice rolled onto her side and reached out to her husband, but found his side of the bed empty. Opening her eyes and looking at the vacant place beside her, she vaguely remembered being half asleep when he said something about getting up to take a shower. Slipping out of bed, she put on a bathrobe and stepped out into the livingroom, meeting Cora who was coming out of her room as well. After a quick look around, the sisters each spotted their husbands.
Alice saw Uncas, naked except for the bath towel he wore around his waist, standing with his back to her in front of the kitchen sink. Cora looked out the open front door and saw Wolf standing outside on the front deck as he usually did, leaning on the railing and staring off toward Jackrabbit Mesa. Giving each other a conspiratory smile, the sisters each snuck up behind their unsuspecting husbands.
Coming up behind Uncas, Alice felt him relax as she kissed his back while reaching around him and caressing his bare chest. While one hand continued this task, the other reached into the slit in the towel and took hold of him, massaging up and down the length of him as he grew hard in her hand.
Cora did much the same to Wolf, coming up on him from behind and sliding one hand up inside his tee shirt as the other opened the fly on his jeans and slid inside. Achieving the same reaction from him that Alice was getting, Cora was thoroughly enjoying the feel of her husband as he hardened. When he turned around to face her, she tilted her head back and rose up to meet his lips. But instead of bringing his face down to hers, a look of surprise came over his features.
"Cora? he said.
Meanwhile back in the kitchen, Alice continued to work on her husband. As he stood with his back to her, enjoying her touch, he happened to glance down at the hand massaging his chest and caught sight of the bracelet Alice always wore on that wrist. Alice could feel her husband's relaxed body suddenly tense up.
"Alice! What are you doing?" he asked in a surprised tone as he pulled her hand out of the towel and turned around.
"I'm about to do unspeakable things to my hot and sexy husband." she murmured seductively as she nuzzled her face against his chest, trying to get him back in the mood.
"Well that's nice, except I'm not him."
A collective scream broke the quiet of the morning as both women realized at the same moment they were intimately handling the wrong twin.
Sitting at the table during breakfast both women stared at their plates, unable to make eye contact with anyone and their faces still slightly pink, a noticeable downgrade in color from the crimson they had turned when they realized they'd mixed up their husbands.
Try as they might, Uncas and Wolf could not get the girls to stop feeling guilty about what happened. This was not the first time in six years of marriage that their wives had mixed them up and more than likely it would not be the last. Every time it happened, they told them it was an innocent mistake and an easy one to make and to not worry about it. People mixed the two of them up all the time….granted not in this particular manner.
"You could have said something!" Cora said accusingly to Uncas.
"I did! As soon as I realized it was you and not Alice."
"Ok, here's a solution." said Wolf. "It's not your fault if you mix us up, it's an easy thing to do and Fox and I have always stopped you whenever we've seen it coming. But there's going to be times when he and I will not be aware of it, like this morning and the other times this has happened. So here's what we'll do. If we've got our backs to you, Fox and I promise to say your names right away so you can be sure you've got the right guy before anything has a chance to get started. But there's nothing we can do if we're sleeping so look at the tattoos on our chests first. I know after all these years you probably don't pay much attention to the details on them anymore but just remember, I've got a paw print in the center of the line and he's got a fox head. I know their small but their still noticeably different. Ok?"
Still embarrassed, Cora and Alice agreed and cleaned up the breakfast dishes before getting dressed for the trip to Tuba City. After putting on a pretty flowered sundress and doing her hair into a single braid, Alice knocked on the door of Cora's room and stood just inside the door.
"Cora? I'm sorry about what I did to Wolf. Uncas said he was going to take a shower and that's who I assumed was standing there wearing the towel."
"I know, Alice." said Cora. "I'm sorry too. I did the exact same thing! I saw Uncas outside on the deck and immediately thought he was Wolf because he's always the one standing out there. I guess this comes along with the territory when sisters marry identical twins and live in the same house together!"
"Then we're ok?" asked Alice.
"Yeah, we're ok!" said Cora, giving her younger sister a big hug.
After a two hour drive to Tuba City, the two couples had just turned onto Main Street when a black pickup with a white camper on back passed their vehicle going in the opposite direction. Riding inside of the black truck was a young Navajo couple with two small children sitting between them.
"Ok, I guess there is more than one truck like that out here." admitted Wolf.
Continuing along Main Street, they passed a fast food restaurant and spotted another black pickup with a camper in the restaurant's parking lot. Standing outside the back of the truck were the same two white men they saw at the supermarket two days ago, only this time they were talking to a middle aged white couple.
"Hey, there's those two guys again." said Uncas as he quickly pulled Annie's pickup into a parking lot across the street. Parking behind a van, the four got out and discreetly watched as another sales transaction occurred just like the last one, with the two men loading several boxes into the couples expensive SUV. Another envelope was exchanged and both parties drove away.
"You know, I have to admit that whatever those two men are doing does look suspicious." said Cora.
"Do you really think they were the ones driving out by Jackrabbit Mesa?" asked Alice.
"It's hard to say. It was all too far away to be sure." said Uncas.
"Come on, let's get the water and get back to the house. I'm not comfortable leaving the camp unoccupied for too long." said Wolf.
After filling the water tank in back of the crew cab, they headed over to the supermarket to pick up a few things they needed before heading back. After loading the grocery bags into the truck, they were just about to get in to leave when a Navajo Tribal Police vehicle pulled up along side of them. A young officer got out and, after looking at the pickup, he nodded to Alice and Cora before speaking to the brothers.
"Morning! My name's Officer Dave Yazzie, but call me Dave. You must be the people watching Annie Tsosie's place? I recognize her truck! Annie told me the four of you were coming out here to housesit for her."
"That's right." said Uncas, who then introduced everyone.
"Don and I went to school together." said Dave. "He and I are like brothers. Wow, Annie wasn't kidding when she said you guys are twins! Are you all enjoying your stay here on the rez?"
"Yeah, we are. We're having a great time." replied Uncas.
"How are you getting along out there?"
"We're getting along just fine." said Wolf. "She's got a nice place."
"So everything's good? Nothing unusual happening out there? Maybe around Jackrabbit Mesa?" Dave probed.
"Like what?" Uncas cautiously asked.
Dave gave a quick look around the parking lot to make sure nobody could overhear them before continuing.
"Look, Annie told me you guys work with her son in the Sheriff's Department back in New Mexico, so I know you two would notice anything odd going on in the area. From one cop to another and strictly off the record, I think something fishy is going on out there. Trouble is I can't prove it."
"What do you mean by 'fishy'? asked Uncas.
"There have been several deaths out there over the past couple of years, including Don's father. The first was a history professor from some eastern university. He heard about the Anasazi ruins and came out here to see them. He was supposed to meet his wife in Flagstaff and when he didn't show up she reported him missing. We found him out at the ruins, dead in his sleeping bag. A toxicology report showed he died from an overdose of sleeping pills. His wife said that was bullshit, that he didn't use sleeping pills, but without any witness to say otherwise, it was ruled as an accidental overdose."
A man pushing a shopping cart walked past them and Dave waited until he was out of earshot before continuing.
"The next death was a middle aged Navajo man who went looking for some lost sheep. Same thing. He didn't come home and his wife called the police. We found him out by the ruins as well. Again, no sign of foul play and the autopsy ruled natural causes."
"But you don't believe that?" said Wolf.
"No, I don't. I was there when we found him and I'll never forget the look on his face. It was like he was terrified of something. The Medical Examiner said his facial expression was due to a seizure, but I had found a small bruised area on the back of his neck, like you get from a needle puncture. But the M.E. didn't bother doing any toxicology this time so if there was anything suspicious….any potential evidence went out the window."
Alice and Cora moved closer to their husbands, who each put an arm around his wife's shoulder as Dave continued.
"Then there was a couple of college students home for the summer. They were really nice kids and were engaged to be married. They went out there for a little romance and were never seen again. Annie's husband, Raymond, saw the couple near the mesa, so we know they went out there but there was no sign of them and the case went cold. But Raymond wouldn't let it go, so one day he went out to the mesa to look around for himself. We found his body the next day, crushed underneath a rock that fell from the top of the cliff."
Cora and Alice each gave a gasp as Wolf and Uncas shot a look to each other. Their reactions did not go unnoticed by Dave.
"You have seen something out there, haven't you?" he asked. "Raymond's death was also ruled as accidental, but I don't believe it and neither does Don. We think somebody is behind all these deaths and my lieutenant agrees with us, but we need proof. A lot of the people, especially the elders, believe it's all the work of chindi and skinwalkers. We think that was just a convenient rumor somebody got started in order to keep people away from that area. I've been watching the mesa and the ruins every chance I get but so far I haven't seen anything unusual happening out there. Raymond was like a second father to me. If you've seen something, anything, please tell me because I could sure use your help."
Wolf was hesitant to trust anyone at this point and he silently asked Uncas if his buddy, Don, had ever mentioned a friend named Dave Yazzie. Uncas said Don did tell him about his friend and even showed him a couple of photos of the two of them together. This was indeed Dave Yazzie and Don had told him to look Dave up while they were out here. Deciding to trust Dave, Uncas and Wolf told him about the two men in the black pickup and of seeing a similar truck driving around the mesa, the signs of digging around the ruins, the cavern and the falling rock.
"I knew something was going on out there!" Dave said excitedly. "I've seen those two guys with the truck around town every now and again, but I don't know who they are. I can't just pull them over without having just cause and I've never been able to catch them selling anything. If I could, that would give me reason to check them out."
Seeing how frightened the women were, Dave didn't want to add to their fears but he felt he had to give Uncas and Wolf a warning. As a fellow cops, he knew the brothers would not just sit back and do nothing. He didn't want to pull them into this and put them all in danger but he needed their help. He had to find out if he was right about his suspicions and, if he was, to catch whoever was responsible before any more people ended up dead or missing.
"Listen, be careful out there ok? Don will kick my ass if anything happens to any of you. And you know Don, he's not a guy you want to get an ass kicking from! Here's my card. I want you to call me, day or night if you see anything unusual. I'm even putting my personal cell phone number on it. Cell coverage out here is tricky, so unfortunately you might have to look for a place to get a signal. And I might not be able to answer for the same reason, but don't give up, ok? If you can't reach me, leave a voicemail and I'll get right out there, or I'll send another officer if for some reason I can't make it."
"We'll be careful." said Wolf as Dave received a call on his radio about a domestic dispute.
"I gotta go. Remember now, call me! And for god's sakes, be careful!"