Read Online Daniel Hecht_Cree Black 02 by Land of Echoes - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Land of Echoes
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toads, stones, broken glass, pins, worms. Breathing
problems such as choking, coughing, wheezing. Foaming at the mouth, foul body smell, speaking in tongues, speaking in an altered
voice. Blasphemy, hypersexuality.
She turned hurriedly past that section to the summary of purported causes. Historically, the victim was thought to be inhabited
by a demon or "unclean spirit," a Satanic entity conjured or inflicted by someone nearby, usually an old woman or man who
was thought to be a witch. Such accusations often resulted in the torture and execution of the accused, usually by burning
or crushing. In later centuries, medical explanations came into favor, with the torture reserved for the victim: physical
"purging" treatments such as whipping, immersion in ice water, lifelong incarceration in madhouses, exotic drug therapies.
Toward the end of this list were the modern interpretations: epilepsy, hysteria, schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder.
Though the recent perspective was more enlightened, contemporary cures didn't strike Cree as all that improved: electroshock
therapy, lobotomy, mind-altering pharmaceuticals.
Feeling shaky, she put the stack on the desk. The woodcut bothered her: its dark, blocky rendering, the agonized victim, the
serpent demon's nasty face. She knew she should read more tonight, but she didn't feel up for it. Instead, she put the whole
pile back in its envelope as if that would contain the superstition and terror, keep it from getting loose in the room.
Thanks loads, Mason, she thought.
Her beer had gone flat and metallic-tasting from sitting so long in its can, but she finished it, welcoming the soothing effect
of the alcohol. The numbing effect, whatever.
She dialed Joyce's number, got her answering machine, left a message asking her to coordinate with Ed and fly down as soon
as she could. Then she turned out the lights and got into bed. Sleep didn't come for a long time. The fat envelope waiting
on the desk bothered her. She thought about Paul and about the odd oscillations between doubt and warmth they'd just been
through. Then she wondered about what Ed had said, about just where the line between preoccupation and obsession was, and,
further up the spectrum, the line between obsession and possession. There wasn't any easy answer.
Later, closer to the void, she wondered where Joyce was. Where Tommy Keeday was. Where Cree Black was.
6
JULIETA DROVE like a bat out of hell. But everyone drove fast out here, Cree noticed. The distances were long, the horizons
endlessly unfolding in low swells of bare, rocky earth, largely unchanging. If you didn't put the pedal down, you might think
you weren't moving at all.
They'd left the university at one o'clock, after Cree's obligatory participation in a morning panel session and a speakers'
luncheon with the UNM psych faculty. The way Julieta drove the Oak Springs School pickup, they covered the distance from Albuquerque
to Gallup in under two hours. In Gallup, they stopped at a restaurant supply wholesaler to load the bed of the truck with
paper towels and cafeteria napkins, six big bales wrapped in plastic that now nattered and flapped in the wind. They cut north
on Route 666 and turned west on Route 264 toward Window Rock for the last hour of the drive.
After spending a week on the Hopi reservation, four years ago, Cree knew that the Big Rez of the Navajo was a separate world
in more ways than one. The formal treaty borders enclosed an area as big as New England, but even that was little more than
an island on the Colorado Plateau, isolated from more populated regions by a million square miles of deserts and mountains
that stretched from central Mexico up the backbone of the continent. It was big enough to resist not only physical but also
social change, and the Native American reservation lands were the home of cultures in many ways thousands of years as well
as thousands of miles removed from
problems such as choking, coughing, wheezing. Foaming at the mouth, foul body smell, speaking in tongues, speaking in an altered
voice. Blasphemy, hypersexuality.
She turned hurriedly past that section to the summary of purported causes. Historically, the victim was thought to be inhabited
by a demon or "unclean spirit," a Satanic entity conjured or inflicted by someone nearby, usually an old woman or man who
was thought to be a witch. Such accusations often resulted in the torture and execution of the accused, usually by burning
or crushing. In later centuries, medical explanations came into favor, with the torture reserved for the victim: physical
"purging" treatments such as whipping, immersion in ice water, lifelong incarceration in madhouses, exotic drug therapies.
Toward the end of this list were the modern interpretations: epilepsy, hysteria, schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder.
Though the recent perspective was more enlightened, contemporary cures didn't strike Cree as all that improved: electroshock
therapy, lobotomy, mind-altering pharmaceuticals.
Feeling shaky, she put the stack on the desk. The woodcut bothered her: its dark, blocky rendering, the agonized victim, the
serpent demon's nasty face. She knew she should read more tonight, but she didn't feel up for it. Instead, she put the whole
pile back in its envelope as if that would contain the superstition and terror, keep it from getting loose in the room.
Thanks loads, Mason, she thought.
Her beer had gone flat and metallic-tasting from sitting so long in its can, but she finished it, welcoming the soothing effect
of the alcohol. The numbing effect, whatever.
She dialed Joyce's number, got her answering machine, left a message asking her to coordinate with Ed and fly down as soon
as she could. Then she turned out the lights and got into bed. Sleep didn't come for a long time. The fat envelope waiting
on the desk bothered her. She thought about Paul and about the odd oscillations between doubt and warmth they'd just been
through. Then she wondered about what Ed had said, about just where the line between preoccupation and obsession was, and,
further up the spectrum, the line between obsession and possession. There wasn't any easy answer.
Later, closer to the void, she wondered where Joyce was. Where Tommy Keeday was. Where Cree Black was.
6
JULIETA DROVE like a bat out of hell. But everyone drove fast out here, Cree noticed. The distances were long, the horizons
endlessly unfolding in low swells of bare, rocky earth, largely unchanging. If you didn't put the pedal down, you might think
you weren't moving at all.
They'd left the university at one o'clock, after Cree's obligatory participation in a morning panel session and a speakers'
luncheon with the UNM psych faculty. The way Julieta drove the Oak Springs School pickup, they covered the distance from Albuquerque
to Gallup in under two hours. In Gallup, they stopped at a restaurant supply wholesaler to load the bed of the truck with
paper towels and cafeteria napkins, six big bales wrapped in plastic that now nattered and flapped in the wind. They cut north
on Route 666 and turned west on Route 264 toward Window Rock for the last hour of the drive.
After spending a week on the Hopi reservation, four years ago, Cree knew that the Big Rez of the Navajo was a separate world
in more ways than one. The formal treaty borders enclosed an area as big as New England, but even that was little more than
an island on the Colorado Plateau, isolated from more populated regions by a million square miles of deserts and mountains
that stretched from central Mexico up the backbone of the continent. It was big enough to resist not only physical but also
social change, and the Native American reservation lands were the home of cultures in many ways thousands of years as well
as thousands of miles removed from
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