Page 49 of Snake-Eater
“Shit, no. A coyote’d think it was his lucky day. Merv’s tucked up on my roof under a solar panel, where he thinks I can’t see him.”
“Oh.”
They reached the circle of the town, and whatever it was stopped following them. Selena looked over her shoulder and had a brief impression of bulk and shadows and small piggy eyes. Then it faded into the dark, and when she looked back, they were in the middle of town, walking past the mechanic. A sleeping chicken roosted inside one of the trucks on blocks.
The door of the rectory was ajar. Light spilled out over the steps.
“Take the wheelbarrow right up there,” said Grandma. “Won’t be the worst thing that’s been in there.”
Selena nodded and shoved the wheelbarrow up the steps, wincing with every bump. The metal legs scraped against the steps. The skins weren’t heavy, but the whole thing was unwieldy and barely fit through the door.
Father Aguirre was nowhere to be seen.
“Give it a minute,” said Grandma cheerfully. “He’ll turn up.” She set the shotgun down on the table and went into the kitchen.
Copper, recognizing a place where she frequently received table scraps, flopped down under the table and made chewing noises.
Selena stared at the wheelbarrow. It seemed desperately out of place in the rectory’s main room. She’d sat at the table and eaten coleslaw and potato salad and chicken enchiladas, and now she was standing here with a wheelbarrow full of barn owl skins.
The door creaked. Selena jumped.
“It’s only me,” said Father Aguirre. His Roman collar was slightly askew and he had white dust on his cuffs.
“’Bout time you got here,” said Grandma Billy. She set a jar full of water down on the table in front of Selena. “Drink that. Panic makes you dehydrated.”
“It does?” said Selena faintly.
“Yeah, sure. Especially if you piss yourself.” She took a slug from her own jar, which, judging by the smell, had something stronger than water in it. “You got something to put down on the table, Father?”
He vanished into the back and returned with a pair of black plastic trash bags. It occurred to Selena that those were the first trash bags she had seen in weeks—everybody composted everything and there was hardly any packaging to throw away.
He spread them out over the table and nodded to the wheelbarrow. “What have you got?”
“Fetch, like I thought,” said Grandma Billy. She pulled on her heavy gardening gloves and picked up one of the skins. Cloth had been sewn to skin and feather with pale-white thread.
“Hmm.” Father Aguirre took out gloves of his own and laid the hide out over the table. “Well. Look at that.”
“Whatisit?” asked Selena.
“Oh, it’s definitely a fetch,” he said. “Which is—ah—a thing you make out of magic and hide and send out after someone. They’re usually harmless. They’re only air inside. A sharp knife would have done it.”
He held one up. The shotgun blast had left an enormous hole in the back of the hide, even though it had contracted somewhat, like a deflated balloon. “The shotgun was probably overkill,” he said.
“Ain’t no kill like overkill,” said Grandma Billy. “Anyhow, I wasn’t sure. Could have been something worse.” She flipped a chair around and straddled it. “Didn’t want to put Selena on the line in case I was wrong.”
“This isn’t a Native thing, is it?” asked Father Aguirre. “Because my friends and I have a professional agreement about that. I don’t try to exorcise anybody’s god and the nice fellows up on the mesas don’t come after me with yucca whips. It’s worked well so far.”
“No,” said Grandma. “Huh, like I’d come to a Catholic priest aboutthat.”
“You might,” said Father Aguirre mildly. “If you needed some of my other talents.”
“Well, maybe,” Grandma allowed. “But it’d be a bad precedent and I’d go ask around on the rez first. No, pretty sure this was all caused by a well-meaning white woman, and you know how much trouble we are.”
Father Aguirre gazed at the ceiling with an expression indicating that courtesy forbade him from saying anything.
“Err ... do you mean me?” asked Selena.
“What? No. I was talking about your aunt.”
