The way she said it—not as speculation but as fact—sent a chill through Kari.“Contain what?”
“Whatever killed him.”Ruth set her weaving aside.“But they did it wrong.That’s not our way.The position, the herbs—it’s mixed up.Pieces from different ceremonies, put together by someone who doesn’t understand.”
“Who would know enough to try but not enough to do it correctly?”Kari asked.
“Someone who learns from books, not elders.Someone who sees our ways from outside.”Ruth studied her granddaughter’s face.“Like you do now.”
Kari accepted the gentle rebuke without argument.It was true—she had distanced herself from these traditions, filled her mind with forensic science and criminal psychology instead.
“The site where he died,” Kari said.“They call it Monster’s Hand.Five rock columns like fingers stretching up from the canyon floor.”
Ruth nodded slowly.“Yé’iitsoh Bitsilí.An old place.Dangerous during Náhásdzáán Yee Adees’eelígíí.”
“The Walking Earth,” Kari translated.“During the full moon.That’s when he went there.When he died.”
Ruth’s expression grew troubled.“Your mother was asking about such places.Before she died.”
Kari straightened.“What do you mean?”
“She was searching old stories.Stories most healers don’t speak of anymore.”Ruth reached for a ceramic mug on the small table beside her, taking a sip of what smelled like cedar tea.“About the time before emergence, when other beings walked this world.”
“What beings?”Kari asked, careful to keep her tone neutral, not dismissive.
Ruth seemed to consider how much to say.“The old ones.Not the Holy People—those who were here before.Some kind, some cruel.Some that hunger for what they lost when the world changed.”
It sounded like myth, like the stories Ruth had told her as a child on those weekend visits.Yet something in her grandmother’s tone suggested more than folk tales.
“What was Mom looking for in those stories?”Kari asked.
“Truth,” Ruth said simply.“Like you are now.”
The parallel was unsettling.“Did she find it?”
Ruth shook her head.“I don’t know.She spoke less and less of her research in the last weeks.Became… careful.Private.”She looked directly at Kari.“She went to Canyon de Chelly the night she died.Did they tell you that?”
“Yes,” Kari said.“They found her body near Spider Rock.”
“Not far from Monster’s Hand,” Ruth said.“During the dark moon, not the full.”
The implication hung between them, unspoken but palpable.Kari’s police training urged caution, coincidence, skepticism.Yet something deeper—the part of her that had sat at her grandmother’s feet as a child, listening to stories of the world’s creation—recognized a pattern forming.
“You think there’s a connection,” Kari said.
Ruth picked up her weaving again, her hands resuming their steady rhythm.“I think you should ask why someone tried to contain whatever killed your professor, even if they did it wrong.”
“You’re suggesting something…” Kari hesitated to say the word “supernatural.”
“I’m suggesting you remember there are older truths than what your police manuals teach,” Ruth said.“Truths your mother respected.”
Kari’s mind worked through the implications.Her skeptical side insisted this was magical thinking, the kind she’d deliberately set aside in favor of evidence-based investigation.Yet her instincts—the same instincts that had earned her that high clearance rate in Phoenix—whispered that Ruth’s perspective might hold value.
“I’m meeting with Dad tomorrow,” Kari said, changing direction.“He consulted on Harrington’s research.”
Ruth’s expression hardened at the mention of Kari’s father.Their relationship had been strained even before the divorce.“What does James Blackhorse know of sacred sites?”
“He works with the Museum of Northern Arizona now.Anthropological research.”Kari watched her grandmother’s reaction.“He might have information about what Harrington was looking for.”
“Be careful what you share with your father,” Ruth said.“He sees our ways as artifacts for glass cases.Dead things to be labeled and studied.”
