Daisy held out another figurine. In the beam of the flashlight, the crystals in the rock glittered. “Tullah can gather the stones. Tell Harvey I need more pine and sage and there’s still a laurelup there on the ridge. He’llknow.”
How did she know who was out there? Sam tried to peer through the hedge from Daisy’s perspective but it was too thick to seeanything.
Walker took the figure but studied Daisy. “You okay? Can you get up and walk around so we don’tworry?”
She shoved her hair out of her eyes. “You could have brought food.” She picked up her staff and usedit to pull herself to her feet, then shouted her commands at the two on the other side of thehedge.
At Walker’s expression, Sam hid a giggle. He’d removed his sunglasses in these shadows. She was amazed he wasn’t rolling hiseyes.
“I think you better come down for a rest,” she told the older woman with concern. “We’ll bring an army of people up in the morning to helpyou.”
Daisy frowned but wavered uncertainly. “Where’s Valdis? She promised tohelp.”
“We don’t know. We’re looking for her too.” Sam’s unease turned to her aunt. Younger than Daisy, Valdis had the limber strength of a mountain goat. Sam hadn’t been worried about her, untilnow.
Daisy looked reluctantly at her treasure of junk. “I really shouldn’t. But Valdis heard the spirits call. We’dbetter see what she’s found.” She nodded appreciatively, if absent-mindedly, as Harvey pushed through the hedge to deposit his load of twigs in her workplace. Sam thought maybe he’d been herebefore.
Leaving her tools, Daisy hobbled over the low stone foundation with Walker’s help. Harvey was already cutting branches from nearby trees, and Tullah had a skirt full of stones of differentsizes. Sam shook her head in astonishment that seemingly intelligent, educated people would follow Daisy’s crazyorders.
But this was what community did—accepted each other as they were, Sam was beginning tounderstand.
“We’ll leave these for you to start with in the morning,” Tullah called. “We’ll come right down afteryou.”
“Cougars,” Walker said. “Move itquickly.”
Sam took Daisy’s left side and Walker her right and together, they climbed out of thehideaway.
“Is the cart operating?” Walkerasked.
“Should be, but I banged the bumper. Valdis won’t be happy.” Daisy gestured at the back end of the camouflage-painted golfcart.
“I’ll back it out, see if it still runs.” Walker shoved aside broken branches to expose the now well-scratchedsides of thecart.
“Thank you for my lamassu,” Sam said while theywaited.
Daisy nodded absently. “Bad spirits can go in good places. Let him guard yourdoor.”
“Did you see Xavier there when you stopped by?” she asked as nonchalantly as shecould.
Walker shot her an approving glance as he backed out but stayed silent. He did that a lot, Sam noticed. He listened andwaited and when it was time, he acted. She liked the way he’d taken charge of the search, while letting others do their ownthing.
“He’s haunted,” Daisy said. “Evil has drained his soul. I told him to rebuild by doing gooddeeds.”
She sounded perfectly rational, as if discussing last night’s dinner. It was the content of her speech that had Sam shaking her head. It was rather likehaving a sidewaysconversation.
“He overdosed. He’s in the hospital now. Do you know why he might have stopped by myplace?”
Daisy stopped and frowned at the darkening sky. “He knows who wants to kill you. He consorts with the EvilOne.”
