Double Blind. Hannah Alexander

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      Canaan York slowed his silver-blue Plymouth Voyager to ease the impact of a deep pothole that stretched across the dirt road. He scanned the broad plain of desert surrounding the solitary mountain of White Cone. Tanya Swift’s family lived about two hundred yards ahead. Their small frame home, painted clover-green with dark spruce shutters, was a mansion compared to the other houses in this section of the Navajo reservation.

      When Canaan reached the house, he stopped, frowning. Maybe the little runaway hadn’t come back home.

      A cloud of trailing dust rolled past the van and drifted in through the open windows, depositing a layer of grit over everything. Canaan blinked and tugged down on the bill of his baseball cap.

      He glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure no dust streaked his face. He knew that, aside from the light tone of his skin, his long, somber face and dark brown hair and eyes identified him as Native American. Navajo. The People. But he was also well aware that the white half of his heritage continued to instill distrust in a few Navajo.

      Unfortunately, Tanya’s family belonged to that few, depending on the circumstances. And now this had to happen. He could only hope Tom and Linda Swift had already left for their thrice-yearly tour of the Southwest to sell their crafts. If they were here, he would most likely get an earful on his inability to control the students at the school…one lecture among many he’d received from several sources since stepping into the breach two weeks ago and inheriting a job for which he’d never asked—nor trained.

      He wondered, as he’d often done lately, why his grandfather had been so adamant that no one else at the school could do the job.

      A movement caught his attention from a window beside the kitchen door. He studied the low-slung house for a moment. With an intuition developed over years of working with people, he knew Tanya was there. The empty driveway told him she was alone.

      He climbed from the van and walked toward the house.

      Twelve-year-old Tanya opened the door before he had a chance to knock. Her large, slanted, exotic eyes were filled with defiant apprehension.

      “Hi, Canaan.” Her gaze darted past him. “You alone?”

      He nodded. She reminded him of a half-grown lamb, inquisitive and always landing herself into trouble.

      She relaxed visibly and stepped aside. “I know what you’re thinking, and I know what you’re going to say.”

      He ducked slightly at the threshold, taking slow steps, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dimness of the unlit house.

      “You’ve learned the art of mind reading on your long walk home?” he asked.

      “You know I didn’t—”

      “Walk all that way?” In the gloom, Canaan found a yellow-and-red-patterned kitchen chair and sank into it. “How often do I have to talk to you about hitchhiking?”

      Tanya took two mincing steps toward him, the delicate lines of her young face sliding into a grin of mischief. “Who said I hitchhiked? Maybe I turned into Yenaldlooshi and raced the wind home.”

      Canaan studied her expression to see if she was teasing. She wasn’t. He willed away the chill that slid over his skin. For a year, he had battled this superstition at the school, but it had persisted, even grown, the way a piñon sapling grew in the heat of the Arizona sun during a year of good rain. The children had recently begun to blame Navajo spirit entities for everything from unfinished homework to illness to lost track races.

      He would have another talk with Betsy Two Horses. Giving her permission to teach a couple of informal classes on the ancient Navajo customs did not include filling the kids’ heads with terrifying myths.

      “Maybe you raced like the wind to escape Yenaldlooshi, ” he suggested to Tanya, and continued to watch her expression carefully.

      She pivoted away, but not before he saw the fear in her eyes.

      He sighed. “Tanya, who tells you there is a skinwalker at the school?”

      She shrugged, refusing to look at him, which revealed the extent of her fear and clued him to the reaction she expected from him. She wanted him to deny the possibility of any kind of evil beings.

      If Wendy Hunt were still alive, she would’ve been the one to come and get Tanya. She would’ve reassured the girl that there were no evil animal beings, only evil people. Canaan sure missed Wendy’s influence right now. Wendy also would have had an additional advantage as the mother of Tanya’s friend April.

      Or rather, Tanya’s former friend.

      Canaan СКАЧАТЬ