The Cat Wears a Mask Read online

  He helped her into the car with an excess of gallantry. Gail went swiftly to the station wagon, slid in beside Christine, who was at the wheel. Ilene was already in the rear, as she had arrived, looking lost and tired and afraid.

  “That stumped him,” Bob chuckled. He opened the little hamper. Inside, neatly together, were two quart bottles, cloudy with some mixture containing the vodka. “Love, love, love. I’ve almost forgotten what it was like.”

  All the sunshine in Arizona’s coppery blue sky seemed concentrated upon the top of the mesa. It was breathlessly hot. The Hopi village was crowded with people, both whites and visiting Indians, who were waiting for the Snake Dance ceremonies to begin.

  There had been, Gail explained, eight days of ceremonial prayers in the underground temple, or kiva—prayers no white had ever witnessed—and now in the climactic dance the snakes were to be brought forth and handled, in defiance of danger, then released to find their way to the gods of the underworld with the Hopi prayers for rain.

  There was as yet no sign in the open square of the priests who were to perform the dances, and the crowd moved restlessly under the sun. Some of the Hopi men had set up little stalls, selling native jewelry, baskets, and iced drinks, and were doing a brisk business. In one stall Miss Rachel found a Kachina doll, brilliantly colored. “That is the Farmer Kachina,” the stallkeeper explained. “Brings fertile crops.”

  He went on to explain that the figures were carved of the cottonwood roots washed down into the arroyos. Miss Rachel opened her purse, but Hal Emerson was beside her, offering the Hopi some bills.

  “An offering.” He gave her the Kachina doll.

  “A bribe?”

  “Perhaps. If you’d say a good word—” He broke off.

  Miss Rachel glanced beyond him. Christine Ryker was close, bent over a tray of silver-and-turquoise jewelry. The big cartwheel hat made a shadow in which her hands moved, small and cruel and nervous. The feeling that Miss Rachel sensed at that moment from Hal Emerson was one of such utter hatred that it seemed a physical force.

  She turned away with the Kachina doll and found a narrow strip of shade under an adobe wall. Two Navajo women in flaring skirts and velveteen jackets moved aside, smiling, to give her room. The crowd was growing noisy and restless. She caught a glimpse of Bob Ryker in a doorway. Perhaps he imagined himself out of sight, or didn’t care—he was opening the little hamper. Ilene was across the open square, bent over and talking with a small Hopi child who carried a puppy.

  Miss Rachel turned as someone touched her sleeve.

  Gail was behind her; with Gail was an Indian girl. Miss Rachel had expected Zia to be dressed in the native Hopi costume—a long, straight gown of hand-woven dark wool, a white wrap about the shoulders, white buckskin leggings and moccasins—since Gail had explained that Zia had returned almost completely to the ways of her people. Apparently, though, the girl had prepared herself for the trip home with Gail. She wore a corn-colored linen dress, cut very simply. Her figure was small, straight, graceful. A necklace of silver and turquoise at her throat, ancient and heavy work, and her manner of doing her hair, a black mass swirled over her ears in a modified version of the squash-blossom hairdress of the Hopi maidens, were the only Indian touches to her costume. She carried a buckskin bag by its laces. It was well filled and must contain overnight things.

  Her hand was cool, her smile friendly, as Gail introduced them. “You’ve never seen the Snake Dance before?”

  “No. Isn’t it … dangerous?”

  Zia smiled as though the question were familiar. “Not dangerous for the priests of the Snake and Antelope clans. You understand, of course, that the whole ceremony is a prayer for rain. Are you prepared for a downpour?”

  Miss Rachel showed a touch of surprise. “Are the prayers answered so quickly?”

  “Almost always.” Her eyes were masked now, but her tone held no trace of banter.

  Gail broke in. “Zia and I have been talking over the situation in regard to the notes. She didn’t get one, but she feels that those who did should get together and show the messages we received and discuss them openly. I—I agreed with her, at last.” Behind the bravado in Gail’s attitude Miss Rachel sensed the sick reluctance; she sensed, too, that Gail had reached the stage of wishing to flaunt her letter instead of admitting it had hurt her.

  The Hopi girl spoke softly. “These letters have done much evil, if they are as Gail described them.”

  Miss Rachel’s face had taken on a slightly popeyed look which seemed unwarrantedly apprehensive. Gail turned, puzzled. Across the square a new group of people had arrived, shepherded by a conductor. Miss Jennifer Murdock had left the others, however, and was bearing down in their direction.

  “I’d forgotten all about Jennifer,” Miss Rachel admitted guiltily. She was astonished that she had not only forgotten her sister—she had overlooked the fact that Jennifer would expect her to rejoin the tour at once, and before this business at Gail’s house was finished.

  There was sudden pushing and clamor. A pulse of excitement ran through the crowd, and Miss Jennifer was swallowed up in its movement. A group of Hopi priests had emerged from the hole leading to the temple and had begun to circle the plaza, meanwhile scattering some sort of meal on the packed adobe earth. As the noise from the crowd gradually died, a primitive rhythm became audible, a beating and stamping accompanied by the rattle of gourds and the thump of drums.

  Zia’s voice came. “They are summoning the gods of the underworld to witness the need and the prayer for rain. Rain is our life, here on the desert. If my people have it, they live. If not …”

  The crowd of mixed whites and Indians had pushed forward at the start of the ceremony; now there was a wild scramble to move back. A little leafy shrine at one end of the square was visited by each priest in turn, and each came away with a snake. Miss Rachel thought that if a snake may be said to have an expression, these looked tired and short-tempered. A few women shrieked. Now, with the rhythm becoming sharper, the Snake priests danced with the snakes coiled about them—even held between their teeth.

  Miss Rachel stood transfixed. It was a scene, she thought, which made you think of man’s beginnings, of his once close association with the earth and with the animals on it. She saw, too, the pattern behind the Snake priests’ performance. With each Snake priest was one of the Antelope clan, circling close, drawing the snake’s irritable attention by means of a little feather-tipped wand. The reptilian eyes were attracted by the moving tuft of brilliant feathers; the scaled heads weaved and turned.

  The dancers were painted grotesquely in black and white; with wildly straggling black hair and fringed kirtles, they looked strange and savage. They discarded the snakes after a time by simply dropping them upon the ground. Each snake tried to take his departure as quickly as possible, off into the crowd. There were minor panics when one almost got away. Usually a third priest was at hand with a wand—not always, it seemed, as quickly as he might be.

  The crowd grew more and more tensely excited as the number of snakes taken from the shrine increased and were more swiftly discarded. One woman created a near-riot by fainting almost at the feet of a dancing priest. In the group that bent over her was Bob Ryker. His hands were fumbling with the catch of his little hamper—perhaps he intended to offer the fallen woman some of his liquor.

  The movement, the heat, the pressure of the uneasy crowd made Miss Rachel want to shut her eyes. But now, she knew, was the important time to keep them open.

  She turned to ask Zia if all the snakes were carefully kept count of; the sunny space beside her was empty. Zia and Gail had disappeared into the mob. Miss Rachel, suddenly alert, stood on tiptoe and tried to see over the surrounding heads. An eddy of pushing people caught her; somewhere a woman screamed, “Rattler! Rattler! Get it, somebody!” Then she found herself at the open space. The Snake priests had converged on the heap of entwined, gathered-up reptiles and were picking them up in bunches like so much cordwood, starting now
the race for the bottom of the mesa to release these messengers of the underworld, the shadowland where mute gods waited to make rain.

  One of the priests had dropped his feathered wand. It had been tossed to within an inch or so of Miss Rachel’s foot. She reached for it curiously—one of the Antelope clan took it gently away. But her eyes followed him, dwelt on the cluster of feathers thoughtfully.

  Gail and Miss Jennifer were together at her elbow. Gail looked very tired and Miss Jennifer had a grim air of suddenly being convinced of a lot she had only suspected before. No doubt Gail had mentioned the house party, forgetting that Miss Rachel had been supposed to come home with her because she was feeling ill in Reno and didn’t wish to be alone.

  Gail spoke. “We’d better leave now. There is always such a rush to get away. And what Zia said is true—there usually is a quick downpour, sometimes a flash flood, right after the dances.”

  They gathered at the cars—there were two more people, now, than when they had come, Miss Jennifer and Zia.

  Zia was coolly and relaxedly friendly to the others, exchanging a few reminiscences about college days with them during the few moments they waited. Miss Jennifer wore her putting-to-rights look. It was the look she wore when she straightened linen closets, checked up on the quality of strawberries in the bottom of the basket, and told off men who smoked next to her on busses.

  Miss Rachel decided she had best be meek. Very meek.

  The first big spattering drops hit the windshield as they turned into the courtyard. Almost weirdly, the answer of the gods to the rain prayers, big soot-colored clouds, had crawled steadily up into the sky on the way home. The earth, too, had darkened. The floor of the desert lay under shadow, and the mesas in the distance, topped with fringes of scrub pine, looked almost black.

  The house seemed to have changed in their absence. Gone was all trace of sunlit glare; there was now a warm, sticky foreboding of rain. The arches of the gallery were stark against the gray light, the tiled floor already peppered with sprinklings. Miss Rachel ushered Jennifer into her room, where the cat met them by rising off the bed and stretching herself. There was an instant of extremely pregnant silence.

  Miss Jennifer neither sat down nor removed hat or coat. “Rachel, I know now that you came here with a deliberate hope of digging up some sort of frightfulness. There is something queer about this house party.”

  Miss Rachel stared at her soberly. “You noticed it so soon?”

  “The gentleman with the basket—Mr. Ryker—explained things to me on the ride home.”

  “Did you notice what he had in his basket?”

  “I noticed what he had been doing … I didn’t have to see the contents of that basket. He kept popping onion flakes into his mouth, but that didn’t keep me from knowing that he was—ah—under the influence.”

  Miss Rachel tried desperately to think of something soothing to say. Jennifer gave the room a cursory glance, then continued.

  “You may as well get your things together, Rachel. You aren’t staying. We’re rejoining the tour and going on to the dam. It’s a very important dam—what would we do for water in Los Angeles otherwise, considering the rainfall we’ve had this year?—and touring it will be most educational.”

  “The house party is over, anyway,” Miss Rachel admitted.

  “Then Gail won’t mind if your departure is immediate.” Jennifer had located the cat’s basket and placed it upon the bed with the lid open. Samantha regarded it warily from the other side of the room. “The tour people are sending a car for us. Mr. Peele has been most obliging since I caught him behind that shrub with Miss Caxton. Though I still don’t quite trust that man—”

  They both jumped with fright. There had been a scream from somewhere near by, a sharp, furious sound that rose to a shrill note, then seemed cut off sharply. They remained motionless, listening. The room seemed to darken as they waited. The only sound was a quick patter of rain on the sill of the open window.

  Christine’s voice came from the gallery, followed by the tapping of her high-heeled shoes. Their door was jerked open and she stood there, a twitching red shape against the gray light and the shadows of the arches.

  She transferred a curled piece of paper from her right to her left hand, then bent to rub her ankle. The strip of paper, in the glimpse Miss Rachel had of it, looked heavily watermarked in a dull green color—Miss Rachel thought of a train or bus ticket. Christine’s tone was harsh, venomous. “Your damned cat’s under my bed. It clawed me. Or bit—what horrible fangs it has!”

  If she had waited a moment longer, she must have seen the black cat, standing tall and curious at the edge of the bed. But she seemed in a frenzy of rage and frustration; she turned and, running to the top of the stairs, stopped there to fling words back at their door. “I’m going down for an ax. I’m going to chop off your cat’s head—she’s not going to get away with this!”

  Miss Jennifer blinked. “She must be insane. Our cat is in our room. We’re leaving as soon as the car comes for us, anyway—we’ll ignore her.”

  “No. We can’t ignore her and we must hurry.” Miss Rachel pulled her unwilling sister with her towards Christine’s half open door. “She hasn’t locked it—be careful where you walk.”

  Jennifer regarded the floor with astonishment. “Why?”

  “I think I can show you why.”

  Chapter 7

  Ornate silver-backed toilet articles were gathered in a heap upon the dresser. An array of dresses and suits was laid over a chair. There was an odor of perfume in the air, a dry musky scent, and an open suitcase on the bed had a layer of peach-colored lingerie neatly packed in. Apparently Christine had been standing beside the suitcase when she had thought the cat struck her.

  Jennifer started for the bed, but Miss Rachel stopped her. “Let’s have a distant look, first.”

  She took a coat hanger from one of the dresses and they knelt down some distance from the bed. Miss Rachel reached, lifted the edge of the coarse-woven blue spread. For a moment there seemed to be nothing at all. Then, near the footboard, on the floor, Miss Rachel saw twined glistening mottled coils and a raised coffin-shaped head in which two little eyes gleamed evilly.

  Jennifer screamed and bolted. At the door she fell over Florencia, who had lowered her bulk in time to glimpse the thing on the floor and was now screaming in unison with Jennifer. They made a frightful noise. Someone peered in so briefly above their scrambling bodies that Miss Rachel failed to catch who it was. She was trying to back away as quietly and cautiously as possible.

  Outside, she closed the door swiftly. Jennifer and Florencia had disappeared at the arched doorway to the stairs. Miss Rachel turned, found herself facing Bob Ryker. He wore his usual air of whimsical naughtiness; in this instant Miss Rachel found herself impatient with it. “We must find your wife at once. She’s been bitten by a rattler.”

  His hands clenched. “Where is she, then?”

  “She’s downstairs, looking for an ax. She didn’t realize what struck her. Hurry!”

  Still he didn’t move. “Where is the snake?”

  “In there!” She left him standing and ran for the stairs, a sense of suffocating urgency crowding up into her throat, blood pounding behind her temples. Minutes—seconds—counted now. Through her mind ran the details of what must be done, quickly and without nerves. Tourniquet. An X-shaped incision, deep, in the flesh over the wound. And someone with good teeth, sound gums, no cracks or irritation on lip or tongue, and the cold courage to suck snake venom.…

  Ilene was in front of her suddenly, her face like a paper mask in the darkness of the hall. There was a faint frost of rain on her hair, in the lashes above the staring eyes. “What’s happening? Why is everyone running?”

  Miss Rachel shook her head. “Which way did she go?”

  “Your sister?”

  “Christine. She’s been bitten by a rattler in her room.”

  Ilene shuddered; the movement of her body rippled in Miss Rachel’s f
rantic grip. “How horrible.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know.” Ilene turned her face, looking sick.

  Miss Rachel moved on towards the garden, then stopped. She had to think, think swiftly and well. Christine might have decided to bring a tool from her car, and on this chance Miss Rachel took a moment to look out in that direction. The cars stood in a row, deserted. From the sky came gusts of rain. Miss Rachel turned back into the hall. Ilene had vanished. In the living room a clock struck the hour, six, with a deep ringing tone. There was another clock, Miss Rachel thought in desperation, keeping time with her running steps. It was Death’s inexorable timepiece.

  She hurried through the hall, out into the gallery that faced the garden. Christine may have intended to ask Pedro to lend her an ax. Or she may, considering the mood she was in, have gone off to help herself from the tool shed on the other side of the garden.

  Bob Ryker came out into the dusky light, running his hands through his hair. “I don’t see her nor hear her.”

  “Every instant counts. She must have a tourniquet above that bite.”

  His thin body wavered indecisively, like a long puppet on a string. “I know. I can’t seem to think of what to do. Should I shout for her?”

  “Yes, that’s it, shout!”

  His voice echoed loudly in the garden. “Christine! Oh, Christine! Come here! Now!”

  They waited. Rain spattered in a sudden gust that hissed among the flowers and vines. A shadow, deeper than before, rolled through the sky. Bob Ryker lifted his hands to form a megaphone.

  It was then there came a loud scraping noise, a clank and rattle, and Christine came into sight through some vines. She dragged an ax by its handle, the iron head scraping the brick walk. She moved with a slow uncertainty, as if exhausted, and while they stood in that first instant of surprise she stopped and weaved a little and wiped her forehead groggily with the back of her free hand.