Thomas stared in shock as Steve began to collapse, but Reuben and Calico moved quickly, calling his name and bracing him on either side until they could ease him to the ground. Once they had Steve lying prone on the rock, Calico stood up and glared at Consuela, murder in her eyes.
The big black dog growled a deep threatening sound. Calico quickly bared her teeth, then ignored the dog and turned back to the raven woman. Looking at the three, Thomas realized that Gordo was directing his displeasure at Consuela, not Calico. The dog kept staring at Consuela’s shoulder, as if searching for Si’tala.
Reuben straightened up as well. “You may be from some old corbae clan,” he said to Consuela, “but that means nothing out here. You’d better fix whatever the hell you’ve done to Steve, or all the mojo you’ve got stored up inside you won’t be enough to stop us from taking you apart. Even that oversized dog of yours is pissed at you right now.”
“She sent her ghost raven into him,” Thomas said. “It flew right into Steve’s chest before he went down.”
“I had nothing to do with it,” Consuela said. “Si’tala has a mind of her own.”
Reuben looked confused. “I didn’t see any raven.”
“Steve flinched like he’d been hit,” Calico said, “but I was behind him. I couldn’t see what was happening.”
“It was her bird attacking him—she calls it Si’tala,” Thomas told them. “Her ghost raven. It’s like…her shadow or something.”
“She has a mind of her own,” Consuela repeated.
Thomas nodded. “She likes to blame it for anything she doesn’t want to take responsibility for herself.”
The raven woman shot him a sour look.
“I don’t care what the bird is,” Calico said, “and I don’t care what or who’s to blame. Get it out of him—now.”
“I can’t,” Consuela said. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
Thomas had witnessed Si’tala’s autonomy, such as it was, so he might have felt some sympathy for Consuela if he hadn’t had such a crap day because of her.
Calico nodded. “Then maybe I’ll start tearing pieces off of you until you start to remember.”
The raven woman stood taller. “You could try,” she began.
Gordo suddenly seemed to double in size. He rose and walked stiff-legged toward Consuela until he was directly in front of her, lips curled up, showing teeth. Consuela seemed surprised, but she held up her hands in a placating manner.
Thomas exchanged a puzzled glance with Calico and Reuben. Why was the woman’s dog taking their side?
“It wasn’t my doing,” Consuela said to the dog, then she looked up and sighed. “Fine,” she continued. “This is all I know: there are dreamlands within the dreamlands.” She paused and met each of their gazes. Calico nodded for her to continue. “I think my sister has taken your friend into his own inner world. Into his mind.”
“But why?” Thomas asked.
“You’ll have to ask her. But to reach them, you’ll need a shaman or dreamwalker.”
For a moment, no one spoke, then they all turned to Thomas.
“Don’t look at me,” Thomas said. “I’m no shaman.”
“Perhaps not yet,” Consuela said. “But you have a shaman’s sight. You might be able to see into your friend’s mind and call them both back to us.”
“I wouldn’t even know how to start.”
“Well, I’m no expert,” Reuben said, “but Morago would probably lay his hands on Steve’s temples and…” His voice trailed off and he shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t know either.”
“Medicine is a matter of will,” Consuela said. “It’s a conversation between you and the spirits. Anything else—the laying on of hands, burning tobacco or smudge sticks—is merely a focus.”
“So what do I do?” Thomas asked.
She shrugged. “What the shamans did in the long ago, before they had their rituals and songs. You make it up. You decide what you want to do, and you will it to happen.”
Thomas gave a helpless look to the others, but neither Reuben nor Calico had anything to offer.
Gordo had lain down again, almost the size of a normal large dog at the moment.
Sammy sat off to the side, a glazed look in his eyes.
“I guess she’s right,” Reuben finally said. “Shamans didn’t always know how to work their medicine. At some point, they had to learn how to do it, just as Jimmy Cholla had to teach the first dog soldiers how to find their animal shapes. Somebody had to figure it out.”
“But that somebody’s not me,” Thomas said.
Reuben shook his head. “You don’t know that. You can’t know it until you try.”
“I…” Thomas’s voice trailed off. He looked away to where the otherworld mountains marched to the horizon under skies so blue they didn’t seem real. But after the past couple of days, nothing seemed quite real anymore. He turned to Consuela.
“That feather I gave back to you,” he said. “Do you still have it?”