It had been cold in Magellan and snowy in Flagstaff, but up here, winter had settled in hard. Glittering drifts piled on either side of the plowed highways, and the tall ponderosa pines were mantled in snow.
Naomi loved the beauty of it, though part of her looked forward to spending a balmy Christmas day under the palm trees with her folks in Tucson. She wondered briefly what her parents would say when she brought Jamison with her and told them he was back in her life. She glanced at Jamison, who lounged comfortably beside her, sunglasses shielding his eyes from the glare of sun on snow. Her parents would be delighted. Jamison charmed everyone.
They stopped in the Apache community of Hon Dah for hot coffee, and Jamison asked a convenience store clerk if he knew a shaman called Alex Clay.
Naomi wasn’t really surprised when the Apache man grinned and said, “Hey, Jamison. How’ve you been?”
He and Jamison talked about mutual acquaintances and family members for a moment, then the man continued.
“Yeah, I know old Alex. He lives down by Whiteriver. I’m not sure exactly where. He’s a crazy old man, though.” The clerk mimed lifting a bottle and drinking.
“Thanks.” Jamison paid for the coffees and held a steaming cup to Naomi. “If anyone else asks about him, you never saw me.”
The man flashed a sunny smile. “Sure. I don’t gossip.”
“Like hell he doesn’t,” Jamison said under his breath as they climbed back into Naomi’s truck. “But he doesn’t like strangers and won’t tell them anything.”
“Where to now?” Naomi asked as she put the truck in gear.
“We go to Whiteriver and ask around.”
She gave him a dark look. “So this Alex Clay doesn’t have an address?”
“You’ve lived in a town too long, love. Someone will know where he lives and give us directions.” It had already taken hours to drive along snaking highways through snow and traffic, and there was the Ghost Train celebration to get back for. “He doesn’t have a cell phone or anything?” Naomi asked, exasperated. “Some way we can call him and ask where he lives?”
“Probably not. If he’s anything like my grandfather, he’ll think cell phones were invented by evil spirits to enslave humanity.”
“Yeah?” She subsided. “He might be right about that.”
Jamison studied her a moment, his sunglasses still. “Grandfather likes you, Naomi. He’s just not comfortable with non-Indians.”
“It’s all right.”
Jamison slid his hand to her thigh, his touch warm. “He’ll come around.”
“Really, it’s all right.” As long as Jamison was beside her, she thought, making her feel loved and wanted, she could put up with the silent disapproval of his grandfather.
Whiteriver was a small community, but it was busy today with last-minute Christmas shoppers as well as hunters and skiers up from the desert cities. Jamison talked to several people, who, for an interesting change, had never met him. At last Jamison jumped back into the truck with a smile on his face and kissed her.
“Go that way,” he said, pointing down a side street.
Naomi followed Jamison’s directions. Soon they were out of town, following a tiny ribbon of road through snowy paradise. Naomi drove carefully, keeping an eye out for stray elk, other cars, or citified hunters who might mistake a red Ford pickup for a deer.
After half an hour, the pavement ended and they followed a washboard road through the woods. The road had been plowed, which meant people lived back here, but Naomi winced as her tires ground through frozen potholes.
Finally Jamison pointed to a tiny house in the shadow of the trees. Smoke rolled from its chimney.
“Here, I think.”
Naomi parked in front of the house, but Jamison put his hand on her arm when she started to open the truck’s door. “Wait a few minutes. Let him get used to the idea that we’re here.” Naomi was impatient to get on with it, but she recognized that she had to do this Jamison’s way.
“One thing I don’t understand,” Naomi said as they waited. “If the Alpha of these Changers thought you were such a threat, why didn’t he try to kill you right away when you came along? Why keep you alive and try to make you part of the pack?”
Jamison smiled a chill smile. “Because the Alpha is a snob. Apparently, I’m a purebred Changer. One of the Alpha’s missions in life is to keep the Changers’ blood from being diluted. That’s why he wanted to mate me to one of his—to breed more purebloods.”
“Ick. Like you’re a racehorse.”
“That’s how I saw it. It drove him crazy when I told him that the woman I claimed as mate wasn’t a Changer at all.”
Naomi shuddered. “That’s why he wants to keep you from being with me? How bizarre.”
“He’s fanatical about genetics and inheritance for some reason. What I’ve learned is that Changers in the Americas were originally shamans from a tribe that has long since vanished—divided into and absorbed by other tribes. The shamans became so attuned to the animals they watched and prayed to that they learned their essences, their spirits, and could eventually take their shapes.”
“You mean like skinwalkers?”
Jamison sketched a symbol in the air that he’d told her was a sign against evil. “Not like skinwalkers. A skinwalker wraps himself in the hide of a freshly killed animal and then morphs into its shape.
Skinwalkers are evil and dangerous. These shamans understood the spirits of the animals, they could become an animal. It was the animal gods’ gift to them. In my case, the mountain lion.”
“Can Changers be other animals? Not just mountain lions?”
“Depending on the original shaman they descended from, yes, though it’s usually a predator. Wolves, coyotes, hawks.”
“If you are a pureblood,” Naomi said, “that would mean your father was a Changer. Or your mother.
Right?”
“Both my families have the genetic strain, the researchers in the pack told me. But apparently the ability to change doesn’t manifest in every generation. If anyone else in my family can change, they’ve never admitted it.”
“The researchers?” Naomi picked up on the word.
Jamison went silent a moment. “They had a lab. They had money. Everything was state-of-the-art.” Naomi reached over and plucked off his sunglasses. Behind them his eyes were filled with memories of pain. “They hurt you,” she whispered.