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"Won’t there be leftover stuff?"

"Yes A few bits of carbon or hydrogen Neutral non-active ingredients"

I painstakingly constructed thetheical spectrum so that Granuaile could see what happened

"Watch closely"

"Watching"

I energized the bindings and the powder in the bowl stirred and poofed a wee bit

"Wait Is that all?" Granuaile said "Nothing happened"

"Everything happened That was a bowl of three percent poison and ninety-seven percent random crap that they put in pills tois worth it Now it’s almost one hundred percent poison I never would have been able to do that before I took chemistry"

"You got a degree?"

"No, I sat caht the texts This is now an extre a bottle of olive oil? I don’t want to risk tearing these gloves at all" She returned shortly with an opened bottle for me "Pour slohile I stir?"

"Sure," she said "Why the olive oil?"

"It acts as the carrier This is basically going to be a thin ointment Once this is all mixed and the alkaloids are distributed evenly, we’ll coat the caltrops with it and we’ll be good to go"

We worked in silence for a few minutes as we mixed the alkaloids with the base When I was satisfied, I said, "Lovely Noe just have to coat the caltrops with it without accidentally poisoning ourselves"

"That sounds perfectly relaxing, sensei," Granuaile said She put on two pairs of gloves, and we arranged a procedure where we coated small batches of caltrops in the bowl, fished them out with the slotted spoon, let the excess oil drain, and then placed they by the knowledge that a careless splash could kill us We finished with only a couple of hours to spare before sundown We hauled the weaponized caltrops up to the hogan, where Frank was sitting cross-legged on the floor in some kind of meditation We tried to be quiet as we raided the cooler for cheese and crackers and ice-cold cans of tea

Frank heard us anyway and grunted as he opened an eye "You all ready, Mr Collins?"

"As ready as I can be," I said, nodding

"Good So aan to clamber to his feet

"You are? For what?"

"For killin’ skinwalkers, o’ course," he said, brushing dust off his knees

I held up a hand "Frank, I didn’t ask you to take part in this You oughtta get out of here, actually; give your nephew a call"

"Naw, I’onna have to get un You slow ’eed a worried glance with Granuaile "Frank, I can speedthee like that You only had the one chance to call Monster Slayer"

"I know But you can’t speak e What if they wanna talk before killin’ us? Whattaya gonna do then, play charades? Look, son, this is what bein’ a hataałii is all about I’m s’posed to protect my people from evil Now, this evil co, and it’s threatening Diné people, and I’m damned if I’ll let sooin’"

There is no arguing with pride Jesus and the Morrigan couldn’t talkto be able to talk Frank out of doing this I gave hian to worry about hoould protect hiht, Frank," I said "I have a bit more business to conduct before we do this Excuse me?"

He and Granuaile nodded at h near sundown Underneath a shaggy-barked juniper, I sat on the ground and took the opportunity to have an overdue conversation with Colorado

//Druid greets Colorado / Harmony//

//Harmony// came the reply

//Coal old now?//

//Yes / Coal stopped / Gratitude / Keep coal old//

//Harreed

Not for the first time, I reflected that the earth is so much simpler to deal with than people On the other hand, the earth never gets my jokes

Chapter 28

Frank and I chose a spot near the south butte, facing the north butte from whence the skinwalkers always appeared With the approach to our backs defended, I took the five-gallon bucket of poisoned caltrops and carefully scattered the up as I went I spread them out over fifteen feet or so to make sure the skinwalkers would not leap over them Frank surveyed the scatter pattern uncertainly