Dark to Mortal Eyes by Eric Wilson

vanished from the board.
    For crying out loud, why couldn’t people leave things alone? His father, as a young infantryman, had purchased this chess set more than five decades ago in the weeks following the Nazi surrender. The set was irreplaceable. The fact it had arrived on American soil without a mark was testimony to its value.
    Now a piece was gone. The inner sanctum had been violated. The question was, who had been in his office? Rosie, Kara, Henri Esprit …
    Someone else? Or … something else?
    He admonished himself for irrational suppositions. Time to get a grip.
    After a thorough check of the carpet and the space under the furniture, he plunked down on the black leather sofa. Moonlight sparkled amid the chessboard regiments, but the queen’s space remained empty and dark. Kara’s parting words played once more in his ears. Had she been trying to tell him something? No, he was reading too much into this. Of course she would show back up. Always did.
    He changed into swim trunks, grabbed a towel and a Black Butte Porter, then headed for the back deck Jacuzzi.

    The Tattered Feather Gallery specialized in Native American art. Suzette Bishop owned the shop on SW Second, and though she carried other items—sand candles, myrtlewood clocks, Mount St. Helens ash-carved statuettes—itwas the tribal imagery that connected her to the beating heart of mother earth. She told customers she had Nez Percé blood, and she’d begun to believe it herself.
    Hadn’t she smoked peyote in college? That made her one of them. In her haze, she’d felt the brush of feathers on her skin, heard the scream of a soaring eagle.
    Thus, her self-given native name:
Tattered Feather
.
    Through dream catchers strung along the gallery window, Suzette watched the sun complete its circuit. With closing time at seven, she had just over an hour to go.
    A sharp tone sounded at the entrance, and tree shadows leaped through the opening shop door.
    “Still open?”
    “Why, yes, yes, absolutely. Come on in.”
    A stooped, middle-aged man entered, toting a paper-wrapped canvas as large as himself. Suzette retreated behind a long glass display case. A premonition? She wasn’t certain. What had the electric eye seen that made it cry out so?
    “How’s your evening? Any questions I can answer for you?”
    “I’m an artist.”
    “Wonderful, that’s wonderful.”
    The man ran his hand along the paper, up and down, up and down, while his eyes scanned the showroom. “Didn’t mean to startle you. My apologies.”
    “Oh, no, no, not at all.”
    “Audentes fortuna juvat,” he said.
    She pulled a hand to her chest and wrinkled her mouth. It’d been weeks since her last meeting with ICV. She loved the Pacific Northwest for its natural resources, and this group claimed to fight for environmental concerns. They gathered and inspired artists, taught awareness, and collected and donated funds. More recently, however, they’d segued into anarchist activity under the guise of civil disobedience.
    In her last meeting, she’d seen one recruit—only one—decry such means.
    ICV’s retaliation was swift. Anything but civil. And she hadn’t gone back.
    “Ma’am, I know it’s been a while. I’m seeking your help, hoping to sell my newest work on consignment.” The man stripped away the paper to reveal a white chess queen upon her castle walls. She was reaching for something, losing her balance. Concealed among thorns in a cubist foreground, a book was open, pages flapping. Was this the object of interest? A saffron streak marked the painting’s edge.
    “My, my, my. Very original. Is this yours?”
    The artist gave a nod, his aura draping him like a buffalo blanket.
    “Striking. And quite good.” Suzette Bishop’s misgivings crumbled before her passion for creative expression. “I
like
its brooding magnetism. I’ll
make
a space.”
    The man looked her in the eye for the first time. “Sounds trivial, I’m sure, but do you make deliveries of