Whirlwind

TWENTY-TWO

Lanaya's pickup was gone.

A curl of brown dust moved down the street folding in upon itself when the wind began to pick up. Over the flat roofs, Mulder could see another dust cloud rising and falling like the hump of a lumbering beast, until the wind shoved it against a wall and scattered it.

Scully took a step down, shading her eyes against the sun and blowing grit. A shake of her head when she couldn't find what she was looking for. When she turned toward the Mesa, the wind snapped her hair around her cheeks, momentarily blinding her until she turned again.

"How did they know?" she asked. "It’s so fast. How did they know?"

"Someone told them," he answered grimly, and stepped all the way down to the ground. The few vehicles he could see were undoubtedly locked, and he didn't think pounding on doors or windows would get them any help. "We'll have to go back in."

Scully was way ahead of him. She grabbed the large doorknob and tried to turn it over.

It didn't budge.

"Mulder, he's locked us out."

They both tried, and tried using their fists and voices to get the old man to let them in. They stopped when she cursed and massaged her right wrist.

He returned to the street. "Okay, maybe we can find someplace else. A stable or something."

The first place they tried was the warehouse next door, and neither was surprised to find it locked as well. If Ciola is still in there, Mulder thought, he's probably having the time of his life.

They darted across the street and made their way between the two nearest houses to the next street over, saw nothing promising and moved on to the next. By the fourth, he knew they weren't going to find shelter. Not here. And not, he thought as he stared at the Mesa, up there. He didn't know how the Konochine got to the top, but he didn't think they'd take kindly to his trying.

Scully slumped against a house wall out of the direct push of the wind, using a forearm to mop the sweat from her forehead. "Why don't we just wait it out here, whatever it is?"

"We can't, Scully." He stepped away from the house's protection and looked up and down the street. Still nothing. Shutters and doors closed against them. He stretched out a hand and beckoned. "We have to get inside someplace."

"Mulder, it’s only a dust storm. We'll need a week of showers when it's over, but it's only a dust storm."

"No. No, it isn't."

And he knew she didn't really believe in the dust storm idea, either. If it were one, they'd be offered shelter somewhere in here; if it were one, the people wouldn't have gone to ground so swiftly. Ciola had told them only a fool stayed outside when the ceremonial was in progress. But since there was no one, not now, they were obviously convinced the Sangre Viento was on its way.

He turned in a slow circle, frustrated, growing angry, bearing a hand against his leg while he tried to decide what to do next. Hide, was the obvious answer, but where?

Nowhere.

At least, nowhere in the pueblo.

Apparently Scully had reached the same conclusion. She left the wall's protection and started up the street toward the road, purposeful urgency in her stride. He hesitated before following, hoping she wasn't thinking what he feared she was.

When he caught up, she said, "How far do you think it is?"

Damn, he thought.

"Too far to run. There's got to be someplace closer."

"I have no intention of running, Mulder. At least not yet." She pointed to the fields, and the desert beyond. "If it comes from out there, we'll be able to see it, right?" She gave him a tight smile. "When we see it, then we'll run and see what happens."

"What if it comes from somewhere else?"

"Then we won't have to run, will we."

More leaves, dancing.

When they were close enough, they gave the illusion of a funnel; when they separated they were butterflies again.

Until the sand joined them.

Then they become a cloud.

What Mulder desperately wished he knew, what he couldn't deduce from any of the information he had, was how long it took the whirlwind to form. If it took six men to create one only once in a while over the course of a week, surely a single man, no matter how skilled, couldn't create one with just the snap of a finger.

"Oh God," he whispered as they passed the last house and angled westward toward the road.

Not with the snap of a finger, but after sufficient preparation. Which meant—

Scully, staying on his left, unabashedly using him as a windbreak, picked up the pace as she said, "It's Lanaya, isn't it."

"Yes," he said, more convinced now than he had been that morning.

"Why? Ciola's too obvious?"

"No. Ciola didn't know we were coming today. Lanaya did. He's had time, Scully, to get ready He took that old man literally. He's going to stop us." He held up a hand before she could interrupt. "He's going to try to stop us, okay?"

She ran a few steps, slowed, ran a few more.

The wind died abruptly.

He couldn't help glancing to the right every few feet, grateful when the fields blocked him, a little apprehensive when he could see all the way to the mountainous horizon. He had no idea what the Wind would look like, or if he'd be able to hear it coming.

He caught up with her when she paused to shake dust from her hair, and grinned when a sudden gust blew it back in her face. "It's a no-win, Scully."

"Tell me about it."

They walked on.

Ahead, above the road, curtains of shimmering heat hung in the air He took off his tie and jammed it in a pocket. What the hell was he thinking of, wearing a suit on a day like today? And why, he thought further, turning around to walk backward a few steps, didn't he just take his gun, walk up to one of those doors, and threaten to blow the lock off if they didn't let him in?

Because, he answered, they'd probably just shoot back.

Swirls of sandy soil snaked across the blacktop when the wind returned. Rustling made him jump until he realized it was only the corn in its field. A tumbleweed rolled between them, tangling in Scully's feet until she kicked at it savagely and it broke apart, and was blown away.

"Tell me something, Mulder — if this man is so well-liked here, and he can cross successfully between this world and the one out there, why did he do it? Why risk it all?"

They had no water.

His throat was dry, his eyes felt gritty. When he breathed, it was like taking in clouds of fire to his lungs.

They weren't walking nearly as rapidly now.

"He kept saying 'they,'" Mulder answered, licking his lips to moisten them, finally giving it up as futile. "When he gave us that big speech about the Konochine and their dislike of the outside world, he kept saying 'they.'"

He had been one of them until he'd left to go to school. When he came back, he had changed. It was inevitable. And for reasons they might never know, or understand, he hadn't been able to change back, or to adapt as he had adapted to the outside. Mulder suspected it was unfocused anger that forced him to attempt to steal what belonged to the six. They were… Dugan Velador was the wise man, the leader. What he did, what the others did, was accepted without serious question.

How could he not want that respect, too?

What he hadn't understood was that the power the old men had came from the respect they were given, not the other way around.

Lanaya figured, have the power, have the respect. That would make him fully Konochine again.

Scully slowed a little, and he saw how her hair had begun to mat to her neck and scalp. He took off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder, his shirt nearly transparent where the sweat held it against his skin. When he brushed his fingers over his hair, the hair felt hot. He would give a lot right now to look stupid in a hat.

Then he blinked, wiped his face, and blinked again.

The gap in the Wall was only a hundred yards away.

He looked back at the pueblo, and saw nothing move. Dust blew through it, and all he could think was ghost town.

The dust devil grew and spun in place.

It was little more than two feet high, wobbling around its axis as if ready to collapse should the wind blow again.

Butterflies and sand.

No sound at all.

Mulder stumbled, and Scully grabbed his arm to steady him. He smiled at her wanly. "Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?"

"Since when did you ever think I was helpless, Mulder?"

Never, he thought; never.

They walked into the gap, and into its shadow which was no shade at all. Ahead, the road rose and fell as if it were a narrow wave, making him rub his eyes until it steadied. In his shoes his feet burned, and his ankles promised spectacular blisters once he took the shoes off.

Something small and dark scuttled across the road.

It was tempting, very tempting, to take his shirt off. The cloth was a weight his shoulders could barely handle. The jacket on his arm already weighed a ton, and he didn't think he'd be able to carry it much longer.

"How did they do it?" Scully asked as they came out of the gap and stopped. She stared across the desert floor. They could see no interstate, no trucks, no cars, no planes overhead. There was nothing but the sky and the mountains. "How did they cross this place without killing themselves?"

"They had water, for one thing," Mulder said sourly.

"It must have been incredible," she said. She laughed. "It must have been a bitch."

He let his knees fold him into a crouch, his jacket slipping to the road. There was too much space here, too much sky; gauging distance accurately was nearly impossible, but he seemed to remember that the ranch house wasn't much more than a mile to his right. If they climbed the fence and angled overland instead of sticking to the road, they might make it faster.

He didn't realize he'd been speaking aloud until Scully said, "What if you twist an ankle?"

"Me? Why me?"

She grinned. "I'm a doctor, I know better."

It was heartening to see the smile; it wasn't good to see how her face had reddened. They were dangerously close to sunstroke; they had to be. And dehydration wasn't all that far behind. If they were going to do it, they'd better do it now.

He rose with a groan, and with a groan leaned over to pick up his jacket.

"Ciola is evil, you know," she said.

He draped the jacket over the barbed wire and held it down while she climbed awkwardly over.

"Lanaya is worse."

He didn't get it. "Why?"

"I can understand Ciola. But it'll take me a long time to understand Nick."

As tall as a man. And now it began to whisper.

He stumbled over nothing, and commanded his limbs to knock it off. It wasn't as if they were in the middle of the desert, a hundred miles from the nearest civilization. He could already see the fences, could already make out the dim outline of the ranch house. A mile, maybe, he couldn't be sure. But he was acting as though it was ten miles, or more.

Scully sidestepped a prickly pear and nearly walked straight into another. She swiped at it with her suit coat the move turning her in a circle.

"Do you think Sparrow is in on it?"

"What? Sparrow? No, why?"

"He didn't follow us into the reservation, and he wasn't waiting when we came out."

It was too hot to think straight, but he doubted that Sparrow was anything more than understandably skeptical about the whole thing. He was, no doubt, sitting in his office, drinking from his flask, and trying to figure out how he would charm them, or bully them, into getting some credit for the crime's solution. Even if it meant having to accept some magic.

It began to hiss. It began to move.

"There!" Scully announced, "There it is."

They stood on the lip of a shallow arroyo, beside a hand-crafted bridge.

"Thank God, you see it too," Mulder said. "I thought it was a mirage."

They crossed the bridge single file. The vivid green of the lawn was visible now, and through the rising ghostly heat he could make out the house, if not its details.

On the other side, Scully leaned over the rail. "I think those holes in the bank down there are rattlesnake dens."

Mulder wasn't listening.

He had stopped to take a breath, a brief rest on his feet. Without much hope, he checked the gap just in case Ciola, or someone, had taken pity on them, and had followed them in a truck. He also checked the top of the hill, just in case the old man was there. Then he said, "Scully, how fast can you run?"