Whirlwind

TWENTY-FOUR

"They were ail acting," Mulder said.

He and Scully sat at the porch table with Annie Hatch, he with a slick glass of iced tea, Scully with a glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade. They had invited themselves out on their last day, because Mulder felt the woman should know.

"Sparrow wanted us to believe he was either dumb as a post or a hick who was only around for comic relief. Ciola was the macho, I-dare-you-to-touch-me man, but he was terrified because he knew what Nick could do." He took a long drink and sighed. "And Nick didn't think we'd believe for a second in the Sangre Viento. We're trained agents, we deal with solid evidence and behavioral science and the magic we can do ourselves in the lab”

"It wasn't magic, Mulder," Scully said.

He smiled at the lawn. "Suit yourself."

Too many parts of him still stung where he had been struck by missiles hurled by the Wind, and his face was still an alarming red from his sunburn. He had also been right about the blisters.

Scully, too, was walking wounded, but over the past two days, neither of them had had much time to think about it while they filled out reports, filled out more reports, and listened as Sheriff Sparrow figured for the papers and local television news that the pickup had slammed into the fence while trying to run Scully and Mulder down.

The Sangre Viento had died when the contents of Nick's bag were scattered by the bullet.

None of the news people heard that story at all.

Annie poured herself another glass. "You know, I don't think any of my movies ever had so much excitement. I'm rather sorry I missed it."

Mulder looked at her until she had the grace to blush.

"All right, all right, I was scared out of my mind and hiding in the kitchen. And I'm not sorry at all, are you happy?"

He toasted her with his glass, emptied it and pushed away from the table. They had a late-afternoon flight back to Washington, and driving wasn't going to be all that easy.

Scully finished as well, and as she picked up her bag and stood, he saw genuine reluctance to leave the ranch and Annie.

"Fox?" Annie said.

He didn't correct her.

"What happened to Red?"

"We don't know for sure," Scully answered for them. "We think he was trying to conduct his own investigation. From what the office tells us, he was hardly ever there once we arrived. Sparrow admitted to keeping him informed on the phone, but even he hasn't heard from Agent Garson since the night before we went to the Mesa."

"I think he went there on his own," Mulder said, slipping his sunglasses from his pocket and sliding them on. "I think he'll be found before long, but he won't be alive."

Another actor, he thought; the easterners he couldn't stand had come out to conduct what should have been his investigation, and he had to pretend to like it all the way.

They said their goodbyes, and Mulder, if he hadn't already had the sunburn, would have blushed with pleasure when Annie kissed his cheek and made him promise to come back for a visit before she was too old to enjoy it.

They started for the car, but as Scully slid in behind the wheel, Mulder asked her to wait and hurried back to the porch. Annie leaned over the rail when he crooked a finger.

"What is it now?"

He pulled down his sunglasses. "There's a guy over there," he said, pointing toward the Wall. "He sits on that hill and fries himself practically every day. Maybe you ought to go over there sometime and have a talk with him."

Annie stared. "A talk?"

"It's a thought” he said.

"I'm not going back, Fox, if that’s what you're asking."

"I'm not," he said innocently. "But there was this guy they thought was a saint, and he turned out to be a thief and a killer. The kids liked him, I understand."

She didn't respond.

"Besides," he added as he pushed the glasses back up, "who says a saint has to be a man?"

She was still on the porch as they drove toward the main road, and he suspected she would be there for some time to come.

He didn't speak until Scully pulled out onto the interstate. "Amazing, wasn't it? The Sangre Viento, I mean."

She glanced over at him, unsmiling. "I'm working on it, Mulder, I'm working on it."

"Of course you are."

Gradually the desert gave way to the first houses, which multiplied and grew taller, and the interstate grew more crowded. Scully had a silent, close to obscene altercation with a pickup that cut them off, and another with an old tail-fin Cadillac that hadn't yet discovered the speed limit was all the way up to fifty-five.

A mile later, she glanced at him and said, "Do you really think it was power he was after? Because he wasn't really part of that world?"

He didn't answer right away.

"Mulder?"

"Yes," he said at last. "Mostly. Power equals respect is an old lure for those who think they don't have either. Ciola is in the warehouse because he knew what Nick would do. And—"

"That’s not respect, Mulder, it’s fear."

"Sometimes people like that don't, or can't, make a distinction."

A van passed them, music blaring from its open windows.

"Acceptance," Mulder said then.

"What?"

"Acceptance. Power equals respect equals acceptance."

"Equals fear," she added quietly.

He agreed. He also agreed that murder was seldom as uncomplicated as most would believe. He and Scully could probably talk about it all the way back to Washington, and they still wouldn't have the complete answer.

The only one who did was Nick Lanaya.

"Scully," he said while she tried to follow the signs to the airport, "what do you think would happen if, for example, the man who replaces Velador in that circle gets a notion? Like Lanaya did. Lanaya didn't know exactly what went on in the kiva. He made a few guesses, got a few answers from the old man, who didn't know he was giving them, and did the rest on his own.

"What if one of the circle decided to turn mean?"

She didn't answer.

He had no answer.

What he knew was that Nick could possibly have gone on indefinitely, killing those he didn't like, killing those he took a dislike to for no reason at all. He could have, mostly because no one else believed.

He watched the city, the cars, saw an airplane drifting low toward a landing.

Those old men may be wise, but they aren't all old, and none of them is perfect.

Imagine, he thought.

Imagine the power.