Whirlwind

SEVEN

A low fire burned in a shallow pit.

Smoke rose in dark trails, winding fire-reflected patterns around the large underground room before escaping through the ragged round hole in the ceiling.

Shadows on the roughly hewn rock walls cast by shadows seated on planks around the pit.

Six men, cross-legged and naked, their bodies lean and rawhide-taut, stringlike hair caught in the sweat that glittered in the firelight, their hands on their knees. Their eyes on the flames that swayed to a breeze not one of them could feel.

Over the fire, resting on a metal grate, a small, flame-blackened pot in which a colorless liquid bubbled without raising steam.

A seventh man sat on a chair carved from dull red stone, back in the shadows where the rite said he belonged. He wore no clothing save a cloth headband embedded with polished stones and gems, none of them alike, none bigger than the tip of a finger. In his right hand he held the spine of a snake; from his left hand dangled the tail of a black horse, knotted at the end and wound through with blue, red, and yellow ribbons. His black eyes were unfocused.

Eventually one of the six stirred, chest rising and falling in a long, silent sigh. He took a clay ladle from the hand of the man on his left, dipped it into the pot, and stood as best he could on scrawny legs that barely held him. A word spoken to the fire. A word spoken to the smoke-touched night sky visible through the hole. Then he carried the ladle to the man in the chair, muttered a few words, and poured the boiling liquid over the seventh man's head.

The man didn't move.

The water burned through his hair, over his shoulders, down his back and chest.

He still didn't move.

The horsetail twitched, but the hand that held it didn't move.

The old man returned to the circle, sat, and after shifting once, didn't move.

The only sound was the fire.

A lone man waiting in the middle of nowhere.

He stood in the center of a scattering of bones-coyote, mountain lion, horse, bull, ram, snake.

And from where he stood, he could see smoke rising above Sangre Viento Mesa, rising in separate trails until, a hundred feet above, it gathered itself into a single dark column that seemed to make its way to the moon.

In the center of the smoke-made basket the moonlight glowed emerald.

The man smiled, but there was no humor.

He spread his arms as if to entice the smoke toward him.

It didn't move.

He was patient.

It had moved before; it would move again.

And after tonight, when the old fools had finished, he would make it move on his own.

All he had to do was believe.

Donna rolled over in her sleep, moaning so loudly it woke her up. She blinked rapidly to dispel the nightmare, and when she was sure it was done, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up, pushing hair away from her eyes, mouth open to catch the cool air that puckered her skin and made her shiver.

The house was quiet.

The neighborhood, such as it was, was quiet.

Moonlight slipped between the cracks the curtains left over the room's two windows, slants of it that trapped sparkling particles of dust.

She yawned and stood, yawned again as she scratched at her side and under her breasts. The nightmare was gone, scattered, but she knew she had had one, knew it was probably the same one she had had over the past two weeks:

She walked in the desert, wearing only a long T-shirt, bare feet feeling the night cold of the desert floor. A steady wind blew into her face. A full moon so large it seemed about to collide with the Earth, and too many stars to count.

Despite the wind's direction, she could hear something moving close behind her, but whenever she looked back, the night was empty except for her shadow.

It hissed at her.

It scraped toward her.

When she couldn't take it any longer, she woke up, knowing that if she didn't, she was going to die.

She didn't believe in omens, but she couldn't help but wonder.

Now she padded sleepily into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and wondered if it was too late, or too early, to have a beer. Not that it mattered. If she had one now, she'd be in the bathroom before dawn, cursing herself and wondering how she'd make it through the day with so little sleep.

She let the door swing shut with a righteous nod, yawned, and moved to the back door.

Her yard was small, ending, like all the other yards scattered along the side road, in a stone-block wall painted the color of the earth. Poplars along the back blocked her view of the other houses even though they were too far away to see even in daylight, unless she was right at the wall.

Suddenly she felt much too alone.

There was no one out there.

She was cut off, and helpless.

The panic rose, and she was helpless to stop it. Running from the room did her no good because she could see nothing from the living room window either — the rosebushes she had spent so much time training to be a hedge fragmented her view of the road, erasing sight of the field across the way.

Trapped; she was trapped,

A small cry followed her to the door. She flung it open and ran onto the stoop, stopping before she flung herself off the steps. Cold concrete made her gasp; cold wind plastered the T-shirt to her chest and stomach.

I am, she decided, moving back into town first thing in the morning.

It was the same vow she made after every nightmare, and it made her smile.

Oh boy, tough broad, she thought sarcastically; think you're so tough, and a lousy dream makes you a puddle.

She stepped back over the threshold, laughing aloud, but not loud enough that she didn't hear the hissing.

The smoke rose and coiled and swallowed the emerald light.

Mike Ostrand was a little drunk.

Hell, he was a lot drunk, and could barely see the dashboard, much less the interstate. The gray slash of his headlamps blurred and sharpened, making the road swing from side to side as if the car couldn't stay in its proper lane.

This late, though, he didn't much give a damn.

The road from Santa Fe was, aside from occasional rises not quite hills, fairly straight all the way to Bernalillo, and into Albuquerque beyond. Just aim the damn thing and hold onto the wheel. He'd done it hundreds of times.

He hiccuped, belched, and grimaced at the sour taste that rose in his throat, shaking his head sharply as if to fling the taste away.

The radio muttered a little Willie Nelson.

He wiped his eyes with one hand and checked the rearview mirror. Nothing back there but black.

Nothing ahead but more black.

The speedometer topped seventy.

If he were lucky, if he were really lucky, he'd be home by two and asleep by two-ten, assuming he made it as far as the bedroom. Two-five if he couldn't get past the couch.

He laughed, more like a giggle, and rolled down the window when he felt a yawn coming. Drunk or not, he knew enough to understand that cold air blasting the side of his face was infinitely preferable to dozing off and ending up nose-down in a ditch, his head through the windshield.

The air smelled good.

The engine's grumble was steady.

"And so am I," he declared to the road. "Steady as a rock and twice as hard."

Another laugh, another belch.

It had been a good night. No, it had been a great night. Those pinheads in Santa Fe, thinking they knew ahead of the rest of the world what the next artsy trend would be, had decided he was it. Living collages, they called it; the desert genius, they called him.

"My God!" he yelled, half in joy, half in derision.

After a dozen years trying to sell paintings even he couldn't abide, he'd sliced a small cactus in half, glued it to a canvas, added a few tiny bird bones and a couple of beads, called it something or other, and as a lark, brought it north.

They loved it.

They fucking loved it.

He had meant it as a thumbed nose at their pretensions, and they had fallen over themselves trying to buy it.

The wind twisted through the car, tangling his long blond hair, tugging at it, threatening a headache.

Five years later, twenty-five carefully assembled when he was roaring drunk canvases later, his bank account was fat, his home was new, his car was turned in every year, and the women were lined up six to the dozen, just waiting for his living desert fingers to work their magic on them.

It almost made him sick.

It didn't make him stupid.

Trends were little more than fads, and he knew full well that the next season might be his last. Which was why he needed to hole up for a while, work through an even dozen more projects, and get himself out before he ended up like the others — flat broke and saying, "I used to be someone, you know, really, I was," while they cadged another beer from a stranger in a strange bar.

The speedometer topped eighty.

The headache began.

Acid bubbled in his stomach.

The back of his hand scrubbed across his face, and when his vision cleared, he saw something to the right, just beyond the edge of the light.

He frowned as he stared at it, then yelped as the car followed his stare and angled for the shoulder. The correction was too sharp, and he swung off toward the wide empty median, swung back again, hit the accelerator instead of the brakes, and yelled soundlessly when the right-side tires bit into the earth off the blacktop.

The car shuddered.

He froze — turn into the skid? turn out of the skid? — and watched in horror as the low shrubs and deep ditch charged him and veered away at the last minute, putting him back on the road.

Sweat masked his face.

His bladder demanded immediate relief.

His left hand shook so much he thrust it between his knees and squeezed until it calmed.

"My God," he whispered. "Jesus, man, Jesus."

Twenty-five, he swore to himself; he didn't care if it took until dawn, he wouldn't go faster than twenty-five all the way home.

He wasn't sober, but he sure as hell wasn't as drunk as he had been.

The speedometer reached fifty.

He saw the needle, saw it climb again slowly, and decided it would be all right. Sixty, no more; he'd be home quicker, and that was okay because he was a menace to himself out here.

A hard swallow, a deep breath, his right hand flicking the radio off because what he didn't need now was interference with his concentration. Just watch the road, pay no attention to anything that—

He saw it again.

Just a suggestion of movement running with him on the other side of the ditch. Which was impossible. He was doing sixty-five, for God's sake, there wasn't anything except another car that could go that fast.

He squinted a stare, broke it off when the car began to drift, and licked his lips.

There wasn't anything over there.

Good God, there couldn't be anything over there. It was the headlights, that's all, running along a row of juniper maybe, or some pinon, rock, something like that. His eyes caught the strobelike reflection, and the scotch turned it into something that paced him.

That's all it was.

He wished the moon were a little brighter.

Forget the new canvases, he decided a half-mile later; the hell with it, he was done. He had enough money, the house was paid for, what the hell more could he want?

The car jumped sideways when something slammed into the passenger door.

He yelled, and watched his hands blur around the wheel, watched the road blur black to gray and black again, screamed when the car was struck a second time, and looked over to see what drunken idiot was trying to run him off the road.

There was nothing there.

When he looked back, it was too late.

The highway was gone.

All he could do was cross his arms in front of his face, close his eyes, and scream.

There was no fire, no explosion.

Mike Ostrand hung upside down in his seat-belt, listening to the engine tick, listening to the wind blow through the open window.

Listening to the hiss he thought was the tires spinning to a halt.

A few seconds later, he blacked out when something reached through the window and touched his arm.