by Mel Odom
Michael retreated from Liz and knelt on the floor by the old prospector. Michael started to reach for Wilkins's wrist like he was going to check the man's pulse. While he was doing that, several of the cafe's patrons made a quick exit through the door.
Without warning, Wilkins reached up and grabbed Michael's shirt. Startled, obviously a little freaked out by the experience, Michael jerked back and slapped the old man's hands away.
Wilkins gasped and fell back. His mouth worked hard, opening and shutting like a fish out of water. Then he began to shake and shiver the whole length of his body.
"What's wrong with him?" Liz asked, standing behind Michael.
"It went into him," Michael answered.
"What went into him?"
Michael didn't answer.
"You saw it? Liz asked.
Michael hesitated, then he nodded.
For a moment Liz was halfway expecting something to burst out of Wilkins. If something had gone into the old man, maybe now it wanted out. Before she knew she was moving, she stepped back as Michael continued to watch the old man's body jerk and writhe.
"Somebody call nine-one-one!" a man yelled. "Can't you see he's having a heart attack?"
"You know, if I didn't know we were hiding out from your parents, I'd think you were ashamed to be seen in public with me."
A twinge of apprehension rocketed through Isabel Evans, but the feeling was anchored by guilt. She'd never hidden anything from her parents. Well, except for the development of the powers that came with her alien genetics. But now she was hiding possibly the biggest secret she'd had in her life. Not even Max knew. That was pretty bizarre, because she'd never hidden anything from Max, and he'd never been able to hide anything from her since they were kids. But since Tess had left with the baby, Max had had his hands full with his own problems.
And the guy sitting across from her had been totally unexpected, and had so totally knocked her off her feet. She glanced at Jesse Esteban Ramirez seated across the public picnic table. "I'm not ashamed."
Jesse was tall and dark, and extremely handsome. He wore slacks and a dress shirt. His tie was back in his car. Leaning back on the concrete bench, Jesse waved his half-eaten sub sandwich at the desolate surroundings. "The picnic was a good idea."
"I'm glad you think so," Isabel replied. "But?…"
Jesse took another bite of his sandwich. His white teeth flashed. "Why do you think there has to be a 'but? Suspicious mind?"
"On the contrary," Isabel said. "The question came from a trained and orderly mind."
Jesse blotted his mouth with a paper napkin. "There are no 'buts.'"
"I beg to differ. There was a telling absence."
One of Jesse's eyebrows rose in perplexion, arching over a dark, deep orb. Isabel had discovered his gaze to be magnetic, a well that she could gaze into and always find something new and different.
"An absence?" Jesse asked.
"Oh yes."
"And what would this alleged absence be?" Jesse plucked a grape from the bunch Isabel had packed in the picnic basket.
"A decent segue," Isabel told him.
Jesse munched on the grape and appeared to give her accusation his full attention. "Between you possibly being ashamed of me and the fact that the picnic was a good idea?"
"Between your halfhearted attempt to assign guilt for our circumstances and rudimentary effort at changing the subject."
Jesse waved at the empty space around them. When he spoke, his voice was serious. "The picnic is a great idea, Isabel… don't get me wrong. And the food is fantastic. I didn't know you could cook so well."
"It's just sandwiches, potato salad, fruit, and macaroni and cheese," Isabel protested. "Not exactly a true culinary feat. Or even a balanced meal." She felt bad about that, but she'd been in a rush and hadn't had time to run to the store for other items. Brown bagging for one didn't attract too much attention at home, but packing food for two in a rather nifty-looking picnic basket… if she had to say so herself… was a definite giveaway.
"I know, but with you making the meals for these lunches, I don't feel like I'm doing my part."
"What part would that be?"
"The taking-you-out-to-dinner-for-a-good-meal-in-Roswell part," Jesse said.
Smiling, Isabel touched the single red plastic rose in the glass vase between them on the table. The blossom clashed with the red-and-white checked tablecloth she'd brought, but she didn't mind too much. "You brought the flower."
Jesse nodded. "Yeah. But since it's made out of plastic, and this is broad daylight and not a romantic evening, it doesn't have quite the effect I'd hoped for."
"Oh," Isabel reassured him, "that rose had plenty of effect." For just an instant she couldn't believe she'd said that. It was out of character for the Isabel Evans she'd believed she'd grown up to be. But that was before she'd learned all the truths about her own parentage.
And it was before she'd lost Alex… before Tess had killed the guy who could have been her first true love.
"Being out here with you is great," Jesse went on.
"That's a decent save," Isabel said.
"But it's not the same as being able to take you around our city and let people know we're together."
"We can't do that," Isabel said, and the thought turned her cold inside. Her parents had been dealt enough mysteries and changes lately, and one more… especially this one… would have been too much.
"I know," Jesse said. "I'm just frustrated."
"Why?"
Jesse plucked another grape and rolled the fruit between his fingers. "Because I'm afraid we're going to get stuck here."
"What do you mean?"
For a moment Jesse didn't look like he was going to continue. He let out a long breath. "You and me. Stuck. As in, can't go any farther than this."
Isabel leaned back on the hard stone picnic bench. In truth, the rest stop off U.S. 285 between Roswell and Santa Fe wasn't very romantic. After seeing the area a number of times while growing up there, the area could hardly even be called picturesque anymore.
"What are you trying to say?" Isabel asked. She felt her heart thudding inside her chest. Jesse was nearly ten years older than she was. If she'd told her high school friends, they'd have been scandalized even though several of them had crushes on the young male teachers from time to time. In fact, she'd been content to leave the whole dating thing alone because she'd known she was different. Then Max had fallen head over heels for Liz, and Michael started crushing on Maria, and… and Alex had been there for her when everyone else seemed to be going away.
Unexpectedly, memory burned at the backs of Isabel's eyes. She put the remnant of her sandwich down and concentrated on keeping her emotions under control. She looked away from Jesse, trying to find something, anything, to focus on. A silver sparkle in the distance behind Jesse caught her attention for just an instant but disappeared just as quickly.
"I'm sorry," Jesse said in a softer voice.
Isabel, centered once more in what Michael sometimes called her Ice Princess mode, looked back at Jesse. "There's no need to be sorry."
"I hurt your feelings."
"That's my fault," Isabel said. "I shouldn't have left them out there to be hurt." She reached into the picnic basket for the small paper garbage bag she had brought and started cleaning the table.
"Isabel," Jesse said.
"What?" she asked, concentrating on cleaning the table.
"Talk to me."
"I am."
"I said I was sorry."
Isabel nodded. "And I said there was no reason to be."
"This… this situation isn't easy on either of us."
"I know." Isabel put the silverware in an empty plastic container she'd brought for that purpose. Maybe they had to sneak around through Roswell and didn't dare eat in any of the restaurants because they might get caught, but she hadn't wanted to use plastic silverware. She'd bought a handful of her own and kept them separate from the rest in the Evanses'
household, part of this other secret life she had from her parents.
Jesse fell silent.
Isabel stopped cleaning and looked at him. "What do you want?"
"For people to know we're together."
"Jesse," Isabel said, "we don't even know if we're together."
"I'm too old for a summer fling," Jesse said. "I gave those up before law school."
For a moment, Isabel felt angry. Then she squelched the emotion. Jesse was trying to be honest, just trying to let her know what was on his mind.
"I," Isabel said distinctly, "have never been interested in summer flings. I've never had one, and I never will."
Jesse spread his hands. "Then what is this?"
Isabel thought for a moment. "This, counselor," she said, "is what we call an exploratory discussion leading to discovery."
"Now you manifest a sense of humor," he grumbled.
A large RV whipped by out on U.S. 285. The sound faded in the distance. High overhead, three hawks floated lazily in the thermals, each of them forming a distinct tri-corner of personal hunting territory.
"I've always had a sense of humor," Isabel said.
Jesse started to say something, then obviously decided not to.
"Wise choice, counselor," Isabel said.
Jesse looked at her earnestly. "This is scary for me. I've never been in this deep before."
"You make it sound like you're drowning."
"No," Jesse said. He shook his head and captured her hands in his. "It's just that I didn't expect somebody like you. Not for a long time. Maybe not ever. While I was in law school, keeping the grades up while working was hard, maybe the hardest thing I'd ever done. I kept my feelings walled up, put out of reach of anyone who came along."
"There were others who came along?" Isabel asked.
"Plead the Fifth," Jesse said.
"Good," Isabel said, "because I don't want to know." She paused and took a breath. "I've never been this far before either. Never this far, and I've never gotten involved in anything so big so fast. Christmas is my favorite time of the year, and I always plan that out. I plan out everything that I do."
"But I wasn't in the plans," Jesse said.
"No," Isabel said.
"And your future plans?"
"I'm still working out Christmas."
Jesse laughed. "In June?"
"Christmas is huge. It's supposed to be wonderful and exciting. I do everything I can to make it that way, including a lot of volunteer work for the city. I've been doing that for years."
"But you haven't made any plans for us?"
Isabel gripped his hand with both of hers. "Plans like that are better planned by two people. Right now, I'm just working on still seeing you without my parents knowing. The possibility of getting caught also exists."
"What do you think your dad would do?" Jesse asked.
Isabel smiled. "Hmmm. I'm clerking in his office and secretly dating his newest young lawyer. I'm thinking a straight-out dismissal for you, and maybe ten years of hard grounding for me."
"Because of the age difference?"
"Because I didn't come forward and tell my parents," Isabel replied. Actually, it would have probably been better to leave the planet than to tell my parents. "And because I'm interfering with the performance of my dad's newest hotshot attorney."
"I haven't missed a day in court, though," Jesse said. He glanced at his watch. "And speaking of days in court, I'm due back for a deposition in a little while."
Isabel allowed Jesse to help finish cleaning up, but that help consisted mostly of him just jamming everything back into the picnic basket. She assigned him the duty of shaking out and folding the tablecloth. While he was occupied with that, she reorganized the contents of the picnic basket.
Jesse caught her at it and gave her another long look. He raised an eyebrow. "You know, I thought we were into that whole Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo thing. Didn't know neatness counted."
"Neatness," she said, lifting the picnic basket with a little embarrassment. "It's not an option. It's a way of life."
Jesse nodded. "I'll try to remember that." He walked around the table and took the picnic basket from her hand. "I'll carry this."
"It was heavier when it was full," Isabel pointed out. She'd gotten out of her father's offices before Jesse had. By the time Jesse had arrived at the rest stop, she'd already had the meal laid out.
Without a word Jesse leaned down and kissed Isabel. She felt his lips on hers, then the familiar excited tingle thrilled through her. Maybe the sensation wasn't like the near-hallucinogenic experiences Max talked about having with Liz, and there were no explosions of her past life revealed, but the kiss was nothing short of wonderful.
Slowly, tenderly, Jesse pulled back. "Am I going to be able to see you tonight?"
Isabel looked at him. How could she not see him? Lunch the next day was almost twenty-four hours away… an intolerable length of time. "I don't know," she answered. "Maybe. Thinking of things we're suddenly out of at home is getting almost impossible."
"I'll try to help you think of a good excuse," Jesse offered, taking her by the elbow and guiding her back to the parked cars. "If I do, I'll e-mail you."
Before Isabel could reply, tires suddenly squalled out on the highway. She looked up, watching as a black van suddenly veered from the highway and barreled into the rest stop. They were trapped out in the open, twenty feet from their cars or from anything they could take shelter behind.
The careening van came closer, bearing down on them like a blood-maddened predator.
6
"The legend was handed down to our people throughout the generations. None of the shamans who told the story knew for certain what the legend was about. But in the end, after the crash of the spaceship that brought you to our world, the shaman who trained me decided that the Visitors could cause the return of our ancestors from the ghostlands."
Max walked at River Dogs side as they approached the Mesaliko village. "Had the Mesaliko people seen"… even after everything he'd seen, Max still hesitated over the term… "had they ever seen ghosts of their ancestors before?"
River Dog had told him that several people in the tribe over the past few days had begun having visions of dead family members. At first, those visions had been elusory, vaguely glimpsed shadows that could have been a trick of the light. But none of them had manifested physically as River Dog's ancestor had.
"In those long-ago days," River Dog said, nodding, "they saw the ghosts."
"What did they do to make them go away?"
"At first," the shaman said, "they didn't. My people picked up and moved from these hills. After a time, when hunting grew scarce and life turned hard in the areas they'd traveled to, my people sent scouts back into the area. The ghosts were gone, and people moved back into the territory."
"Why were the ghosts gone?" Max asked.
River Dog lifted his shoulders and dropped them. "No one knew. One of the shamans tried to take credit for their absence. He had prayed and danced for such a thing to happen, and in the end he said it was his efforts to get the favors of the gods that took the ghosts away."
"How long was the tribe gone before they came back and found the ghosts had disappeared?"
River Dog shook his head. "My people have never measured time the way the Europeans did. They didn't care to mark the years, much less weeks, days, or hours. There was only before and after. I know considerable time had to have passed, because several scouts were sent to these lands again and again to learn if the ghosts still walked."
"Do you believe that my friends and I are responsible?" Max asked, watching River Dog carefully.
River Dog shook his head, then grimaced. "No. I don't think you and your friends are malicious or mean my people any harm."
"Then why did you send for me?"
A smile twisted River Dog's lips. "Just because I don't think you're responsible doesn't mean I don't think you can be of some help."
Max stared
at the man. "I've never seen anything like this."
"Then we will learn together of the misfortune that has befallen my people." River Dog headed toward one of the small houses on the outside of the small village. A carefully tended herb garden grew beside the house. Two folding lawn chairs occupied a small wooden porch that stuck out from front of the house. Shelves bearing small ceramic pots that contained more herbs stood on the porch as well.
Max followed River Dog up onto the porch. The jutting roof blocked the heat of the sun.
"Sit," River Dog instructed, pointing to one of the lawn chairs.
His mind whirling, Max dropped into one of the chairs. He was worn out and hovering near exhaustion. Worrying about his son and his relationship with Liz had occupied his waking hours and his dreams. Nightmares plagued him constantly. Tess had killed Alex. She'd planned to take him, Isabel, and Michael back to become prisoners.
What would she do with his son?
River Dog disappeared into the house. The screen door slammed behind him.
Max sat in the lawn chair, feeling the straps give under his weight. As he looked out at the nearby houses, all of them pretty much replicas of River Dog's home, he saw that a number of people were watching him with suspicion.
River Dog returned only a short time later. He carried two Mason jars of dark tea and ice. "It's sweet and strong," the shaman warned. "I like it that way, but if you drink it too fast in the heat like we have today, it'll make you lightheaded, maybe even make you pass out."
Max sipped the tea, finding it almost too sweet for him to drink. He wished he had a bottle of Tabasco sauce to tone the flavor down. "What makes you think I can help with this?" he asked.
"I had a vision," River Dog answered. "You were part of it."
"In the vision?"
"Yes." River Dog settled into his chair. An old, arthritic hound came up from under the porch and settled at the shamans feet. River Dog kicked off his shoes and massaged the animals back with his callused toes.
"Tell me more about the prophecy," Max suggested.
"It has been with my people since the dawn of memory. One day, when they first settled into this area, Raven tried to eat the sun."